Hugh Jackman reveals he name-dropped Wolverine to avoid deportation

Over the course of the past two decades, Huge Jackman has turned into one of the most celebrated household names in Hollywood, but even then, it seems that sometimes you just can’t beat the sway some superheroes have on peoples’ psyche. I mean, who would’ve thought that Old Man Logan could ever stop you from getting deported?

Recently appearing on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon, the actor discussed anything from his recent Broadway role in The Music Man, to his fake feud with Ryan Reynolds, to how he managed to bag the Wolverine role. The latter is definitely a story worth hearing, and it involves the time Jackman casually name-dropped Logan to avoid deportation when he arrived in the United States.

“I just broke. It was pathetic. And he goes, ‘Go over there.’ And it was that room — you know, like, the room. You don’t want to be in that room. That room is bad. And I went in there, and I was there for like an hour and a half. And he made me wait. And I went to make a phone call. That guy literally is like, ‘Get off the phone now! This is serious! You have no rights in here! You have no phone calls!’ And I’m sitting there going, okay, first of all, I’ve just lost the biggest break of my life. I’m going to go to jail, and I don’t know what to do and… So, I finally get up there, and he’s like, ‘Listen, we’re probably going to send you back on a plane.'”

Yep, that’s a pretty rough spot to be in, and right before appearing in the first X-Men movie, no less. As for how he got out of it, well, I think you already know where this is going.

“And I said, ‘Listen, I’m sorry. It’s just – I’ve got this part in this thing, and they haven’t got my visa,'” He continued. “And he goes, ‘What’s the thing?’ And I said, ‘Well, it’s X-Men. It’s like a comic book.’ He goes, ‘What? Well, you mean like the animation thing, X-Men?’ And I go, ‘Well, no, they’re doing a live-action version of it.’ He goes, ‘What?’ And I said, ‘Yeah.’ And he goes, ‘Well, what did you audition for?’ And I said, ‘It’s a character called Wolverine.’ He goes, ‘What?!’ And he literally looked at me, and then he just – to all his mates, he goes, ‘Hey, Jimmy, it’s Wolverine! This is Wolverine!’ Honestly, I went out there with a police escort, just to let me out. This guy made me sign autographs, everything. He was a mad X-Men fan. And that’s the only reason I ended up getting the part.”

While that’s not an encouraging way to be thinking about the Immigration Office, we’re glad things worked out in a way that allowed Jackman to become Wolverine, and as they say, the rest is history.