Hugh Jackman Australia Press Conference
That first kiss has the longest buildup. Is there an extended cut?Hugh Jackman: "Slow motion? The other thing I should mention about the kiss is it’s really amazing for me to kiss someone where I don’t have to have my shoes off or [be] in a ditch or the other actor on a box, which is not sexy. It was really lovely, and I think Nic said the same thing. She said, ‘Oh, I get to look [eye to eye].'"
So were there longer takes?
Hugh Jackman: "I don't kiss and tell."
How much horse riding did you practice?
Hugh Jackman: "Baz and I talked about the horse riding early on. There were some descriptions in the script of the horse riding. I remember one, it was early on: 'Drover thunders across the outback chasing a beast scrub bull. He catches up with the scrub bull, leaps off his horse, grabs the beast by the tail, wrestles it to the ground, pulls out his knife and slashes its balls off,' or something like that. At which point I thought, 'I've gotta get some lessons here.' And I kind of did."
"Actors, they lie about horses. That's the old joke. 'Can you ride a horse?' 'Sure, absolutely, since I was a kid.' But this was something where the character's name was The Drover which, if the movie was made here, it'd be calling someone The Cowboy. So they're defined by where they are and what you do, this character in particular. And there's something really, for me, when I watch a great rider, when I watch a great skier, it's something beautiful about watching them. Their comfort and their ease and their feeling that they've been on that horse all their life. And in a way, they're more themselves, more at home on that horse than anywhere else. So the key that Baz and I talked about was time in the saddle. Yes, we did everything. We did from jumping to this to cutting cattle, wherever it was, but all those different things was really a byproduct of just feeling at home on the set."
How did you develop that relationship with your horse?
Hugh Jackman: "Well, to be clear, there was four main horses I worked with because when you work on a film, they're required to do different things. There's not really one horse that can do all that. So one horse is for rearing, one horse is kind of like almost stoned in personality because when things are blowing up, you need a horse that can actually just stand there. But that kind of horse is not going to be able to do a stampede and chase, so the main horse that we did the work with and did laying down and all of that, I spent a long time with that horse and it starts by bareback riding. Because the only way you can really develop a relationship with the horse of trust is to not have a saddle on, because horses can sense when they're kind of…"
"It's a bit like, for me, I learn a lot about parenting from riding a horse. It's the same thing. You can whack a horse; I've seen people do it. They whack 'em, they kick 'em, they do all that and you can get a horse to do something, but I was very lucky to have two trainers, Craig Emerton and Frank, whose last name I can't remember, who taught me how to make the horse feel it's their idea. I'll tell you, as a parent it is the greatest thing I've ever learned. But when you get on a horse bareback, to a horse, they know that you trust them. And then you just for days, you kind of have to go wherever they want to go. Whatever it is. If we were riding up a hill, they want to jump over the fence, you just go with them and just say, 'It's okay. Whatever you want to do, I'm there.' And then just gradually, you say, 'Ah,' make a little suggestion. 'How about we kind of go here or how about leading off this hind leg here? Now let's switch. Let's lead off this side.' And the horse kind of wants to do it. When you have that, it's kind of exhilarating."
You've learned to stop kicking your children?
Hugh Jackman: "No longer do they have a bit between their mouths."
When you have a role like this, what do you do specifically to train?
Hugh Jackman: "I go to the gym in the morning, as much for a state of mind than for a physical state. However, when you work with Baz you might be doing a close up kissing at 8:30, you may be jumping over a six-foot fence with a horse, you don’t know what and that is the great thrill of it and that is something I love. I had early on in my career, 10 years [ago] made the mistake of turning up to the shoot or master of a scene and all of a sudden you're really [not] waking up until 11 o’clock and thinking, 'I can’t believe I made that choice, that decision.' So it's mainly about a state of mind where having the very first frame you are ready to go. In terms of physicality and what you eat, it is very important because you have to understand that the [extreme] protein diet as we know it is pretty much what these drovers lived on that were out there. They would not eat a lot. They were lean. They were very strong, but they were quite lean and very muscley in a way."
What did you eat?
Hugh Jackman: "A lot of steamed chicken. It is also important before you train - and these guys would do that too - when you wake up you have to have some food in your belly before you work."
What did you do in the gym?
Hugh Jackman: "When I say in the gym, we were in the outback and I had a caravan with a fireplace and next to it, and it kind of looked bizarre, but a rack of weights - free weights."
A portable gym?
Hugh Jackman: "I suppose you could call it a portable gym. We were literally on the dirt with a few weights. It was very much all body stuff. Everything I did was not about this [makes a muscular pose], but about being malleable and physical because those guys out there are strong, yet they can be thrown off a horse, thrown on the ground and get straight back up again. So you have to be sort of a little bit flexible."
How does it compare to preparing for Wolverine?
Hugh Jackman: "Wolverine - I kind of have to eat a lot more, train with a lot heavier weights and get my naturally leaner body a little bigger."
Page 3: More on Wolverine and Raising Kids
