The audition that humiliated Hugh Jackman: “I’m not even vaguely up to speed here”
Having been a household name for over 20 years at this point, it’s probably been a long time since Hugh Jackman has had to audition for anything. Obviously, that wasn’t the case in his pre-Wolverine days, which led to one of the most embarrassing moments of his career.
Bryan Singer’s X-Men may have been the actor’s first American movie and the first time audiences outside of his native Australia had ever seen him onscreen, but Jackman had already booked a follow-up role before the comic book adaptation hit cinemas as he tried to make his way in Hollywood.
It’s become the stuff of legend that Tom Cruise’s insistence that Dougray Scott hang around for Mission: Impossible II reshoots ruled him out of the part that would define Jackman’s career, with the star only being hired after X-Men had started principal photography, a serendipitous turn of events he’s been dining out on for the last quarter of a century.
What’s decidedly less well-known is that Jackman’s second Stateside picture was the frothy romantic comedy Someone Like You, in which he starred opposite Ashley Judd and Greg Kinnear. He’d nailed that audition, but his agent placed him in an unfortunate situation in an attempt to drive up the silver screen newcomer’s asking price.
Jackman’s team wasn’t fussed about whether or not he even got the gig, but he was nonetheless dispatched to read lines with Sandra Bullock, who was producing and starring in Miss Congeniality. It was a tactical move made by his representatives to increase their client’s rate and earn more for themselves off the top, but the actor quickly discovered he was way out of his depth.
“No one knew X-Men yet; I was a nobody,” Jackman explained to Variety before admitting he was ill-equipped to keep up with Bullock. “Holy shit! She’s amazing. And so quick and fast. I’m not even vaguely up to speed here. I was pedalling as fast as I could, but I didn’t know the script well enough.”
Inevitably, Jackman flunked the audition, and Benjamin Bratt was cast as the love interest instead, but Jackman never forgot and could barely forgive his agent for sending him out to read for a role nobody was all that interested in him landing. “That’s humiliating,” he acknowledged. “When your agent says, ‘I don’t want you to get this job, but just go get it’. And then you don’t get it.”
Of course, Jackman would get the last laugh when X-Men earned more money at the box office than Miss Congeniality and served as the springboard for a career that’s kept him at the top of the industry ever since, and with the greatest of respect, that’s not something that could be said about Bratt’s current standing.
