Taron Egerton Rejected The Best X-Men Role For A Crazy Reason

Apparently, Taron Egerton turned down a role in X-Men for a reason that wouldn't push many other actors away.

By Doug Norrie | Published

taron egerton

Taron Egerton has been linked and rumored for the possibility of a role in the X-Men for some time now with most of these tidbits related to the possibility of him taking over as Wolverine in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. And there does seem to be a some fire where that smoke is concerned with news the studio is possibly zeroing in on Egerton for how we will see that group come alive in the MCU. But recently Egerton revealed that he had come somewhat close to having a role in the X-Men a few years ago when the prequel movies came out and reset some of the franchise. It wasn’t Wolverine that he was going to play. Instead, Taron Egerton says the studio wanted him for the role of Cyclops, but he turned it down. The reason is, well, interesting.

While speaking with Sway’s Universe (via CBR), Taron Egerton went into some detail about how he had come somewhat close to playing Scott Summers/ Cyclops in the X-Men prequel movies. Here he’s presumably talking about X-Men: Apocalypse which is the first one of that set to feature Summers. Egerton says that the whole casting piece never progressed because of something he essentially didn’t want to do with the wardrobe. Namely, Egerton said he had no interest in wearing the glasses that Summers has to wear throughout the movies because of the laser beams he shoots out of his eyes. The character never does without them or the visor and that wasn’t something that interested Taron Egerto at all. Check out what he had to say:

Whether Taron Egerton really believes the “eyes are the window to the soul” or if just wearing red glasses for a couple of movies was going to be a monster drag we’ll never really know. In the end, it doesn’t really matter because he turned down the X-Men role and it eventually went to Tye Sheridan who played Cyclops for Apocalypse and then Dark Phoenix. Eyewear or not, Egerton probably made the right choice. Both of those films received pretty low critical marks and the final one was a real drag on the overall franchise, hitting 22% on Rotten Tomatoes in a total mess of a story.

Now, though Marvel is set to bring the X-Men into the MCU mix and there are rumors the title of the first film for the group will be The Mutants. There isn’t any casting news on this front and we aren’t even sure which characters from the X-Men we will even see. Patrick Stewart reprised the Charles Xavier role for Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness, but that was just a one-off. It looks like we are going to get a whole new group this time around. Whether Taron Egerton is part of things remains to be seen. Again, fans have wanted to see him as Wolverine for some time now with fan art like this:

And Giant Freakin Robot had the exclusive that he’s actually met to discuss the role. Hopefully, he isn’t turned off by the claws.