I know a lot of people have been waiting for this post anxiously: when will Kitzy talk about everyone's favorite actor!? Well, I was approaching it with the Inside The Actor's Studio theory. I would deal with him when he catalogue was impressive enough to dissect. But with the release date for his new WWII epic Australia being pushed back again, I wonder if any more films will be added to his catalogue. Ever. So, just in case, I want to take this opportunity to talk about a subject near and dear to my heart: Hugh Jackman.
Now some of you may laugh at this. Hugh Jackman has been the butt of jokes for quite some time now. Let's face it, he hasn't exactly defined Hollywood stardom as successfully (if at all) as other actors. He had a few blockbuster hits - namely the X-Men trilogy. But that was it. he has never been seen as a leading man. He has never been the focus of tabloid rumors or late-night talk show monologues. So why do I like Hugh Jackman so much? Because he fucking acts like he has balls the size of watermelons.
No, I don't mean acts acts. Like, in movies, I'm never that blown away. But he acts, like in real life, like when he's choosing rolls, that he is the most demanded and loved actor to ever grace the silver screen. And you know what? I give him kudos for that effort.
A Brief Biography:
Look at it this way, Jackman was playing Curly McLain on TV versions of Oklahoma! deep into the 90s. In fact, until 1999. A year later he was cast, an unknown, as Wolverine in Bryan Singer's X-Men. Now, Bryan Singer had tossed out one of the best regarded movies of the 90s just a few years prior - The Usual Suspects. So there was some logic in Jackman seeing X-Men as a place where filmic geniuses hung out, shot the shit and prep'd for their bigger rolls. What Singer, I suppose didn't tell him - was that X-Men was where actors went to make money so they wouldn't have to try and surpass their previously set high-water marks. Unfortunately - or fortunately depending on your perspective - that memo was never passed around to Jackman who must have seen the set as a spring board rather than a tomb.
Jackman's IMDB profile has the letter X more times than any non-porn actor ever should. Toss in a couple of Van Helsings and a forgettable turn in Swordfish in which his acting talents were vastly outdone by Halle Berry's titties' talents and you'll see that Jackman, ultimately, hasn't done a whole lot with his career. But it's the few roles in between his forgettable ones that make him an actor of note in my mind.
The first is The Fountain. Easily one of my favorite movies of all time. Originally a Brad Pitt and Cate Blanchette vehicle, it took Darren Aronofsky about 5 years to put the whole thing together. And it shows. It's a beautiful, mind-bending, life-changing kind of movie, and no one but me ever saw it. It was more than a bust. It was a total and complete disaster. A great movie that was far, far, FAR too long and too inaccessible for anyone without 4 hours and a comfy couch. The studio was so shocked that Aronofsky had taken all their money and decided against making an even remotely personable movie he ended up scrounging for cash again to make his follow-up The Wrestler, which is now garnering huge Oscar buzz. And who was the actor who thought that he could carry this titanic flop? You guessed it, Hugh Jackman, whose name, upon being attached, re-convinced the studios to come up with the $60 million to finance the picture. Hugh Fucking Jackman. Never lead a film before. And here they are hanging a historical epic / sci-fi epic / love story on his flimsy resume. Gotta love the kid for trying. Even if it meant failing miserably.
So The Fountain flops, Hugh says, no problem, and heads off to rebuild his career with a few family-friendly movies. With Flushed Away, Happy Feet and the great Christian Bale film, The Prestige, Jackman puts together some semblance of a comeback. So how does he celebrate?
How about starring in and producing a remake of a quasi-successful British show about a run-down casino? Oh, and by the by, it's a musical. The show now has the dubious honor of being as close to being cancelled before the pilot even finished as any show in recent memory. The only show cancelled faster was about the Hitler's moving in to a quiet British town after the war.
Alright, so not a great comeback. Could have been worse I guess.... Though I'm not sure how. But luckily Jackman had done the comeback before. He knew he just had to put in some hours with studio-friendly directors and everything would be okay. And what movie could be more studio-friendly than the new Baz Luhrman WWII epic Australia about an unnamed ranch hand and the woman he loved fleeing through, you guessed it, Australia? Well it turns out, just about any movie, anywhere, ever, would have been a better choice. With its release date pushed back by almost a year total now, and Luhrman shooting a new ending, it doesn't look good for ol' Hugh.
And yet - another flop only makes me respect him more. Hugh Jackman was never a great actor. He found middling success in middling films. But, perhaps more than any other actor in the past few years, he has consistently found the absolute, most doomed-from-the-start pictures possible and managed to grab the starring role.
You know, you rarely see the successful jumps by Evel Knievel played on tv anymore. On the other hand, that one where he bails after landing? I see that on Spike every day. Similarly, I think Jackman will be remembered fondly after all of these disastrous projects. It takes talent to create even the tiniest career in show business. But it takes talent and balls of steel to create a tiny career, and the consistently careen off of cliffs and over lakes of fire at every conceivable opportunity. Jackman has made more career-destroying decisions than the oldest of Hollywood stalwarts, and for that, I tip my hat.
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