by Even though he shot from relative anonymity to global superstardom by playing a grizzled superhero, everybody knows that the first love of Hugh Jackman was, is, and will continue to be the musical.
His extensive background on stage didn’t serve as the bedrock for his big-screen success, though, with Jackman’s career-making turn as Wolverine in the X-Men franchise opening the doors that allowed him to ascend to the very top of the A-list.
Of course, Jackman has since realised his dreams of bringing his lifelong love of partaking in all-singing and all-dancing extravaganzas to the next level by touring the world with his one-man stage show and hosting the Tony Awards on four separate occasions.
However, he had the opportunity to board the adaptation of a massively popular musical right at the beginning of his Hollywood career but turned it down because he thought he was too young for the part. In the end, Jackson was left to rue that decision when the film in question became a runaway critical and commercial success.
Rob Marshall’s Chicago would go on to earn over $300million at the global box office and win six Academy Awards from 12 nominations, including ‘Best Picture’. Jackman was offered the chance to play Billy Flynn but believed he wasn’t old enough to bring the required gravitas to the part before Richard Gere was brought in.
As he told OK! Magazine, the actor ended up regretting it: “I’d always wanted to do a movie musical and this one came along relatively early in my career,” Jackman said. “I thought I was too young as there was one line when he said ‘I’ve seen it all, kid’. A year later it went on to win all the Oscars and I remember thinking that perhaps a little bit of make-up could have worked.”
Instead, the star continued to pursue action heroism through X-Men sequels, Swordfish, and Van Helsing, missing out on being a key part of an Oscar-winning musical. Not that it convinced him to sign on for any such offer that came his way for the rest of his days, though, with Jackman dodging a bullet after scheduling conflicts, fortunately, ruled him out of the disastrous Cats.
His first collaboration with director Tom Hooper in Les Misérables was a huge hit, but the filmmaker’s next musical couldn’t have gone much worse. Jackman would tell The Daily Beast that “there were a couple of options there based on availability and time,” but he couldn’t clear enough room to become a CGI-assisted monstrosity along with the rest of the ensemble.
He may have missed out on a ‘Best Picture’ winner, then, but it didn’t do a thing to prevent the long-time Wolverine from living out his ambitions of treading the boards and belting out the odd show tune on the silver screen in the years to come.
