Hugh Jackman has long been the Hollywood face of Wolverine, the iconic X-men character that the Aussie actor brought to life on the silver screen; but one man who was reportedly in the running for the role has called Jackman’s performance “gay.”
Danzig’s titular frontman Glenn Danzig, recently told LA Weekly that he was one of the major candidates considered for the clawed comic character for the first X-Men movie. Turning down producers from Fox studios who originally approached the metal singer/songwriter to audition for the part.
While Jackman has been generally praised for his portrayal by fans of the series, Danzig says that if he’d taken the role, “it wouldn’t have been as gay.” Before going on to add that Jackman “wasn’t the first choie. They hired Dougray Scott. He had a falling out with the director, and then they hired Hugh Jackman.”
Better known for establishing horror punk acts like The Misfits and Samhain, as much as his titular bluesy metal outift, Danzing wasn’t such a strange choice for the role considering his love of comics. He founded his own adult-oriented imprint in the late nineties, named Verotik, a combination of ‘violent’ and ‘erotic’, the primary subject matter for his published titles like Death Dealer and Grub Girl.
Regardless, Danzig says he has no regrets about turning down what became a successful comic-adapted film franchise. “I’m glad I didn’t do it,” says Danzig, “It was terrible.”
Following the release of the first X-Men film in 2000, the franchise went on to spawn four more features, all of them featuring Jackman as the clawed mutant.
Since then however, Danzig went on to release a number of albums with a new, stabilised line-up to his titular metal band. While also putting Samhain back together for a national tour to support a long-awaited anniversary boxset.
Four years later, after releasing Danzig’s eighth studio album Circle Of Snakes, the singer/songwriter put together his own music festival for extreme metal acts called ‘The Blackest of The Black,’ the first bill featuring such bands as Dimmu Borgir, Opeth and Nile.
In 2006, around the release of the third X-Men feature, X-Men: The Last Stand, Danzing was toning down the scale of his touring schedules, reducing commitments to smaller shows and dates in order to focus on his Elvile record label and his comic projects with Verotik
More recently, Danzig is setting out for a series of American club dates next month to promote his forthcoming covers album.
Meanwhile, Jackman begins shooting on a new film entry in the Wolverine series in Sydney, one of the gay capitals of the world.
