Hugh Jackman
Hugh Jackman
Hugh Michael Jackman is an Australian actor, singer and producer. Jackman has won international recognition for his roles in superhero, period, and romance films. He is known for playing Wolverine in the X-Men film series, and has also held lead roles in the romantic-comedy fantasy Kate & Leopold, the action-horror film Van Helsing, the magic-themed drama The Prestige, the epic fantasy drama The Fountain, the epic historical romantic drama Australia, the film version of Les Misérables, and the thriller Prisoners...
NationalityAustralian
ProfessionMovie Actor
Date of Birth12 October 1968
CitySydney, Australia
CountryAustralia
I think I was 5 and singing 'Camelot' on stage. It was always a good way to meet girls. I did musicals, plays. My school encouraged it. We'd do our own productions. It wasn't until I was about 23 that I thought, 'I could give this a shot. I might as well do it.'
I was probably more scared of my high school exams than I was of the Oscars. At the time you think it's everything and if you don't do well, your life's over. Opportunities are gone. So the more you do it, the less the fear is present.
If I go to a party I don't feel like I have to be in the centre. But I do find myself quite often being placed in that position. Even when I was younger at school, I would be asked to make a speech. I don't remember putting up my hand and all that often but I'd just find myself there.
My favorite play in drama school was 'The Bacchae.' It's about a king who literally gets eaten alive by all the women in the play in a kind of orgy - it's related to the word 'bacchanal' - and I loved that idea of animalistic chaos and following our own desires.
I know I'm not known as method. By nature I'm not a brooder. What I continue to use is a mixture of the English school, which is traditionally outside-in, and the more American way of working from the inside out.
At the end of drama school, I made a contract with myself: I'd try acting for five years. I was 26. I had already spent eight years working in restaurants and gas stations. So I had seen enough small businesses to understand that that's what acting is: a small business.
I just find the evangelical church too, well, restrictive. But the School of Practical Philosophy is nonconfrontational. We believe there are many forms of Scripture. What is true is true and will never change, whether it's in the Bible or in Shakespeare. It's about oneness.
I do heavy weights in the morning for about an hour, and then I do 45 minutes of higher-volume lifting in the afternoon. My least favorite is the legs... I do quite a few chin-ups and rows. I do mostly old-school lifting with a lot of squats.
As a boy, I'd always had an interest in theater. But the idea at my school was that drama and music were to round out the man. It wasn't what one did for a living. I got over that.
Probably look at it for an hour then paint it or throw it in the pool.
It is fair to say I am obsessed with that series. I am like a junkie looking for series two.
Peter's whole essence was very joyous. He was fearless, outrageous, and childlike, and he definitely lived life to the full.
Peter's whole essence was very joyous, ... He was fearless, outrageous, and childlike, and he definitely lived life to the full.
My agent said to me five years ago, 'Hugh, I can see one day you...if I had to plan a goal for you, it's for you to have the kind of career that Sinatra had.'