Hugh Jackman: the world's gnarliest superhero and his X-Men director get down and dirty about scents, handmade shoes, and Sunday-morning pancakes

Interview, June, 2006 by Brett Ratner

BRETT RATNER: On film you're a superhero, but in real life you're a family man. What's a typical weekend when you're not working?

HUGH JACKMAN: I always make pancakes on Sunday morning. I make crepes. French.

BR: So you're a cook?

HJ: Yeah. And my little boy is now into making them as well. Because he's grown up with [singing] "Sunday-morning pancakes." Now he wakes me up with [singing] "Sunday-morning pancakes!" So I flip them with him, and I do the whole thing, and he says, "Flip 'em again, Dad!" Then we always go out, usually for lunch and then to a park or a climb up Runyon Canyon. And Sunday night, there's nothing better than being at home.

BR: Watching a movie?

HJ: Yeah. And ordering Chinese.

BR: You're just like a Jew!

HJ: [laughs] Exactly. My wife Deb's hung out with Jewish people her entire life. We danced the hora at our wedding!

BR: No.

HJ: Yeah! I mean, my dad is the most Christian guy you'll ever meet. Converted and everything. And then at the wedding, we were lifted up in the chairs, doing the whole thing.

BR: Oh, my God.

HJ: And Deb was like, "Just 'cause I'm not of the faith doesn't mean I'm gonna miss out on all the fun." I had the best wedding of everyone. We had like a half-Jewish wedding.

BR: That's so funny. You're a Tony winner. If they both carried the same paycheck, would you rather do movies or Broadway?

HJ: I love both. What I realize now is that I have to have the stage in my professional diet. It's a lot more tiring, particularly doing musicals, but it informs my movie-acting.

BR: I was telling someone about you, and I said, "The difference between Hugh and other actors of his generation is that most of them don't have the formal training. This guy sings, dances, acts--he has a broad range of talent."

HJ: I love all that. And, by the way, I agree with you, because I trained for four years full-time. But the thing about the stage that helps me the most is that you can feel if a scene is cooking or if you're lagging. You know if you're hitting a funny line or if you aren't--

BR: So you adjust it.

HJ: You adjust it. But on a film set you don't always have that. Luckily, if I'm working with you, I've got a director who won't let it go until it feels right.

BR: But you can get away with much more in film.

HJ: Yes, you can. The stage also sharpens that sense of "We've got it!" When I was doing The Fountain [the Darren Aronofsky movie due out this fall. also starring Rachel Weisz] straight after being on Broadway, I was just feeling much sharper, more in tune. It's a theater kind of thing.

BR: Is it a harder process doing eight shows a week than doing a movie, where you can memorize a scene and you can work on it the night before? In theater you've got to keep the whole fucking play in your mind.

HJ: That's the easy bit.

BR: Really?

HJ: Yeah. Because you rehearse for six weeks.

BR: Ah, I see.

HJ: That's never really an issue. Most theater is a little more challenging for the actor because you don't get all the signposts you get with movies, and all the people helping you. The way a play is written, it's just dialogue. You don't get stage directions, or "turns back," or "shakes hands," or whatever. It's like a detective novel--you have to work that all out. And this is when we build the scene by kind of taking a little beat here and making a little move there. It's really broken down for you in movies, because people reading the scripts don't always understand the dynamic. So with a play it's like you have to be the director, as well. Because once you're onstage, you're kind of running the thing. Will we pull the scene back? Will we push it forward? So as an actor, I love doing both.

BR: And doesn't Australia have a huge theater community?

HJ: Yeah.

BR: When you were a kid, did you think of the stage or did you think of movies?

HJ: I thought of the stage. I mean, I loved movies, all right? But when I was studying acting, I wanted to go to the Royal National Theatre, to the Royal Shakespeare Company in London. I'd had a lot of influence from England because my parents are English and I'd been over there. And for me, weirdly, as much as I loved Robert De Niro, Al Pacino, Meryl Streep, it was Ben Kingsley and Judi Dench and Patrick Stewart and Ian McKellen. I'd seen them act since I was a kid.

BR: Did you also get to see Anthony Hopkins in a play?

HJ: No. But Hopkins, and these actors, they have this versatility because they did so many years in theater before they ever appeared in a movie.

BR: That's the training I'm talking about. Let's switch gears a little bit. How would you describe your fashion sense?

HJ: I actually grew up in a fashion wasteland. My dad was hand-me-downs. No style whatsoever. But my mom is very creative and very colorful and stylish, and I've inherited that more from her. It took me a while. Deb says, "You've got much more taste than you give yourself credit for." But I enjoy role-playing when I dress. Most of the time, my mood is--

BR: Based on what you're wearing.

HJ: Yeah. And when I go out, I love to kind of overdress. You know how people in L.A. go out wearing jeans--I like to wear a suit.