10 Actors Who Stupidly Turned Down Iconic Roles

3. Dougray Scott- X-Men

The Role: Wolverine

Despite Hugh Jackman owning the role for many people, Wolverine was never initially meant to be his role - it was originally given to Scottish actor Dougray Scott, who had previously featured in the wonderful, under-rated Regeneration, and Twin Town, and who was largely as unheard of as Jackman when he eventually took the role on.

Unfortunately for Scott, he had also been hand-picked by Tom Cruise to play the villain in Mission: Impossible II - another potentially career-making role that he would have been silly to turn down - and that ultimately cost him his big chance for a Jackman-sized profile with X-Men. Scott was eventually forced to drop out of X-Men when the filming of Mission: Impossible II over-ran by two months, and Jackman was brought in to make the role his own.

Massive error: in an ideal world it should have been the M:I sequel that was dumped, and Scott could now be known as more than just that Scottish actor who was almost Wolverine that people vaguely remember from Mission: Impossible II.