Hugh Jackman Shares First Photo From Eddie ‘The Eagle’ Biopic

If you were drawing up a list of British sporting legends whose life stories were ripe for the biopic treatment, you’d probably include icons like Bobby Moore, Seb Coe, George Best… but what about Eddie ‘The Eagle’ Edwards?

The hapless athlete, who became the first British ski jumper to compete at the Olympics in 1988 but finished last in both of his events, is having a lavish Hollywood movie made about his life starring Hugh Jackman no less.

But don’t worry, Wolverine is definitely not playing Eddie.

That honour goes to ‘Kingsman: The Secret Service’ star Taron Egerton and thanks to Jackman’s Instagram account, we’ve been given our first look at the Welsh actor in Eddie’s distinctive beer bottle bottomed specs.

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Jackman, who’ll play Eddie’s coach in the film, shared the first photo from the set showing himself with Egerton with the caption: “Day #1 on the set of #EddieTheEagle, with my mate Taron Egerton.”

Above: Taron Egerton

Edwards earned the reputation of being the plucky underdog at the Calgary Olympics after performing miserably in both the 70m and 90m events. He finished last in both categories and was dubbed ‘Mr Magoo’ by the press because of the thick glasses he wore for his farsighted vision.

The Olympian told BBC news in January that he’d loaned the film’s costume department his real Olympic skiing gear so they could make an accurate reproduction and that he’s offered to perform the jumps too.

"They’ve taken my Olympic uniform to be replicated for the movie," he said.

"It’ll be fun. I’m a little bit excited, but I’ll only believe it when it actually happens and they begin filming."

"I’ve given them all my old ski jumping equipment that I used 30 years ago which is now defunct, but it’s still jumpable.

"You can still jump on the skis, and with the bindings - it’s just they’ll have difficulty finding somebody who’ll be brave enough to jump with the old equipment."

Dexter Fletcher will direct the film with a script from Simon Kelton and Sean Macaulay, and Timothy Spall is rumoured to be playing Eddie’s father.

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Image credits: Rex/Instagram