Viggo Mortensen Recalls Why He Turned Down The Wolverine Role In 'X-Men' & Took His Young Son To The Meeting

Despite having appeared in one of the biggest franchises of the ’00s, Viggo Mortensen has never appeared in a superhero movie (though the fantastic “A History of Violence” is based on a comicbook). That being said, it’s not for a lack of offers. During a recent interview with the Happy Sad Confused podcast, Mortensen recalls the time he got offered the role of Wolverine in “X-Men,” and how his son schooled Bryan Singer on how he got the character wrong.

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As Mortensen tells it, he runs his comicbook-related offers by his son, fellow actor Henry Mortensen. One of the roles he briefly considered was that of Wolverine, which he obviously didn’t do. “The thing that bothered me at the time was just the commitment of endless movies of that same character over and over,” Mortensen recalls. “I was nervous about that. And also there were some things, I mean they straightened most of them out, but I did take Henry to the meeting I had with the director as my sort of good luck charm and guide. In the back of my mind I was thinking he could learn something too, because I did let Henry read the script and he goes ‘This is wrong, that’s not how it is.'”

Mortensen then tells that the director asks if Henry is familiar with the character, “And he goes ‘yeah, but he doesn’t look like this,'” the actor and director adds. “And all of a sudden the director is falling all over himself and then the rest of the meeting was him explaining in detail to Henry why he was taking certain liberties. We walked out of there, and Herny asks if he will change the things he told him about, and I say I don’t think so. I’m not going to do it anyway, because i’m not sure I want to be doing this for years, and then a couple of years later I’m doing 3 ‘Lord Of The Rings’ so who knows.”

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Of course, the role went to Hugh Jackman, but Mortensen doesn’t regret his decision. “I think he did great. I’m sure no one could imagine anyone doing it better than he did anyway.”