Meeting actor Hugh Jackman

We met actor Hugh Jackman when he was in Manhattan recently. We loved him in the movie “Eddie the Eagle,” but mostly in the “X-Men” movies, where he stars as The Wolverine.

Is it hard for you to change your voice to sound American since you’re actually Australian?

It’s getting easier. I’ve done about 25 movies so it should get easier, but I still have a dialogue coach that helps me and is there on set. And I make mistakes every day. A lot every day. You speak a certain way for 30 years and part of the job is training but you forget quickly.

Has there ever been a movie role that you wanted to play and didn’t get the part?

The most frustrating thing for me was when I got my first film role. It was a movie called “Hotel to Love,” and the director auditioned me. And how weird is this? The director was my wife’s ex-boyfriend. Well I went into that audition. I’m like, ‘I’m not going to get this.’ I went in and we did three or four auditions and finally he goes, ‘No, I didn’t want to give it to you, but I’m giving you the part.’ Then he called me the next day and said, ‘The financers, they don’t want you. So sorry.’ And I got taken away and now that I remember, it was really hard. And I still haven’t watched the film.

What was your favorite role to play?

I do movies and I do theater. I loved them all. For me the moments on stage when it’s all working is the kind of high you can’t replicate anywhere else.

What advice would you give to a middle school boy or girl?

I think always keep in mind, ‘Do the thing you love to do.’ Because there’s a lot of your life you’re doing things you don’t want to do. Just be true, remember the thing you love, stick with it and don’t care what anybody else thinks. Don’t just try and do things because it will make you popular. In the end if you could find the thing you genuinely want to do, you’d be pretty much a happy person. Anything else is going to be kind of exhausting and tiring.

If you could actually live in any movie you have been in which would it be and why?

I did a movie called “Kate and Leopold.” My character traveled in time and that would be fun.

Have you ever been injured on stage or during a movie?

Yeah, I have had a bunch of injuries and different things. Heat exhaustion, passed out, hit cameras. On stage probably the hardest was doing Broadway. Dancing eight times a week and I had stress fractures from my feet.

What is the scariest part about auditioning?

The thing is, in an audition, there’s so much out of your control. You don’t know how many other people are auditioning, you don’t know who’s auditioning. All you could do is your best. I kind of trick myself that I’ve already got the job. I pretend that it’s like the first rehearsal. I don’t pretend I know everything, but I’ll try different things.