Hugh Jackman Reveals Why He Cried After Reading ‘The Death of Robin Hood’ Script

Hugh Jackman says that when he read the script for director Michael Sarnoski’s new movie The Death of Robin Hood, it brought him to tears and he knew he had to play the title role.
Hugh Jackman was in tears when he first read the script for his new movie The Death of Robin Hood.
The 57-year-old actor plays an older version of the English folk hero living in self-imposed exile, trying to come to terms with the outlaw deeds he committed, only for his past and his own mortality to catch up with him.
Jackman was moved to tears when he read the script by director Michael Sarnoski, and after watching Sarnoski’s first feature film, Pig, starring Nicolas Cage as a truffle forager who must find his stolen truffle-sniffing pig, he called his agent to accept the role of Robin.

Jackman, speaking after a screening of the film at BAFTA 195 Piccadilly in London on Tuesday nite (09/01/26), said: “I read the script, I just thought it was so beautiful.When I read the last part of the script I cried, which is a very, very rare thing for me. “Then I think my agent said, ‘I think Michael is shooting his second movie right now.’ The script was great but I thought, ‘I better just check out his first movie. ‘Twenty minutes into Pig I called my agent and said, “I’m in”. And there’s lyricism and confidence to every frame. There is a vision, the vision is consistent all the way through. Michael is one of the great voices in film today.”

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Jackman was also keen to star in The Death of Robin Hood – which was based on the 17th century English ballad Robin Hood’s Death – as he and his son, 24-year-old Oscar, are keen on 13th century English history, while he has been fascinated by the apparently heroic outlaw since he was a boy.

He added: “This fascinated me. That’s something I share with my son, we’re both really interested in this era as well as the Robin Hood mythology which is something I have loved since I was a boy. I had heard something of the ballad. I just sort of started reading about it. Robin Hood, was he a real person? Is he a figment? What is the source of the mythology? “What interested me was how the myth of Robin Hood developed according to the political background of the time.The Robin Hood we know today, the one who robs from the rich and gives to the poor, really only came about in the 1500s when things were beginning to change politically. Before that he was just a murderous villain. He was a warning. I was intrigued by its transformation.
BANG Showbiz attended the special screening and was joined by Jackman’s co-star Jodie Comer who plays prioress and healer Sister Brigid and Sarnoski.

In some scenes, Sister Brigid treats a sick Robin by drawing blood from his body in an attempt to cure him of his ailments.

Smiling, Hugh pointed out to the audience that bloodletting, a popular medical treatment in the Middle Ages and the 1600s, has no benefits. In fact, it has the contrary effect on patients.

He said: “Let me be clear, blood letting does not work! There’s no science to it, you just lose a lot of blood and you do die.”