Why Hugh Jackman turned down one of the worst movies ever made: “I don’t want to be bashing people”
Just as there are plenty of actors who missed out on being in films that went on to be massive hits – think Tom Selleck with Indiana Jones, for example – there are also a fair share of actors who dodged bullets, and boy did Hugh Jackman dodge a big furry one back in 2019.
That’s because Jackman, who as we know from The Greatest Showman has it in his arsenal to do singing and dancing as well as acting, could well have ended up in one of the most laughable pieces of cinema ever made in the form of 2019’s musical fantasy Cats, a film that is noteworthy solely for having stuff in it that’s actually worse than James Corden. The whole thing is an exercise in actors not being self-aware enough to ever think ‘this might be a bad idea and could backfire’.
Not that anyone stupid or unlucky enough to sit through it escaped Corden altogether of course, as the inexplicable former host of the Late Show gave a singularly eye-bleeding performance as ‘Bustopher Jones’, the hideously creepy feline/human hybrid who does at least sing some truth in one of the numbers: “I’m Bustopher Jones i’m not skin and bones, in fact, I’m remarkably fat.”
When you take a closer look at Cats, the movie, which is not something we would recommend, it’s actually fairly staggering how many actors of repute signed on to appear in something so utterly disastrous. Judi Dench. Idris Elba. Sir Ian McKellan. All somehow emerged from the flaming ruins with reputations intact, presumably with wallets bulging.
Jackman, however, managed to give it a neat side-step, despite being invited to take part in it by his Les Misérables director, Tom Hooper, who was helming the paw-licking mess. Jackman told The Daily Beast when asked if he turned down a role in Cats: “Umm… yep. You know, Tom (Hooper) rang me early on because we did Les Mis together, and there were a couple of options (for which parts to play) there based on availability and time, and I really… yeah, I just wasn’t available at the time.”
An adaptation of the hit 1980s musical by Andrew Lloyd Webber, Cats lost some $110m at the box office and has gone down as one of the worst movies in history. But in the style of a well-trained media savvy politician, Jackman wasn’t ever going to put the boot in on the raft of people who did appear in the film and wouldn’t be drawn on whether or not he was truly glad he decided not to put the whiskers on (although one suspects he probably is).
He added: “I’m in the theater, man, and I don’t want to be in the business of bashing people—or jumping on bandwagons. I haven’t seen it, and Tom Hooper’s one of the great filmmakers we have.”
Instead of filming Cats, that year Jackman embarked on his own world tour, the modestly named The Man. The Music. The Show, which took in some 88 dates and featured Jackman singing songs from The Greatest Showman, Les Mis and some other standards, which no doubt raked in some serious cash and didn’t involve him drinking CGI milk from a bowl.
Jackman is now back testing out those vocal chords in Song Sung Blue, a musical drama telling the story of a husband and wife duo who performed as a Neil Diamond tribute band. Adapted from a 2008 documentary, Jackman lines up with Kate Hudson for the movie, which will hit cinemas right at the end of the year.
