Hugh Jackman Is Nothing Like Wolverine, Says His Son

My first guest tonight is a Golden Globe Emmy and Tony Award winning actor and just a lovely fella. His most impressive hardware is his adamantine claws. And he's wearing them one last time in Logan. Who's this? Just a guy I told you to get back in your nice truck and go play okie dickhead somewhere else. Hey Carl, looks like Mr. Monson hired some muscle. Looks that way. He's a friend of mine. A friend with a big mouth. I hear that a lot. And you probably hear this too. More than I'd like. And you know the drill. I'm gonna count to three and you're gonna start walking away. I got rights to this one. One. I have a lawyer now. Two. You alright boss? You know the drill. Get the hell out of here. Please welcome Hugh Jackman. You just did the real movie star entrance. What's that? I've noticed this over the years. Is that movie stars have a slightly different entrance than everybody else. They always take a moment, stand right over there and they address the audience first. Patrick Stewart did the exact same thing. Exactly. And Uma Thurman did the exact same thing. You're a true movie star. That's it. This is it. I made it. Thank you. I have to thank you publicly. What did I do? We hosted an event just over a year ago in Central Park. Oh, I have a picture of it. Actually, I was gonna talk about it. This is... Yes. This is... That is us, yes. Exactly. This is Global Citizen. Light as a feather, by the way. Light as a feather. We co-hosted. And I ended with a long trench coat on your shoulders. I came out for our second segment from way stage left only to discover that my eyesight has got that bad that I couldn't read anything. And under my breath I said, I can't read it. And you said, what? And I said, could you read at all? And so I stood there the entire time while you covered for me. Thank you. You're welcome. And I now have contact lenses, so thank you for that. I got your back. You carried me on your back. Yes, yes. Well, the thing about this, the thing about this that I find very humbling is that we rehearsed this once. Yes. We met it at some rehearsal studio in the city. We rehearsed it once. And I got on his shoulders and I was afraid, like, I don't know why, that I was gonna hurt your shoulders by sitting on them. But when I got off, I limped away from being on your shoulders. And my wife, our wives were there, and my wife said, are you telling me that you hurt your leg sitting on his shoulders? It was really humbling. Thank you. Now, what happened here? You got a cut on those adamantium claws or something like that? Yes. I have hit myself many times over the years, but this is a basal cell carcinoma, which is the least dangerous form of skin cancer. Very common for Aussies to have. But everyone should be aware. Don't be like me. Wear sunscreen. Get checkups. But I'm all fine. It's all out. All right. This is just too much time to the beach. Too much time to the beach. And English parents. Growing up in Australia. We didn't know about the ozone layer. I think there was something about sunscreen. I don't ever remember my parents putting it on me. Maybe they did. We rubbed oil on ourselves. There was a lot of that. Like, get burned. Peel. Two or three times beginning of summer. And that was your base. You're ready to go, mate. It would toughen you up and manage your life. They'd just peel you and make you into a book. Now, I heard that you were 13 when you first decided that you were going to make a life in the theatre. Oh, wow. Okay. Is that a true story? Kind of. My father was converted by Billy Graham at a revival before I was born. So I was brought up in the church. And we went to a revival meeting. And I was about 13. I remember looking up at this minister. I think he's called a minister. He was up on stage having a very, very strong sense that I would one day be up on a stage in front of a lot of people. Like, not, oh, I would like to be. Just knowing that would happen. So that was when I was about 13. Did you think maybe you were going to be a preacher? Yeah. At the time, I thought, well, maybe it's a preacher or something like that. Just a slightly different religion, like comic books. But that's, you know. When did you find out there was another option? Like, you could go up there because a lot of people don't know you necessarily as a brilliant stage actor because they know you from all the movies. I've done it since I was five. So theatre for me, when I was five, I did Camelot when I was five. Were you Lancelot? I was the king. Oh, you were the king. The king. Come on, man. Sorry. I was the king. Had the crown. Didn't quite fit. And I remember it. Halfway through the song, the crown falling literally over my face. For half a second, I was mortified. Like into a dog collar or something like that? I was five or six. No, not even all the way down. Just embarrassingly right in front of my face. And then everyone laughed. Oh, this is all good. It's all good. It doesn't matter. So that was sort of when I got hooked when I was five. Well, actually, one of the reasons I got hooked on comedy is that I found out, because I'd done drama for years, and then I found out that if you're doing a comedy and you **** everything up, you've still got to laugh. Yeah, right. I'm like, this is for me. You know one thing? When I met you and your family, your son found you funny. I remember that. He really found... Like, does that happen all the time at home? I remember him laughing. You were telling jokes. I looked over, and your wife and your son were laughing. I thought, that's amazing. Like, normally. It is, right? Do they laugh at you at home? We have a good time with this. I laugh at them, too. Like, I remember my son having a friend come over. He was about 13. And the guy was peppering him with Wolverine questions over. And my son was saying nothing. And I'm in the room next door, and finally I hear this. Listen, my dad is nothing like Wolverine. He is not tough. He's not cool. Don't ask me any more about him, right? My kids are really funny. I steal jokes from them all the time. I stole this joke from my son. Mitch McConnell had just been made the Senate Majority Leader because the Republicans had taken over the Senate a few years back. And my wife and I were talking on the front seat, and my son in the back seat goes, he must have been about 10 or something like that. And he goes, Mitch McConnell? Is that the same Mitch McConnell I've never heard of? Very good. Like, stolen. Stolen. We're going to take a quick break. We'll be right back with more Jack. Stick around, everybody. We'll be right back.