The Oscars / Hosting the Oscars!

[jo]

I can't remember posting this acknowledgment from Hugh of Baz Lurhmann's role in THE MUSICAL IS BACK ... and the original feature on PeopleTV clip.

If I had posted this before - mea culpa

[mamaleh]

"Impossible"? LOL, I guess Bad didn't remember how Hugh sang while climbing lots of stairs and then doing high kicks at full energy as host of the 2004 Tonys.

Wasn't there some criticism thrown at Beyonce at the time because while everyone else sang live, she was the only one pre-recorded in the "The Musical is Back" number? I'm assuming that's how she performs her concerts, so that's what she was used to.

Ellen

[njr]

May 2, 2018 13:18:22 GMT -5 mamaleh said:

"Impossible"? LOL, I guess Bad didn't remember how Hugh sang while climbing lots of stairs and then doing high kicks at full energy as host of the 2004 Tonys.

Wasn't there some criticism thrown at Beyonce at the time because while everyone else sang live, she was the only one pre-recorded in the "The Musical is Back" number? I'm assuming that's how she performs her concerts, so that's what she was used to.

Ellen

I’ll take that as a Freudian slip when you called Baz, Bad! 😂

[mamaleh]

May 3, 2018 11:15:00 GMT -5 njr said:

May 2, 2018 13:18:22 GMT -5 mamaleh said:

"Impossible"? LOL, I guess Bad didn't remember how Hugh sang while climbing lots of stairs and then doing high kicks at full energy as host of the 2004 Tonys.

Wasn't there some criticism thrown at Beyonce at the time because while everyone else sang live, she was the only one pre-recorded in the "The Musical is Back" number? I'm assuming that's how she performs her concerts, so that's what she was used to.

Ellen

I’ll take that as a Freudian slip when you called Baz, Bad! 😂

Ha, no, just Auto Correct, as usual.

Ellen

[jo]

Hugh is a fan himself of other performers! I do remember him saying that he still has the autographed poster of that play ( Hughie?) of Robert DeNiro when he stood in line at the Circle in the Square before he became Hollywood-famous.

And now this video clip, greeting his co-star Beyoncé at the 2009 Oscars, on her birthday --

[mamaleh]

May 4, 2018 21:23:16 GMT -5 jo said:

Hugh is a fan himself of other performers! I do remember him saying that he still has the autographed poster of that play ( Hughie?) of Robert DeNiro when he stood in line at the Circle in the Square before he became Hollywood-famous.

And now this video clip, greeting his co-star Beyoncé at the 2009 Oscars, on her birthday --

Jo, I believe it was Al Pacino, not Robert DeNiro, who starred in that 1996 production of HUGHIE that Hugh caught when the producers of SUNSET BLVD. brought him over to check out the NY production before he’d play Joe in the Melbourne production.

Ellen

[jo]

LOL -- you're right -- why do I confuse the two


Jo

[jo]

[jo]

THE WRAP ranks 18 Oscar hostings...and places Hugh Jackman in second place among the last 15 hosts ( with some hosting more than once)!


www.thewrap.com/jimmy-kimmel-made-a-climate-change-psa-just-for-trump-droughts-will-make-putting-greens-un-puttable/

17 of 18
From James Franco and Anne Hathaway to Billy Crystal and Jimmy Kimmel, TheWrap looks back at the Hollywood stars who have hosted the Academy Awards over the last three decades

2. Hugh Jackman (2009)

When it seemed as if the standup-comic-as-Oscar-host tradition was becoming awfully tired, producers Bill Condon and Lawrence Mark brought in a singing, dancing, charismatic movie star to show what a new kind of host could do. Since then, no other star has come close to doing what Jackman did, maybe because none could.

Only Steve Martin is ranked ahead of him.

[jo]

This never gets old!



Has any other Oscar opening number ever draw an enthusiastic standing ovation from the crowd, especially the main crowd who are very gifted themselves?

I wonder if Hugh has ever considered accepting the job again, if he is approached for it.


Hey, someone remembered that this is the gig that eventually got him the movie THE GREATEST SHOWMAN! Oscar producer Larry Mark broached the idea of a musical Barnum biopic … while co-producer Bill Condon helped write the script!

What a long and circuitous route for that idea born of a talent's strong sense of showmanship to become one of the most loved movie musicals! And an original live-action musical at that!


Jo

[jo]

Reprising an article written earlier ( and also posted here earlier) --


moviesonweekends.com/2018/02/27/road-to-the-oscars-hugh-jackmans-opening-number/

Road to the Oscars: Hugh Jackman’s Opening Number


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So, to kick off a week of anticipation, we have a series of articles for you that will look at the Academy Awards and let’s start by celebrating one of the best opening numbers of in the history of the ceremony…

In 2009, Australian actor Hugh Jackman took hosting duties for the Oscars which was produced by director Bill Condon and Laurence Mark, notably. The hefty weight of responsibility to bring entertainment, wit, and charm to the proceedings is a tentative task to take on. Some succeed whilst many fail (Anne Hathaway and James Franco are a prime example.) Yet Hugh Jackman had audiences in the palm of his adamantium laced hands. Firing off quick witted jokes about range and hosting the awards instead of being nominated, Jackman was already poised to be one of the funniest MCs of the Academy Awards.

Then he launched into a musical number.
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The final crescendo where Hugh Jackman exclaims “I am Wolverine” wraps up a raucous and entertaining number that saw the audience leap to their feet in celebration. Reminding us why Jackman is an honest to God, pure cinnamon bun in human form, Hugh Jackman blows every opening number in Academy Award ceremony history out of the water. Seriously, you’ll watch it repeatedly. Fantastically amusing, hilarious, and catchy number which asks “why don’t comic book movies ever get nominated?”

In 2009, Australian actor Hugh Jackman took hosting duties for the Oscars which was produced by director Bill Condon and Laurence Mark, notably.

For The Greatest Showman --

Lead Actor : Hugh Jackman
Producer : Laurence Mark
Screenwriter ( part) : Bill Condon


Hey, how about doing it again -- third time, even luckier

[jo]

From one of the EMMY-winning writing team --

[jo]

Jeff Wells of Hollywood Elsewhere talks about the 2009 Oscars ( the hosting and the Oscar BP candidates/winner)!


hollywood-elsewhere.com/2019/02/maybe-going-host-less-isnt-such-a-bad-idea/#disqus_thread

Maybe Going Host-less Isn’t Such A Bad Idea

Ten years ago Hugh Jackman hosted the 81st Academy Awards, which aired on 2.22.09. He did a good enough job, I suppose, but God, that opening number. And the winners that year! I will never, ever watch Slumdog Millionaire again. I talked myself into thinking I liked it, but I didn’t actually. That game-show host drove me up the wall. The only part I really liked was the Bollywood number at the end.

I wasn’t all that delighted or levitated by any of the ’08 Best Picture contenders, to be honest — Frost/Nixon (good but calm down), The Curious Case of Benjamin Button (the idea of Brad Pitt as a man-child became more and more irritating), Milk (Sean Penn was/is too short to play Harvey Milk), The Reader (Harvey steamroller) and the Danny Boyle.

My favorite ’08 films: Che, Man on Wire, The Visitor, Gran Torino, Vicky Cristina Barcelona, Burn After Reading, Tropic Thunder, The Wrestler, WALL*E, Doubt, Three Monkeys, Waltz With Bashir, I’ve Loved You For So Long, Rachel Getting Married.

He also posted the clip of the remarkable opening number --





And from the readers's feedback --

KBJr. • 41 minutes ago
The show that year was brilliantly structured. Presenting each category based on the film-making process. That ceremony had a reverential feel - everyone in the room was clearly enjoying Jackman and he was a damn fine host. I dug it and I think it's the best produced Oscars I've seen.

And that show was prescient enough to have eventually influenced the following --

*Oscars producer Larry Mark coming up with an idea for a movie musical based on the life of impresario Barnum... because of his impression of Hugh Jackman as a perfect showman ( Yes, they worked together on THE GREATEST SHOWMAN from 2009 till its release in December 2017).

*The comment on the artistic merit of some comicbook movies eventually led to the 2018 nomination for LOGAN for Best Adapted Screenplay and for Black Panther for 2019 Best Picture... as well as the move of the AMPAS to increase the number of BP nominees to a maximum of 10 instead of 5 !

[jo]

Hugh Jackman is always rated among the best Oscar hosts ever!


nyunews.com/2019/02/20/arts-unpopular-opinions-oscar-hosts/

Hugh Jackman — 81st Academy Awards

Hugh Jackman is the greatest showman both on and off screen. The star has acted across stage and film, can sing and dance and — perhaps one of his most underrated skills — can host like no other. His opening musical number at the 81st Academy Awards remains one of the best televised spectacles that has graced the Oscars broadcast. It ranged from hilarious homages to the year’s best movies, such as “Slumdog Millionaire” and “Milk,” to parodying the omission of “The Dark Knight” from the best picture race and how “The Reader” got nominated despite not many people having seen it by the time of the show. Jackman kept every second of the three-and-a-half-hour spectacle fresh and was a wonderful change of pace from the usual crop of Oscar hosts, who tend to be comedians. Though he has not hosted as many times as Billy Crystal or Jon Stewart, his one performance catapulted him to the top of the list of Hollywood’s best hosts. One hopes it is only a matter of time before he returns for another year’s Academy Awards. — Guru

[jo]

www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/joel-stein-how-id-write-jokes-no-host-oscars-guest-column-1187425

The Hollywood Reporter

Movies
TV

AWARDS
Joel Stein: How I'd Write Jokes for the No-Host Oscars (Guest Column)
6:00 AM PST 2/20/2019 by Joel Stein


A decade ago, the writer penned material for super-accommodating Oscar emcee Hugh Jackman, but the only thing more liberating would be no host at all: "Kevin Hart should come up to present an award, stammer nervously and then be joined by Alan Cumming."

Hugh Jackman is the best boss I've ever had. Ten years ago, I spent a week in a room at the Mandarin Oriental hotel in Manhattan with three other writers, eating a lot of minibar snacks and writing Jackman's material for the 81st Academy Awards. I loved working for him, even though he hugged us every time he entered the room, which I found both excessive and a little scary because he is very strong and I am a writer.

But I gladly endured those bench-press embraces because Jackman said yes to everything. He said yes to letting me try on his $18,000 plastic Wolverine claws despite the fact that I didn't ask to try them on. He said yes to Anne Hathaway when she called to ask to be in the opening number, even though it was a little thirsty. And from what I gather, from a lack of emails after the show, he even said yes to that minibar bill. The only thing better than working for Jackman would have been writing for this year's Oscars. A no-host Oscar writer can come up with anything.




Despite this opportunity to cast celebrities to deliver whatever sketch writers can imagine, I fear that the Academy will see the lack of a host as a chance for a utilitarian Oscars that gets everyone in bed by midnight: See celebs in gowns, hand out awards, go home. This would be a mistake because the Oscars are a statement about Hollywood. If I were writing for this year's show, I'd design it to be as big a spectacle as possible.


Without a personality to shape it, the opening number has to set the show's tone. It should be enormous: singing, dancing, pyrotechnics, acrobatics, cameos, stuff falling from the ceiling, whatever wild animals PETA is still OK with. I'd pack that opening number with an E! red carpet number of celebrities. Each micro-host would sing a few lines from one of the nominated films, then toss the microphone to the next star until it's time to throw to James Franco at which point the song should stop abruptly. I'd end the opening number by having Michael Bay, Robert Rodriguez and Kathryn Bigelow come onstage with director's headphones. Rodriguez would send two turquoise 1962 Sedan DeVilles from Green Book to crash in front of a raised stage where Lady Gaga and Bradley Cooper are singing. Bigelow would direct Los Halcones from Roma to bum-rush the stage, only to be repelled by the Wakandan army. Then Michael Bay would have Dick Cheney blow it all up.



To dispel the awkwardness, I'd address the oddity of not having a host. Put Billy Crystal in one of the stage wings, ready to come in and host in case of emergency — which should be scripted to happen at least once. Bruce Vilanch should trudge up to deliver jokes himself because he has no host to do it for him. Kevin Hart should come up to present an award, stammer nervously and then be joined by Alan Cumming. Then Neil Patrick Harris. Then Billy Eichner. Then all the male makeup artists. Then the Gay Men's Chorus of Los Angeles.

There's no need for a monologue, which is great since the Dolby Theatre is the toughest crowd in the world. A lot of the people in those seats aren't in a laughing mood because they're focused on whether their lives are about to change by winning an Oscar. By the middle of the show, the crowd is even less comedy-friendly since most of those people are now depressed that their lives didn't change.


After writing for the Oscars, it became clear that it's not a variety show. It's a game show. And as Alex Trebek can tell you, you have to constantly ratchet up the tension. This is why the second-best part of the Oscars is when all the nominees' faces are split on one screen right before the winner is announced. The best part, of course, is when they're still all on the screen after the winner is announced. The Oscars should stretch that suspense the whole night. Put a crawl on the screen with the Vegas odds of all the upcoming awards, which will change all night after each award is given. Set up a booth in the back where Charles Barkley, Shaquille O'Neal, Kenny Smith and Ernie Johnson offer analysis. "Come on, Kenny! After Viggo lost best actor, it's for sure that Green Book has no shot at best picture. No one's giving an award to the dude who made that Cameron Diaz-spooge-hair movie!"

I'd also get famous directors to replicate those Olympic athlete profiles. If some NBC Sports producer can make me care about a Japanese gymnast, then Ang Lee can surely put together two minutes that make me cry about how Regina King got a matching tattoo with her son. I don't know anything about Mary Poppins Returns costume designer Sandy Powell, but I'd watch Wes Anderson's short about the unlikely coincidence of her competing for an Oscar against the costume designer of The Favourite who is also named Sandy Powell.

The final written bit of the night, right before the best picture Oscar, would involve Faye Dunaway confusedly going into the audience to hand fake Oscars to every single person involved with Black Panther. Because no matter how great the written material is, if those guys don't win something, no one is going to be happy.




This story first appeared in the Feb. 20 issue of The Hollywood Reporter magazine.

[e-mail]
@thr

Was Joel Stein really part of the writing team which won an EMMY for the Jackman hosting? He was not part of those who received an EMMY for the Opening Number written for Hugh Jackman. Per the EMMY site --

81st Annual Academy Awards
"Song Title: Hugh Jackman Opening Number"

ABC

William Ross, Original Music
John Kimbrough, Original Music
Dan Harmon, Original Lyrics
Rob Schrab, Original Lyrics
Ben Schwartz, Original Lyrics

Hmmm... maybe he did not want to be credited for it - he was writing for TIME Magazine then.

[jo]

Here's what Joel Stein wrote about being part of the writing team for Hugh's Opening Number for the 2009 Oscars --

Mar 4, 2016 8:55:18 GMT -5 jo said:

After a lot of perseverance, I finally found a copy of the TIME magazine account of how the number came into being

Joel Stein of TIME magazine wrote about the Oscars Opening Number in 2009 -- it seems that he was not really part of the team which wrote the final version, but he must have been a general kibitzer, an idea man, and sounding board

I WROTE THE OSCARS! by Joel Stein





For reasons I accept but will never fully understand, hundreds of millions of people would rather be entertained by the Oscars than by this column. So I felt vindicated when I got an e-mail three weeks ago from John Palermo, the producing partner of this year's host, Hugh Jackman, saying he liked my work and wanted me to write for the Academy Awards. I wasn't exactly sure how the Academy expected me to craft an opening in which Jackman quickly segued into talking about me and my sophomoric sexual obsessions, but I was up for the challenge.


Since this was clearly the biggest, most important comedy job I'd ever get, I expected the Academy to send an official package of Oscar history, tips from past writers and a truckload of money. Instead, I got just some grainy DVDs of Jackman hosting the Tony Awards. I was starting to wonder if I was really hired by the Oscars when I found out I wasn't. It turns out the Academy hires pros like Bruce Vilanch for the presenter banter but lets the host pick his own team. This makes sense when the host is a comedian with a staff of writers. It makes less sense when the host is known for being PEOPLE's Sexiest Man Alive. What I've learned from late-night Cinemax is that sexy people don't place a high value on writing.


Luckily, all four of us had a few things in common. We hated The Curious Case of Benjamin Button and had no idea that The Reader wasn't a children's magazine. We also thought Jackman shouldn't tell any jokes and should instead open with a big musical number that references the recession. But every good concept we had we immediately killed because it reminded us of Billy Crystal. You would think that would be a good thing, since Crystal was the most beloved Oscar host ever and got the job eight times. But comedy writers are far more interested in impressing other comedy writers than in pleasing an audience. This is why most comedy sucks. If we thought we could have gotten away with an opening number that made fun of genocide, we would have. Instead, we just wasted hours making those jokes anyway. We also spent a lot of time trying to figure out if we'd get in trouble for ordering room service. The answer, so far, is no.


The only proof that we really were writing for the Oscars is that Jackman would visit our room for a couple of hours each day. To my surprise, the best kind of boss is a sexy boss. Jackman greeted each of us with a giant hug, which would have been a perfect test of how gay I am, except I was totally focused on making sure I wasn't crushed to death by his giant lats. So ... pretty gay. Jackman would laugh uproariously at everything we suggested, which is one of the huge advantages of writing for a noncomedian. He acted out all our stuff, belted out our songs while standing on furniture and even watched most of Be Kind Rewind with us for no good reason. He was so omniscient in his niceness that not only did he look sad when we played him the Christian Bale freak-out tape, but he also, after agreeing to record a parody of it, called Bale to make sure it was cool if we put it online. He even let me try on the real, $18,000 plastic Wolverine claws, which made me want to do a bit about the moon and body hair; the reaction made me realize I probably should have seen an X-Men movie before writing for Jackman.


It soon became clear that not only was writing for the Oscars not the hardest job of my life, it wasn't even the hardest job of my week. We brought in a guy who wrote music, and six days later, the opening number was complete. It's not bad, and when Jackman sings it, it's great. Because while we weren't smart enough to write great jokes, we were smart enough to figure out that Oscar audiences don't remember jokes. They remember whether the host set the celebratory mood, as Crystal did. Our job was to get out of the way of Jackman's charm, and if that meant ordering room service and letting the other writers do all the actual lyric-writing, then I was a fine hire. All the good jokes, by the way, were mine.

[jo]

GoldDerby recalls the 2009 Oscar hosting by Hugh Jackman --

www.goldderby.com/article/2019/oscars-flashback-10-years-ago-2009-greatest-ceremony-hugh-jackman/

[jo]

It's amazing how the story of the host-less Oscars on February 24, 2019 is getting quite a few articles in fulsome praise of what happened to Hugh Jackman's 2009 Oscars hosting!

[jo]

Here's Vulture's blow-by-blow account on how the now famous Emmy-winning Opening Number came into being --


And please check out the link for the sketches the writers drew which became reality props and ideas at the Oscar telecast!




www.vulture.com/2019/02/the-history-of-hugh-jackmans-oscars-opening-number.html

oscars 2019 9:30 A.M.


The Behind-the-Scenes History of Hugh Jackman’s Opening Number at the 2009 Oscars

By Jackson McHenry



Wolverine sings! Photo: Kevin Winter/Getty Images



In 2009, in the midst of a financial meltdown and with a slate of Best Picture nominees that included nary a blockbuster, the Academy Awards seemed certain to be a mess. Plus, instead of a well-known comedian for a host, they’d chosen Hugh Jackman, a superhero, sure, and a song-and-dance man who’d hosted the Tonys three times before, but not necessarily someone you’d expect to triumph in the face of the ceremony’s notoriously tough audience. But then came Jackman’s opening number, a silly yet charming celebration and roast of the Best Picture nominees, which managed to include an all-time great joke about The Reader revealed to anyone who wasn’t already aware that Anne Hathaway could really sing. It was a dang good time and arguably, at least according to the show’s producers, the inflection point in movie history that led to Les Misérables and The Greatest Showman.


Ten years out, Jackman’s performance hasn’t been topped, and in honor of its anniversary, we went back and talked to the key players that made it happened, including producers Bill Condon and Laurence Mark and the musical number’s trio of alt-comedy writers: Dan Harmon, Rob Schrab, and Ben Schwartz. The three of them went on to win an Emmy for their work at the Oscars, but their hiring was a relative gamble at the time, and they made the sequence work with little rehearsal time, the heroic enthusiasm of Jackman, and cardboard sets that Schrab built himself.


Laurence Mark (producer): First of all, nothing against comedians, by the way, but we had just seen a series of comedians [as hosts]. So, we thought, Let’s get a song-and-dance man, if we can, to change things up a bit. Then, once you get a song-and-dance man, you don’t ask him to do a comic monologue. You instead ask him to sing and dance. That’s why Hugh Jackman turned out, in a way, to be the perfect answer to our prayers.


Bill Condon (producer): We thought, Let’s make it a good time inside the theater again. So we rebuilt the theater so the stage was closer to the audience. Hugh was an essential part of that decision because, you know, it’s all about the tone you set. There’s something about Hugh that is so disarming and open and charming. In his great Australian way he’s not better than anybody; he’s not cooler than anybody.


Mark: During commercial breaks he would hurl candy, and he would do stuff that had nothing to do with what was being telecast. He just kind of was having some fun with the audience and keeping them, hopefully, having a good time.
Condon: The Academy ebbs and flows, and I think they were in a moment where they were looking to do something different. That’s the only reason we got hired, frankly, because we had a set of ideas about a different way to approach the show. The opening was sort of it’s own separate thing from the rest of show. We hired screenwriters we loved, you know, Jenny Bicks and John Hoffman [for the rest of the show]. We had that notion that we were gonna tell a story during the show. Hugh was actually going to kind of take us through the process of making a movie.


Ben Schwartz (writer): I had just moved from New York to L.A. and I had a meeting with John Palermo, and it was just about script writing for Hugh Jackman. I was a young little boy with very few credits. He said, “Hugh Jackman’s gonna be hosting the Oscars, do you have any ideas?” I told him some ideas and I sent him a bunch of jokes, and he dug it. I think two days later he said, “You have to fly back to New York in three days, and you’re gonna be writing with Harmon and Schrab.”

[Palermo was Jackman’s co-producer at the time, and later produced movies on his own, though he eventually disappeared from Hollywood after posting racist rants on Facebook.]


Mark: Hugh, on his own, does his thing in New York, by the way. Obviously we’re Skyping and we’re exchanging pages and ideas and whatever else, but he drives himself harder than anybody. But we were always sort of in touch with what he was up to and what they were up to.


Dan Harmon (writer): We also had a meeting with Palermo. He set up this weird event that happened, because he, I think, just wanted to do something so different. I think for me and Schrab, it was his fandom of The Sarah Silverman Program, which we created with Sarah for Comedy Central.


Rob Schrab (writer): What he told us was, anybody that could do raunchy, out-there stuff like The Sarah Silverman Program plus be able to do a family, kid movie like Monster House [the 2006 movie Schrab and Harmon wrote] is exactly the kind of talent we want. It was very quick. It was kind of like, “So, you wanna do it?” And we were like, “Yeah.” Then, a couple days later, we were on a plane.


Harmon: So far, this process did not include any references to singing or dancing. It’s just like, “Do you guys wanna write for Hugh Jackman who’s gonna host the Oscars?”


Schrab: They were also saying, “We definitely don’t wanna do anything like what Billy Crystal was doing.” We wanna stay away from that.





Harmon: We were in the middle of this weird economic collapse. There was this tremendous fear of appearing elitist [at the Oscars]. Those were all things that were going on. Schrab called me over to his apartment, and had been watching the Tonys that Hugh had hosted [in 2004, 2005, and 2006], and Schrab’s like, “Have you seen this?” We hadn’t met Ben yet, but Schrab took this idea of the economic depression and said, “Why don’t we have Hugh be this Boy Scout song-and-dance man, and in order to save money, he’d build it all himself, put it all together with cardboard and hot glue?”
The next thing I remember is that Schrab and I are in the elevator in New York, very nervous. We’re so in love with this idea, but it’s just an idea. We haven’t pitched it to anybody. Then, Hugh Jackman gets in the elevator with me and Schrab.


Schrab: That’s how we met. Then we pressed up, and we were in there, and Dan did the elevator pitch.
Harmon: By the time we got off on the top floor, I swear, literally, Hugh physically bounded out of the elevator, leaping with enthusiasm about this idea. Thank God, because we ended up getting a little bit of resistance to it, but we had this weapon on our side. Hugh would describe the idea and leap up onto chairs in the room. No one can say no to him when he’s that enthusiastic.


Schwartz: My version of this is, I don’t remember if I pitched Palermo before I left, or maybe when I got to you guys. Literally, I was writing the same exact idea that Dan and Rob had had. I was so nervous on my end that they wouldn’t like it, or anybody wouldn’t like it as well. There was so much stuff around the recession and so much stuff about having no money. How funny would it be if it’s like, “He still wants to pull it off, and wants to do a huge musical number, but with almost no budget?”



Harmon, Schwartz, and Schrab at work. Photo: Ben Schwartz


Schrab: To start out of the gate with the concept was really, really a gift. To get off the elevator, have the star already onboard, meet Ben, who’s already kind of in the same mind-set, to start Monday morning. We know what the idea is, now all we have to do is write it. Hats off to Hugh, who is just so warm and positive, and just committed. Any time we pitched him something, it would be printed out, and he would grab it, and he would just start singing it full volume.


Harmon: I have the most unabashed man-crush on this guy. I would just stare at his face while he sat next to me, and look for a pore, and I never found one.


Schrab: Dan and I, we do Channel 101, which is this monthly video festival, where it’s very television-centric. And every year we have this thing called the Channel 101 Awards. We lean into, like, “We don’t have any money, so it’s all cardboard and hot glue.” That’s kind of my style, I build a lot, sculpt a lot. While we’re writing [for the Oscars], I’ve got my sketch pad and I’m drawing up stuff. As soon as we got back to Los Angeles, [The Sarah Silverman Show production designer] Mike Whetstone got us a space to build this stuff. We just built everything in two days. It was all hot glue and … it was nonstop building, building, building, building. Paint was drying backstage as the show was about to go on.
Schwartz: Schrab can create these things that nobody else can create.


Harmon: In the area of not forgetting to credit people, this one’s really important and somewhat, a little bit regrettable. Schrab and I were sitting in this piano bar next to the hotel where we were working, and there are guys that will get up and do, sing some show tunes and things if the mood strikes them. And as we’re struggling with that, a guy got up at this bar, and he started singing a number from Jekyll &Hyde the musical. The song was “This Is the Moment,” and Schrab pointed out the vibe of that song and said, “You know, the angle is that Hugh’s a Boy Scout, and he doesn’t want to let anybody down, and that’s why it’s positive. It’s not snide. It’s not mean. It’s not satirical. It’s that Hugh can’t wait to host the Oscars; he really wants to do the best he can.”

The melody and the tone of that song from Jekyll & Hyde was so inspirational. Because I’m not a professional musician, when I write lyrics, I tend to use a derivative melody. When it’s time to come up with official melodies, I’ll sit down with, in this case, [songwriter] John Kimbrough, who did a lot of work with Tenacious D. John Kimbrough comes out from New York with his guitar, and I say to him, “This is the song I’m ripping off, but I don’t wanna rip it off, so let’s change this a lot.”

Kimbrough was really good at that, but because then Kimbrough didn’t continue his work all the way through to the final show, along the way, another equally talented, amazing composer William Ross comes in. He makes a couple tweaks to the song. Kimbrough’s not there, and I don’t tell this guy, “By the way, there’s a song that this was ripping off and is no longer ripping off.” Somewhere along the way that process caused us to accidentally, totally unintentionally — but to be fair, for a reason — rip off the song that we were originally ripping off. The guys that wrote that song rightfully heard it and said, “These six notes or whatever, this is basically our song.” We were able to get their names added to the cue sheet for that number.



Schrab: They were actually way cooler than they had a right to be. They were like, “Look, we don’t want any money. We don’t want any of this. We’re not gonna do anything. We just want you to share credit with us.” Of course, we were like, “Yeah, you deserve it.” Again, hats off to them for being so cool about it.


Before the musical sequence starts, Jackman’s monologue opens with one joke about how everyone who got nominated showcased their range, and he played an Australian in Australia, and didn’t get nominated.


Harmon: It was this long joke about him playing “I’m an Australian in a movie about Australia and I’m out here.”


Schrab: I think Hugh came up with that.


Schwartz: I also remember us as a team thinking that this guy’s strength is singing and dancing. We don’t want to make a 45-minute monologue for him, that’s not what he does.

The monologue begins with Jackman in a set mocked up like Slumdog Millionaire, and then transitions into a song about Milk with “Craigslist Dancers.”


Harmon: I remember just wanting to start with something simple that we knew we were gonna want to reprise. I think we sat there and tried to figure it out based on sets first. We wanted to have this sort of seamless thing where the sets are converting one from the other.

Then, there’s an interlude about The Dark Knight, which was notably not nominated for Best Picture that year, which was also the year before the Oscars expanded the Best Picture slate to include more than five nominees.

Schrab’s sketch for the Bat-pod. Photo: Rob Schrab


Harmon: The Batman song was Schrab’s baby, for sure. It was Schrab’s, like, 10-year-old-boy anger.
Schrab: When I was drawing these things, I think the very first drawing was the Bat-pod that I did, because I know, Oh, I can make that. These will be milk jugs; this’ll be a mailing tube. You look at the silhouette and you’ll know that we’re talking about the Batman movie.


Harmon: It is absolutely the beginning of the new era of Marvel. We’re referencing that, and The Reader song, too. We wanted to see The Reader, but there was a line of people wanting to see Iron Man a second time.





In the sequence about Benjamin Button, Jackman ages backward by sticking his head through cardboard cutouts.

Photo: Rob Schrab

Harmon: This thing was so not rehearsed, it was so under-rehearsed. I was absolutely shitting my pants. I remember, because Baz Luhrmann was doing his thing in the middle that was a tribute to the musical. It was such a big thing, and it just kept expanding in terms of rehearsal needs. We literally had one full tech rehearsal of this thing.


Schwartz: That sounds about right.


Harmon: The doors were being barred shut so that we could squeeze in this rehearsal of this thing that they were about to watch. The Benjamin Button thing was the benchmark. It was basically physically impossible for a human being to move their head into each of those holes at the right times for those lyrics, and we could only discover that by building that set, and getting it on its feet, and rehearsing it the one time. That one full tech rehearsal we just learned that Hugh can’t possibly get his head into each of these holes at the right time, and Hugh was like, “I can do it. I’ll just go faster.”

For Frost/Nixon, Jackman pulls Anne Hathaway from the audience, and she pretends to be confused until she starts singing along with him.





Mark: Hugh wanted to pull someone out of the audience, for sure. But at the Oscar nominees luncheon, Suzan Bymel, who manages Anne Hathaway, literally came up to us with Anne Hathaway twice during the lunch, in just an amusing way to say, “Just so you know, Anne Hathaway sings. Just so you know.” With a tongue in cheek, it was done like that. We smiled and said, “We’d love to know that for future reference.” When it was time for the rehearsing of the show, well, Anne Hathaway was a nominee, and it was like, “Anne Hathaway sings, apparently!”


Schrab: This is 2008. People love Anne Hathaway, and she can sing, so let’s write something. I think [Ben] just kind of took that, and just came up with this.


Schwartz: I remember that moment exactly, like, “Hey, we really want to use Anne Hathaway, do you have any ideas?” and everybody was working on sections and lyrics, so I was like, “Okay, I’ll try to do this.” I did this show with Hot Sauce at Upright Citizens Brigade, and I always loved the idea of looking like you’re just going out into the audience and bringing someone in, and it looking sloppy because they don’t know what’s going on.

I had to sing the song into my voice-memo note, and the first time I did it with Hugh. I did Anne Hathaway’s part to pitch him on it. It was crazy; it was so fun. It brought in the audience, even more.


Schrab: Up until that point, in the back room where we were watching the show, I was like, “Is this working? I don’t know. They seem to see it as funny” or whatever, but once that happened, we just rode it all the way to him standing up and singing, “I’m Wolverine.”


Schwartz: The two things I wanted to make fun of [with Frost/Nixon] were, if we have to bring Anne Hathaway in to sing the Nixon thing, Frank Langella was sitting right next to her. Another thing is, when I watched Frost/Nixon, Nixon’s upper lip was always so sweaty, the whole movie was so sweaty.


Mark: Bill and I take full credit for the two of them being in Les Mis.
For The Reader, Jackman does a surreal modern dance about how he hasn’t had time to watch the movie.


Schwartz: When we’re going through the movies to see how we’re gonna write lyrics, we got to The Reader, and literally, all of us said, “We have not watched The Reader.” It wasn’t that we hated it, we just cannot get to — we had not gotten to it. I think, was it Harmon or Schrab who wrote the Reader bit?


Schrab: It was Dan.


Harmon: And actually Hugh had spent all this time in New York while we were in L.A. He comes into L.A. all excited and we go to this rehearsal space, and he’s like, “Guys, guys! You gotta watch this!” He spent days choreographing — I don’t know if he choreographed it or if someone choreographed it with him — but he was working on this whole Reader dance, and he couldn’t wait to show us.


Mark: I bet he did do his homework [and watched The Reader], because that’s Hugh. But he’d rather have some fun making fun of himself, in a way. I think why that was funny was that he was making fun of himself, not the movie.





Condon: Also, there is this relentless thing. He’s gonna do a number about each [nominee]. Around movie No. 4, it’s sort of like, Oh Christ. I think it was a nice jolt to get, “Don’t worry, I’m not gonna do The Reader. I’m gonna use this as a chance to kind of say, ‘What the fuck? The Reader got nominated and not The Dark Knight?’” Which was obviously a big issue surrounding it all.

As the sequence moves into a finale, Jackman sings about being like Mickey Rourke in The Wrestler, and then the song crescendos into him belting, “I’m Wolverine!”


Harmon: I remember [Jackman] pitching the Mickey Rourke hair thing. Honestly, I don’t even get that reference, but Hugh kept wanting to do it.






Schrab: The final lyric of Hugh Jackman getting up and saying, “I’m Wolverine!”There were a lot of people going, “I don’t think we should do that; it makes him look stupid. This is not a comic-book thing.” I think Dan was the one to put his foot down and go, “You guys are crazy. The Wolverine bit is gold. Trust me.” I can’t imagine us getting a standing ovation if it wasn’t for him, standing up and singing a note that only Wolverine could sing.


Harmon: It’s not because it’s clever or meta. It was the opposite. It was important, because there needed to be the emotional through line of that piece, which was Hugh’s innocence, because that was the way we were going to sidestep this whole economic thing, and not come off as snarky, satirical. It was a big concern for people when we were pitching the cardboard thing, they were like, “Yeah, but isn’t this making fun of poverty?” For him to hit that operatic tone while referencing his comic-book movie, he validates Hollywood even in times of terrible, bitter reality in the checkbook. It’s like, “Oh, yeah, this is why I like movies, because they’re childish, and they’re silly, but they’re passionate, and that has nothing to do with class or money.”





Mark: At some point while Hugh was onstage rehearsing, I think I turned to Bill and said, “Gosh, what a showman he is,” then somehow P.T. Barnum came around, and I said to [Jackman] at some point later on, “I don’t know if you have any interest, I don’t know, we were just thinking about you as P.T. Barnum and the greatest showman on earth.” Hugh Jackman said, “I love that idea. If you want to explore it, feel free to knock on my door when you have something more to sort of talk about.” The next person we spoke to was Jenny Bicks who was a writer on the Oscars who was standing about ten feet away. We said, “Jenny, would you mind thinking about P.T. Barnum?’ She came up with the first draft of the screenplay [of what became The Greatest Showman], which Mr. Condon was kind enough to refine and hone and make even more brilliant.




The writers watched the show on a small TV screen hidden away in the theater.

The TV where the writers watched the Oscars. Photo: Ben Schwartz

Schrab: We were in, like, a janitor’s closet. There were mops against the wall.


Harmon: No exaggeration, because I haven’t had a kid yet, it’s still just the greatest, proudest moment of my life. Hugh came out, he did the long Australia joke, and then he starts doing the thing. It was like that horse-track feeling, where you’re just like, “Am I watching what I think I’m watching? Is it going good?”


Schwartz: We were nervous and pacing. I remember pacing in all our schlub tuxes that did not fit us. At the end, everybody is clapping, then all of a sudden there’s a standing ovation, and we’re watching it. We were jumping up and down.


Harmon: I’m surprised we didn’t break each other’s toes, but I was limping for six months afterward. I never went to the doctor, but I seriously damaged something in my foot. I assume if I broke a bone I would know because it would be — I would have gone to the doctor. I messed up my foot, and I was so happy about it because it was a conversation starter and the conversation was gonna be about this amazing thing that happened.


From left: Harmon, Schrab, and Schwartz. Photo: Josh RothsteinPhoto: Josh Rothstein


Schwartz: I’ll never forget when people started giving the standing ovation; we could not believe that anything that we wrote could get a standing ovation. For some reason, the camera cut to Sean Penn, he was just still sitting down, and all three of us pointed at the screen and said, “Stand the fuck up, Sean Penn! Sean Penn, stand the fuck up!” He either did, or they cut to somebody else who stood up, and we just went crazy. We went crazy.


Condon: I remember a few [reaction shots I was proud of catching], but even ten years later I can’t say it. If you notice on those awards shows, there are televisions in the theater so that people can also watch the feed of what’s going on in the show. Our thought, which made some sense, was let’s not show them that. Let’s force them to watch what’s happening in front of them. Which seems like a good idea; however, those great moments when somebody is interacting with Hugh and they can see themselves on camera and then respond to the fact that they’re on camera, that’s something that we missed.




Harmon, Schrab, and Schwartz, along with songwriters Ross and Kimbrough won 2009 Emmys for their work.


Schrab: That was a crazy thing. The competition that year was Flight of the Conchords, the Lonely Island, the Muppets …


Schwartz: … Stephen Colbert.


Schrab: We’re just sitting there, and it’s like, “Oh, okay, here we go. Get ready to applaud for the Lonely Island.” Because they’re the best and everything.

Schwartz: We kept saying, “Timberlake’s gonna win.” [Timberlake was also nominated for “Motherlover” with the Lonely Island and a song from the ESPY Awards.] Of course he’s gonna win, he’s incredible. I had brought Aubrey Plaza because I knew her from UCB, and we were friends. I was like, “Don’t worry.” And then we won. Harmon’s speech is a perfect button on the whole experience because it’s a speech as if it were given from someone from our crew, someone from our dummy, idiot type of comedy that we like. It’s so real.



Harmon: By the way, here’s an insider tip: If you ever think you’re going to win an award, make your speech about how ugly you are, which was my narcissistic bit. Where I’m like, “Oh, we’re the ugly nerds. They moved this award to the prime-time broadcast because all the other nominees are famous handsome people and the ugly nerds won, and I’m sorry about that” or whatever. Because I took that angle, for the entirety of the Governor’s Ball, every single celebrity, every single human being that talked to me, most of whom were famous, good-looking people, their icebreaker was, “By the way, I think you’re very attractive.”

[jo]

Mark: At some point while Hugh was onstage rehearsing, I think I turned to Bill and said, “Gosh, what a showman he is,” then somehow P.T. Barnum came around, and I said to [Jackman] at some point later on, “I don’t know if you have any interest, I don’t know, we were just thinking about you as P.T. Barnum and the greatest showman on earth.” Hugh Jackman said, “I love that idea. If you want to explore it, feel free to knock on my door when you have something more to sort of talk about.” The next person we spoke to was Jenny Bicks who was a writer on the Oscars who was standing about ten feet away. We said, “Jenny, would you mind thinking about P.T. Barnum?’ She came up with the first draft of the screenplay [of what became The Greatest Showman], which Mr. Condon was kind enough to refine and hone and make even more brilliant.

The birth of the idea on a project that will take 8 years to become a film release! And the universal acclaim from audiences to this day must bring so much joy to Larry Mark, Bill Condon, and Hugh Jackman!


Too bad the critics, the AMPAS, and the awards community failed to recognize the rebirth of the movie musical ( not with Lalaland because that found favor only with certain audience demos) but a film musical that became a favorite across ages, across gender, and across borders!


Too bad they failed to recognize that the true showman actor-performer ( in the tradition of the golden age of musicals) is Hugh Jackman and that accolades were missed by the awards community for his Barnum portrayal. The Golden Globes saw it... but chickened out at the end and gave the award to someone who could not host the Oscars as well as the 2009 host! ( Sorry for the dig, James F)

The above article is not the first to pay a long-delayed tribute to that memorable and remarkable 2009 Oscars hosting. The Hollywood Reporter recently published an account by Joel Stein on the same happy events that led to the remarkable Opening Number in 2009. It looks like Hugh is becoming a specialist in Opening Numbers!



JO

[mamaleh]

Fascinating stuff. HJ seems to have had more than a little input into the crafting of that opening number. Too bad he couldn't have been credited as a co-writer and earn a second Emmy that year.

Ellen

[jo]

Exactly!

And not only that -- would that number have gotten a Standing Ovation from Hugh Jackman's super-peers had his remarkable performance not interpreted perfectly ( acted and sang and danced) what the script called for! He deserved that EMMY!


Jo

[jo]

It is not just the Opening Number in 2009 --

but there is also some memory-jogging of that spectacle number The Musical Is Back!


Is there some retrospective going on of The Real Greatest Showman's musical career

[carouselkathy]

Why hasn't Hugh hosted the Oscars again? Thoughts?

[mamaleh]

I’ve wondered about that, too. He’s widely considered one of the best-ever Oscars hosts. He has often said he’s been asked to repeat, but not at times when he was free to accept. Could there be more to it?

I also wonder why he’s never hosted SNL again—not since December 2001. He popped in a few years ago dressed as Daniel Radcliffe in Harry Potter mode, but that was about it. So many celebs willingly host to publicize their latest project; why not Hugh?

As the King of Siam put it, “Is a puzzlement.”

Ellen