Hugh Jackman as Blackbeard in Pan. Photo / Supplied
Hugh Jackman as Blackbeard in Pan. Photo / Supplied
Hugh Jackman deserves his reputation as one of the nicest people in Hollywood, learns Leena Tailor, who speaks to him about his new movie, Pan.
He is regularly referred to as the nicest guy in entertainment, so it's little surprise that on a Saturday afternoon in Beverly Hills, members of the media who would normally be complaining about working in the weekend are instead waxing lyrical about Hugh Jackman.
"I've don't think he's ever had a bad day," insists one reporter.
"He really is the nicest person on the planet," adds a male writer from Spain.
"Afterwards, you're in love with him for two days," pipes in a German journalist.
At 46, the Oscar/Emmy/Tony-winning Australian has clearly won over Hollywood's hard-to-please press, yet it took his latest project Pan to finally impress his own family.
"My kids are generally bored on-set," he tells Living. "It's going to sound spoiled and people are like, 'Are you kidding me? You have a chance to go on the Wolverine set?'
"But most of the time it's the place where they have be quiet and can't do what they want. But on this set they were literally flown around on harnesses in Neverland. It was a real set in these massive warehouses - you could actually get lost in Neverland, it was that big.
"[My son's] very honest with me and he said, 'I don't always like your movies, Dad, but this one's really good.' Even if you're a cool, hip teenager there's something that is universal about this story that attracts them."
Pan tells the origin tale of Peter Pan, played by 12-year-old Australian Levi Miller, and Captain Hook (Garrett Hedlund). Jackman stars as pirate Blackbeard.
The actor says he feels an extra pull towards the story now that he's a parent, having adopted Oscar, 15, and Ava, 10, with wife Deborra-Lee Furness after the pair suffered two miscarriages.
"Everyone on the planet knows Peter Pan. It's such a beautiful story and now as a parent, it touches me more because I have adopted kids. There are parts of the story I am very sensitive to.
"It's a story about orphans, so for [my kids] it's important they come to terms with who they are, where they came from and the fact that they're not with their birth parents - and how that feels to them.
"They've seen the movie and they love it, but it was a great chance for us to talk through all that stuff.
"We talk to them all the time about it, but these are issues that they will have their entire lives as adopted kids. They probably will morph and come up in different ways at different ages for them."
Jackman's childhood was coloured with family upheaval. His English immigrant parents divorced when he was 8 and his mother returned to the UK with his two sisters while he remained in Australia with his dad and two brothers.
He discovered his love for the arts early, but didn't feel like he could embrace the passion. His biggest regret was not taking dance lessons at the age of 12.
"A teacher in a school concert pulled me aside and said, 'Look, there's no dancing at this school, but you've got talent and you should go dance.'
"I went, 'I love dance - great!' But someone I know called me a sissy, so I just didn't do it. Then when I was 19 that person and I went to see 42nd Street and at the interval he apologised and said, 'You should be up there on that stage.'
"I signed up the next day, but in the world of dance, ages 12-18 are key if you really want to do it."
Regardless, Jackman has been able to pursue his love for singing and dancing. He has appeared on Broadway in productions including The Boy from Oz, for which he won a Tony Award, and Hugh Jackman, Back on Broadway.
In Pan he also gets to sing, including a thunderous entrance to Nirvana's Smells Like Teen Spirit. Director Joe Wright (Atonement, Pride and Prejudice) had cast rehearse such segments as though they were in a musical and between takes he was pumping music throughout the giant set, which Jackman describes as "a big dance club".
Being able to sing isn't something Jackman takes for granted after a vocal scare forced him off-stage in Turkey in March.
"A vocal haemorrhage sounded dramatic, but it's like a bruise - a bleeding that happens inside and you don't actually feel it. I thought I was fine and the doctor said, 'No, no, no.' "I couldn't talk for a week. My wife hated it. I quite liked it.
"That was a little bit of a wake-up call, because I was told that if I had sung that night it would probably have ruptured my vocal chords, which means you'll never sing again. "And I was going to walk on that stage. I've performed feeling way worse but I just couldn't feel this so I didn't realise the [severity].
"It's the first time I've missed a show in 18 years and it happens to everyone in life where you're forced to realise that actually we're human."
The ordeal may have reminded the Wolverine actor of his immortality, but it's Pan that has prompted Jackman to adopt a carefree, child-like approach to life.
Hugh Jackman. Photo / Supplied
"I've got kids and it's easy to take the world seriously and go, 'We're adults and have to be responsible.'
"Watching this film makes you feel like a kid again, where everything is possible. You remember how easily we forget that child-like view of life or lose that sense of limitless, creativity, joy and wonder.
"When I was Levi's age, I thought, 'As soon as I leave school everything is going to be incredible and I'll have this freedom.' Here we all are with our freedom but how many adults live life with that sense of freedom that a kid imagines it will be like?
"That's the lesson of Peter Pan - it reminds you to be a kid again and celebrates the imagination of a child [and how] the more we keep that in life, the happier we will be. Of course, we have to grow up and pay rent, but if you can live life with the optimism and sense of wonder a child has, you'll be much happier."
