Hugh Jackman

by Anthony Bunko

  Deb originally wanted to name their son Balthazar. She thought it would sound cute, especially when shortened to ZarZar. But Hugh said that a boy named Balthazar would just get beaten up at school. Deb confessed later that everyone hated the name except for her. Then again, she didn’t care what he was called as long as he was fit, healthy and theirs. In the end she conceded, and they opted for the more practical Oscar.

  The new mum’s life changed overnight, and Deb now felt complete. She couldn’t wait to show Oscar off. She’d had years of pain, looking at photos of friends’ children, and now it was time to show the world her own little Oscar: ‘I’m one of those people on a plane who would turn around and boast to perfect strangers about how my son was a genius.’

  For the first few years, Oscar was not the easiest of babies and it was a shock to the system: the crying, early wake-ups, and everything else that surrounds a newborn. The couple jokingly said it was one of the reasons they waited five years before adopting their second child, Ava, who they both agreed was a dream of a baby.

  In Ava’s case, the adoption process was closed; they didn’t get to see her until she was four days old. Despite their strong family life and the stable home the couple had to offer, Ava’s adoption also held a series of problems. Hugh and Deb had already been refused permission to adopt a little girl before Ava came along. ‘I think the perception of Hollywood, of actors and actresses, is so distorted that the idea that two people can be in a conventional marriage that works is just something some people find hard to believe,’ Hugh said. ‘When we were adopting Ava, we were actually in discussions with another girl, but her mum refused to let her daughter adopt to us because we were a “Hollywood” couple. She was trying to protect the child, which is right and good, but Deb and I are so far away from a “Hollywood” couple, it’s just not funny.’

  And their kids were not going to be spoiled, either. ‘I mean, I didn’t own one thing that hadn’t been owned before by one of my brothers or sisters until I was twelve years old. My whole life was hand-me-downs, from clothes to hats to toys. I remember when I was turning twelve, my dad said I could have a present, anything I wanted, and I said “shoes”, a pair of brand-new shoes no one else had worn. That was my big dream. I’m not complaining about those days at all, I’m just saying Deb and I know where we come from.’

  The incident proved that despite the popular belief that A-list stars get preferential treatment in the adoption process, the suspicion that celebrities might be wanting to adopt as some sort of publicity stunt can actually make it even more difficult for them. ‘It’s totally unreasonable. Anyone who has kids knows it’s a hell of a lot of work and no publicity stunt. No doubt it comes from a desire that should be praised, not criticised. These were places and situations that seemed hopeless for the children, and here is an opportunity for them all. I say good for them.’

  With the red tape behind them, they officially adopted baby daughter Ava Eliot in May 2006 after an adoption process lasting almost a year. The hearing was a joyful experience for everyone including the judge, who was happy to be handling such a positive case. Hugh and Deb, of course, cried the entire time, while Ava flirted with the judge, crawling all over his desk.

  There was five-year difference between Oscar and his new sibling, but any worries Hugh and Deborra-Lee might have had about jealousy proved unfounded. He was old enough to really look forward to having a sister, and even suggested names for her – fortunately, the couple didn’t think ‘Staten Island’ was a fitting name for their new daughter. They told Oscar what was happening every step of the way and the moment Hugh and Deb arrived home with Ava, they thought big brother Oscar was going to cry with happiness. From day one he was always sticking up for Ava and protecting her. If someone leant forward, he would jump up and yell, ‘Don’t touch her, that’s my sister!’

  Hugh is disarmingly modest when he describes his children and often gets teary-eyed when asked about them in interviews. ‘We’re very blessed. Oscar is an amazing kid and Ava is just perfect. It has nothing to do with us; it’s just the way she came out of the box. She’s the happiest little kid. You put her down for a nap and she wakes up smiling. She’s always smiling. I love my work but every time I come in the front door, I turn to mush. For me, no matter what’s going on in my life, the most important thing is my family and my connection to them. They ground me, give me focus about what’s important in life.’

  Although the children are both mixed race, the couple haven’t encountered any real prejudice towards their children. Deb admitted, however, that sometimes in the earlier days when she and Oscar were in the park, other mums would question whether she was Oscar’s mother. When she said yes, of course, they would say, ‘Oh, is he adopted then?’ And she knew they knew he was, but she didn’t care. Hugh and Deb have both talked to Oscar about what being adopted means and he doesn’t have a problem with it.

  Of course having children changes everyone’s lives, and Hugh and Deb are no different. Deb remembers little things like the fact that, although she was never a big wine drinker, she suddenly found herself watching her drinking and trying to become more grown-up and responsible. ‘You know, it was hilarious, because Hugh and I were two sort of wild kids and all of a sudden he turned into his father and I turned into my mother, and we both said no, you do it this way, not like this. And we were trying to be perfect and responsible, and it was frightening, but amazing how it just comes so naturally.’

  Hugh enjoys all the added responsibility that comes along with fatherhood as it makes him question himself, and ultimately, makes him feel more of a man. It brings out elements of his character that he believes were already there, but needed releasing. Even getting up for the 3am feeds and nappy changes has its good side. ‘Becoming a father, I think it inevitably changes your perspective of life. I didn’t get nearly enough sleep. I can understand being hesitant about getting dragged up at ungodly hours throughout the night. But all I can liken it to is that period of falling in love, when everything is ecstatic and the girl calls you at four in the morning because she’s awake and she just loves you. She wants to tell you you’re the best guy she’s ever met. A year later you think, four o’clock in the fucking morning? What is she doing? It’s been a year! It is a bit like that. At times I don’t want to get up and I think, Deb, can you do it? But the moment you’re there, it’s fantastic.’

  Even today, he still gets emotional where his children are concerned. When Ava calls out his name after a long day at the office, or when he attends his son’s school plays and is asked to say a few words, only to look down and see his smiling son giving him the thumbs up, Hugh’s legs go to jelly.

  Obviously being recognised and worshipped by movie fans and the like does have its disadvantages. Unlike most people, who are allowed to escape and enjoy time off with their family, being a Hollywood superstar is not that simple. There is a public fixation to delve into the private lives of celebrities and packs of paparazzi are always sniffing around for that magical picture.

  Hugh is usually philosophical about it all; he realises it’s all part of the big mean machine called fame. And although he does his best to protect his family, he finds it a relatively minor distraction. If he’s at the beach with his children and his private moments are being photographed by some guy hiding behind a tree, he politely informs the paparazzo that he can take all the shots he wants as long as the kids don’t know they’re being photographed. He doesn’t want either of them to be self-conscious or uncomfortable in public: ‘People on-screen are put on a pedestal and the public wants to know about them. No one dives into acting without realising, “Hey, if I get what I wish for, if I’m successful, I’ll have to deal with all that.”’ He tells his children the truth: people see him in movies and want to know what he does at the weekend. ‘They don’t really love me, I tell Oscar. Real love is what you and I have and will never go. The interest in me, the fame, and the magazines will one day disappear. I don’t know when, but that means it
’s not real.’ It’s that kind of detachment that keeps him so level-headed – a detachment cultivated from 15 years of daily meditation.

  The kids are finally starting to understand the world in which they find themselves. When they were younger, Hugh had difficulty trying to fully explain what he did for a living. He used to tell them that when he was going to work, he would play pretend. On one occasion Oscar turned and said, ‘Daddy, I don’t want you to go to work any more, I don’t want you to be a lizard.’

  Although a devoted father, Hugh is the disciplinarian of the family, which is perhaps a throwback to his old man’s ways. And he’s not afraid to handle the awkward parts of parenthood either. He’s already had the infamous father and son talk about the birds and the bees. ‘It’s not awkward,’ he says. ‘In fact, it was welcome. My dad never ever did it with me so I was very adamant that I was going to do it with my son.’ He doesn’t back down when it comes to talking to Oscar about the opposite sex either, but believes his best advice sometimes falls on deaf young ears. On one occasion, he and Oscar were shopping when his son pulled on his father’s arm. ‘Dad, look two o’clock, hot chick.’ Oscar then quickly made his way over to the girl in question and said: ‘Hey, my dad’s Wolverine.’ And then he brought the girl and her friends over to Hugh. ‘Hey Dad, can we have a few autographs for the girls?’

  However, if there’s one thing Hugh hopes to pass on to both of his children, it’s a passion for life, because he feels that passion sustains life itself. He believes that if they are lucky enough in their lives to find and do something that they really love, they will have discovered their holy grail.

  Even though they have two beautiful children, Hugh and Deb have no plans to adopt any more. Jackman, the youngest of five, himself said, ‘For Deb and me, our family is the most important thing to us, but we travel so much we fear that if we have more kids, it’ll be too much. Also, every time we get on a plane with our two kids and are all crammed in together, we think maybe we will leave it at what we have.’

  ‘I see why people have more and more kids because it kind of brings out more of yourself. I imagine, every kid you have, it makes your capacity for love even greater. When you fall in love and you get married, it’s such a relief. You’re like, “Oh, this feels so right and this woman is just so great and I love her.” And then you have a kid and it kind of just gets even bigger. And it’s frustrating and it’s tiring and all those things but your sense of, like, living life becomes so much bigger.’

  Hugh Jackman

  ‘I love watching my children laugh, grow and evolve.’

  Deborra-Lee Furness

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  Howling at the Moon… Again!

  In June 2002, when Bryan Singer called on his ensemble cast to follow him to Canada to play a gang of mutant misfits for the second time, none of them had to think twice about it.

  Like most action movies destined to be followed by a sequel, the development phase for X2 began shortly after the original X-Men film premièred. David Hayter and Zak Penn wrote separate scripts and combined what they felt to be the best elements of both into one screenplay. Michael Dougherty and Dan Harris were later hired to rewrite some of the script, changing the characterisations of some of the new recruits and deleting several scenes because of budget cuts. It took 20 different draft versions to get to the final script, and there were rumours that some of the rewrites had been commissioned specifically to give Halle Berry more screen time – her popularity had risen substantially since winning the Academy Award for Best Actress in Monster’s Ball.

  The concept they finally decided on for the second movie, called X2: X-Men United, was similar to the first, but with a more complex storyline. It also featured several new characters, including a new villain, William Stryker (Brian Cox). The plot, inspired by the Marvel graphic novel God Loves, Man Kills, pitted the X-Men and their enemies, the Brotherhood, against the evil Colonel William Stryker, who leads an assault on Professor Xavier’s school in an attempt to build his own version of the mutant-tracking computer, Cerebro.

  Hugh had been glad to have a break from the Wolverine role after the first film: ‘It gave me a little break between one and two, and it gave my wife a bit of time with a clean-shaven husband. It’s nice kissing my kid, too, without all that facial hair.’ But by the time the sequel started filming in 2002 he was eager to get the claws out again.

  And this time, die-hard comic book fans were itching to see Hugh bring their hero to life. He had gone from enemy number one, for even having the audacity to attempt to step into Wolverine’s boots, to being their new superhero. And with the huge financial success of X-Men, the entire cast and the same director had come back to work together again. Hugh couldn’t have been happier; he knew the sequel would be bigger than the first in every way. In his eyes, it explored the characters and the story in a deeper way. Bryan Singer had scored even more money from Fox this time around to improve the special effects and action sequences, although some of this budget was cut later on. There was even a little extra humour in parts of the script.

  More importantly, this time Hugh was given more opportunity to get prepared, mentally and physically, for the demands of the role, rather than being thrown in after filming had already started. ‘Yeah, from day one, I felt really good,’ he said. ‘I was physically in better shape because in the first one I had no chance to get ready. I literally had come off a three-week holiday in Sicily so I wasn’t in the best of shape. And on this one, they gave me a trainer to get into shape.’ It was the same trainer who trained Angelina Jolie for the title role in Tomb Raider. He even had a nutritionist: ‘I think they thought that an Australian’s idea of a diet was to have only six beers instead of ten or something, but I’ll tell you I learnt a bit. That nutritionist, man, it was brutal. There was no bread, there was no sugar, it was kind of wild.’

  Part of his punishing workout requirements included bench and leg presses. At one point he was benching 314lb and leg-pressing 1,000. He laughed when asked about rumours that he took steroids to get his body into shape, denying it with an excellent riposte: ‘No, I worked out with a natural bodybuilder and although I love acting, nothing is worth having testicles the size of raisins for!’

  His workout meant spending an hour and a half in the gym every day, going through different routines that changed every few weeks. He went from heavy weights with a long rest period between sets, to lighter weights with slower reps, and back to fast explosive lifts. But he pigged out, consuming around 1,000 extra calories a day to fuel his workout. It often meant eating a lot of small portions, starting at a bizarre hour of the morning. He really pushed himself hard while mentally running through the character he was going to play.

  Hugh got into the right shape and the right mindset to step back into the arena, but there was one thing he needed to put right: the one criticism fans had had of the first film was that he hadn’t been tough or unpredictable enough, and he himself agreed. He’d been talking to fans and they’d said, ‘You don’t kick enough ass. Let’s see that berserker rage!’ And he realised they were right: ‘When I went back to X-Men 1, there really wasn’t a lot there. I had a huge fight scene with Mystique, where I ended up on my back, knocked out, and there was a bit at the beginning, but other than that he was quite tame. So, when I read the new script, I thought the relationships were better, I thought it was funnier, I thought there was more action, but I still said, we’ve got to get even more action. I kind of fought for a little bit more in the mansion scene sequence, particularly. That was a little more berserker rage there than was originally written.’

  Filming was due to start in March 2002, but because of some issues it didn’t begin until late June. It ended that November, with most of the filming taking place at the Vancouver Film Studios, the largest soundstage in North America, where more than 64 different sets were used in 38 locations. The sets themselves were big. Stryker’s underground lair, for example, was built in an old warehouse and was the larg
est set in North America. It involved over 60 miles of cable and was so large that the cast and crew members had to use bicycles to get to and from the bathroom as quickly as possible. Even then, the production area only used about half the space in the warehouse. Everything on the sets was incredibly detailed, too; the replica of the President’s desk in the Oval Office was so intricate that it took two months to build. Filming did relocate from Vancouver to Kananaskis, near Calgary, for a series of climactic shoots requiring winter weather. But as luck would have it, there was no snow so they had to bring in snow-making machinery to help create tons of the stuff for the scene. The actors didn’t seem to mind, though, because while they waited for the manmade snow to pile up, they used the local Delta Lodge for some pampering treatments like herbal wraps and hot stone massages.

  The final scene in Xavier’s mansion with Cyclops, Wolverine and Professor X was actually shot at Shepperton Studios in London, simply because Hugh was shooting Van Helsing at the time and the producers released him for only one day to do the final shooting of X-Men. This explains why his hair looks higher than usual in that scene – he had to wear the Wolverine wig over Van Helsing’s long hair!

  He found being Wolverine a lot easier the second time around. ‘I think almost everything ran smoother. I mean, the process of hair and make-up was the same, hanging me by my feet and spraying three cans of hairspray on my hair. If they didn’t do that I’d look more like Moe from the Three Stooges. It’s all just exactly the same length.’ He added, ‘In every part of it, it was easier. I think everyone in the studio was given more leeway to do what we wanted. I felt like I owned the character more. I can go back to the original X-Men and see the scenes where I’m sort of there, but it’s not fully in focus for me.’