Hugh Jackman said he cried after reading The Death of Robin Hood, and Jodie Comer was at the London screening as the film’s darker take on the legend came into view. Jackman, who plays Robin Hood, said the part pulled him in before he had even seen the finished film.
The 57-year-old said, “I read the script, I just thought it was so beautiful.” He added: “When I read the last part of the script I cried, which is a very, very rare thing for me.” That reaction came before he took the role, and it gives the film a cleaner sales pitch than most costume revivals: this is not a repeat of the familiar outlaw story.
Jackman and Pig
Jackman said he locked onto Michael Sarnoski’s work after watching Pig, then rang his agent 20 minutes into the film and said, “I’m in.” He also said, “I better just check out his first movie,” which is the kind of blunt decision-making that usually saves a casting department time. For a project built around a reworked legend, the director’s earlier film became the proof point that mattered.
Jackman said, “I was fascinated by this,” and explained that the Robin Hood mythology has shifted with the politics of each era. “So, the Robin Hood we know of now, robbing from the rich to give to the poor, really only started around the 1500s when things were starting to change politically, prior to that he was just a murderous bad guy.” He added: “He was a cautionary tale.”
Sister Brigid in London
Comer plays Sister Brigid, a prioress and healer, and in some scenes she treats a sick Robin with bloodletting. Jackman pushed back hard on the practice at the screening, saying, “To be clear, bloodletting does not work!” He added: “There’s no science behind it, you just lose a lot of blood and you do die.”
That exchange gives the film a sharper edge than a simple legend update. Robin is presented as an older man in self-imposed exile, trying to reckon with what he has done and with his own mortality, while the story also leans into an older, harsher version of the myth. The film’s appeal now sits in that contrast: a familiar name, but a version built around guilt, decline, and a history Jackman says was once far less heroic.
Robin Hood's Death
The Death of Robin Hood was inspired by the 17th-century ballad Robin Hood's Death, and that source material matches the film’s darker frame. What Jackman has described leaves a narrower but clearer takeaway for viewers: this is a Robin Hood story that treats the legend less like a feel-good template and more like an old warning with modern casting.
