“那天我們和羅素·克洛拍攝電影的第一幕，一直到很晚了我才喝了水，”他說道，還解釋說脫水讓他的皮膚看起來幹枯憔悴，這樣使得他扮演的冉阿讓首秀就非常震撼。“沒喝水讓身體瘦了10磅，主要反映在皮膚上。但這真的太痛苦了。20個小時之後，我就感到頭疼。我當時簡直想把大海的水都喝幹！現在看到那一幕，我看上去非常瘦，非常憔悴。”
《悲慘世界》的導演湯姆·霍伯承認道：“我當時很擔心，我想：‘我不應該鼓勵這樣的事情。’我說：‘喝一小口水吧。’但他當時非常堅定。他肯定是向醫生征詢過，但我的確記得他最後變得很冷，真的很冷。”
Throughout， his star “never said a sharp word. I don’t know how he remains so calm. He really is an extraordinary man.”
Jackman wasn’t always like this， especially during the years when he 9）grappled with his mother’s absence.
“To be in Australia at that point， with my father working hard， I think Mom just felt incredibly isolated，” he says. She did not have an easy transition with the relocation from England.“Fairly soon， she had difficulties. She was in the hospital for a long time after I was born. She had very bad 10）postpartum depression. I’m guessing it lasted years because I remember she used to go off for little periods. I think she was feeling trapped.”
When her own mother fell ill， she went back to the U.K.， leaving the children with their father， Christopher， an accountant and Cambridge graduate. Jackman remembers him praying that his wife would return， but she never did.
Christopher’s commitment to work—an 11）ethos Jackman has inherited—did not help：“My father could only come to one [school sports] game a year because he had five kids， and on Saturday he had to shop. If my father was there， it would be 50 percent greater. Having his approval is something that still drives me.”
His father’s devoutness also influenced him： “I was involved with so many things in the church. It was sort of my life out of school. Then around 16 or 17， I started questioning. ‘12）How come all these nonbelievers are going to hell？’ ”
由始至終，傑克曼“沒說過一個尖銳的字眼。我不知道他怎麼做到如此平靜的，他真是一個非常了不起的人”。
傑克曼並不總是如此，特別是當他麵對母親的離棄的時候。
“當時在澳大利亞，我父親工作很苦，我想母親感到非常孤立無助，”他說。母親從英國移民到澳大利亞很不適應。“不久，她就遭遇重重困難。她在我出生後在醫院住了相當長一段時間。她的產後抑鬱非常嚴重。我想這持續了好幾年，因為我記得她時不時就會發作一番。我想她當時感到被囚住了。”
當她的母親病倒後，她就回了英國，把孩子留給了劍橋畢業，從事會計工作的父親克裏斯托弗。傑克曼記得父親祈禱妻子能回到身邊，但是她卻一去不返。
克裏斯托弗對工作的專注——傑克曼繼承了這點精神——沒有幫到忙：“我的父親每年隻能來參加一次學校的運動會，因為他有五個孩子，而在周六他需要去購置糧餉雜貨。如果我的父親來參加校運會，效果肯定會好上一半。得到他的肯定至今仍然是激勵我前進的動力。”
父親的虔誠也影響著他：“我參加很多教會的活動。這對於我來說就是校園以外的生活了。到了大概16、17歲的時候，我就開始質疑：‘怎麼可能所有這些無信仰的人都要進地獄呢？’”
His beliefs evolved when he attended Sydney’s University of Technology and focused on journalism， before 13）stumbling upon acting through a drama course he had to take in order to graduate. Later， he continued his acting studies at the Western Australian Academy of Performing Arts in Perth， learning about meditation at the nearby School of Practical Philosophy. “That really started to change my life，” he says.
Upon graduation， he landed his first professional job on Correlli， a prison-set TV series starring Furness， who at first 14）held off the 26-year-old Jackman’s romantic advances.
“I was single when I met her， and she was single，” he recalls of his future wife， also the product of a single-parent household， whose father had died in a car accident when she was a child. “I was happy being single. I was out of a difficult relationship I’d had through drama school， and it was 15）tumultuous and hard. I’d been living off 120 bucks a week as a student until I was 26. Then， when I met Deb， it was 10 times better than my single life. She was very beautiful. She was unbelievably fun—this energy， this spirit—irrepressible. And she had a confidence in herself. I had a massive crush on her instantly.”
They married in 1996， and Furness 16）put her career on hold as Jackman’s exploded. His own career took off with stage roles in Australia including Trevor Nunn’s production of Sunset Blvd.， followed by Oklahoma！ in London， which drew the X-Men producers’notice.
他進入悉尼理工大學學習新聞專業。為了畢業，他選了一個戲劇課程而偶然得以認識表演。在此之前，他的信念就已經漸漸生成。不久後，他在位於珀斯的西澳演藝學院繼續表演學習，在附近的實踐哲學學院學習冥想。“那真的開始改變我的生活，”他說道。
一畢業，他就在電視劇《科萊裏》中首次專業演出。這是一部以監獄生活為背景的電視連續劇，由弗勒斯主演，起初她對26歲的傑克曼的求愛很是遲疑。
“我遇到她的時候還是單身小夥，而她也是單身，”他回憶起自己的妻子，她也是出身於單親家庭，她的父親在她很小的時候死於車禍。“我當時很享受單身的日子。在演藝學院的時候，我有過一段混亂艱難的戀情。當時我剛從這段痛苦感情中解脫出來。26歲前，我的學生生涯一直是每周靠120元過活。然後，我遇見了黛布，這比我的單身生活要好上十倍。她很美，幽默得讓人難以置信——這種活力和精神——讓人難以抗拒。而且她對自己很自信。我當時就對她一見傾心。”