Jackman of all trades

By Susan Griffin.

You'd think Hugh Jackman's 11-year-old son Oscar would be shouting from the rooftops that his dad's the mighty Wolverine. Not so, according to Jackman.

"No, he's embarrassed," grins the Australian actor, dubbed Hollywood's Nicest Bloke (besides Tom Hanks), who's looking suitably buff in jeans and a dark blue shirt today.

"I did hear him once talking to a girl at the beach saying, 'Yeah my dad's Wolverine' so on some level he thinks it's cool, but he's never talked to me about it."

Jackman doesn't know why. "Perhaps it's purely, 'You're my dad and everything you do is embarrassing' or maybe there's a bit of not wanting to share me."

His son has given Jackman's latest movie, Real Steel, the thumbs up though.

Set in the near future, he stars as Charlie Kenton, a washed-up boxer who's forced to hustle as a small-time fight promoter when the sport's taken over by 8ft robots.

"When I heard about it, I thought, 'This isn't for me', but Steven Spielberg was attached, so obviously I was going to read it," says Jackman.

Ten pages in and the actor realised there was more to the movie than simply boxing robots.

"I was already seeing Charlie as a complex character, a man who's struggling and I felt for him. Thirty pages in, I was hooked."

Charlie's predicament becomes all the more complicated when his estranged 11-year-old son Max suddenly comes back into his life.

"The whole time during the shoot I was thinking, 'I hope I'm doing a better job [at parenting] than my character'," says the 6ft 2in actor, his handsome features crinkling into a smile.

"Charlie gets to say whatever he wants and as a parent you find yourself sometimes wanting to say something to your kid, which is kind of mean but you zip it up and press it down. But for three months [during the shoot] I got to say everything I wanted. It was great therapy."

Married for 15 years to fellow Australian Deborra-Lee Furness, with whom he has two adopted children [Oscar and Ava, 6], Jackman admits his most challenging role to date is fatherhood.

"It's the most important role you'll ever play. It confronts who you are, your upbringing, and really forces you to come together as a couple, when it's not always easy because you might think differently. It's forever changing," he says.

Born in Sydney to British parents, Jackman never set out to become an actor. Instead he'd set his sights on journalism.

"I've always admired journalists but when I studied it, I was keenly aware that I wasn't going to be good at it," says Jackman who turns 43 this week.

He realised it wasn't his true vocation in his third year when it dawned on him his teacher "was ten times more passionate" than he was.

"I thought, 'Oh my God, I'm the student, I'm supposed to be the one that's turned on' so that's when alarm bells were ringing."

He later enrolled at the Western Australian Academy of Performing Arts but was told by teachers that he was "pretty bad" and almost got kicked out of drama school.

"Every time I did something the teachers would roll their eyes so I constantly have that need to prove people wrong, I've never lost that," he says.

Despite his tutors' reservations, he was offered a role in the 1995 TV prison drama Correlli (where he met his future wife), shortly after graduation, which was followed up with Aussie TV shows Blue Heelers and Snowy River.

Then in 2000 he hit the big time. He was cast as Wolverine when Dougray Scott pulled out of X-Men at the last minute - and he hasn't looked back.

He has an eclectic resume to say the least. Besides displaying his brawn in the X-Men franchise, he's sung in musicals such as Oklahoma! and Carousel, trodden the boards in plays such as A Steady Rain with Daniel Craig, experimented with 'out there' movies such as The Fountain and he's even found time to host the Oscars.

"Yeah, jack of all trades, master of none, that's why this business is good for me," he laughs.

And though he now lays claim to one of the most recognised faces and physiques in the world, Jackman says he's simply pleased to continue to get work.

"I'm not at the top of the tree. I don't get the choices that Brad Pitt, George Clooney or Will Smith get and that's the truth, but I get a hell of a lot more choices than when I was starting out and overwhelmingly I'm grateful," he says.

You'd imagine there's very little left to check off on his to-do list, but Jackman already has his sights set on combining his two favourite loves, movies and musicals, in a big screen adaptation of Les Miserables.

Directed by The King's Speech's Tom Hooper, Jackman will star as the conflicted Jean Valjean and says he insisted that he audition for the role.

"I said to my agent I need to know in my heart that I can do it so I had a three-hour audition with Tom, which was fantastic, I loved it," says Jackman.

Cameras aren't due to start rolling for another six months, but work has already begun in earnest, including singing lessons for the star of the show.

"I'm the only actor in professional Broadway history that had it written in his contract that I must have singing lessons every week."

That was over a decade ago, and though he's started to feel comfortable as a singer, he'll continue to perfect his voice, he says.

Les Miserables will give him a break from honing his body at least. For six months, Jackman was consuming 6,000 calories a day and hitting the gym fiendishly in order to bulk up to play Wolverine once more in the highly anticipated movie, The Wolverine.

"The script was the best I'd read, which is why Darren [Aronofsky of Black Swan fame] was interested in it, but then things happened in his private life and he had to pull out so it's been a very frustrating year."

He's referring, of course, to the director's split from Rachel Weisz, who was also in The Fountain.

Jackman went on to perform his one man song-and-dance show instead, which he's taken to California, Toronto and opens in New York this month. Work on The Wolverine will now resume once Les Miserables has wrapped.

Further than that, who knows what Mr Jackman has planned? There's always the chance he could finally tackle 007. His name was one of those bandied about ahead of the 2006 Bond reboot Casino Royale, and there's now talk of Daniel Craig leaving the franchise after the next film.

"Is he?" says Jackman without missing a beat, and doesn't deny he was once in the running.

"I got a call from my agent saying, 'There is some possible interest in you for Bond, are you interested?' At the time I wasn't. I was about to shoot X-Men 2 and Wolverine had become this thing in my life and I didn't want to be doing two such iconic characters at once.

"I think every male at some point thinks about playing James Bond so it was not right then, but it may be right if it comes back," he adds - and as we know Jackman isn't one to shy away from a challenge.

"I think you've got to be scared as an actor and keep taking risks," he says.

"It doesn't always work out but it's a healthy place to be."

Extra time - Hugh Jackman :: He was born on October 12, 1968, in Sydney.

:: He is godfather to Rupert Murdoch's two youngest children.

:: He trained with former welterweight champion Sugar Ray Leonard ahead of Real Steel.

:: One of his proudest moments was singing Australia's national anthem at the National Rugby League Grand Final 15 years ago.

:: Jackman began meditating 20 years ago and now meditates twice a day.

:: Real Steel is released in cinemas on Friday, October 14