2006 was Hugh's most prolific film year!

[jo]

Ten years ago!

The following films starring Hugh Jackman were released in 2006.

*XMen : The Last Stand
*Flushed Away
*Scoop
*Happy Feet
*The Fountain
*The Prestige

Which one has stood the test of time?

Which one is your favorite?

Which one is a guilty pleasure?

Which one was Hugh's best acting performance?




Jo

[jo]

Even then, Hugh's versatility was well-displayed, in terms of film genres --

Action ( XMen: Last Stand)
Animation - voiceover work ( Flushed Away, Happy Feet)
Dark Comedy ( Scoop)
Drama - thriller ( The Prestige)
Drama - metaphysical/romance ( The Fountain)


LOL - you can rename my clssifications


Jo

[jo]

The period which came close to a similar variety of film releases for Hugh Jackman was the period between December 2012 and September of 2013 :

*Dramatic musical ( Les Miserables)
*Action ( The Wolverine)
*Drama - thriller ( Prisoners)




When will we see another excellent parade of genres?


Hopefully, in 2017 the two announced releases will be among his most noteworthy performances and topnotch quality films!

*Wolverine 3 ( still untitled) - action
*The Greatest Showman on Earth - dramatic musical



Jo

[carouselkathy]

I love FLUSHED AWAY. I've shown it to my students as a reward for excellent behavior. As far a performances go, I'd say that THE FOUNTAIN and LES MIZ are best, although THE PRESTIGE did not get the acclaim it deserved. Of the X-MEN films, the first is my favorite. Saving the best for last....O-K-L-A-H-O-M-A!

CAROUSEL was a concert, and has a separate classification, but Hugh and Audra together.....the best!

[jo]

You're cheating, Kathy

Oklahoma! was not a regular movie but a filmed performance of a stage musical

But I fully agree with you that it does hold a very special place in our hearts, even if that was filmed in 1999! To me, it was the very first time that I had seen the stage musical, not even knowing who that stage actor playing Curly was ( but he had a commanding stage presence... and a powerful, lung-busting legit stage singing voice) ... It took me a few years to realize that the fresh-faced and freshly-minted international performer that I had seen was THE Hugh Jackman! I missed seeing the very first XMen movie on the big screen because I thought he only belonged to the West End and I was waiting for him to come back to London!

But thanks to Trevor Nunn's creative instinct ( he knew that he has a version of Oklahoma! that will stand the test of time ... and will even be used in many schools to inspire student productions of the iconic musical) and his perseverance to find the funding ( at that time, from my recollection of a report of the defunct Kodak company which provided the filming cameras, the filming of the stage production already cost approx. $ 4 million, in 1999 dollars) - we have a recording that we can watch as often as we are inspired to revisit it


Re FLUSHED AWAY -- it is a guilty pleasure! I remember one of my young relatives ( whom I had shown the movie to -- although she was eventually promoted in taste to the first film release of Les Miserables) had asked me if she can borrow my copy because she wanted to show it to her cousins who were visiting from the USA!

Btw, did you notice towards the beginning of the movie when Roddy was trying to choose which of his extensive wardrobe to wear ( he was a spoiled pet!) that one of his choices ( which he discarded!) was a familiar-looking "yellow and blue" jumpsuit ... Maybe he was missing the claws, which was why he discarded it as his choice for the day

THE FOUNTAIN is one of the projects that Hugh had been extremely proud of! He was once asked about it, and right away, he put his right hand over his heart, as a silent acknowledgement of what it meant to him! THE PRESTIGE is actually rated by many ( at least by IMDB readers) as their favorite Jackman film because not only is it a well-written and well-acted movie but because also of the Chris Nolan connection.

Another guilty pleasure for me among the 2016 movies is SCOOP -- maybe because it evokes scenes of London, which I have visited many, many times in the past...and because Hugh is portrayed as a suave aristocrat who has a dark past ( and present). It must have been the shortest shoot in his film career ( after CHAPPIE, which took him only about 2 weeks to film his part) as it only took a short time to film in London. It was actually a filler movie because his originally scheduled film drama where he plays a German intellectual with Nazi connections failed to get its funding requirements and Hugh had time to move on to another project.


Jo

[jo]

For your lucky students, Kathy




Now, if I can only find a clip of Roddy and Rita singing


Aha -- found it!





Jo

[jo]

And the unexpected image worth several giggles ( with a SNIKT! ) --

[carouselkathy]

Aug 19, 2016 21:06:18 GMT -5 jo said:

And the unexpected image worth several giggles ( with a SNIKT! ) --

I always laugh out loud at this part! My students don't get it because they're not as familiar with the comic book Wolverine. I'm changing from 4th grade back to 1st grade this year, so we will see if the younger ones are ready for Roddy!

[jo]

Here's an old interview article from 2006 !


film.guardian.co.uk/featu...29,00.html

'Well, I am a big old ham ...'

As Hugh Jackman prepares to play a showbiz magician, he talks to Ryan Gilbey about working with Woody Allen, shaking off paparazzi and crying on stage



Wednesday November 8, 2006

Hugh Jackman is a charismatic, intuitive actor - and better than ever in Christopher Nolan's new thriller, The Prestige, in which he stars as a Victorian magician who goes to extreme lengths to out-do his closest rival. But off screen, Jackman says, he is Mogadon made flesh. Very boring. "If I was someone else," says the 38-year-old Australian, "and I went to a dinner party, I wouldn't want to find myself sitting next to Hugh Jackman. My story's pretty dull."

Plenty of people would beg to differ. There are the comic-book nuts who worship the actor for bringing to life Wolverine, the steel-clawed mutant with the look of a disgruntled Deep Purple roadie, in the X-Men trilogy. There are the musical theatre buffs who caught him on Broadway as Peter Allen, the late singer-songwriter and former Mr Liza Minnelli, in The Boy from Oz, which won Jackman a Tony award in 2004. And there are those who are simply grateful that there's an actor around to pull off romantic roles, such as the time-travelling 19th-century duke in Kate & Leopold (2001), with dignity and wit. He is a sort of suave alternative to Russell Crowe - agreeable rather than aggressive, tender not tenderised.

He says that this versatility as an actor can be attributed partly to how ordinary he is. "The more the public knows about you, the more baggage they bring to your movies. So it's best not to give too much away. With me, it's not a strategy. I'm happily married [to the actress Deborra-Lee Furness], I have two children whom I love - there's nothing for the tabloids to get hold of."

When Jackman arrived in London last weekend, along with fellow Prestige cast members Scarlett Johansson and Michael Caine, and left his hotel at 8am, Jackman's driver pointed out that they were being followed by two paparazzi. "They'll be on your tail all day," he assured him. "Nah," the actor replied, "I'll lose 'em." And he did. All it took was lunch with a friend, then a trip to the gym, and they had scarpered. "The driver asked me, 'How did you do it?' I said, 'It's because I'm boring.' They were probably heading back to the hotel going, 'Christ, when's Scarlett going to get up?' I feel for 'em, man, I really do."

It's this kind of self-deprecation that makes Jackman's work in The Prestige so startling. As good as Christian Bale is, as the illusionist with whom Jackman engages in ever-bloodier competition, he is his usual surly and downcast self; audiences might demand a refund if Bale ever got round to cracking a smile. Jackman plays Angier as nakedly vulnerable. Certain scenes allow him to camp it up, riffing on his own showbiz persona ("Well, I am a big old ham," he shrugs). But he leaves us with a moving portrayal of a man simultaneously amplified and destroyed by his own ambition. "I love it that Angier is a genuine entertainer. He lives to make people happy, to see the wonder in their eyes. You get that with many magicians. The most cynical people turn into children in front of a great magic trick. That gives you a taste for power."

He confesses to feeling something similar on stage. "The applause is great. To never get that level of appreciation must be very difficult unless you're the Dalai Lama. Most of us are operating on some sort of dysfunction. In the theatre, you usually get this moment that raises the hair on the back of your neck. You become connected with the audience, even though you're strangers. You've become so intimate, you've shared your innermost self with them, and maybe they've fallen in love with your character." He moves his hands in the air as though trying to grab hold of these amorphous emotions. "It's happened to me several times, and I remember thinking, 'If I never step on stage again, if I never recapture this feeling, it will be okay because of tonight.' But, of course, you keep striving for it."

Jackman says he first experienced this at drama school. "I remember singing on stage, and everything suddenly connected - the song, the physicality of performing, the audience. I sat down afterwards and wanted to cry. I couldn't cope with the emotion of it."

The youngest of five children, he grew up in Sydney, and was raised by his father from the age of eight after his mother, with whom he has since been reunited, returned to her native England. He initially wanted to be a journalist, but after studying acting in Sydney and Perth, landed a few parts on Australian television that led to high-profile stage work, such as playing Gaston in Beauty and the Beast ("I got to be as arrogant as I possibly could for two hours a night" . In 1998, Trevor Nunn cast him as Curly McBain in Oklahoma! at the National Theatre. "Trevor shaped the way I approach acting," he says. "He told me, 'Do everything that comes along but don't do anything for the money.'"

Nothing on Jackman's CV suggests that he has strayed far from this advice. Filming X-Men (2000), he relished the freedom that the director Bryan Singer gave him to improvise. Remember that scene where Wolverine is deriding the idea of superhero nicknames? He turns to Professor X, who is in a wheelchair, and snorts: "What do they call you? 'Wheels'?" Sharpest line in the picture, and all Jackman's own work. You can't even begrudge him dumbed-down popcorn movies like Swordfish (2001) or Van Helsing (2004) because he's clearly having such a hoot.

Nevertheless, I wonder if film acting brings him the same intensity he has felt on stage. "You can find a close equivalent," he decides after prolonged thought. "In the scenes with Christian in The Prestige, you could feel this hush descending over the entire soundstage. Everyone would get drawn in, no matter what they were doing. And then you know you've got it, you've transcended the words on the page, the marks on the floor." But even this doesn't equal the thrill of theatre. "Nothing has ever really eclipsed for me those special moments. If I gave you my top 10 acting experiences, they'd all be on the stage."

Clearly, Jackman has not abandoned hope of finding a film role worthy of inclusion in that top 10. He babbles excitedly about shooting The Fountain with Darren Aronofsky, director of Requiem for a Dream (2000). The production collapsed after the original lead actor, Brad Pitt, abandoned ship. But Jackman was thrilled by the promise that Aronofsky made to him. "He told me, 'I'm going to ask more of you as an actor than anyone has ever asked before.'" This was true in the most literal sense, since the film incorporates three plot strands, with Jackman playing a trio of lead roles: a 16th-century Spanish explorer, a man trying to find a cure for his wife's brain tumour, and a 26th-century space traveller floating in a bubble with only a dying tree for company. "This is not your ordinary, formulaic movie," he points out, unnecessarily.

The film sparked fisticuffs between its admirers and detractors when it premiered at the Venice Film festival in September, but Jackman is unequivocal in his admiration for it. "If five billion people booed it, I'd still say it was an amazing piece of work. The kind of challenge that The Fountain represented for me is what I'm all about as an actor. It's the opposite that scares me - the idea of 'get in, shoot it, get out'. I'm terrified of mediocrity, of sleepwalking from one job to the next. It would be so wasteful."

Also awaiting release is Woody Allen's London-set comedy Scoop, in which Jackman stars as a suspected serial killer being investigated by a young journalist (Johansson again). "That was fun right from my first encounter with Woody," he beams. "You get told he wants to see you, but that it'll only be a two-minute meeting, no matter how good you are. Well, I got three minutes, so I figured I was doing well. He said, 'Here's the script.'" At this point, Jackman picks up my note pad and offers it to me, then withdraws it when I try to take it from him. "It was like he didn't want me to have it! He said, 'I'd like you to read the script. You've probably got more important things to do, but if you don't - and you probably do - but if you don't, and you like it, which you won't, but if you do, I'd love you to play the part.'"

Next year, he'll shoot both an X-Men prequel called Wolverine, and an as-yet untitled romantic epic set in the Australian outback, directed by Baz Luhrmann. Such is Jackman's work rate that it may soon be quicker to list those films in which he is not appearing. For starters, he has definitely not been cast in Wong Kar-Wai's new picture, despite rumours to the contrary. "No, I'm not in it," he chuckles. "But I'd love to be. I heard that rumour, too. I just hope it gets back to him. Can you make sure you print it?"

The Prestige is released on Friday. The Fountain and Scoop are released next year.

[jo]

I just found a cache of great articles re THE FOUNTAIN --

Here's one --

www.darkhorizons.com/news06/fountain.php

Exclusive Interview: Hugh Jackman
"The Fountain"
Posted: Friday, November 17th 2006 12:32AM
Author: Paul Fischer

Hugh Jackman never changes. He may have been doing interviews for hours on end but at the tail end of a busy day, Jackman remains as affable as ever. And it seems as if one of the busiest actors in the world has had his career given to him with greater ease than most.

Surprisingly, the actor, who is currently starring in the unusual romantic drama The Fountain, agrees. " I'm still shocked at the opportunities I've had, whether it's singing at Carnegie Hall, Broadway, hosting the Tony Awards or all these different things, or these movies or... It's amazing to me, and in fact has helped me do it because I think I would have been far more nervous or overwhelmed by it if I'd always wanted to have it, but I kind of had that thing of, hey, if I never get asked to host the Tony Awards again that's okay, because what a great opportunity."

Jackman is busy as a movie star, producer, husband and father or two, yet in a town riddled with insecurities, the 38-year old Australian manages to balance his frequently chaotic life and still remain genuinely grounded. "There are a few things that I have to do everyday that without which I will lose the plot," the actor says, laughingly. "Firstly I meditate everyday, and that brings me back to the essential me, where no matter what role I'm playing you forget it all for a little bit twice a day. Then of course my wife and family are a very big part of anchoring me to what is essentially the most important thing to me which is their well being and our happiness. I've realized that if you're doing something you love, that's amazing to watch, but you can do twice as much because you just love it, you have passion, it's not exhausting, you don't complain about it or you don't get sick.

None of those things really happen because essentially you're really turned on all the time and mentally you're really challenged. So I don't get it right all the time. Quite often I get a feeling of being a bit overwhelmed, but I'm just in this bit of a purple patch at the moment ,I suppose ,where the opportunities I'm being offered are really exciting to me."

That is clearly an understatement, and the roles are getting meatier and more diverse and challenging. Take The Fountain, the ethereal romantic drama in which Jackman plays three incarnations of the same character in his quest for eternal youth and the love of his life - or lives. The film, from visionary director Darren Aronofsky, involves three parallel stories about love, death, spirituality, and the fragility of existence--as told through the odyssey taken on by one man in his thousand-year struggle to save the woman he loves, played by Rachel Weisz.

His epic journey begins in 16th-century Spain, where, as conquistador Tomas Creo, he commences his search for the 'Tree of Life', the legendary entity believed to grant eternal life to those who drink of its sap. As modern-day scientist Tommy Creo, he desperately struggles to find a cure for the cancer that is killing his beloved wife Isabel. Traveling through deep space as a 26th-century astronaut, Tom begins to grasp the mysteries of life that have consumed him for more than a century.

Jackman, who first met Aronofsky when he was on the road to stardom, says that, in the case of The Fountain, there was no question of him taking on this complex and unique project. "When I read the script I was so blown away by it, I was crying at the end., though I didn't fully understand it on the first read through," Jackson laughingly concedes. "But I got the feeling of what he was trying to say and it really moved me. Now I understand movies and with a lot of scripts I get 'em within the first ten minutes, but they don't move me. This is the first time I've ever cried reading a script. I also found it very engaging, and I did find myself flicking backwards and forwards a little bit."

Jackman says that he found himself identifying most with the isolated astronaut of the future. "I think if I wasn't married to the wife, I have quite monkish tendencies. I quite like being very simple, quiet, and a bit of my father's son, very disciplined," he explains. "I just sort of like that calmness, that order, and also that philosophical pursuit I suppose. Out of all the three characters, the one near the end is a little more Zenned out, he's doing his Tai Chi and his yoga everything about optimum health." Yet he also adds that all of the three characters still remained very different from the actor. "I know a lot of people who are really myopic and I'm not. I ask opinions from people, I'm terrible at decision making and whilst I'm a hard worker I am not a Conquistador sort of spirit, but rather waver a little more."

And Jackman is hardly as obsessive as the doctor in the film. "I love acting, I do work hard, and the opportunities I'm getting at the moment are really exciting to me, so probably it's easy for people to say, oh, god, he's a bit obsessed with acting or a workaholic. But you don't always get opportunities that good, and I think it's just irresistible. It's sort of like if on a weekend, you get three brilliant parties to go to and you go well I've got to go. You may not be a big party person but they're just great invitations. So I don't think I'm nearly as obsessive, and I think I admire people who are and I kind of admired the character I played."

Fans and admirers of Jackman's work will get to see a far more raw and emotional side to the actor we have not yet seen. Getting to those places, the actor recalls, was a challenge in itself. "I find it a bit uncomfortable to watch some of those scenes in this movie because I think with Darren's help we achieved an atmosphere on set that was very private. I had never had an opportunity to play a scene like that which required that rawness. Emotionally it can get very draining, but if there's a way you can open yourself up emotionally with using that as little as possible that's a good thing. I did have a genuinely wonderful relationship with Rachel as an actress, and also with Darren. He created an atmosphere that I felt very at home or held or trusted, but I'm also slightly reluctant to give you details of how I do it. In a few years or in a year I'll tell you how, but I'd hate people who read this to go: oh, he's thinking about his wife, about death, or his kid."

Though Jackman does admit those thoughts are not far from his mind playing emotional scenes in a film such as this. "I mean I think anyone who has loved or has a kid or wife or whatever, you feel you'll do anything, if you could. You know, there are stories all the time of people jumping in front of buses, lifting cars, so human possibilities are immense. But of course as an actor you put yourself in that situation, but it's a funny mix of techniques I suppose."

Jackman has evolved in more ways than one since doing press for the little known Australian film The Erskineville Kings. Back then, there was little hint of what was to come, no Broadway, X-men or Hollywood fame. The first clue in his mind that his career would do so well was as he headed off to do Oklahoma in London. "I think when I went to the National Theatre I dreamed about that, going to London and being onstage, and when I finished that I was kind of like what next? Either I didn't have the guts or I just hadn't really thought about beyond that that much. I mean every time I went to Hollywood I would go for a period of time but I wasn't going to just stay there no matter what. I mean here's the difference between the character I play in The Fountain and me, in that it wasn't that important for me to slog my guts out and go through a lot of hardship; I wouldn't flog a dead horse, shall we say, so I had no idea it was going to end this way. My wife said it early on that she knew."

And Jackman's career is going from strength to strength. He will soon start shooting Baz Luhrmann' s untitled Australian period epic on location in Western Australia. "I'm so excited by it and working with Nicole and Baz is going to be amazing. The head of Fox said to me, Hugh, I've seen a lot of stuff and I know you well and he said, this is your Casablanca, this is a role of a lifetime. And it is a wonderful role. "We start in February working doing horse riding and all that sort of stuff, and I think it's mid-March when we shoot." Then there's the much hyped Wolverine, confirming a start date in '08. "The script is done and better than the other three. It's a prequel, which deals with his origins, so we've just got to find a director now.[/quqote]

[jo]

And two more --


www.nydailynews.com/entertainment/movies/story/472419p-397488c.html

Hot water

In 'The Fountain,' Hugh Jackman and Rachel Weisz
get wet and wild

BY BRANTLEY BARDIN

'We have a connection,' Weisz says of Jackman.

Hugh Jackman and Rachel Weisz are ill-fated lovers in 'The Fountain.'

Hugh Jackman and Rachel Weisz are both gorgeous and smart, and both have built blue-chip careers in films and theater that zigzag from popcorn epics to character studies to artsy fare - which is where "The Fountain," opening Wednesday, comes in. It's one movie that tackles all three styles at once.
The film is a visually trippy, wildly time-skipping experience that juggles a trio of love stories (all starring Jackman and Weisz) over a span of 1,000 years - from a conquistador's search for the Tree of Life, to a present-day scientist's search for a cure to save his dying wife, to a 26th century "Space Odyssey"-like quest. Writer-director Darren Aronofsky says his aim for "The Fountain" was "a rumination on the search for what makes us people. It's about love, our right to die and being in the moment."

The moment is good for the "Fountain" stars. Weisz, 35, is the London-born Cambridge alum who first gained stateside fame as a brainy damsel in distress in 1999's "The Mummy," and after films like "Enemy at the Gates," "The Shape of Things" and "Runaway Jury," she won a Best Supporting Actress Oscar this year for "The Constant Gardener."

As for Jackman, the 38-year-old Aussie cut a path to stardom as blade-handed mutant Wolverine beginning with 2000's "X-Men," then played a monster hunter in "Van Helsing" and gay icon Peter Allen on Broadway in "The Boy From Oz" (which won him a Tony for Best Actor in a Musical). This year alone, Jackman has appeared in "Scoop" and "The Prestige" and is a voice in the animated flicks "Flushed Away" and "Happy Feet."

Serious credits aside, when the actors enter a Beverly Hills hotel suite, they leave pretension at the door: Moments after Weisz takes her seat, she must excuse herself - to go to the loo.

Hugh Jackman: Well, I'm glad we got that [Weisz saying she needed to use the ladies' room] on tape!

"The Fountain" is thought-provoking and tricky, and it went through a lot of actors before you both signed on. What drew you to it?

HJ: The moment when I was reading the script and cried when I got to the end - which I'd never done before. I mean, I didn't fully get it 100% on the first reading, but I felt it here [hitting his heart]. It was here that I got it. It left me with this great feeling of hope and openness. So I met Darren backstage at "The Boy From Oz" and he gave me the part within a week.

Rachel Weisz: Yeah, Darren came home from "Boy From Oz" blown away and said, "I've just seen the most astonishing actor I've ever seen in my life!" [Weisz and Aronofsky are engaged and have a 5-month-old son.]

HJ: The greatest compliment is that Rachel came to "Oz" at all, because -

RW: - Because, I'm sorry, but I really don't like musicals. But Darren said, "You've got to go!" And I'd never seen that much charisma in one man ever in my life, as Hugh showed onstage. I was just glued to my seat.

HJ: And I just think she has amazing depth and - you should probably go back to the bathroom now, Rachel! - can just do anything. When Darren and I talked about casting, I went home to my wife and said, "The first person I thought of when I read the script was Rachel, and Darren didn't even mention her - maybe it's like a no-go zone 'cause they're dating." When I said to Darren, "Rachel's the one," he sort of looked down and said, "I don't want it to look like I really wanted my girlfriend to play the part...." It worked out terrifically, but there were a couple of, um, funny moments.

Such as, when you climb into Rachel's bathtub and make out?

HJ: Right! [laughs] Darren wanted it to be clear they're about to make love so, basically, I fall into the tub and we're kissing and kissing....

RW: It's a hard life.

HJ: And Rachel takes my shirt off and a minute or so later, we're still kissing, and we heard this voice yell, "Take his pants off, Rachel!" [laughs] Finally, Darren says "Cut!" and says, "Why didn't you take his pants off?"

RW: I was shy! But people watch the movie and go, "You had great chemistry" - which is true - but we also had a heart connection, you know? Which is something you just can't make up.

HJ: Absolutely. Also, before we started, Darren said to me, "I'm going to make you go places you've never been before," which really turns me on. And he did.

RW: It's a very new kind of science-fiction movie. I really think moviegoing audiences are so smart now - they can figure out most movie plots before the end, but this one is like a puzzle.

And you both regularly veer from mainstream fare to arty stuff.

RW: Sometimes you want to see art and sometimes you just want to be entertained. "Just entertainment" is great, too.

HJ: I agree. And a lot of people say to me "Oh, doing 'X-Men' must be really boring for you, because you can walk through it," and I say, "It's not easy doing those films!"

But I have to say, when I watched "The Fountain," I thought, "I'm so thrilled to be in that movie. It's a piece of art."

The testimony from both Darren and Rachel about the stage actor from TBFO explains why so many fans saw The Boy from Oz a lot !







With Devin Faraci, who wrote that beautiful review of the movie --


www.chud.com/index.php?type=interviews&id=8057[/url

INTERVIEW: HUGH JACKMAN (THE FOUNTAIN)
11.20.06
By Devin Faraci


In the jungles of 15th century New Spain, he's a bearded conquistador. In the operating room of a modern research lab, he's a driven husband. In the nebula surrounding a dying star, he's a bald astronaut on his own. In each of these time periods he's Hugh Jackman, delivering a performance unlike anything we've ever seen from him. The movie is Darren Aronofsky's masterpiece The Fountain, and in many ways this is Jackman's movie, as he's in every single scene of the film, at least when he's not acting against Rachel Weisz or the tree of life.

Jackman's been best know for playing Wolverine, and until this year his non X-Men films have been dodgy at best. 2006 has been fantastic for him, though, with fine turns in Scoop, The Prestige and a career-best effort in The Fountain, all finally proving that he has more going on than the charisma and star power we've seen. In person that charisma is strong, and he had the women at my roundtable wrapped around his finger. Some of the men, too.

I've been talking up The Fountain for months now, and we're in to the final three days before it's finally released. This Thanksgiving take a couple of hours and dollars out of your weekend to go to the theater and give thanks that challenging, smart movies still manage to get made and released.

Q: You got started in this how long ago? How did you get involved with Darren?

Jackman: I met him January 04 when he came backstage at The Boy From Oz in New York. I knew about The Fountain, and my partner John Palermo said I should ask him about, this was where it was at, that he was looking to get it up, he's looking for actors. He really enjoyed the show - I was surprised that he was there, but he's a huge musical theater fan; he sees everything. He came backstage and I said, 'I heard about The Fountain and I would really love to read it.'

And he said, 'I don't think so.'

He rang me the next day and said, 'Were you serious about that or were you just saying that how actors say to directors' I said, 'I meant it.' So he sent it to me and I read it that night and I rang him the next morning and said, 'Look, I don't want to be presumptuous but I was so moved by it - if you can wait until September, when my contract finishes, I'm in.'

It wasn't as easy as that; he showed me some things and then he gave a little speech to me - and any actor would have said yes, but I'm glad I listened to him. He said, 'I'm going to ask more of you, Hugh, then you've ever been asked for on film. I'm going to take you places maybe you thought you would never go to on film. Are you ready to do that?' I said yeah, and for me that was thrilling. And he did. He worked me.

Q: We heard that you had to do a lot of training - yoga for the underwater work.

Jackman: Yeah, three days underwater. At the end of it I dunked him, though.

We were all wrapped, and I saw him going back from the edge of the pool, because he could tell something was going on. I got out of the pool and I pretended I had a bad knee, pretended I hurt my knee doing the lotus position. I looked over at him and he wasn't coming forward. He said to the nurse, 'Go check out Hugh,' because he knew something was going on. Literally it was ten, fifteen minutes, and finally I laid down and said, 'Get the stretcher,' so they got the stretcher to lift me. At that point he came over and as soon as he came over I picked him up and I ran and dunked him in the pool. He was really pissed off, because he knew I was going to do it.

Q: I've never seen you be so emotional on film before. Was that something you were worried about, since when you read the script you must have known what the role would call for.

Jackman: Before this I never felt I had a script that warranted that. Yes, it's always a little frightening - it should be a little frightening for every actor, otherwise it's not challenging. I knew it was a kind of rawness that he wanted that would be difficult to get to. But at the same time I felt like some of the challenges I had at drama school were bigger than the movies I've been getting. Erskinville Kings, the first film I did, had an emotional intensity and rawness to it similar to this, but in between it was six or seven years where nothing demanded it. It wasn't that I was just looking for a role where I would be emotionally pushed, that's not a reason to do it. Finally I had a script that had a lot of potential.

Q: You're playing three incarnations of a character. How do you approach them? Do you approach Tomas the conquistador different from Tommy the scientist and different from Tom the astronaut?

Jackman: There is an essential similarity in what drives them, but physically we wanted to make them different, and not just in look. I created a different physicality for all three. For Tommy I made him like a question mark, we had this image of him as a question mark. Darren and I spent hours in rooms, rehearsal rooms, and I would walk around and around the room, trying different things until we felt it was right. Tommy is very weighed down by the world and what he's doing. If you look at the film, he's always hunched over, head forward, like a question mark. His lab is underground, everything is under, under, under. He's always going down steps. If you look at the design it's brilliantly done.

Back in time, Tomas the conquistador is a warrior, so while he's strong and ready to fight, his head is down. He's like a racehorse - nothing will stop him, he's got blinkers on. Then Tom in the future has worked out - even though he hasn't fully come to terms with who he is, he still has some problems - he knows how to be physically at his ultimate. He does tai chi, he does yoga, he meditates. All of these things are about maintaining the physical form, so he's more about being at ease.

I was doing yoga first of all every morning for a few hours but then also in between every shot. The other thing - I remember this from drama school, one of our teachers said that people hold emotions in their body. If you don't express them, they get locked in your body. Men have very tight hips - a yoga teacher told me this, which is why the lotus position it was so bloody hard for me to do it - they have tight hips because that is where emotion is stored. Women are generally more emotional and they're a lot looser in the hips. Certain yoga positions were excruciating, but I had to do them, particularly on those emotional days, I would sit in that position for a half an hour for a time.

My teacher took me to this thing called the Polar Bear Club in Montreal, where it's minus 25 degrees Celsius, and we would jump into the river. For like a minute we would sit with our head under the river and then we would go to the sauna, the steam room, and do one yoga pose. You would do fifteen minutes in one yoga pose. Then we would jump in the river again. You do that eight times. After three hours it was like it was an experience everyone should do. I had a bald head at the time, too, so it was amazing. It was like I was on fire. There was steam coming out of my head. It was an incredible feeling.

Q: What was it like shaving your head?

Jackman: Great. I've always wanted to do it. I've always wanted to swim with a bald head and see what it felt like. But I really have no attachment to my hair at all. I've never had the same hair once. For the last fifteen years I've dyed it this color, that color, chopped it off, but I'd never been completely bald. I just can't stop laughing when I see myself. I look like a character out of Lord of the Rings. I look ridiculous, but the feeling is incredible. To have a shower with a bald head is the best way to wake up in the world. It's heaven.

Q: This year alone you've worked with some signature directors - Woody Allen, Christopher Nolan and now Darren Aronofsky. Is there a quality they share?

Jackman: They've all got very different qualities. Woody leaves you alone a lot to do your own thing and offers you very little direction. If he doesn't like it, he reshoots it and then says what he wants. Chris is very low key in a Woody Allen-ish kind of way, laid back and low key. He's a great communicator, Chris. He has a way of telling you one thing that will completely transform a scene for you and yet leave you to do your own thing.

Darren, we worked together for a year. Every week we would meet once or twice, increasingly as we got up to the film. He had this film in his head for six years - he knew every shot and everything that was going on, and yet he loved that moment of creation, seeing what would happen. It was very interesting - he would run the camera, put a mag on and roll, never cut. He hated that moment, which is true, when you call cut and someone comes in to fix their hair, and because someone is fixing their hair the lighting guy changes a light. Everyone finds something to do, so every time you cut it's ten minutes. He would just keep rolling the film - a mag is ten to twelve minutes - and he would just put another mag on and tell you to go again. It took him three or four weeks to view the footage when we were finished.

Q: You're going to be starring in Baz Luhrmann's Australian WWII epic. How is he so far?

Jackman: Baz is a little bit in the Darren school. We have six weeks of rehearsal before we shoot, we have a workshop in December for a week, and we've been working already. I have to do a lot of horse riding in it, and even though I can ride a horse, I have to get to another level, which I'm excited about. He's full on. I love that. I loved working with all of them, and it's really whetted my appetite for working with directors who are auteurs, who are visionaries with strong opinions for what they want?

Q: Do you want to direct?

Jackman: I'm too indecisive. I'd be a terrible director. 'What do you think, Hugh, the red dress or the yellow dress?' 'Yeah, they're great.' 'Which one, the red or the yellow?' 'I don't know!'

Q: But you've been getting into producing.

Jackman: This is where I'm good as a producer - when I know something, I know it. When I spot a script I know if it will work and I will fight for that to the end. But day to day, directors make 300 decisions. Producers are there to back them up and help them, but when it comes to choosing the right director, you don't have to do that under duress, you don't have to do that on the spot, and you don't have 400 people waiting for you.

Plus I'm liking the partners I'm working with, it really works. We have different strengths. I love it.

Q: How is the TV side compared to the movie side?

Jackman: It's the golden age of TV at the moment. There are so many great writers and so much talent. And it's so fast! We, a month ago, pitched to CBS this remake of Blackpool, which I think is fantastic and will translate here. We're going to do that. Yesterday I was in a room with 30 people doing pre-production - this is a month after they said let's do it! It's so fast and exciting and really intoxicating.

Q: Was there anything that you and Rachel worked on that made it into the movie that wasn't originally in the script?

Jackman: I'm sure we did. The thing is, we spent a year, and I can't remember now it all happened, it all came. Our relationship - Darren wanted to create a very real, close bond between these two. It's a love story, and you have to buy that. But it all just happened on set, and I was very lucky to have Rachel. I'd work with her on anything - she's incredibly generous.

Q: When you're on the set, do you have any idea how it's going to cut together? What are you going on?

Jackman: Trust in Darren. I just see his movies and I know that if it's a Darren Aronofsky movie, I'm going to see it, no matter what he's doing. Look - he gave me all the information. I'm being a little facetious, but the movie I ended up seeing was cut very differently. He warned me about that. He said, 'It's going to be different than you expect.' He cut around a lot of things, and the music is so lovely.

But that's Darren. With a lot of directors you're not going to let them shoot the whole mag again and again, because you'll think, 'I don't know if this guy's good enough to know which is the best take.' But with Darren, you just let it go.

Q: You were in Australia when the film hit the festival circuit and got that polarized reaction. What did you think of that?

Jackman: I was surprised. I shouldn't have been, in a way, because it's a Darren Aronofsky movie, and people will always be polarized. But I was surprised that people were vehemently against it. I think even if you didn't get it or it wasn't your cup of tea, there's such artistry, even on a technical level. I would have thought people would have appreciated that.

Again, this is a love story about death and life, and it's going to touch nerves.

Q: It's also very earnest.

Jackman: Which is different from what Darren has done before, so people weren't expecting that. There's a real purity - it's a romantic film, even though it deals with difficult subjects. It's probably uncomfortable at times.

But the best story that never got printed came out of Venice, that infamous screening where people hooted and whistled - it actually broke into a fight. There were fisticuffs down in the front between two people. I thought for a filmmaker that's the holy grail! That's awesome!