Lord of the Rings star Viggo Mortensen explains why he turned down playing Wolverine in X-Men

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The actor has talked about choosing not to play Wolverine

Aragorn
(Image credit: New Line)

Viggo Mortensen, who played Aragorn in The Lord of the Rings trilogy, has explained why he turned down playing Wolverine in Bryan Singer's X-Men. 

On the Happy Sad Confused podcast, when asked if he regretted passing on the Wolverine role, Mortensen said: "I don't, no. I think [Hugh Jackman] did great, no one can imagine anyone doing it better than he did anyway."

Mortensen continued: "I think the thing that bothered me at the time was just the commitment of endless movies of that same character over and over. I was nervous about that, I think. And also, there were some things, I mean they did straighten most of them out."

He recalled explaining to his son, who he'd brought along to a meeting with Singer, why he was passing on the role. "I'm not gonna do it anyway... because I'm not sure that I want to be doing this for years."

He added with a laugh: "And then, you know, a couple of years later I'm doing three Lord of the Rings, so who knows." Mortensen then reflected, "But there was something about The Lord of the Rings and Tolkien, the source material, and Tolkien's own source material which has always been of interest to me."

Molly Edwards
Molly Edwards
Deputy Entertainment Editor

I'm the Deputy Entertainment Editor here at GamesRadar+, covering all things film and TV for the site's Total Film and SFX sections. I previously worked on the Disney magazines team at Immediate Media, and also wrote on the CBeebies, MEGA!, and Star Wars Galaxy titles after graduating with a BA in English.