Funny, hugely entertaining and with perfect timing, they proved to be a formidable double act and stole the show. It was, says Jackman, the perfect way to warm up for the main event – filming Les Misérables, the world’s most successful musical, for director Tom Hooper with a stellar all-star cast that includes Anne Hathaway, Amanda Seyfried, Eddie Redmayne, Helena Bonham Carter and Sacha Baron Cohen.
“Russell and I have always got on well but BAFTA was the first time we’ve ever done anything like that,” says Jackman. “And I remember being on stage and he was seriously making me laugh, and I thought, ‘this is really going to work..’ “And even though what we’re doing on Les Mis is not comedic, we felt like a team. And I said that to him, ‘man, this feels like a good team…’ And he said, ‘absolutely brother.’ And after the show he gave me a hug and said, ‘I’ll see you at work tomorrow.’ And we were off and running. “That was the night before we started filming so it was kind of cool. And then we got to work on Les Misérables and that teamwork continued. Not just with and Russell and myself, but everyone – Tom, Anne, Amanda, Eddie, everybody. It was a great team.”
Set against the backdrop of violent political unrest in 19th century France, Les Misérables, based on Victor Hugo’s classic 1862 novel, is an epic story of broken dreams and unrequited love. More than 60 million people have watched the musical, at venues all over the world, since it first opened in London in 1985.
Jackman himself is a huge fan of the show and at one point, there was a slim chance that he would appear in the musical – in a different role. Impresario Cameron Mackintosh, who has produced many of the biggest stage hits of the last quarter of a century, including Les Misérables, first met Jackman in 1998 when he starred as Curly in the National Theatre’s acclaimed London production of Oklahoma! for director Trevor Nunn.
“For years Cameron had been asking me to do the role of Javert on stage,” Jackman explains. “I wanted to do it but the timings never really worked out. And then I heard about the film from my agent, who is a mad Les Mis fan – he must have watched it 100 times – and we talked about it and obviously I was very interested. “And I’d always been asked to play Javert, but the more I thought about it the more I thought that Valjean would be better for me. I just felt more empathy and closer to that character. And so when they told me that they were thinking of Russell for Javert that made perfect sense to me. So I went in to audition as Valjean.”
