The role Hugh Jackman wants to delete from history: “The movie you could do without”
There are some movies that are so mind-bogglingly bad on every level that it’s hard to believe they could have made it to theatres without someone stepping in. This is particularly true of those Hollywood trainwrecks that feature an inordinate amount of talent.
Brian De Palma’s Bonfire of the Vanities is an infamous one, featuring a star-studded cast including Tom Hanks, Melanie Griffith, and Bruce Willis. Ridley Scott’s The Counselor is another. Featuring performances from Penélope Cruz, Michael Fassbinder, Javier Bardem, and Cameron Diaz, it had all the material it needed to be a success, but, nevertheless, fell flat on its over-important face.
In general, actors are loath to admit a lapse in judgment when reflecting on these projects. More often than not, they’ll simply decry the critical reception, saying that audiences simply didn’t understand the vision or, at the most, that the original idea was simply lost in translation when all the machinations of post-production were complete. Hugh Jackman is an exception. In a 2014 interview, he revealed that there is one movie that, if given the opportunity, he would never, ever take part in.
The Yahoo interview featured the Wolverine actor pretending to be in conversation with his younger self. “Which films should I avoid, and what is my most embarrassing moment?” the younger Jackman asks. “Uh, When they come to you with an idea of putting testicles around your neck and being part of this hilarious ensemble of some of the funniest movies of all time, don’t believe them,” he said.
Now, if you live in a halcyon reality in which this description does not ring a bell, you may think that Jackman is making up an endearingly silly joke about a film that obviously doesn’t exist. Unfortunately for the rest of us who do, in fact, remember Movie 43, it absolutely did. The film is, quite possibly, the worst movie of all time, at least if you’re basing “worst” on the discrepancy between talent and execution.
Directed by 15 people who should have known better and starring a blinding number of Hollywood A-listers who also should have known better, Movie 43 is a 2013 anthology “comedy” about a producer pitching wild movie ideas to the industry’s biggest stars. Why any of them agreed to take part is one of the great mysteries of Hollywood, right up there with “Who killed Elizabeth Short?” and “Where did Tommy Wiseau get the budget for The Room?”
In Jackman’s segment, directed by Peter Farrelly, he plays a supposedly eligible bachelor who goes on a date with a woman played – I kid you not – by Oscar-winning actor Kate Winslet. Jackman’s character has testicles growing out of his neck and refuses to acknowledge them, which Winslet’s character finds somewhat disconcerting. It all devolves into something completely devoid of hilarity when he kisses her on the forehead, and the testicles dangle around her mouth.
When advising his younger self to avoid the role at all costs, Jackman says that there is one part of the experience that he would suggest taking advantage of. “You can take the testicles because you use them quite a lot at parties, and it actually gets a good laugh,” he counselled. “[B]ut the movie you could do without.”
An understatement if ever there was one.
