Nice-guy Jackman over the moon to tap-dance his way to Houston
I was standing at the ice cream station at Montblanc’s recent tony party at the Lone Star Flight Museum when the multitalented actor Hugh Jackman cut in front of me.
I like Jackman and all, but I love ice cream more.
I tapped him lightly on the shoulder, extending my reach high since he’s 6 feet 2 inches tall and was looking quite trim in a Tom Ford suit.
“Excuse me, Hugh. I was here first,” I said in a happy, notconfrontational way.
“I’m so sorry. That’s a celebrity for you, right?”
Right, but this celebrity gave me an extra spoon and shared his cup of vanilla bean ice cream with me. That cemented my impression of Jackman — a nice guy with good manners.
Jackman brings his one-man show, “Hugh Jackman: The Man. The Music. The Show,” to Toyota Center on Tuesday.
He kicked off his ambitious world tour in May in Germany. It’s modeled after his 2011 Broadway concert, “Hugh Jackman, Back on Broadway.” This time, the actor and entertainer tapdances and performs songs from “The Greatest Showman,” “Les Misérables” and other Broadway shows.
Jackman, along with actors Diane Kruger, Charles Melton (of “Riverdale”), model Winnie Harlow and Montblanc CEO Nicolas Baretzki attended the Montblanc event to celebrate the German brand’s launch of its new StarWalker pen and the 50th anniversary of the Apollo 11 moon landing. Jackman is the brand’s global ambassador and led a short panel discussion with Baretzki and space station commander Leroy Chiao, who spent 229 days in space over the course of four missions.
“Yes, I wanted to be an astronaut when I was younger. I think most kids do at some point, right?” said Jackman, 50, in an interview before the panel. “So when I was growing up, the space program was a big deal. But I think mainly I wanted to experience the zero gravity, that’s all. None of the training, the math, none of that. Just the zero gravity.”
Jackman said he was flying back to New York for his son’s high school graduation, then would return to Houston for his show. He and his wife of 23 years, Deborra-Lee Furness, have two children, Oscar and Ava.
Many fans know Jackman as the brooding superhero “Wolverine” in the “X-Men” movie series. In 2017, he hung up his claws after 17 years of playing the part. He holds the Guinness World Record for the longest career as a live-action Marvel superhero.
During the recent London stop of his world tour, he shared that he was almost fired as “Wolverine” because the studio executives weren’t seeing the spark they saw during his audition. His wife told him,
“You got this,” according to MSN Entertainment.
Born in Sydney, Jackman won a Golden Globe for his performance in 2013’s “Les Misérables” and a Grammy for 2019’s “Greatest Showman.” Before breaking into Hollywood, he made a name for himself in theater productions such as “Oklahoma!”
Jackman, who started taking dance lessons as a teen, rarely travels without his tap shoes just in case he finds a dance floor to practice. So I shared that I took my first tap-dance class (a bucket-list thing) last year at Metropolitan Dance Company.
“Isn’t it the best workout ever? Your legs scream, but it doesn’t matter because you are having fun,” he said.
“I’m naturally super skinny. They used to call me ‘Sticks” growing up. So now, after Wolverine, I work out in the gym three or four days just to keep it up. Apart from that, I sing and tap-dance. That keeps you fit.”