His next project will be the latest film adaptation of the musical Les Miserables, and Jackman will playing the lead role of Jean Valjean. 

It is impossible to not detect Jackman’s enthusiasm for the role in his interview with New York magazine, in which he reveals how badly he wanted to portray Valjean in the film. 

Jackman and the rest of the cast will have an additional challenge: unlike many film musicals, the cast will be singing live.  This is something Jackman relishes in, and he describes its importance to the film by pointing out, “We will obviously have to do a safety prerecord, because when you’re singing you’ve got to have all the music in your ear, and I’m guessing also for quality of sound for the soundtrack. And sometimes when you film there are noises — smoke machines, things like that — where the actual sound on set may not be usable. But most of it we’re going to be singing live, which for something like Les Miserables is essential. You don’t want it to feel like it’s all done in a recording studio, nor do you want it to look like the actors are miming the whole thing. I wouldn’t know how to do that. I think it would take more work to mime it than to sing it.”

Les Miserables has been filmed more than a dozen times already — and its London production is the longest running musical in history — so Jackman faces living up to decades of other legendary productions.  Nonetheless he claims that he finds that pressuring motivating, confessing, “I auditioned. I went hard for the part. I wasn’t sitting back waiting for this one. This is one I really wanted. I feel, weirdly, that all the things in my life — particularly my professional life, which has been close to twenty years — have been converging to this point. I feel very lucky and blessed to have been in movies, and I feel lucky and blessed to have been in musicals. I’ve been waiting a long time to combine the two, and to be able to do it with something like Les Miserables, it just feels like a pinnacle.”

One aspect of Valjean’s character that Jackman will get to explore in the film that is difficult to portray on stage is Valjean’s physical transformation.  Of course, Jackman is used to physically changing himself for his roles — he famously packs on the muscle each time he plays the superhero Wolverine in the X-Men films — so Jackman admits he is looking forward to the challenge, saying, “[Valjean will] go through a transformation during the film, but when we start he is in a labor camp. He’s described as a ‘great ox of a man,’ so as [director] Tom [Hooper] says, ‘I don’t want pecks, I don’t want you to look like you’ve been to the gym, I want you to look like you’ve been hauling ropes to get ships into the shipyard.’ I’m literally starting training in a half-hour. I’m about to go into a whole lot of squats and pulling ropes and pulling myself up ropes. At the same time, I don’t get to eat any fun stuff because he wants me to be lean in the face like I’ve been in a labor camp. But then he gets rich and goes to pot, so that part will be fun.”

Jackman has a lot of things going for him as an actor — but perhaps most important is his obvious enthusiasm!

Host’s Michael Riedel (Broadway columnist for the New York Post) and producer Susan Haskins always have great guests from the current crop of Broadway shows – that is, if they aren’t afraid or mad at Riedel who is notorious for his skewering. 

They interviewed Hugh Jackman right before he ended the Broadway run of his one-man show, Hugh Jackman, Back on Broadway.

He shares some of the stories he talks about in his show, upcoming films Les Miz and Wolverine and growing up in Australia.

It’s a great interview – but I’m biased because I have a man-crush on Jackman.

Check it out below! 

So why does Jackman take on so many varied roles? 

As he tells Playbill, it’s more about survival than anything else.  “Honestly, it’s basically been about avoiding unemployment. When I first graduated from drama school, my goal was to keep pushing open as many doors as possible, so that included all different types of film, musical theatre, and straight plays. I figured, well, I’m pretty good at quite a few things, so I’ll keep on working at all of them. I also feel that it’s good for actors to say ‘yes’ and risk making fools out of themselves. Ultimately, that approach has been something that’s defined me in this business.”   Despite being “pretty good at quite a few things,” Jackman still identifies his Tony and Drama Desk Award winning role in the Broadway hit The Boy From Oz as his career highlight… even though he almost missed the chance to do it!  He explains, “It was the turning point in my career, as far as I’m concerned. It’s funny, because I was actually offered the role of Peter Allen back in 1996 when they did a workshop in Australia, but I turned it down — even though I knew it was going to be great — because I decided I was going to try to do more films. At that point I couldn’t even get auditions for films because I was becoming so known for musicals, so I was trying to strategize. Then, after saying no to The Boy from Oz, I didn’t work in film for the next two years. When I went to see the show I felt sick in the stomach, because it was exactly how I knew it would be: It was a brilliant show and one of the greatest parts I had ever seen, and I had turned it down because I was trying to plan things out. I got a call years later from Robert Fox, the producer, and he said, ‘Hey, Hugh, we were thinking —’ I literally cut him off and said, ‘I’m in.’ I vowed never to disobey my heart again.”

Back on Broadway consists of Hugh Jackman performing some of his favorite songs.  So how did he pick them?  Jackman points out that if he wasn’t enthusiastic about the song, the audience wouldn’t be either.  He says, “I have a rule: As each song starts, I need to feel like, Oh, my God, I can’t wait to sing this and share this. If I didn’t feel that, the song wouldn’t make the show.”  Nonetheless, despite the excitement Jackman admits that two of the songs are quite challenging, “One is the movie musical medley, which at seven and a half minutes is vocally and physically challenging. I think that’s why I lose about three or four pounds a night, even though I’ve been eating like a madman. My suit got taken in three or four times in Toronto. I also sing ‘Soliloquy’ from Carousel, which is one of the greatest musical theatre songs ever written, and it always requires you to be at your best as a singer and an actor.”

Yet it’s important to note that Jackman isn’t playing a character in this show, but appears as himself.  Although that’s a definite change, Jackman doesn’t feel uncomfortable exposing his true self to the audience like that.  He describes it as liberating, saying, “I just feel at home onstage. So to actually be onstage as myself is really freeing, and hopefully in some ways it’s more powerful. By the end of every night, I feel really intimate with the audience. I feel like I’ve shared things with them, and somehow they’ve shared things with me too.”

Hugh Jackman, Back on Broadway opens today and runs through January 1.

And why shouldn’t it be? Michael Riedel wrote in his NY Post column that “he’s rehearsed it eight hours a day, every day, for the past two months in New York. “He’s exhausted,” says a confidant. “But watching him onstage, you would never know it.”

In the show, he has a 18-piece orchestra and performs Broadway tunes, old classics and aboriginal music from Australia.

Playbill.com shot a minute – seriously, only a minute – of the show that you can watch below. 

For tickets, click here.

Catch Hugh as he sings, dances and taps his way through ‘Luck Be a Lady’, ‘Singing in the Rain’, ‘I Got Rhythm’ and other classic Broadway songs.

Including some short interviews, it’s almost a full 15 minutes but I think it’s worth the watch.

The show begins October 25th and runs till January 1st, 2012 at The Broadhurst Theatre. For tickets, click here.

One of Jackman’s next major roles is Jean Valjean in Les Misérables, one of the most successful musicals of all time.  Jackman, who says he has seen the musical three times, claims that landing such a role is both intimidating and fun… because it’s the same thing to him. 

“It’s intimidating, and that’s the fun of it. I feel, you have to be a little bit intimidated or a little bit nervous. The percentage is probably 80/20. If 80% of you is really, really confident you’re going to nail it, and 20% of you is genuinely, really not so sure, that’s the kind of percentage you need to push yourself on, to do better than you’ve ever before. If it’s 100%, then I feel the audience can feel it. I feel like Jean Valjean is one the great literary figures in musical theatre. It’s one of the most famous characters of all time. Whoever is playing it, it should be them at their best, you know? That’s why I’m singing everyday and have been for awhile. And, that’s why I auditioned for the part,” he said.You read that right, Jackman wanted to play Valjean so badly that he auditioned for director Tom Hooper before he agreed to direct the film!  Jackman claims, “I rang Tom Hooper and I said, ‘Tom, I’m coming in and I’m auditioning for you.’ He said, ‘Well, I actually haven’t made my deal yet.’ I said, ‘I don’t care. I’m coming in now.’ That audition was three hours. This was not one where I was going to sit back and wait to see if it came to me or not. I chased it.”

Since Jackman has had success both on screen and on stage, one would imagine that he brings different skills to each.  However, Jackman disagrees with that assessment, seeing them as mostly similar.  He explains, “Obviously, on the day there is a difference. As an actor, you have many tools – your body, your voice, your emotions, mentally. In film, you have your eyes because they communicate your thought process. In fact, generally in film, what you don’t say is more important than what you say. That’s not so much the case for stage. However, if you haven’t done that work and you don’t know what’s going on internally, particularly for a musical, and there’s not real thought behind the song, then no one will feel anything. But, essentially, acting is acting. It’s the same thing. So, I’m forever grateful that I did theater first. I think it’s much easier to be able to distill the technique from theater. It’s not like, ‘Let’s just add water to film.’ There are genuine muscles that you need on the stage, that you don’t develop in film.”

Well if anyone knows anything about conquering both the musical stage and silver screen, it’s Jackman.  Now if he can only give us some tips on how to jack yourself up as he does for every X-Men sequel, we’ll know all his secrets!

Part of the reason why Jackman is doing the show is out of necessity — he’s aware that he’ll never be able to star in all of these productions!  He explains, “It took me a year [to choose which songs I would perform].  My overall goal was that I desperately wanted to sing these songs.  So the whole show would have a thing for me where if I’m busy and let’s say I have two weeks off, I would be like ‘I really want to go do this show for a week.’ rather than ‘Okay. I’m doing this show.’ It was really important to me to really choose stuff that I love and not just stuff that I thought people would love.  I have an eclectic kind of…there is some musical theater from stuff that I’ve done and there’s stuff that I have wanted to do that I haven’t done.  There are also standards, rock and roll, and a little bit of everything.”  Jackman’s choices are personal, but it’s likely that audiences won’t mind at all.   Though Jackman did a similar show at the Curran Theatre in San Francisco earlier this year, naturally the musical-loving Jackman prefers to do the show on The Great White Way. 

He confesses his preference, saying, “I’m lucky to have worked in theater all over the world, but there’s something magical about Broadway.  The audiences are smart, they’re educated.  They go in ready and they’re up for it, they’re up for the party.  It’s a whole different atmosphere.  A lot of the other places where you do theater you have a feeling that you have to win them over.  There’s little bit of them sitting on their hands.  In Broadway, if they don’t like you, they’ll let you know early on.  But then they’re like ‘Alright.  Let’s go.  We’re ready for a good night.’  There’s some combination between that, the history, the proximity of all of these theaters, and the community that exists in the theater – it’s just amazing.  There’s actually footage of me somewhere in 1996 when I was doing a musical down in Australia.  They sent me to New York to do a column piece, it was like an Australian 60 Minutes.  There’s footage of me in Times Square being a dickhead going, ‘Can you believe this?!  Look at this!  Maybe one day…’ So you have to be careful what you wish for.”

Jackman is not the only “dickhead” to do some dreaming in Times Square, but he might just be the most talented. Hugh Jackman, Back on Broadway runs from October 25th to January 1st 2012 at the Broadhurst Theatre.

via Collider

Grab them while you can, because they’re only available today and tomorrow (Sunday). The tickets are valid for performances beginning 10/25/11 through 12/25/11.

Click on the link to BroadwayOffers.com, type in the code: HJFAN924

Here’s a breakdown of the ticket prices:

Orchestra Rows AA-K: $156.50
Orchestra Rows L-T: $141.50
Mezzanine Rows A-E: $136.50
Mezzanine Rows F-H: $126.50
Mezzanine Rows J-K, Side Row H-J: $98.50
Mezzanine Row L, Far Side Rows H-L: $68.50

I’ll be there in December and I definitely plan on seeing the show – I have a man-crush on him – but I just don’t know the exact dates I’ll be in the city yet.

The show is at the Broadhurst Theatre, 235 West 44th Street (Between Broadway and 8th Avenue)

Opening next month, Jackman will be accompanied by an 18-piece orchestra and will be performing “a personal selection of his favorite musical numbers that reflect on the stage and film star’s remarkable life and career, from The Boy from Oz to Hollywood.”

“I can’t believe it’s been 7 years since I was singing and dancing on Broadway,” he said. “There is nothing like performing on the Great White Way and I’m so excited to be coming ‘home.’”   I saw him in 2004 for his Broadway debut, The Boy From Oz, where played ’70s singer-songwriter Peter Allen and he was freakin fantastic. The show wasn’t even that good but Jackman was just phenominal in the part. This may be where I developed my man-crush on him.  That year, he received the Tony Award for Best Actor in a musical as well as Drama Desk, Drama League, Outer Critics Circle and Theatre World Awards.

And if you haven’t seen him as Curly in Trevor Nunn’s staging of Rodgers & Hammerstein’s Oklahoma!, you should absolutely check that out.

The show runs from October 25th to January 1st 2012 at the Broadhurst Theatre. Tickets go on sale September 26th.

My thoughts.

1. I really want to see this show.
2. How can you get yelled at by Hugh Jackman in front of a packed audience only to later have your phone ring again! This is Wolverine and Bond, jackass. Turn off your phone!
3. How come no one is asking about the guy who recorded this? Who records a Broadway show? Should I be looking on torrents for shows?

From USAToday.com:

On the show, A Steady Rain:
The gritty account of two Chicago policemen whose lives are upended by shattering events, some inspired by a real-life case, marks Craig’s Broadway debut.

Daniel Craig: “I just was fascinated by this great piece of writing, very emotional and disturbing but quite funny at points.”

Hugh Jackman: “It’s very raw — there are not many plays like it on Broadway.”

On Their Roles and careers:
Jackman: “I suppose the roles are different from others we’ve done, but that’s what you want. To be remembered for different things is something that motivates both of us.”

Craig: “We both come from places where the movie industry isn’t something you can walk straight into.”

Jackman: “Or make a living in.”

Craig: “In drama school, we’d have one day a term where someone brought a camera in, and we’d film each other mucking about. That was it, basically. People say that acting in theater and film are different disciplines, but I can’t agree completely. The only thing that matters in acting is truth. It’s all about making the audience believe you.”

The importance of working with a great actor:
Craig: “I don’t know how much smoke I should blow up his a—, but Hugh’s tremendously talented. When you’re on stage, you want to be looking at someone who’s intelligent and who’s got your back. It makes my job that much easier, lazy actor that I am.”

I think I might need to take a trip to NYC to see this show. Who’s with me?

“Daniel Craig and Hugh Jackman star in the most anticipated theatrical event of the season: A Steady Rain. This new American play by Keith Huff tells the story of two Chicago cops who are lifelong friends and whose differing accounts of a few harrowing days change their lives forever. Directing is John Crowley.” (via asteadyrainonbroadway.com)

The show runs from September 10 through December 6th.

Click here for the website and ticket information

He told a story about his first trip to the theater with his wife, saying it was the first Hollywood landmark he visited in Los Angeles, and while there he put his hands into the prints of late comedian Peter Sellers.

“Here we are, 12 years later. It’s a very humbling moment as an actor to be here. You look down at the names, from Fred Astaire to Cary Grant, Clint Eastwood, Al Pacino, Steve McQueen, John Wayne, and to think that those people have been immortalized and pretty soon I’ll be putting my hands in wet cement,” he said, before placing his hands in the cement.

I think it’s probably cool to rip the show every year but it wasn’t terrible.

The funny moment’s were few and far between. There was Ben Stiller as Joaquin Phoenix. And Steve Martin and Tina Fey presenting the screenwriting awards. Oh, and I almost forgot Robert DeNiro introducing Sean Penn – that was good.

That’s it from what I remember. Did I miss anything?

The acting awards pretty much went as expected. A lot of people thought that Mickey Rourke should have gotten Best Actor but I think they got it right by giving it to Sean Penn, don’t you?

Other than that, it was pretty uneventful. I thought Hugh Jackman was great (I could have done without the opening number) and how they did the awards in order of the movie-making process was inventive.

And, the ratings were up 6% so obviously it wasn’t as bad as everyone has written.

“One of my favorite moments at the Oscars was when the streaker came across [past] David Niven. And we’re upping it a level and we’re just going to do most of the show naked. Um, well, there hopefully will be YouTube moments….Drunk and nude, yes. So that’s our new fresh approach. It’s the Australian way.”

“Oprah. Uma. Uma. Oprah.”

“Celebration is the key. I’m certainly going to have a good time. If I’m not going to have a good time, how the hell is anybody else?” said Jackman, who sounded up for the job in a phone interview Friday, less than two weeks before the Feb. 22 ceremony airing on ABC.

He isn’t openly rooting for anyone but….

“I can’t hide the fact that I would really love for that honor to be bestowed upon him,” Jackman said of his fellow Australian. “It would be fitting and I think he deserves it.”

How would he compare his Tony experience to that of the Oscars?

The Oscars is obviously a very different beast. There’s a lot of hype. There’s so much anticipation. … I chatted with Steve Martin on the phone who gave me some great tips. The first five or six minutes you’re going to have possibly the best audience you’ve ever had in your life, because all of them know they’re going be on camera at any moment, none of them have lost yet and they’re all sort of generally ready for a good time. He said from that point on, just move it on quickly. Just be quick.

In terms of style, there’s a quantum shift happening this year, and fingers crossed we get a lot of it right. … There’s an obvious amount of business that has to happen in the night. There’s 24 awards; you can’t change that. But I think Oscars could do a little more of the show in show biz. I think there’s been a little too much business.

The producers intend to try different things. Does that add to your excitement or trepidation?

I think it’s great. … Obviously I’m not a standup comedian and generally there’s been comedians who are actors as well (who) have been doing it for the last however many years. So there’s not the same pressure. I don’t think people expect me to come out and do seven minutes of bang-bang-bang jokes. … They really just encourage me to do what I feel I do best. It’s a night to have a feeling of celebration, of community.

The look of the theater is very different. It’s more like the nightclub of your dreams. It’s very intimate. … It’s got to be a lot closer. It’s been a little austere in the past. You know, there’s that stage, the host being up above the stalls, looking down at everybody. … But this is a lot more intimate. It’s still spectacular, being in the Kodak Theatre. But it’s a real difference in the way things are laid out.

Whatever the reason, the public didn’t want to see it… and it looks like Nicole Kidman is getting the blame.

Despite winning an Oscar in 2003 for “The Hours,” Kidman is not a big box office draw. The 41-year-old actress has never headlined a movie that grossed more than $100 million in North America. Her recent flops include “The Invasion” and “Fur.” Forbes magazine reported in September that she was Hollywood’s most overpaid celebrity.

Click here for the story

Great choice – did you see him host the Tonys?

Beverly Hills, CA –– Hugh Jackman will host the 81st Academy Awards® telecast, producer Laurence Mark and executive producer Bill Condon announced today.  This will be Jackman’s first time center stage at the Oscar show, although he has previously been a presenter.

“Hugh Jackman is a consummate entertainer and an internationally renowned movie star,” said Mark and Condon in a joint statement.  “He also has style, elegance and a sense of occasion.  Hugh is the ideal choice to host a celebration of the year’s movies – and to have fun doing it.”

Jackman stars in the current release “Australia,” directed by Baz Luhrmann.  He will next be seen in “X-Men Origins: Wolverine,” having portrayed the title character in the previous three smash-hit “X-Men” movies.  His other film credits include “The Prestige,” “Flushed Away,” “The Fountain,” “Happy Feet,” “Van Helsing,” “Kate & Leopold” and “Swordfish.”

A native of Australia, Jackman won the 2004 Tony Award for Best Actor in a Musical for his performance in “The Boy from Oz.”  He has served as host of the Tony Awards ceremony and won a 2005 Emmy for that assignment.

Jackman’s other stage credits include “Carousel,” “Oklahoma!” “Sunset Boulevard” and “Beauty and the Beast.

Academy Awards for outstanding film achievements of 2008 will be presented on Sunday, February 22, 2009, at the Kodak Theatre at Hollywood & Highland Center, and televised live by the ABC Television Network.  The Oscar presentation also will be televised live in more than 200 countries worldwide.