Hugh Jackman Interview

Having broken through with Swordfish and as Wolverine in X-Men, HUGH JACKMAN is following in the footsteps of Antipodean superstars like Mel Gibson, Russell Crowe and Geoffrey Rush. Now he appears alongside Meg Ryan in the charming rom-com Kate And Leopold, where he plays a real gent from 1876 whose thrust into the present day and tries to woo a thoroughly modern missie. He also, of course, has to cope with a world that's drastically different from the one he knows. Here TISCALI quizzes him on the English, chivalry, swearing and falling off horses.

Tiscali: Strange to see an Aussie playing such a thoroughly English gentleman.

Hugh Jackman: Sorry about that. We're actually a lot cheaper than the English version, you see.

Tiscali: To perfect the accent, did you stay in character off-camera?

Hugh Jackman: To be honest, the accent was one of the things I was most nervous about because - and I don't want to offend anyone here - in Australia, upper-class English men are never portrayed as the likeable leading man. They're usually something else - I won't go into it - but, growing up, that was my experience. The accent wasn't that hard for me to do, because my father's English, from Cambridge, and my mother's English. I'd been in England a lot. So, I got the sound right, but my dialogue coach said I also sounded as if I had a carrot up my you-know-what, as if I was JUDGING the character, which I WAS. So I stayed with the accent - not the character, the accent - for about two weeks at home. It drove my kid crazy, because I was reading him stories in that voice. It certainly drove my wife crazy.

Tiscali: In the movie, you also carry yourself like a toff. Did you have to practise?

Hugh Jackman: Particularly humiliating for me. Meg said "The horse-riding scene's coming up, how's your riding?" And I said "Fine, I'm learning". And she said "Oh, you're LEARNING". So the day came and the first shot was a back shot with me riding up behind her. So, first take, I came up, went straight past, everything was fine. But then the horse saw a light and decided to put on the brakes and I went straight over the top and landed on my arse. Of course, it hurt like hell, and the first thing I saw when I looked up was Meg going "Oh, NO". So when they asked me if I wanted to stop I said 'No, if I don't get straight back on the horse Meg will NEVER get up there with me'. And, three hours later, she did get up on the horse with me, which I think was truly heroic. Funnily enough, later that afternoon, they wanted a shot where we were riding through these trees and bushes, and we couldn't ride through there even if we wanted to, it was so thick. So we had to sit on this horizontal punching bag, rock back and forth, and PRETEND we were riding. We felt so ridiculous but, looking at the movie, THAT looks real and the shot that actually WAS real looks fake.

Tiscali: Is it true you once wanted to be a journalist?

Hugh Jackman: Well, I was very idealistic as a student. I pictured myself as a radio stringer for ABC or the BBC somewhere in the Middle East, filing reports, changing the world, all that sort of thing. But I realised I didn't have the passion, or the skill or the personality for it. Then I realised the journalist's job - you know, the love of stories and the quest to understand human nature and report back - was part of an actor's job too.

Tiscali: Was it easy to lose Leopold after shooting ended?

Hugh Jackman: I did nothing but swear for the first week. I swore like a trooper, because I'd been so good. Now I'm sharpening the claws ready for some slicing and dicing as Wolverine.