 He Slices! He Dices! He Sings!
by Brad Cook Correlli (TV show) (1995) Hugh Jackman is a man of many talents. An accomplished musician, singer, athlete and actor, he was born in Sydney, Australia in 1968 to British parents. He's the youngest of five children and his father is an accountant. All of his schooling was in Australia, including a degree in journalism from the University of Technology Sydney. He gave up a career as a reporter for the stage and decided to continue his education at the Western Australia Academy of Performing Arts. Immediately after leaving school in 1994, he was offered the role of angry robber Kevin Jones in the Australian TV prison drama Correlli, where his future wife, Deborra-Lee Furness, played a prison counselor trying to help him. Their onscreen romantic tension carried over to their off-screen lives and they married in 1996. They're still together but don't have any children. Over the next few years he played bit parts in other TV shows as well as roles onstage in various Australian and British stage productions, including the musical Oklahoma!, where he met his mentor, director Trevor Nunn, while the show ran in London's trendy West End Theater district. He was nominated for a major British award, the Olivier, for his part in that play and won several Australian awards, including the Mo Award, for playing Joe Gillis in Sunset Boulevard. He was also nominated for a Mo Award for his work as Gaston in the musical version of Beauty and the Beast. Besides the stage, his singing skills have taken him to the Melbourne Cricket Grounds, where in 1998 he sang the national anthem "Advance Australia Fair" before 100,000 people gathered to watch the Blediscoe Cup competition, which is one of the most prestigious events in the sport of rugby. Millions more watched on television. He followed that up the same year by singing "Waltzing Matilda" with the Australian Girls Choir before the Melbourne Cup, a prominent horse race. Despite the fact that most American film fans don't know whom Jackman is, most Australians are already well aware of him. There are several websites devoted to his career, including the eponymous www.hughjackman.com. In 1999, he was named Australian Star of the Year as well as Most Fashionable Man in Australia. Jackman was in two feature films before being cast by director Bryan Singer for X-Men. In Paperback Hero, he played a tough truck driver who had written a romantic novel but wanted a female friend to take the credit for it. In the low budget film Erskineville Kings, Jackman portrayed a man who cares for his abusive father until his death and must deal with the return of his estranged younger brother.
In September 1999, a filmed version of Oklahoma!, starring Jackman in his now-familiar role as Curly, debuted before Princess Anne in London. An Australian premiere followed just a few days later. He became involved with X-Men when Singer was left without someone in the role of Wolverine (AKA Logan) after his first choice, Dougray Scott, had to bow out due to the lengthy filming schedule for Mission Impossible 2. Jackman was hastily brought on board last October and jumped right into rehearsals before leaping to filming, which had already begun with the rest of the cast in Toronto, a common stand-in for New York City. For the role, Jackman's hair was slicked into a more subdued version of Wolverine's sweeping, wing-like 'do, and he was fitted for one of the black costumes which all the X-Men wear in the film. This was the most physically demanding role of his career. He became ill from heat exhaustion during filming and managed to cut through his thick costume and into his leg with his claws while doing a fight scene with Tyler (Sabretooth) Mane. Last November, Jackman returned to Australia to assist with the christening of Fox Studios Australia in Sydney, where Star Wars: Episode Two will be filmed this summer. He attended the opening party and hosted a TV special called The Making of Fox Studios Australia. Rumors persist on the Internet that there will be not one but two more X-Men films, to be released in 2002 and 2004. Jackman is supposedly committed to reprising his role as Wolverine in both of them. In addition to his singing and acting skills, Jackman is an avid golfer and windsurfer and has been known to unwind at his piano or with his guitar. The Australian actor also practices transcendental meditation to keep his mind clear and his abilities focused.
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