Hot stuff

BEING introduced as the sexiest man alive is a tough description to live up to. Hugh Jackman is diverting attention by recalling what his wife, actress Deborra Lee-Furness, thought about the honour from People magazine in the US.

“The first thing Debs said was ‘I knew it, I knew I’d married the sexiest man alive’,” says the 40-year-old Australian actor with a laugh.

Then she wanted to know about the process of choosing the winner. “I said ‘I think it’s the editors and a think-tank of people. They get together, look at photos and work out whose publicist they’re on good terms with and things like that, and then they decide.

“And she said ‘so anyone can get it?’ and I said ‘yes’ and she said ‘And Brad Pitt didn’t get it?’ And I said ‘that was a joke, right?’ and she said ‘oh yeah, yes, of course’.”

Jackman, like another contender for the sexiest man crown, George Clooney, maintains a healthy sense of humour regarding such honours, knowing that the reward for being the sexiest man alive isn’t a trophy but “a whole lot of hell from your mates”.

Also like Clooney, Jackman is a joy to meet – a naturally charming and likeable chap who hasn’t let success, and being named one of the 50 most beautiful people in the world five years on the trot, go to his head.

He’s even added a new role to his considerable CV – hosting next year’s Academy Awards ceremony.

This is a brave move if what he said after being a presenter at the 2002 Oscars is true. “There’ll be a lot of drunken parties back home and people betting, and that’s usually what I’m at, so getting up there in a suit and talking for a little bit is kind of bizarrre.”

Being in charge for the whole ceremony might prove quite a challenge.

His new film, Australia, comes from writerdirector Baz Luhrmann, who made Strictly Ballroom, Romeo And Juliet with Leonardo Di- Caprio and Moulin Rouge. Jackman plays the Drover, a rough and tough cattleman who teams up with an English artistocrat (played by Nicole Kidman) in the Outback on the brink of the Second World War.

It’s a sweeping, spectacular epic in the style of old movies like Gone With The Wind, with Jackman’s Drover proving the perfect romantic hero. How embarrassing then to have to own up to fainting on set. “It was unfortunately on the first day of filming on location, which was not the most macho way to start, particularly as we were in the Outback and there were many of the real deal out there on the set as well,” he says.

“I don’t know what the temperature was, but it was incredibly hot and we were waiting.

There was a massive wide shot of all the cattle as they come into Darwin. There was a scene where my character rides through the stockyards, trying to cut off the other cattle getting on board.

“So I’m waiting on my horse, ready to go.

Half an hour later I said ‘do you think we’ll be going pretty soon, I’m getting pretty hot’. I was wearing a woollen shirt, leather pants, an allweather jacket with lining in it, a hat and a horse which got particularly spooked by umbrellas. So there were no umbrellas to shade me from the sun.”

They promised he wouldn’t have to wait much longer. But 45 minutes later he was still waiting and felt a hand in my back. “What are you doing?” he demanded.

“And this guy said ‘what am I doing, mate? You’re at a 45 degree angle to the horse’. Some guy who was an extra was holding me. So a few people let me down and they very graciously cut the jacket out of most of the shoot from that point on.”

He wears less in a shower scene as the Drover soaps himself and rinses off under the stars, watched by Kidman’s uptight Englishwoman.

He asked the director if he was sure about the scene and told it would be okay as long as they were 100 per cent bold. “It was emblematic of how the process was because it’s bold in every way, in terms of drama, action, romance, even the first kiss between Nicole and me.

“Baz said ‘do it again, but do it slower’ and I thought we were really slow. Then I saw the first kiss for the first time sitting next to my wife and it seemed even slower.

“But that is essentially what’s great about Baz. He pushes the boundaries and has made a film that traverses so many different genres.”

Jackman liked playing the Drover because it combined many of the iconic images and screen characters he loved as a kid.

“But more than anything, Baz gave me and Nicole and all of us in this film an opportunity to do in one film what we’d be lucky to do in five films; the different types of genre we were called upon to play, from comedy to tragedy to romance. It doesn’t happen very often.

“One thing that has really resonated with me and my mates who’ve seen the film – when they’ve stopped giving me crap about the sexiest man alive thing – is that the generation above us were all so emotionally removed in general. That side of the story is something I’m thrilled is there.

“The whole idea of being an ultra-masculine character and being reserved and tightlywound emotionally is erroneous to me. It’s actually more manly to be vulnerable at times, when you show your emotions.

“This character starts off as a very archetypically macho, very shut-off outsider who gradually becomes more involved and vulnerable.”

The actor shows two sides as the Drover swaps his outdoor cattleman garb for a tuxedo to attend a posh ball. Which did he prefer? “I can tell you which one works for my wife more.

The day I wore that double-breasted white jacket, she said ‘wear your costume home tonight’.

She didn’t say that about my other costumes smelling of horse and cows,” he says.

In real life, turning up at a ball in a dinner jacket wouldn’t worry him. “Ask me to sing a song and do a foxtrot, I’ll probably quite enjoy it, no problem,” he says.

“But the Drover has to dance and he doesn’t dance, he has to wear a suit and he’s probably never worn anything like that before. So, as an actor, I had to get into what that feels like, wearing something for the first time, so that was probably harder. The other one I lived with for seven months on the set, so it became kind of natural.”

■ Australia (12A) opens in cinemas on Boxing Day.