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Hugh Jackman on His Surprising Hollywood BFFs and Mother's Abandonment
Ruven Afanador
In THR's cover story, the
first-time Oscar nominee defends the "caring and thoughtful" Rupert
Murdoch, says Tony Robbins suggested he name the dueling sides of his
personality -- "Frank was the more confident, and Charles was the other"
-- and opens up about the emotional scars he suffered as a child.
Hugh Jackman's image long has been
that of a sunny-side up Australian -- a singing, dancing, easygoing
actor, husband and father who can instantly transform from Academy
Awards host (2009) to biceps-bulging heartthrob (Wolverine). But on this
late-January morning, the movie star -- a first-time Oscar nominee for
his role as Jean Valjean in Les Miserables -- drops surprise after surprise. First, he tells this reporter he is friends with self-help guru Tony Robbins, who helped Jackman, 44, prepare for Les Mis by finding ways to cope with fear and anxiety, which bedevils the
performer more before the camera than a live audience (as in his
acclaimed show Hugh Jackman Back on Broadway). Robbins suggested the
strapping 6-foot-3 superstar name the secure and insecure sides of his
personality. “Frank was the more confident, and Charles was the other,”
says Jackman.
"I always thought strength came from getting rid of that fear," he
adds. "And Tony said: 'Charles is your sensitivity. Charles makes you
question. Charles makes you work harder. When you walk on set, thank
Charles for everything.' " He pauses. "Tony really transformed my life."
Another unexpected friendship is with News Corp. chairman Rupert Murdoch, who even asked Jackman to be his daughter Chloe's godfather shortly after her birth in 2003.
"I met him first in a family situation," says the actor of their decade-old connection. "[Murdoch's wife] Wendi and Nicole Kidman
were very good friends. It was Nicole's birthday, and we all went to
Soho House in New York, and we were in the pool. He was holding his
daughter, and I was holding my son, and we became friends."
He says many people have the wrong impression of Murdoch: "He loves
having friends and family around. A lot of people in his life are there
for a long time. He looks after them and appreciates them. He's very
caring and thoughtful and incredibly respectful of everybody around
him."
Sitting at the Peninsula hotel in Beverly Hills, Jackman reveals
himself to be a far more complex and far-ranging figure than many of his
peers realize. As he gobbles down a breakfast of oatmeal, wheat toast
and a five-egg omelet -- muscling up for his next movie, X-Men: Days of Future Past,
in which he returns as Wolverine for the sixth time -- he adds to this
impression by discussing a turbulent past that still lingers with him.
Open and immensely likable, he describes being 8 years old when his mother, Grace, abandoned him and his four elder siblings, leaving them in Sydney with their father, Christopher.
His mother's departure never was fully explained to him, and indeed
Jackman only realized it was permanent when he was 13 and his father's
attempt at a reconciliation failed.
"Dad went off to England to bring her back, but by this point she was
married to someone else, with a kid," he says. "It was really
complicated. So when Dad arrived back -- not three weeks later, as
planned, but five days later -- I just knew. I was old enough to go,
'This is not happening.' "
With his mother an ocean away in her native England (both parents had
immigrated to Australia in 1967), Jackman remembers being too
frightened even to enter his house alone. "I was terrified because I was
the first one home every day," he says. "I used to walk home from
school and wait outside. I just wouldn't go in."
He recalls growing up in a deeply religious family, his parents having been converted to conservative Protestantism by Billy Graham,
after which they strictly adhered to the Church of England's tenets;
and he also recalls breaking away from their beliefs in his late teens.
Today, he is not particularly religious and says he never prays, though
he believes in some form of God and afterlife and meditates twice daily
for 30 minutes. "It is about quieting that part of the brain and just
seeing and being," he explains.
But meditation and his growing success, which has reached a climax this year with Les Mis, have only paved the way for a life that is centered just as much on Jackman's wife, actress Deborra-Lee Furness,
57, and their children, Oscar, 12, and Ava, 7, as on his work -- which
might create conflicts in the wake of the career-transforming Les Mis.
"I told my agent [WME's Patrick Whitesell], 'After Days of Future Past,
I need to be home [in New York's West Village],' " Jackman says --
particularly to support his son, who has certain learning disabilities
like dyslexia.
All this leaves a question about whether he will return to X-Men once he completes the time-spanning sequel that starts shooting mid-April in Montreal, after Jackman wraps the crime drama Prisoners, with Jake Gyllenhaal and Viola Davis. He hasn't ruled it out, but for now he says simply, "I need to be home."
In addition to his family, Jackman has surrounded himself with
friends, including 11 high school buddies who accompanied him on a
reunion trip to Japan four years ago and Nobel Peace Prize winner Muhammad Yunus (whose micro-finance campaign Jackman actively supports).
Despite these friends and a seemingly idyllic life, Jackman admits
rumors about his sexuality have taken a greater toll than previously
acknowledged, especially on his wife. "Just recently, it bugs her," he
says, blaming the Internet, which she frequents more than he does.
(Jackman largely sticks to cricket sites and The Economist.) "She goes: 'It's big. It's everywhere!' "
His X-Men producer Lauren Shuler Donner
shrugs off the gossip. "I have seen him with Deborra since the beginning
of their trip to Hollywood, and I've been on five movie sets with him
and have never seen him stray, have never seen him eye anyone. I met him
when he did Oklahoma! [at London's Royal National Theatre in
1999]. He was genuine, hugely talented. He was in love with his wife
that day and still is."
The actor took his first extended leave from their family (the
children were adopted after Furness suffered two miscarriages) for Les Mis, which started shooting in March 2012 in England. Until then, he says they had never spent more than two weeks apart.
He had heard the long-in-the-works musical might be coming to the
screen from Whitesell, who loved it from his youth. "Patrick has seen
every version of Les Mis," says Jackman. "It was the only video
they owned. And his family -- six boys -- used to watch it every year.
He said, 'That's it! We're going to get this!' "
After an informal chat with director Tom Hooper, who
hadn't committed to the project at that point, Jackman offered to do a
proper audition when Hooper signed on. Following an hours-long interview
that landed him the role, he embarked on seven weeks of rehearsal
before the shoot began, living in Spring Cottage, a storied residence on
the grounds of England's Cliveden House, the very place where call girl Christine Keeler began a scandalous affair with British Secretary of War John Profumo in 1961.
Jackman turned to Robbins for guidance. "I said: 'I want some help. I
got this job, and sometimes in front of the camera I can't feel as
relaxed as onstage' " -- though he says he has grown more comfortable
with film over the past couple of years. "He said it's not about denying
the character within you who feels nervous. That fear serves you to
work hard. It's not about going, 'F--- you, I wish you weren't here, get
out.' It's about embracing that. He goes: 'Man, you're playing Jean
Valjean. You should be scared!' "
STORY: The 5 Best Quotes From Hugh Jackman's NYC Tribute [8]
Jackman pushed himself to the limits for the role. After weeks on a
crash diet, before he began shooting the movie's opening sequence --
where he is seen waist-deep in frigid water, hauling cables attached to a
great ship -- he gave up fluids altogether.
"I didn't have anything to drink until late in the day when we did the opening scene with Russell Crowe,"
he says, explaining the dehydration gave his skin a gaunt, haggard look
that makes his initial appearance as Valjean so shocking. "You lose up
to 10 pounds of water weight, mainly from the exterior of the body. But
it was really brutal. About 20 hours in, a headache came. Then I wanted
to drink water out of the ocean! I see the scene now, and I look really
thin, really sunken."
Admits Hooper: "I was worried. I thought, 'This is probably the kind
of thing I should discourage.' I said, 'Have a sip of water.' But he was
very determined. He'd obviously consulted doctors, but I do remember he
eventually got very cold, really cold."
Throughout, his star "never said a sharp word. I don't know how he remains so calm. He really is an extraordinary man."
Jackman wasn't always like this, especially during the years when he grappled with his mother's absence.
"To be in Australia at that point, with my father working hard, I
think Mom just felt incredibly isolated," he says. She did not have an
easy transition with the relocation from England. "Fairly soon, she had
difficulties. She was in the hospital a long time after I was born. She
had very bad postpartum depression. I'm guessing it lasted years because
I remember she used to go off for little periods. I think she was
feeling trapped."
When her own mother fell ill, she went back to the U.K., leaving the
children with their father, an accountant and Cambridge graduate.
Jackman remembers him praying that his wife would return, but she never
did.
Christopher's commitment to work -- an ethos Jackman has inherited --
did not help: "My father could only come to one [school sports] game a
year because he had five kids, and on Saturday he had to shop. If my
father was there, it would be 50 percent greater. Having his approval is
something that still drives me."
His father's devoutness also influenced him: "I was involved with so
many things in the church. It was my social group. It was where I met
girls. It was sort of my life out of school. Then around 16 or 17, I
started questioning. 'How come all these nonbelievers are going to
hell?' "
His beliefs evolved when he attended Sydney's University of
Technology and focused on journalism before stumbling upon acting
through a drama course he had to take in order to graduate. Later, he
continued his acting studies at the Western Australian Academy of
Performing Arts in Perth, learning about meditation at the nearby School
of Practical Philosophy. "That really started to change my life," he
says.
Upon graduation, he landed his first professional job on Correlli, a prison-set TV series starring Furness, who at first held off the 26-year-old Jackman's romantic advances.
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"I was single when I met her, and she was single," he recalls of his
future wife, also the product of a single-parent household, whose father
had died in a car accident when she was a child. "I was happy being
single. I was out of a difficult relationship I'd had through drama
school, and it was tumultuous and hard. I'd been living off 120 bucks a
week as a student until I was 26. Then, when I met Deb, it was 10 times
better than my single life. She was very beautiful. She was unbelievably
fun -- this energy, this spirit -- irrepressible. And she had a
confidence in herself. I had a massive crush on her instantly."
He adds: "She was sort of the opposite of me. I was very 'Even
Steven,' and she was thrilling to me. I was always really attracted to
that -- though at one point, as it was getting really serious, it
terrified me."
They married in 1996, and Furness put her career on hold as Jackman's
exploded. Now, he says: "It feels like she needs to get back into it.
She needs to act again."
His own career took off with stage roles in Australia including Trevor Nunn's production of Sunset Blvd., followed by Oklahoma! in London, which drew the X-Men producers' notice.
Shuler Donner and director Bryan Singer were looking
to cast Wolverine, the stout, stubborn, enigmatic main character of
their Marvel Comics adaptation. Shuler Donner admits the director at
first was unconvinced. "Hugh was a lot taller than the character, and
Bryan wasn't sure if he was the right guy," she says. "So I said, 'Let
me send him up to you in Toronto,' " where the film already was
underway. "And Hugh went up, and Anna Paquin was there
already, and they did a scene together, and after Bryan yelled 'Cut!'
one of the crewmembers said, 'Wow! That's Wolverine.' "
When Singer and Shuler Donner asked for a multipicture commitment,
Jackman was delighted. He didn't realize that the fewer films he signed
on for, the more leverage he would have if the producers wanted him
back. "Here's my naivete," he laughs. "I was like, 'Fantastic!' My agent
goes: 'No. You'll learn.' I said, 'They're going to guarantee me three
jobs, and you've got it down to two?' I was so stupid. By the third, X-Men: The Last Stand, I understood."
The X-Men franchise has become a pillar of 20th Century
Fox's movie slate, pulling in a robust $1.8 billion worldwide and
bringing Jackman a reported $20 million for The Wolverine (his
second spinoff as that character), which wrapped in late 2012. He is not
committed to any more outings in the series following Days of Future Past.
Even that film came out of the blue.
"I first heard about it around October or November [2012]," he notes. "I was literally finishing The Wolverine and dreaming about lasagna, and about three weeks before the end, they
told me." The role was large and reunited him with many of the original
cast. "There was no way I was not going to be part of that." He says he
still has not read a finished screenplay, however, and has seen only a
synopsis of about eight pages.
Outside these films, Jackman's work has spanned a dizzying array that
has complicated his onscreen persona, occasionally making it hard to
determine who the real Jackman is -- from the romantic comedy Kate & Leopold (2001) to Darren Aronofsky's philosophical drama The Fountain (2006) to Baz Luhrmann's epic Australia (2008). And then there's Movie 43, the much-maligned recent sketch-comedy flop by Peter Farrelly
and other directors, in which he has a small scene as a man with
testicles attached to his throat. Jackman committed to it four years
ago, he says, and appears unperturbed by the reception: "I read a script
for a short which really made me laugh, and then I heard Kate [Winslet] wanted to do it too, and I was sold."
Some of the projects he has turned down are as fascinating as those he has accepted. He rejected the Richard Gere role in Chicago because he felt he was too young; pulled out of the Ryan Gosling starrer Drive, which he had developed, because he was unsure about working with Nicolas Winding Refn, then a relatively untested director; and declined to be considered for James Bond around the time of the first X-Men. "I thought it would box me in too much," he says. "My natural instinct is to keep as many doors open as possible."
Doing so has brought him a Golden Globe as well as the Oscar nomination for Les Mis, not to mention acclaim for hosting the Academy Awards when he was asked to do so, intriguingly, by Steven Spielberg -- despite having dragged the director onstage during a Las Vegas production of The Boy From Oz.
"He was mortified," smiles Jackman, finishing the last bite of his
enormous omelet, "and, of course, it's the worst thing to do to anybody,
and I'm shocked that he still speaks to me."
Now he is contemplating his future. He is preparing for the next X-Men, which involves a very different regimen from the one for Les Mis -- including consuming vats of food for eight hours straight, then
going without any for 16 hours. "Your body learns to burn fat in that 16
hours," says Jackman, his physique at its finest beneath his casual
blue T-shirt. "And I sleep better."
He has reunited and rebuilt a relationship with his mother, though he
says they never had a particular rift despite the pain caused by their
time apart and the limits imposed by ultra-expensive international phone
calls.
[pagebreak]
"For a lot of years, I thought, 'Oh, I must be suppressing
something,' " he observes. "When I was around my mid-20s, I was probably
guessing that I had repressed anger, so I would bring it up. Mom was
fine to talk about anything. But instinctively, as I grew up, and as I
was in relationships where I had my heart broken, and I broke other
people's hearts, you realize people have breaking points. Mom, at the
time, was not well. And she made decisions that, on some level, she
regrets."
Now she visits him in New York, and Jackman also remains close to his
father, 76, who still lives in Australia. Beyond work and family, he
has little time for anything else. He does not watch much television
other than sports, because "I'm terrified of getting hooked" -- which
happened when he started watching The West Wing after collaborating with Aaron Sorkin on Houdini for the stage. (Sorkin pulled out of the play early in February.)
He has shut down a production company he established with his former assistant, John Palermo. "I just realized I didn't want to be a producer when I grow up; it's not my skill set," he says.
He also is immersed in Yunus' endeavors, which began following an
early encounter with him just after he came across the economist's work.
"I was reading two books at the same time," he remembers. "One was Paul Newman's In Pursuit of the Common Good and the idea of creating a social business. The other was [Yunus'] Banker to the Poor: Micro-Lending and the Battle Against World Poverty,
and I thought, 'This is a true philosopher.' And when I met him, he
kind of put the charge on me: He said, 'That's how you use your
profile.' "
Raising his star profile is the thing that matters to him least, he
insists. "I have no real natural instinct for the star world. I don't
really put a lot of currency in stardom. I have this weird feeling that
the more you direct your attention into solving that issue, the worse an
actor you become."
And yet he admits, while his ambition to be a star has quieted, it
hasn't entirely disappeared. "I saw a play in Sydney," he recalls, "and
in the notes they had this quote from Bono that said:
'What kind of hole exists in the heart of a person when they need to
have 70,000 people scream, "I love you," in order to feel fulfilled?'
But there is a part of me that wants to please, to be all things to all
people."
