Hugh Jackman: Australia's sexiest man

Dec 22 2008 By Albertina Lloyd

Hugh Jackman has teamed up with fellow Australian Nicole Kidman to star in Baz Luhrmann's latest film Australia, released in cinemas on Friday December 26. The hunky actor talks about horsing around on set and his reaction to being named Sexiest Man Alive.

He jokingly brags about being named People magazine's Sexiest Man Alive 2008 but the married father-of-two is actually a bit shy and embarrassed about the title.

Asked if he'd been presented with some sort of trophy, 40-year-old Hugh blushes and looks at the floor.

"No, you just get a whole lot o' hell from ya mates, that's what you get," he says.

The star of X-Men and Van Helsing returned to his home country to shoot Baz Luhrmann's romantic epic Australia, in which he plays cattle-herder The Drover opposite Nicole Kidman as a prim and proper English aristocrat.

The film includes a slow motion close-up of Hugh showering in the outback, his naked torso glistening with soap suds.

"I think we used about eight films' worth in that one shot," he laughs.

"I remember shooting that scene and Baz and I talked about the process. I said, 'Baz mate are you sure about this?' Because I was standing there and he had positioned me in the light in a way that may have looked comfortable but wasn't. And by the way true - historically accurate. That was exactly how they took a shower back then. I'm joking! Anyway, I'm in slow motion! The camera's not in slow motion, that's me."

Hugh says he was unsure about the scene, but persevered with the director's vision.

"I said 'Baz, I know what we're going for. I understand the comedy here. And Baz said 'As long as we're 100% bold with it, it will work'.

"It was emblematic of how the process was with Baz because it was bold in every way. In terms of drama, in terms of action, in terms of romance.

"Even the first kiss between me and Nicole. We did it once and Baz said, 'Do it again but even slower'. And I thought we were REALLY slow.

"And then when I saw it for the first time sitting next to my wife it seemed EVEN slower."

Hugh's wife of 12 years, Australian actress Deborra-Lee Furness - with whom he has two adopted children, Oscar, eight and Ava, three - has been friends with Nicole for many years, which he said made the kiss even more uncomfortable.

So how did Deborra react to Hugh's Sexiest Man Alive achievement?

"The very first thing Debs said was 'I knew it! I knew I'd married the sexiest man alive'," he chuckles.

But she was also curious to find out how he managed to win the title, Hugh admits.

"She said, 'Is it readers, is it votes, is it the editors?' I said, 'I think it's the editors or whoever they are, I think there's a think tank of people, they get together and they throw out photos and work out whose publicist they're on good terms with and things like that and then they decide'.

"And she said, 'So anyone can get it... and Brad Pitt didn't get it?'

"I said, 'That was a joke, right?' and she said 'Oh yeah... of course'."

While Australia may star the Sexiest Man Alive and an Oscar-winning beautiful leading lady, it's more than just a love story.

The film is narrated by young Aborigine boy Nullah - played by 13-year-old Brandon Walters - and revolves around the story of the Aboriginal children taken from their mothers in Australia until the late 60s and placed in the care of the church for what the authorities claimed was their own good.

This struck a chord with Hugh.

"The centre of the story about the Stolen Generation is something that at high school I never heard about," he says.

"It seems inconceivable to me now and was when I went to university and started hearing about it. But I went to a high school and there was not one Aboriginal kid at it. I didn't know any Aborigines really.

"I went to university I started learning and when I was about 19 I spent some time in the Outback up in this ridge for about three or four months. That's when I really started to understand the culture and met people and had friends, Aboriginal friends. And then this film really deepened the whole experience for on a very profound way."

Hugh was able to explore the culture and history of his country while making the film, and share the experience with his son.

"We were living on the set in a location that even if you are the most adventurous, you'd probably never get out there," he says.

"Baz and I we had our caravans out there, we had open fires outside.

"My son would he would sleep out there with me and then he would do schooling the next day and he would join in with the Aboriginal kids on set."

Hugh might be famous for his action roles but Nicole Kidman has revealed that he's not as hard as he looks.

"Yes, I was the first to faint on set and it was unfortunately on the first day pretty much of filming on location," he confesses.

"Which is not the most macho way to start, particularly when we were in the Outback and they were many of the real deal out there as well.

"But we were shooting in, I don't know what temperature it was but it's incredibly hot.

"I was waiting to get on my horse ready to go, first scene and of course they said 'We're ready for you Mr Jackman' and I said 'Oh great'.

"Actually they didn't say 'Mr Jackman', what am I talking about! That's in America. They said 'Oi! You! Get up on the horse!'

"So I got up on the horse and I'm ready to go. I'm wearing a woollen shirt leather pants an all-weather jacket with lining in it and a hat and a horse who got particularly spooked by umbrellas, so no umbrellas, I was just sitting in the sun.

"After half an hour I was getting pretty hot.

"Then I felt a hand in my back and I remember saying 'What are you doing?' and he said 'What am I doing mate, you're at a 45 degree angle to the horse'

"Some guy who was an extra, who was meant to be one of the guys telling me to stop was like holding me and I'm falling. So a few people helped me down and CM [costume designer Catherine Martin, Baz Luhrmann's wife] very graciously cut the jacket out of most of the shoot from that point on."

Hugh says he loved subverting the stereotype of the tough Aussie bloke with his character, who shows love and also acts as a father figure to Nullah.

"I think one thing that's really resonated with me and a lot of my mates who have seen the film - when they stopped giving me crap about the Sexiest Man Alive thing - they see The Drover character's relationship with that young boy.

"For Australian people my age, the generation above us were also emotionally quite removed, in general. And so that side of the story has been something that I'm thrilled is in there.

"The whole idea of being an ultra-masculine character and being reserved and tightly-wound emotionally is erroneous to me," he says.

"I think it's actually more manly to be able to be more vulnerable at times. When you feel it, to show your emotions.

"In this character we start with the very archetypically macho, very shut off outsider, this male who gradually becomes more and more involved and vulnerable and that to be able to play that on film in such a big scale movie I was thrilled with. I loved it."

HUGH JACKMAN - EXTRA TIME

Hugh Jackman was born in Sydney on October 12, 1968, to English parents.

He met his wife when they were filming TV prison drama Corelli in 1995 and they got married in 1996.

Hugh says his wife was very happy to have him home after he shot the scenes where his character smartens up to go to a ball.

"That one worked for my wife, that's for sure," he says.

"When I wore that double-breasted white jacket she said 'Wear your costume home tonight'. She didn't say that about my other smelly costume."

There was a fair amount of macho bonding on set.

"Working with Bryan [Brown] and Jack [Thompson] - I'm not sure if any of them are tales that we can tell," Hugh laughs.

"Filming on location, as the sun went down the only thing we had was a bar and a pool table so it's kind of miraculous we actually got consecutive days in really."

Australia is released in UK cinemas on December 26.