Hugh Jackman has revealed he gave up on the opportunity to play James Bond to focus on his upcoming project ‘The Greatest Showman’.

Hugh has disclosed that producers of the ‘Bond’ film series got in touch to see if he’d be interested, but he turned them down, fearing he’d be typecast, particularly after his experiences playing Wolverine in the ‘X-Men’ series.

Speaking to The Sun, Hugh explained: “I wasn’t handed [the role of James Bond]. I think it was, ‘Are you interested?’.

“Weirdly, at drama school we’d all kind of muck around and voted on what each other would most likely be if they made it to Hollywood and everyone voted me as a Bond. So in a way I could see myself being more of a Bond than a Wolverine.”

He continued: “Wolverine has been the greatest gift of my career but it’s been a little surprising to me how long I’ve done it, how many movies, how successful it is and at a certain point how known for that role I was becoming.

“I always wanted to do different things. I wanted to do musicals, I wanted to do Shakespeare and theatre and dramas like ‘Prisoners’.

“I just thought the practicality of doing those two behemoths would mean not just that I wouldn’t have the opportunity but I worried that it would be sending a message to the business like that’s what I want to do, I want to be known for.”

‘The Greatest Showman’ sees Hugh leading an all-star cast in a new original musical based on P.T. Barnum and his circus.

Released later this month, the film also stars Zac Efron, Michelle Williams and Zendaya, with Hugh having already bagged a Golden Globe nomination for his performance.

Meanwhile, it was recently confirmed that Daniel Craig would be back for a fifth and final outing as 007 in the 25th ‘Bond’ film, hitting cinemas in 2019.