Watch Hugh Jackman’s 1999 ‘X-Men’ Audition

No one has played a superhero for longer or in more movies than Hugh Jackman — and few casting stories have become more legendary than the roundabout way he landed the role of Wolverine, which he is playing one last time in Logan.

The audition tape below was shot during a worldwide casting search for X-Men. Jackman was performing onstage as Curly McLain in Oklahoma! in London, and squeezed in the audition with director Bryan Singer in between performances.

There are some dark lines in this version that didn’t make it into the film (“I can’t even show you the scars from all the times I’ve tried to kill myself, because they just disappear.”) and you can hear hints of an accent slipping into the dialogue — but Jackman is undeniably a movie star in the making. But he didn’t get the part, with it instead going to Dougray Scott.