Hugh Jackman's Wolverine Audition Was 20 Seconds Long

Hugh, it is so great to see you, and thank you so much for doing our show. You were one of our first guests when we did our quarantine show for my house, and we baked challah bread together. We did. I don't know about you, but what was the reaction at your house from your challah? Dude, it went crazy. People loved it. People freaked out. They said, you made this? I go, oh, yeah. They go, but it was the egg wash. It was a secret move. I was weird because I went somewhere recently, like a long time after, and this person looked at me. I was in the backyard. It was one of those social-distance things. They said, saw your challah, and already, like, looked a little annoyed with me. And I said, right, for an Aussie, not bad, right? And they went, hmm, it should have 12 braids. Like, religiously speaking. Yeah, I mean. I was like, oh, no, you don't understand. Jimmy and me, our bar is way lower. Yeah, we're not bakers. We're not. We'll never be a baker. No, we're not going to be. Never. I was happy. I've never made it. I was actually happy that I knew how to braid, and you taught me those. And the sesame seed I put out, it was just great. I loved it. Look at that. Mine's a little basic. All right, all right, take that off. Okay, we got you. Mine's a little unprofessional. Are you still baking? I try to whenever I can. I try to cook. Do you do a lot of cooking? I like cooking. I was brought up. So my mom and dad both cook. Both really different. My dad, classic accountant, follow the recipe exactly. And so it'll come out exactly as the recipe says. My mom has never wrote down a recipe. She just cooks. She's like an artist. In fact, I have to show you this thing. I have it here because it's one of the greatest gifts I've ever gotten. So my mom wrote this book for me for my birthday. And inside, look at how neat that is. Handwritten, every recipe I grew up with. And it's all my favorites. And I said, mom, but how did you get the recipes? Because you don't go for a recipe. She goes, I made them all. I said, what? She said, yeah, over the last year, I've had to make everything from your childhood and write down and measure and do all that. Is that just not the great, like- I immediately felt like a pretty crap parent. I was like, wow, my presence has gone a long ways. I know, exactly. Yeah, you're like, how do I top that one? Wait, I did something similar with my mom. You know, I know my mom's passed away now a few years now. And I know, but before that, I gave her this book and it said grandma's favorite recipe or something. I go, I know it says grandma, but just ignore that. I go and just write down just when you have the time. If you have a recipe of what I used to like during the holidays. And she was like, I'm not a grandma. I didn't even have grandkids. I'm not a grandma. I go, I understand you're young. And that's the whole thing. And we understand, but I made her do this thing. And I kept checking on her, like, hey, is it almost done? And then one Christmas she gave it to me. And she goes, I finally finished that book. And it is magic because like you said, there's no real recipes. There's like a pinch of something. Yeah. And if you want- The whole life you go, ah, my mom's creme caramel. I wish I could add that. And so I make like eight out of 10 versions of everything my mom cooked me when I was growing up. I'm like- That is magic. It's just quotes all through Julia Child. If you're scared, if you're scared of butter, try cream. Like, oh, just all the way through. Dude, I have to get out my mom's cook because it's similar and it's the best thing. It just, it makes you think of mom. And he just, I love it. And I think that's the secret to cooking, right? Putting the love into it anyway. You got it. Yeah. Last time we talked about the Music Man and since then, obviously Broadway closed, Music Man postponed till spring, but it's still happening, right? 100%. We go into rehearsals in February and then we'll open in May. And how do you keep yourself ready? I sing every day. Drive my kids crazy. I'm up there singing every day. I do singing lessons every week. I do dance lessons with my, like, choreographer. Sometimes I do, like, the Broadway Dance Center, you know, just the $12.95. Yeah. Which is sometimes, I gotta say, sometimes it's humiliating because there'll be, like, 70 people in the class and I don't have my video on, obviously, but I do look and there's, it's just basically 68 of them are teenage girls and me. And I think, is this weird? This is weird. But I do that occasionally. And then I sing. I get with my Patrick Bacariello, my MD, and we'll just sing through the thing because I'm a worker, man. I'm like you, I'm a worker. I like to work. You're a perfectionist. You always show up and when you do, it's a great job. I was actually looking at a bunch of your, I went in a deep dive and found some old headshots of yours. I thought it'd be kind of fun to maybe take a look and just say, like, what were you going through at that time? Does that sound okay? Yeah, let's do that. All right, check this out. First up, tell me about this guy. What year was this? And what was he into? Nice mullet, 1995. That was Corelli. The fake tats there. This was my first job that I did. My wife was the star of it. And she used to say to me, don't take the tats off. That's how it came about. But that was about a five month job. And so we got together about two or three months in and I don't know. It does look a little porn. I didn't move that a lot. I tried to pull off a kind of version of that. Cause I thought like I was really, you know, I love Paul McCartney. And I was looking, I was in a phase where I was looking at all of his wings stuff and how cool he looked and kind of had that mullet, but you know, shorter hair up top. And I go, I'm going to do that. And it looks awful. I mean, my... Can I see it? No, I actually banned it. Oh, come on. All right. If there's anyone there, like in the control room, who's stashed some, I just want to see it. If there's anything there, just say it. No, that's just my first headshot. That's what that one was. How do you have that lying around? That I paid. That was next to the, like the local hardware store. Some guy was like, yeah, we also do a headshots. And what role was I going for there? You don't take the center part? Is that the center part? Oh, that is such a center part. That took me forever. And who's going to laugh at this comedian? He doesn't look funny at all. This is very dramatic. He looks sad. Very Daniel Day-Lewis. What year is this, Jimmy? God, get that off. I can't even, I can't even look at this. Let's look at this headshot of you that this other one I found. Oh, I like him. That's clean. Look, look at me, the golden retriever. That is like me at drama school. I'm like, yeah, I can do a commercial for a bank. What do you want? What do you guys want? I'll be right there. Sure, whatever you guys want. I remember being at drama school. Everyone else just seemed way cooler. They all looked like, you know, Jim Dean, Brando, leather jackets, smoking cigarettes. And look at me, I'm like a big golden retriever. Hi, this is so much fun. I've got a monologue. Should I do a monologue? I love it though, it's great. Well, last month marked 20 years since your debut as Wolverine in X-Men. And in fact, we found your original Wolverine audition from 1999. Let's take a look at this. Oh, I'm not like you. Listen, kid, about the only thing you've done to endear yourself to me is to get me into a fight. So listen to me, shut up. Dude. A little more magician than Wolverine. Did that human know that you'd be playing that role for the next 17 years? By the way, when I walked into that room, I was pretty sure that I wasn't playing the role. It was like a, it was a weird audition because Duke Ray Scott had the role and then he got caught up on Mission Impossible 2, but everyone thought that would get sorted. But the studio said, look, we need a backup plan just in case. So it was like this Hail Mary to begin with, which is probably the best way to do an audition. You're going in like, eh. And I remember thinking, all right, so I'm going in there. Literally, you showed a clip about, that was, how long was that, 15 seconds? I think the entire audition was about 20 seconds. It wasn't much longer. Wow. And yeah, they were actually filming at the time. I went up in Toronto, that was in one of the offices and it was at lunchtime. So I, first of all, I never thought anything was happening with that. And I flew back that next day and Kevin Feige took me, he drove me to the airport, who's now runs Marvel, for those that don't know him. He was the assistant, one of the assistants there. I said, dude, you don't have to, everyone knows I'm going to get in the car. Like, you don't have to drive me to the airport. And he goes, nah, I'll drive you and we'll stop, grab some dinner. I was like, dude, you don't have to be that nice. Like, thank you. We all get it. We all understand. So who would have thought nine years later, nine movies later, 20 years later, that that would have happened? No, I mean, honestly, in Hollywood, a mate of mine said to me, who's quite high up in the business. And he said, dude, the word on the street is not good about the movie. No one watches comic book movies. They're like dead. That thing's gone forever. Book another movie before it comes out. Like, just say you're the lead in a big movie and try and book another movie. That way you at least get another shot. So I did. I hustled just trying to get an audition, you know. No way. I love this. No one understood it was the beginning of, like, Comic-Con was a 50,000 person thing. The internet was really just beginning. No one really understood. They thought what they thought was like a subculture, comic books was actually mainstream, but no one knew that. Gosh.