Hugh Jackman’s 3 Minute Long Performance As Superman Is Still One Of The Weirdest Things I’ve Ever Seen 24 Years Later

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Hugh Jackman"s very brief appearance as DC"s Superman has only gotten weirder in the 24 years since it first took place, and I"m oddly glad it remains a wonderfully weird part of the hero and actor"s respective histories. The list of live-action Superman actors is a decidedly long one, with the Man of Steel being one of the most popular superheroes in terms of getting adaptations for decades at this point in time. However, for a range of reasons, the list of people who"ve played the Kryptonian hero is much longer than simply those we"ve seen putting on the cape and costume in DC movies or shows.
While the most obvious way this is true is due to that of the wide range of animated DC releases that have had the character appear in them, there"s also some more unusual examples that add potentially unexpected names to the list. One very notable case of just this is that of Hugh Jackman"s short performance as Superman in 2001, which remains a viewing experience that"s equal parts surreal and undeniably fascinating, even if it"s unlikely to be followed up on in any upcoming DC releases.
Hugh Jackman Was Superman For All Of 3 Minutes In 2001 Close In 2001 - a year after Fox"s X-Men would begin the X-Men movie timeline that had Hugh Jackman"s Wolverine at the helm throughout - the iconic actor appeared as DC"s Man Of Steel in a decidedly unusual way. Rather than appearing in a DC movie or show in the role, Hugh Jackman appeared in Saturday Night Live, taking on the role of Superman in a comedy sketch about the potential awkwardness of the hero meeting his biological parents through the Fortress Of Solitude"s holograms.
Hugh Jackman"s Superman skit took place 14 years after Christopher Reeves"s Superman appearance in Superman IV: Quest For Peace, and 5 years before Brandon Routh"s debut as the hero in Superman Returns.
Complete with Will Ferrell and Maya Rudolph playing Superman"s parents Jor-El and Lara, the segment sees the Kryptonian family have an interaction that for a good portion of time looks more like a college student having a phone call with their slightly distant parents rather than an epic reunion that crosses time and space. The segment also takes the time to poke fun at Superman himself, as his conversation with his mother sees him casually mention he"s friends with a teenage Jimmy Olsen - something that she reacts to with some concern given Superman appears to be a grown adult.
After 3 minutes of Jackman"s Superman performance, the SNL skit ends with the hero ending up on call with his grandmother, much to his own exasperation. Making Superman"s dramatic reunion with his blood family the equivalent of some awkward phonecalls is surreal by itself, but with one of the biggest superhero actors of all time playing the Man Of Steel, the segment is even more bizarre - and even more fascinating. This has only become more true with time, as in 2001 Hugh Jackman had only played one of his nine performances as Wolverine that would come to define the character.
Hugh Jackman's Superman Performance Is A Surreal Comedic Version Of What Could Have Been Close Despite the SNL sketch aiming to provide laughs versus a grounded take on what Hugh Jackman could be like in the role of Superman, even this playful approach ends up providing one of the closest looks we"ve gotten to this theoretical casting, making it all the more oddly engrossing. Given the actor hadn"t been fully solidified as the cornerstone of superhero cinema that he is now, it"s also all the more remarkable to see him playing a DC hero just as his journey to become a bastion of Marvel movies had basically begun.
The skit still does serve to show that Jackman suits the Superman role in a lot of ways, too. This is true in that Hugh Jackman looks natural in the Superman suit, and in that he nails both the dramatic side of Superman towards the start of the segment, and the more human side of the character as he makes small talk with his parents.
2024 Made Hugh Jackman's Superman Appearance Even More Surreal Close While all of this seems uniquely surreal by itself, Hugh Jackman"s very brief stint as Superman actually got weirder in 2024, when Henry Cavill - best known for playing the DCEU"s Superman throughout the franchise"s run - appeared as none other than Wolverine in the cast of Deadpool & Wolverine. Effectively, this meant that not only had Hugh Jackman briefly appeared as Superman while cast as Fox"s Wolverine, but that he"d also years later then played Wolverine alongside one of DC"s most famous Superman actors, bringing things in a bizarre sort of full circle.
It doesn"t seem likely that Hugh Jackman will ever appear as Superman on-screen again - or indeed in any other superhero role than Wolverine, given Deadpool & Wolverine bringing him back as a variant of the character after the hero"s death in Logan, allowing him to appear in future MCU releases. With that said, having a tangible way to see what the actor could have looked like as one of DC"s biggest heroes of all time will never be a bad thing, and indeed, this odd corner of superhero history only seems to get more and more fascinating with almost every year that passes by.

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