Born in Australia, Hugh Jackman is a top Hollywood film actor, starring in many blockbuster films such as the 'X-Men' franchises and dramas including 'The Prestige' (2006) and 'The Front Runner' (2018), who has achieved immense popularity in musicals on stage and screen. His 2017 screen musical 'The Greatest Showman' made more than $434 million at the international box office. The soundtrack album, which features Jackman alongside Zac Efron, Rebecca Furguson and Michelle Williams, was the first to sell more than one million copies in 2018. It topped the Billboard 200 and the UK Albums Chart and remained on the charts for several months.
The son of English parents, Jackman was born in Sydney and appeared in a school production of 'My Fair Lady' when he was 17. He took a drama course as he obtained a BA in communications and studied at the Western Australian Academy of Performing Arts of Edith Cowan University in Perth, Western Australia. After getting his first major television acting break in the Australian miniseries 'Correlli', he appeared in stage musicals 'Beauty and the Beast' and 'Sunset Boulevard', performed in cabaret and hosted major annual carol singing productions in Melbourne and Sydney. In 1998 he starred as Curly in the National Theatre production of the Rodgers and Hammerstein musical 'Oklahoma!' In London's West End.
Movie super-stardom arrived in 2000 when he played Wolverine in 'X-Men' and went on to star in many sequels and other major Hollywood pictures. He appeared in a concert performance of 'Carousel' at Carnegie Hall in 2002 and in 2004 he starred as the late Peter Allen in the Broadway musical 'The Boy from Oz'. It ran for 365 performances and Jackman won the Tony Award for Best Leading Actor in a Musical. He won a Primetime Emmy Award for hosting the 2004 Tony Awards and was nominated again for the 2005 and 2015 Tony Awards and for the 2009 Academy Awards.
He sings 'Kiss' and 'Heartbreak Hotel' in the 2006 animated feature 'Happy Feet' and has performed in concert onstage around the world. He won the Golden Globe in 2013 for Best Performance By an Actor in a Motion Picture Or Comedy for 'Les Miserables', in which he starred with Anne Hathaway, Russell Crowe and Eddie Redmayne, and he was nominated again in 2018 for his performance as P.T. Barnum in 'The Greatest Showman'. The single 'The Greatest Show' went to number 20 on the UK Singles Chart and number 88 on Billboard's Hot 100. In 2019 he opened the televised Brit Awards with a highly acclaimed performance of 'The Greatest Show'.
