With the exception of Samuel L. Fucking Jackson, no modern actor has played the same comic book character is as many movies as Hugh Jackman played Wolverine. During his 17 year tenure as the man with adamantium fists, Jackman has admitted that he wasn’t always comfortable portraying the character and on more than one occasion, accidentally spiked himself in the balls with the characters trademark claws.
Although Jackman is well versed in Marvel lore and the general backstory for Wolverine today when he first auditioned for the role back in 1999, he actually had no idea who the character was. In fact, according to Jackman, when he first saw the name “Wolverine” he assumed that the character was some kind of feral wolf-man and spent weeks studying footage of wolves to emulate their mannerisms for his initial audition. If you’re wondering why Jackman studying the movements of wolves instead of you know, an actual wolverine, that’s because he didn’t know the wolverine was a real animal.
Bryan Singer eventually set the actor straight and informed that while the wolverine was a real animal, he wouldn’t be expected to walk around on all fours and forage for berries or anything like that. Jackman would later admit that the conversation he had with Singer that day was one of the most humiliating of his entire career because he had to sheepishly admit to spending several weeks in drama class pretending to be a wolf.
After this initial setback Jackman committed to embodying the character as accurately as he could, studying a number of martial arts and footage of Mike Tyson punching people’s heads off to develop a uniquely lethal fighting style for the character alongside the stunt department. Jackman’s idea for Wolverine is that he’d fight with the obvious finesse of a seasoned martial artist but would also clearly not give a fuck about hurting either himself or the person he was fighting. To this end, Jackman specifically told the choreographers to “not make the fights pretty”.
Wanting to appear as natural in character as possible, Jackman also took to wearing the prop claws he was given around the house during the production of X-Men. The actor’s hope being that he would eventually appear comfortable enough with them for it to look like he’d had them his entire life. While this did happen, Jackman would admit that he would occasionally turn up on set with cuts, scratches and puncture wounds all over his body, particularly his thighs and upper leg because he kept stabbing himself in the groin region.
Even when Jackman was used to walking around with the claws, he still continued to accidentally spiking his balls. For example, on the set of X-Men: Origins Wolverine during this scene.
There was a shot that called for Jackman to run down a hallway naked with the prop claws attached to his fists. After psyching himself up and whipping his dong out, Jackman rage-sprinted down the hallway and upon turning the corner at the end of it, came face to face with every single woman on the production staff waving around dollar bills. Jackman then instinctively went to shield his balls and stabbed himself in the dick.
Shit it’s no wonder Jackman wanted Logan to be his last movie, imagine how dangerous it’d be waving around those claws with saggy old man balls?
