Hugh Jackman is an Australian actor, singer and producer who won international recognition for essaying the mutant superhero Wolverine in the long-running film series X-Men. The international star started his acting career as a theater artiste and won many accolades for his performance in musicals like Oklahoma!, and Boyz from Oz and along the way won many awards including the Tony Award in 2004. Apart from the X Men films, Jackman is known for his roles in Kate & Leopold (2001), Van Helsing (2004) and The Prestige (2006), Les Miserables (2013), which won him his first Academy Award nomination for Best Actor and he went on to win his first Golden Globe Award for Best Actor - Motion Picture Musical or Comedy. In 2012, the actor partnered with his longtime assistant John Palermo and formed his own production company named Seed Productions. Apart from his work in films, the actor is also a passionate philanthropist and he supports several charitable causes.
Early Life
Born in Sydney, Australia in 1968 to Grace McNeil and Christopher John Jackman and Grace McNeil, Hugh Jackman completed his schooling from Pymble Public School and Knox Grammar School in Sydney. He graduated with a BA in communications from the University of Technology, Sydney. The drama course he took in the final year of his Communications BA made him realize his talent for acting which led him to take the one year course “The Journey” at the Actor’s Centre also in Sydney. After completing the one year course, Jackman enrolled at the Western Australia Academy of Performing Arts of Edith Cowan University in Perth, Western Australia from which he graduated in 1994.
Personal Life
Hugh Jackman married actress Deborra-Lee Furness in April 1996 whom he had met on the sets of Australian TV show Correlli. The couple have adopted two mixed race children named Oscar and Eva.
Movie Career
As An Actor
After featuring in TV shows in Australia like Correlli (1995) and The Man from Snowy River (1996), Jackman bagged his first movie role in Erskineville Kings (1999). He essayed the role of a young lad named Wace who walks out of home to escape the clutches of his violent father. In his first film itself, Jackman’s performance earned him the Film Critics Circle of Australia’s Best Male Actor Award. Though his second film Paperback Hero (1999) was a box office failure, Jackman’s performance as a truck driver from rural Australia won approval from the critics.
Jackman then got his big break in Hollywood after he was cast as Wolverine in the superhero film X-Men (2000). It turned out to be a career-defining role for him as he reprised the character in 7 other X-Men films to much popularity as well as critical acclaim. Wolverine is one of the many mutant characters from Marvel Comics series X-Men. He has superpowers like bone claws in his hands and the ability to heal rapidly. He also has a notoriously fierce temper. X-Men, which was the very first film in the series, was a big hit at the box office. It focused on two mutants, Wolverine and Rogue – who must fight another group with similar powers but sinister intentions.
While he was reprising his roles of Wolverine in the X-Men series, Hugh Jackman proved his versatility as an actor in other films during the same period. His acting in the romantic-comedy drama Kate & Leopold (2001) won him a nomination in the Best Actor – Motion Picture Musical or Comedy category at the Golden Globe Awards that year. In the film, he essayed the role of a 19th Century duke (Leopold) who time travels to modern New York and falls in love with an ambitious market researcher named Kate. He then returned to play Wolverine in the second film in the X-Men series titled X2 (2003) directed by Bryan Singer. The film co-starring Halle Berry, Patrick Stewart, and Ian McKellen was one of the highest grossing films that year and it received eight Saturn Awards nominations.
Following the huge success of the X2, Jackman collaborated with director Stephen Sommers for his dark fantasy-adventure film Van Helsing (2004). Although the film got many flaks from the critics, it raked in more than 300 million USD and the box office and established Jackman as a bankable actor. The same year, Jackman made his debut as a voice actor as he lent his voice to the character named Gabriel Van Helsing in the American animated film titled Van Helsing: The London Assignment. Over the next couple of year he lent his voice in Happy Feet (2006) and Flushed Away (2006).
Jackman played the lead role in the highly acclaimed Christopher Nolan film Prestige (2006). He essayed the role of one of the two stage magicians (the other played by Christian Bale) who compete fiercely with one another to create the ultimate stage illusion. Jackman’s credibility as an actor increased even further as this film also found success at the box office, apart from widespread critical acclaim.
The year 2006 saw him featuring in two other films of note – The Fountain and X Men: Last Stand. While the former film directed Darren Aronofsky was a box office failure and got mixed reviews, it has over the years developed a cult status. Jackman played three different characters across different timelines, each separated by five centuries. X-Men: The Last Stand had Jackman’s character Logan/Wolverine playing a crucial role in the whole plot due to his healing factor. The third film in X- Men series was again a huge commercial success with its worldwide collection totaling more than 450 million USD.
In 2008, Jackman returned to his homeland to work with his fellow Australian actors, Nicole Kidman and Baz Luhrmann for epic period drama film, Australia. The film tells the story of an English woman who travels to Australia to fight for the land she inherited after her husband’s death. The movie was a box office disappointment and also received mixed reviews. Jackman’s thriller film Deception the same year, also failed to make any impression. But he made a strong comeback with X-Men Origins: Wolverine (2009), the fourth instalment in the X- Men film series. The film told the story of how Colonel Stryker trains a young Logan and his brother Victor as commandos and what leads to Logan’s short temper. It was a huge hit at the box office, but was poorly received by the critics. After an uncredited cameo in X – Men: First Class (2011), Jackman again found commercial success in futuristic film Real Steel (2011) in which he played a boxing promoter who aims to make it big in sport of robot boxing.
A veteran of musicals on stage, Jackman then explored the genre for the first time in Les Miserables (2012), which was based on the novel of the same name by Victor Hugo. Apart from humungous commercial success of the film, Jackman earned his first Academy Award nomination for essaying the role of the French prisoner Jean Valjean released on parole. The following year, he reprised his role of the popular mutant hero Wolverine in The Wolverine. It was the second X – Men film that focused only on the character Logan/Wolverine. Though declared a hit, it couldn’t match the commercial success of previous X-Men films. He then essayed the role of a father who takes matters in his own hands after his daughter goes missing, in the Denis Villeneuve film Prisoners, Jackman’s performance in the highly acclaimed drama was particularly praised by the critics. The film also ended up earning about 120 million USD, which was nearly three times its budget.
His next film, X – Men: Days of Future Past (2014), not only garnered more positive reviews than any other X – Men film, but also went on to become the biggest hit of the series by earning in excess of $ 700 million. Jackman’s experiment of playing a negative character in Pan (2015) was badly received by both the masses and the critics. But next year, his performance as the alcoholic snow groomer in the British film Eddie the Eagle (2016) was quite loved. Jackman’s 2017 releases are Logan and The Greatest Showman. In the former film, he plays the mutant Wolverine for the 8th time, while the latter is a P.T. Barnum biopic with Jackman essaying the titular role.
As a Producer
While Hugh Jackman’s first film as producer Deception (2008) failed at the box office, his next two ventures were both major commercial success. X-Men Origins: Wolverine (2009) earned in excess of $ 300 million, while his third film as producer The Wolverine (2013) earned more than $ 400 million worldwide. He has acted in all the three films he has produced.
TV Career
Hugh Jackman started his acting career with TV, he made his debut on the small screen with the Australian TV series, Law of the Land (1994) where he played the role of Charles ‘Chicka’ McCray in the single episode of the series. The following year, he played one of the lead roles in the Correlli, an Australian TV series, which was broadcast on ABC TV. Over the next few years, he appeared in series’ like Halifax f.p (1998), Viva Laughlin (2007), and An Aussie Goes Bolly (2008). The actor has also hosted several prestigious events and shows including Tony Awards in 2003, 2004, and 2005, WWE Raw (2011), and Christmas in Washington (2013).
Theater Career
Huge Jackman began his acting career on the stage in Australia by performing in various musicals like ‘Beauty And The Beast (1995)’ and ‘Sunset Boulevard (1996)’. The West End musical ‘Oklahoma!’ in particular garnered him a lot of praise. He even went on to win the prestigious Tony Award in 2004 for Best Leading Actor in a Musical for his titular role in the Broadway musical ‘The Boy from Oz’. Jackman also has his very own music concerts in which he performs his own Hollywood and Broadway musical numbers.