Ryan Reynolds Says It Was Hugh Jackman’s Idea To Play Wolverine Again
Ryan Reynolds says it was Hugh Jackman who approached Kevin Feige about once more playing Wolverine.
According to Ryan Reynolds, it wasn’t his nagging or that of Marvel Studios president Kevin Feige that got Hugh Jackman back in the role of Wolverine for Deadpool 3; it was, in fact, Jackman’s idea. In a recent interview with Collider, Reynolds said he was being given “too much credit” for recruiting his former X-Men Origins: Wolverine co-star. He said it was Jackman who reached out to him and broached the subject of returning to the role.
Ryan Reynolds was doing press for the upcoming Apple TV+ holiday musical Spirited when Collider asked him about how he convinced Hugh Jackman to come back. “I think you’re giving me too much credit,” Reynolds answered. “I don’t believe that I’m responsible for Hugh coming back.”
Ryan Reynolds clarified that didn’t mean he hadn’t wanted Hugh Jackman back as Wolverine. “I always wanted Hugh to come back,” Reynolds said. “My first meeting with Kevin Feige when Disney bought Fox years ago… was about doing a movie with the two of us, a Deadpool Wolverine movie.”
Such a project apparently wasn’t possible at that point, but apparently the stars aligned. “And then Hugh just happened to call at that perfect moment and express that he’d be interested in coming back and doing this one more time,” Reynolds recalled. He added, “But [Hugh Jackman] expressed interest in coming back, and then it was my job to take that to Kevin Feige one more time and sell it.”
Don’t worry: Ryan Reynolds admitted that selling Hugh Jackman’s return as Wolverine wasn’t exactly a Herculean challenge. “It’s an immediate and emphatic, unqualified yes,” Reynolds said. “It’s a lot of moving parts and Fox and X-Men and all that kind of stuff that Marvel needs to sort through.”
“A lot of red tape in order to make that happen. And they did it. And I’m really grateful that they did it, because for me, working with Hugh is a dream come true.”
“But working with Logan and having Logan and Wade together in a movie is beyond any dream I would ever be audacious enough to have. So I’m really, really super f–king excited to do this film.”
Of course, this won’t be the first time Ryan Reynolds and Hugh Jackman have starred together as Wolverine and Wade Wilson. One of the former star’s earlier superhero movies was 2009’s X-Men Origins: Wolverine; a movie that proved so universally panned that just about every filmmaker in Fox’s X-Men franchise utterly ignored it, to the complaints of absolutely no one.
But to have the version of Wade Wilson that Ryan Reynolds introduced in 2016’s Deadpool sharing a film with Hugh Jackman’s signature character is another thing entirely. It’s also worth noting that since the stars have made it clear the story of Deadpool 3 will be set before that of 2017’s Logan, the upcoming threequel will be the first time we get Wolverine at his full power in an R-rated movie. The character is older and dying from adamantium poisoning in the beginning, and often takes a lot more lumps than he doles out.
