Hugh Jackman immediately regretted retiring Wolverine after seeing Deadpool

Some people may feel some exasperation that Hugh Jackman didn’t close his Wolverine chapter with the Oscar-nominated Logan, but Jackman himself regretted announcing his retirement before Logan even began filming. In a new interview with Variety, the actor pinpoints the moment he realized he made a mistake.

“I went to a screening of Deadpool [in 2016]. I was 20 minutes in, and I was like, ‘Ah, damn it!’ All I kept seeing in my head was 48 Hrs. with Nick Nolte and Eddie Murphy. So it’s been brewing for a long time,” he admits of his decision, years later, to un-retire. “It just took me longer to get here.”

Ryan Reynolds, Jackman’s co-star in Deadpool’s first outing (X-Men Origins: Wolverine) and the upcoming Deadpool 3, has been discussing the possibility with MCU boss Kevin Feige since Disney first acquired Fox. “It wasn’t possible then,” says Reynolds. “For this to be happening now is pretty damn exciting.”

Following his conversation with Feige, Reynolds apparently hounded Jackman “on the daily” to star in Deadpool. “I think, actually, he’d given up,” Jackman recalls of when he finally relented. “I think it was a big shock to him. There was a massive pause, and then he said, ‘I can’t believe the timing of this.’”

Reynolds immediately took the news into his next meeting with Feige, and the rest is history in the making. As for returning to the role he once retired, Jackman reflects, “A little part of me now thinks I’d be better at it,” once again wounding Logan fans everywhere. He continues, “Is that arrogance of age or something? Wolverine’s a tortured character—more tortured than me. But I always get the feeling of him being comfortable in his own skin. And I feel more comfortable in my own skin now, even though it’s messier.”