Sort of.
On Wednesday, Film School Rejects posted a photo that supposedly showed Thomas Jane made up as DC Comics’ western anti-hero Jonah Hex. The thing quickly made the rounds, and was emailed to us a couple of times. Nick didn’t think it was real and wanted to pass, which jibed with my first reaction to the image.
Goddammit, have we learned nothing from leaked pics of Two-Face?
Turns out the image was both real and faked. See, Jane really digs Jonah Hex (the alcoholic ex-Confederate soldier scarred by natives who becomes a supernatural gunslinger) and wants to play the character. So he rounded up a friend and they did their own makeup test, which Jane then sent on as part of his campaign to get the role. We know this because Jane himself wrote in to Film School Rejects to explain:
Yeah, the pic is real all right – my pal Akiva Goldsman told me about
the project and I fell in love with the idea right away. Being a huge
fan of all things Hex – I just couldn’t help myself. I called up my
buddy Chris Nelson and we spent a Saturday afternoon working up some
make-up for this impromptu shoot and I fired a few pics off to Warners.
How do people get a hold of this shit? It’s a little embarrassing
seeing my fanboy enthusiasm spilled all over the web, but great scripts
don’t come around too often, especially for characters I love.
Unfortunately, the photo only got to Jonah Hex director and co-writer Mark Neveldine by way of the internet. He wrote to STYD saying that it had nothing to do with his production. What are the odds that with Jane’s involvement revealed some dialogue will open between the parties? It’s certainly not an off-kilter audition on Sean Young’s level, and hell, Jane does look great with a melted face.