INT: Hugh Jackman

Hugh
Jackman is a very busy man. He
has appeared in six… yep, SIX films this year alone including
X-MEN 3: THE LAST STAND and THE PRESTIGE.
He also lent his voice talent to the animated films FLUSHED
AWAY and HAPPY FEET. In THE
FOUNTAIN, he plays a man desperate to hold on to the love of
his life, for an eternity (literally).
In what may be his strongest performance to date, he faces
eternal life and the death of a loved one.

I
got to speak to Mr. Jackman… a couple of weeks ago.
And now I got to talk to him about the fountain of youth and
working with director Darren Aronofsky, when he stopped by the
Beverly Wilshire Hotel in

Beverly Hills

. This is one of the nicest
guys in

Hollywood

. He is sincere, funny
as hell and an all around cool guy. I’ve
got a feeling this guy make actually go somewhere…

Hugh
Jackman

You
don’t do much press lately Hugh… [Laughing]

I’m
very private. [Laughing]
I’m trying to keep the mystery.

Haven’t
seen you for a couple weeks…

I’ve
gotta tell ya man, about a month ago I thought, “If these movies
suck, I’ll never work again.”
[Laughing]

At
least you’ve had a busy year.

It’s
been busy, that’s true.

Is
it a coincidence they all kind of collide together…?

Coincidence…
The Fountain finished we finished in February almost two years ago.
And the animated movies I’ve been working on for three
years so…

I’m
starting to read into the fact that you have better luck with
animated loves that don’t seem to die.
[Laughter]

I
like to think that in my private life it’s all perfect so I can
play with it in my work.

I
think people are going to see you in this film doing stuff you’ve
never done before.

True.

I’m
curious as to where did that all come from and how did you get
there? I mean some of
those scenes are so raw.

Well,
yeah they were raw. But
we worked a lot on them and I think I had a great relationship with
Rachel [Weisz]
and with the director [Darren Aronofsky] and he wanted me to be…
this is a guy dealing with the death of his wife I mean, it’s
pretty full on, you know. And
the script was very weighty so I thought finally I had a script
which took me emotionally to my limit.
And the script was equal to that, you know what I mean?
There’s no point in putting it all out there on a script
that really doesn’t demand it and this one did.

That’s
really what this character is about, in every way, he fights till
the end, that conquistador mentality, nothing will stop him.
And so ah… I don’t know; it was… there were a couple of
scenes in there that were pretty full on and I find it uncomfortable
watching them. Well,
when you’re in there and you’re doing it and you create an
atmosphere, helping Darren create an atmosphere which is very
private which is how a film should always be.
Then all of a sudden the cameras and people all go away…
it’s private. Like
tonight I’ll see it at Mann’s Chinese Theatre and I’m sure
I’ll be like ehhh [Grimacing].

You’re
pretty out there…

Yeah
it’s pretty out there. Darren
said to me – he was watching the dailies, “Oh, I’ve got this
great daily I don’t think I can use.”
I said, “What?” and he said, “You’re crying so much
that you have snot coming out of your nose and it goes into this
bubble.” [Laughing] And I said, “You’re really happy about
that?” “Yeah, it’s awesome.
It’s never been seen on film before!” [Laughter] “Snot
bubbles!” It didn’t make the film luckily.

You
could say this is basically a two character movie, basically about
you and Rachel…

It’s
a love story.

What’s
different? Was it more
like a play in that sense?

No,
because if you think of… almost a third of the movie I’m on my
own. For a lot of it,
you know, like in the spaceship.
It’s very unlike a play, in structure or even in dialogue.
It’s not… it’s fairly sparse in dialogue in fact and we
repeat a lot of the same scenes.
It is, your right, ultimately a two [character]… it’s a
love story. It’s very
romantic and I think it’s a very romantic movie between these two.
And it’s ah… I don’t know, I love it and when I
finished filming it I [hoped] when people see it, when they leave
the theatre, whoever their with, whether they go home with their
wife or partner or kid or dog, whatever it is, whatever matters to
them, that they think more about that connection… connecting.
Which is a lot of what the films about; we don’t always
connect and see the real person.

You
know, Darren mentioned that you were the person that said to him
that Rachel should be in the movie… that he hadn’t really
considered her once that part was being re-cast.
What made you suggest her over the other actresses?

She
seemed perfect for me. And
proved to be, I’d meet her a few times, I’d seen a lot of her
work on film, on stage as well and she…
I think she could just do anything.
I remember at the time, it was before THE CONSTANT GARDENER,
I just thought people hadn’t seen all the things she could do yet.
She is very much a “heart” based person, she’s very
caring.

As
you interviewed her, she’s very present and very there.
I always saw that part having a lot of weight to it –
please don’t transpose that literally, she’s a very [slim] woman
[Laughing]. She’s the
emotional core of that movie. She’s
the heart of that movie. And
the movie would not work unless she… which she did pull off, that
feeling of being okay with dying.
I mean this is not easy stuff to pull off for an actor and I
just knew she would do it and I…

We
were talking about names for quite awhile, for two or three days we
were talking about names and finally I said, “Darren, what about
Rachel?” and he kind of said, well I didn’t even wanna go there
because we’re together. I
didn’t want you to think, Oh, he’s just gonna cast his, you
know, I didn’t want the people at the studio to think, oh, you
know… this, us two had to have such a connection and closeness
on-screen that he didn’t want me to freak out, you know, how am I
gonna do that when her boyfriend’s right there… but he said that
was fine and I knew that was fine so…

But
you actually suggesting it sort of opened the door for him to
consider it.

Yeah.
I mean, I think in his heart of hearts he’d always thought
she’d be right but probably thought, well that’s never gonna
fly.

In
terms of preparing for the role, in addition to the script Darren
had also made this graphic novel version of the story.
Did you look at it at all or did you look at it after you
played the part?

It
wasn’t finished. I’d
seen the artwork but the actual book was finished after we finished
the film. He told you
why he did that book right? If
the movie fell over at least I’ll have the novel.
And when he was approached – the graphic novel is
beautiful, if you look at the graphic novel you can see how the
script evolved over the time when Brad Pitt fell out of it, you
know, three years it evolved a lot.

You’ve
done films that require a lot of physicality, this is really
significant… great emotional moments.
When you go through the day working on physical and emotional
moments, does one drain you more than the other?

Oh,
by the way, this was probably the most physical role I’ve ever
done. I know it probably
looks easy but I don’t know if you’d tried to get into the lotus
position [Laughing]… And tai chi, I did tai chi for a year in
order to pull off what is ultimately about ten seconds of film.
And the last three days of shooting I was in the lotus
position, twenty feet under water, locked into this bar, I was
underwater for eight hours a day.

And
the lotus position took me fourteen months to get.
I did an hour and a half a day of yoga to be able to get
there without… cause you know, you could easily injure yourself,
you’re knee can just go like that [Snap].
It took me a long time to do it, however getting back to your
question. There were
some, I remember one day going to my trailer at lunchtime, so tired
I couldn’t even eat just falling asleep, just lying down on the
floor. And I didn’t
have my family with me because I get home and I just go straight to
bed. And I’ll be up,
whatever four doing yoga for an hour and a half then go to work.
It was a very sort of monastic life during the film, it was
very sort of monk like.

About
a month ago, we spoke last; you said that you might have some news
on who you would prefer to direct WOLVERINE…

Yeah.

Recently
Bryan [Singer] said that he’s been offered to do WOLVERINE and
doing some more research I’m hearing that it’s been you hoping
to get

Bryan

to direct, is that accurate?

Well
the… [Uncomfortable pause, then laughing] the thing is, it’s all
in negotiation, I can’t really – there’s a list of, you know,

Bryan

’s sort of at the beginning of, so you know of course he’s in
the loop. So, it is too
early for me to say.

The
fact that he’s talking about it, is that kind of…

I
think it’s great, you know, so we’ll see the way we go.
Now we have the script, now we really need to work out
who’s the best person for it.
You know,

Bryan

’s always been in the loop, for us.

Is
the plan still to shoot mid-year, next year?

No…
I meant to finish Baz’s [Luhrmann]
movie end of August. My
guess is that my… you know, Baz might just go… but who knows.
I think we’ll go for beginning of 08.
That way, I need to have my idea for Wolverine, I wanna have
four months cleared before I start shooting because I wanna be in
the shape, the physical shape that I’ve never been before for that
movie.

Does
Baz’s movie have a title yet?

No.
I read a script yesterday, UNTITLED AUSTRALIAN EPIC
[Laughing]. So, no.

So
the Baz film will start shooting in February?

We
start shooting in March. And
we work together… there’s a name he calls it, it’s not
workshop, it’s not rehearsals, I don’t even… but anyway, that
period is about four, five, six weeks we’ll all be working
together.

You’re
character in THE FOUNTAIN, he obviously, you have in the two
different periods, the present and the future; he’s gone through a
lot between those two different periods.
Did you do the present sequence before the scenes in the
future?

Yeah,
present, [the] conquistador and then the future because of the look.
We really had to create very different looks… It was a
shame because I was growing a beard because I remember seeing all
these pictures of Brad and I thought, well that’s great, have that
beard and not have a piece. And
of course we had to shoot the present so it gave me, like, ten days
to grow a beard. I was
like, “Oh no, I can’t do that.” [Laughing]

You
dropped quite a bit of weight for the future scenes.

Yeah,
well I dropped quite a lot of weight for the whole thing.
But particularly the future, yeah I was pretty lean.
Darren really wanted for me to be lean, as lean as I could
be. I was working so
hard I wasn’t that hungry. But,
I didn’t answer your question.

Just
in terms of the sequence, how you played them, did that give you
time to sort of think about how the later performance would be
different than you played him in the present?

Oh,
we’d already… I said we had a year.
We were going to physically work out all the characters.
I knew when we started filming, all those characters and
physically I wanted to make a statement with them all like,
Tommy’s a bit like a question mark, always hunched over, always
working underground his lab is underground – that feeling of
weight, always sort of looking down, the world on his shoulders.

And
conquistador physically is very upright but his head is forward like
the blinkers are on, nothing will stop him.
Whereas, Tom in the future is much more Zen like.
He’s worked out; even though he’s still haunted by all of
this… he’s still motivated.
He’s got the same motivations in a way but he’s worked
out how to maintain his body at the optimum level.
He does Tai chi, yoga, he meditates, he’s more Zen’d out.
He’s still fighting.

Do
mind if we ask about the rings? [In reference to the rings he wears
on his fingers]

Yeah…
it’s so funny, I was joking with my wife, I really don’t like
jewelry but all of a sudden I’ve become like… [Showing off his
rings to laughter]

Ring
man.

Literally
in the last month I’ve acquired these three things.
I lost three wedding rings in three different oceans all over
the world and I got this for my birthday [Showing off his wedding
ring], that’s my wedding ring… that’s my fourth.
I got this [bracelet] because my wife is sick of buying me
wedding rings so she bought me a bracelet that she liked so that it
would never come off. And
for our production company, the three of us, my wife, John Palermo
and I – my partner John gave us, the three of us a ring to wear
with an inscription which means unity but it’s just our production
company. I have all
these badges on.

Going
back to the physical part… when you start doing a role do you
start with creating the physical look of the character or does that
come after?

When
I started acting we effectively followed, I learned the Stanislavski
method, which is by the way very different from the Strausberg which
is an off shoot of a famous Stanislavski book which is all about the
internal, building a character from the inside, understanding
emotions and psychological aspect of the person.
Twenty years later, because of the difference in the
countries, twenty years later in

America

, another book of Stanislavski was published called “Building a
Character” which is literally, putting on funny noses, having a
cane… And so Stanislavski was in fact a proponent of two methods,
from the inside out, and from the outside in.
And I’ve used both methods in varying degrees and always
use both. But, it’s
funny, when I see a lot of this method acting, which is… they say
it’s all Stanislavski, and I’m like, you’ve only got half of
it. You know it’s much
more effective to use both. And
each character you do has a different mix.

Let
me know what you think. Send
questions and comments to [email protected].