Hugh Jackman's role of a lifetime
The following script is from "Hugh Jackman" which aired on Dec. 9, 2012. Scott Pelley is the correspondent. Ruth Streeter, producer.
"Les Miserables," among the greatest novels of the 19th century, became one of the most successful Broadway musicals of the 20th century. And this month Hollywood gambles that this epic story has the power to revive the musical form on the screen. Director Tom Hooper has spent $61 million recreating a Paris rebellion and filling scenes with actors including Russell Crowe, Anne Hathaway and Hugh Jackman.
No actor combines the talents of a Broadway song and dance man with the film presence of an action hero the way that Jackman does. He won stardom playing a murderous mutant on film and then, won a Tony playing a gay entertainer on stage. When we met him, in his native Australia, the 44-year-old actor told us that everything he has done in a wide-ranging career has led him to this, one, moment.
In "Les Miserables," Jackman plays one of the most heroic characters in literature, Jean Valjean, imprisoned for stealing bread for his sister's starving family, an angry brute of a man whose sentence extends to 19 years because of his hunger to escape. His nemesis is Inspector Javert played by Russell Crowe.
["Les Miserables": Look down, look down, don't look him in the eye. Look down, look down, you're here until you die.]
Hugh Jackman: Any movie musical is like Mount Everest. I think it's the most difficult form ever to pull off in film. When it works, it's spectacular. When it doesn't, it stinks to high heaven.
Scott Pelley: This film is either going to be a hit or it's going to be a massive bust.
Hugh Jackman: Yup.
Scott Pelley: Why did you take the risk on it?
Hugh Jackman: Jean Valjean is the holy grail for me. It's, I know that it demands everything from me, as a singer, as an actor to pull it off. It's the role of a lifetime.
The story, written by Victor Hugo in 1862, follows Valjean's redemption against the backdrop of a failed revolt against the monarchy.
["Les Miserables": He is young... he's afraid.]
The film is unique in the way that the actors sang their roles. Usually in musicals, they record songs in a sound studio and then lip sync when the camera rolls. But in Les Miz, they sang in the moment.
["Les Miserables": Bring him home, bring him home, bring him home.]
Hugh Jackman: We would wear a little ear piece where someone off the set there was playing music. And we would hear the live piano, and we would just sing.
Scott Pelley: What do you get from that?
Hugh Jackman: You get an emotional truth. For example, there's one song and it's, literally, written like this: "What have I done, sweet Jesus? What have I done? Become a thief in the night, become a dog on the run. Have I fallen so far and is the hour so late that nothing remains but the cry of my hate?" That's how it's written. Now, I could "What have I done, sweet Jesus? What have I done? Become a thief in the night, become a dog on the run. Have I fallen so far and is the hour so late that nothing remains but the cry of my hate?" I could mix it up, I could take a pause. If I was emotional, I could be emotional.
[Jackman in "Les Miserables": I am reaching, but I fall and the night is closing in as I stare into the void to the whirlpool of my sin I'll escape now from that world from the world of Jean Valjean. Jean Valjean is nothing now, another story must begin!]
The story of Hugh Jackman must begin in Australia. His parents sailed from England into Sydney Harbor in the 1960s. Hugh was the youngest of five, born to an accountant and a housewife. They were all together until one morning, when he was eight. And his mom did something that would shape his life.
Hugh Jackman: I can remember the morning she left. It's weird the things you pick up. I remember her being in a towel around her head and saying goodbye. Must have been the way she said goodbye as I went off to school. When I came back, there was no one there, in the house. And the next day was a telegram from England. Mum was there and then that was it.
Scott Pelley: She had left the family?
Hugh Jackman: Yeah. I don't think she thought for a second it would be forever when she went. I think she thought it was, "I just need to get away, and I'll come back." Dad used to pray every night that mum would come back.
Scott Pelley: Did you ever worry that the family would just come apart? That your dad would go too?
Hugh Jackman: Never, in a million years, could I imagine, my father is a rock. My father is my rock. It's where I learned everything about loyalty, dependability, about being there day-in, day-out, no matter what.
Jackman would see his mother about once a year. Alone, Chris Jackman raised three boys and two girls. He scraped together private school tuition. And the boys went to Knox Grammar School, the conservative alma mater of Australian CEOs and prime ministers. Hugh wanted us to see the place that set him on his course.
Hugh Jackman: This is the headmaster-- or was the headmaster's office. This is the no cursing area just so you know.
Scott Pelley: You didn't spend any time in the headmaster's office, did you?
Hugh Jackman: I'll tell you a story, I was the captain of the school. I don't know if you have that kind of title. So--
Scott Pelley: It's like class president.
Hugh Jackman: Right, so the headmaster brought me in. "I want you to be class president." And I was like, "Wow, fantastic, great." And I went back to class, was mucking around in class. And the teacher said, "Go straight to the headmaster's office." I was like, "This is gonna be really awkward." 'Cause--
Scott Pelley: "I just came from there."
Hugh Jackman: Literally an hour before he just made me class president. So I knocked on the door and he says, "Hugh?" And I said, "Yes, headmaster, I've just been thinking a little bit about next year." And we had a bit of a chat, it was perfect.
Scott Pelley: You didn't tell him why you'd been sent back--
Hugh Jackman: No, no, I-- I thought he might rescind the offer.
That bit of acting got him out of a jam but it was in here that he first felt a stage beneath his feet and applause in the air.
Hugh Jackman: Up here was probably the highlight of my childhood.
Scott Pelley: Up on the stage?
Hugh Jackman: Yea.
Hugh Jackman: Oh my gosh.
Scott Pelley: Look at you. Is that you?
Hugh Jackman: That is me.
Scott Pelley: Do you remember this night?
Hugh Jackman: I absolutely remember every bit of it.
Scott Pelley: Look at this. I mean, you're-- you're into it. You're lovin' this.
Hugh Jackman: I was so happy and felt so at home. And I just loved it.
It was a love that drew him off the traditional path. With $3,500 he inherited from his grandmother, he went to acting school and was hired in his first audition after graduation.
Hugh Jackman: My very first job. It was a TV series called "Correlli." And it was lust between the bars.
Lust for leading lady, Deborra Lee Furness, to whom he proposed four months into the job.
Hugh Jackman: I just had an absolute certainty that she was the person I was gonna be with for the rest of my life. Even when Deb tried to break up with me, which she did. I said-- "Don't worry, I get it. I'm your worst nightmare. A young actor in his first job, but don't worry. We're gonna be together. This is it."
And it was.
Hugh Jackman: We're going on a date night tonight.
Married 16 years, they've adopted a boy and a girl who are now 12 and 7.
Scott Pelley: One of the things that he says is, "Happy wife, happy life."
Deborra Lee Furness: See how smart he is? Good looking and smart. He's very good at making me a happy wife.
And the key to happiness? Jackman turns down the jobs that would separate them.
Deborra Lee Furness: We never have more than two weeks apart.
Scott Pelley: Is that a family rule, two weeks is the max? A lot of families these days are separated by much more than that.
Deborra Lee Furness: We choose not to. We don't like it. And then you make the choice, why are you doing the job? If you're away from your family what's the point?
Hugh Jackman: Yes, my man.
But he was away this year for that "role of a lifetime" in Les Miz. His family lives in New York, but he was shooting in Britain. The memory of that absence was fresh when we asked him about his father's experience.
Scott Pelley: What advice does he give you today?
Jackman: It's always about the family. Ah, ah, it's all-- sorry, mate. It's always, "How's Deb?" It's not about work. And I think that's him living with, probably, some of his regrets and feelings of maybe he-- you know, at the wrong time, put too much into his career. And he doesn't want me to make that mistake. And so, in his gentle way, he always reminds me this is the most important thing.
Scott Pelley: Beautiful house, but not your house.
Hugh Jackman: No.
Deborra Lee Furness: We're always living in someone else's house.
Jackman wasn't making the same mistake again when we met him in Sydney. He was spending six months here shooting an action film so he moved the family too.
He was returning, for the fifth time, to the character, Wolverine, from the X-Men comic books. Jackman told us that the only time he didn't listen to his wife was when she urged him to refuse the role. These films made him wealthy and he emerged an international star. It's a physical part for which Jackman sculpts both beard and body. And he invited us to his two-a-day workouts.
Hugh Jackman: That didn't feel easy this morning.
Scott Pelley: Impressive. Impressive.
Hugh Jackman: I always say when I lift something heavy, I remember that is Wolverine. The little bit to where you're going to want to drop it and then you go, "No way," that little bit is Wolverine.
Scott Pelley: You change bodies the way other actors change costumes.
Hugh Jackman: Well this is your tool as much as your voice, as much as your emotions, and so I've always taken that very seriously and I love playing Wolverine. It's a great character, but I want it to be better than the last time. I want to be physically in better shape, otherwise, there's no point doing it.
Scott Pelley: But look, you're a successful guy. You don't have anything to prove to anyone. You have this little voice in your head telling you to do more, do better?
Hugh Jackman: If I didn't have that, I wouldn't be sitting here opposite you. At the same time, for the sake of people around me, it'd be nice to be able to, "Whew," you know, put it down for a while.
It might also be nice for the people around him if he didn't take the risks that he seems to relish.
He won one of the first of his two Tony's on Broadway, playing Peter Allen the gay Australian songwriter.
Scott Pelley: Did you think for a minute, "Man, this could be career limiting? I don't know if I want to take this chance?"
Hugh Jackman: Never thought it for a second. What sexuality you are is not the most interesting thing about you. It's the kind of person you are. And that role, just, had, first of all, it was naughty.
[Jackman at the Tony Awards: How are we doing downstairs? There's a few nervous people in the front row all of a sudden.]
Hugh Jackman: I would never give myself permission to do the things I did as Peter Allen. And his sexuality, for me, w-- is another costume. It's a personality trait, it's not who you really are. However, when I was doing Peter Allen, there's a scene where I kiss my boyfriend, who's dying of AIDS. And I go in for the kiss, and I heard this, "Don't do it, Wolverine."
Scott Pelley: From the audience?
Hugh Jackman: From the audience. Obviously some, some kid's going, "Yeah, let's go and see Wolverine in that show, Mum. Let's go and see it." He's like, "What?" As I come out with my maracas and pineapple shirt, you know?
["Les Miserables": Who am I? I'm Jean Valjean.]
And Jean Valjean may be another surprise for an audience that can never be sure what it will see when the camera rolls or the curtain rises on the characters of Hugh Jackman.
["Les Miserables": Who am I? 24601.]