Conducting Himself Like a True Gentleman

Chivalry isn’t dead, at least not for Hugh Jackman.

The Australian actor apologizes profusely for having to conduct a recent interview in the back of a stretch limo on his way to “The Tonight Show” in Burbank, but it is the only free time he had that day. “Thank you for doing this,” he says. “This is beyond the call of duty.”

These old-fashioned good manners shine through in the new film “Kate & Leopold,” a time-travel romantic comedy that could turn Jackman into an international star. In the Miramax film, which opened Christmas Day, Jackman plays a British duke named Leopold who is sent from his native England to New York in 1876 in hopes of finding a rich wife. Leopold, though, is more interested in pursuing his inventions, including devising something called the elevator.

Leopold’s life is turned upside-down when he accidentally is sent to the year 2001 after falling through a portal in time while chasing after a man, Stuart (Liev Schreiber), who is behaving oddly at a gala ball. When he wakes up in Stuart’s apartment, he is quickly confronted by Kate (Ryan), a frazzled, cynical working woman who at first doesn’t believe Stuart’s story that Leopold is from the 19th century. But Leopold’s charm quickly wins over the stressed-out Kate, Stuart’s hyper dog and Kate’s younger brother, Charlie (Breckin Meyer). The only problem is that Leopold has to return to 1876 within the week or he’ll change the course of history.

Though Leopold is chivalrous to a fault, Jackman points out that Leopold is “not a caricature of niceness. All the things that are remarkable about him are natural to him. That is the way he is brought up; his manners, the way he treats people, are just the norm. He lives in a trapped world of privilege. Everything is planned for him, including his wife. Then he arrives in New York and he has no servants and he has to fend for himself.”

“Kate & Leopold” director James Mangold (“Girl Interrupted”) knew he had found his leading man when he met him for lunch earlier this year. He had seen Jackman in last year’s hit “X-Men”--he played the cigar-chomping, tough-but-tender superhero Wolverine--as well as in an Australian comedy called “Paperback Hero,” in which he played a truck driver who writes romantic novels.

“When I sat down and met him, I felt I was meeting such a refined man, such a gentleman,” recalled Mangold. “But that sense of grace and poise is also married to such masculinity. I think that is so rare today. I didn’t want Leopold to be kind of prissy or foppish in any way, just a walking rule book for chivalry. I wanted someone men and women could fall in love with.”

Notes Meyer, who became pals with Jackman during the “Kate & Leopold” shoot in New York, “He is a guy you want to hate because he is so darn good-looking and strapping. But he’s the sweetest and most charming guy. The guy sings, dances and he plays the piano. There isn’t anything he doesn’t do.”

Riding in the limo, Jackman apologizes yet again, this time for yawning. He explains that he’s still exhausted from hosting “Saturday Night Live” a few days before. On the show, he wowed a national audience with his beautiful singing voice--he played Curly in the acclaimed London revival of “Oklahoma!” in 1999--performing “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas” and “Music of the Night” and playing everything from a computer nerd with braces to a rather randy doll designer.

Jackman’s hosting of “SNL” is testimony to his newfound celebrity, along with the host of magazine covers and talk-show interviews to accompany the release of “Kate & Leopold.” And he’s just received his first Golden Globe nomination, best actor in a comedy or musical, for “Kate & Leopold.” He’s the new hunk on the block, the next Brad or George or Matt, the kind of handsome romantic leading man that movies are made for.

But Jackman isn’t a kid; at 33, he’s relatively old for his first experience as a major star, much less a sex symbol.

“I mean, 33 is a very young man, but it is not the same as becoming a mega-star at 21,” says Mangold. “He has done a lot of living and knows very much who he is. It gives him a lot of weight. It is such a sign of actually how awful the world we live in is that saying things like this makes such bad copy, because in a way you so want a kind of lurid story, something lurking [underneath].

“So much of what can throw you off as all of this stuff hits you--the fame and money and celebrity--is if it happens so young you haven’t found yourself. One of the clearest things about Hugh is he’s so comfortable in his own skin.”

In fact, during the 40-minute ride to “The Tonight Show,” Jackman talks less about stardom than about his wife of five years, actress Deborra-Lee Furness, whose career he says has been put on the back burner over the last two years. “I am probably the worst thing for her at the moment because we keep moving from place to place,” he says. “We don’t want to really be separated.”

And the actors’ brown eyes light up at the mention of their 19-month-old adopted son, Oscar. “Being a father has brought to me more joy than I have ever known,” he says. “It has revolutionized my life.”

Since making an impressive American film debut in “X-Men,” Jackman has been working nonstop. He was the best thing about the tepid Ashley Judd romantic comedy “Someone Like You,” in which he played a womanizer with a heart of gold, and in the frenetic John Travolta-Halle Berry action thriller “Swordfish,” in which he played a computer genius.

Though Jackman looks muscular on screen, in person he’s as skinny as a beanpole. So he’s been trying to bulk up for “X-Men II,” which is set to start production in April. As the limo departs the Four Seasons, he starts chomping on a rather nasty-looking protein bar.

“You see, you lose a lot of weight doing the part,” says Jackman. “So I want to get bigger than I need to be because it will be impossible to put it on [once the movie starts]. Because I am tall, it works against me. In the meantime, I am playing a New York cop in this movie called ‘Pride and Glory.’ We start filming any minute now. It’s with Ed Harris, [Robert] Duvall and Anthony LaPaglia.”

All of this good fortune in Hollywood has taken Jackman by surprise. Just two years ago, he was completing his successful run in the Trevor Nunn production of “Oklahoma!,” his third musical in as many years, having also starred on the Sydney stage as Gaston in “Beauty and the Beast” and as Joe Gillis in “Sunset Blvd.”

“I totally felt [during “Oklahoma!”] like it can’t get any better this,” he says. “On some level that production will be one of the highlights of my career. I don’t remember ever having dreams of [doing movies in Hollywood]. It comes as a real pleasant surprise.

“I find it a generous place. I thought, being a foreigner in Hollywood, [actors would say]: ‘These are American parts, why are you taking our parts?’ But there has been no attitude whatsoever.”

After his appearance on “The Tonight Show”--on which Jackman also sang--the limo was taking him to the Hollywood premiere of “Kate & Leopold.” He had, thus far, seen only a rough cut of the film. But he was happy with the result. “I found it tough and funny and kind of charming.” The reviews for the film were mixed but universally positive for Jackman.

During the filming, Mangold would frequently just whisper the name of the legendary star Errol Flynn into Jackman’s ear before a scene. “As much as we were making a movie about 1876 and modern day, I think we were making a movie about Hollywood in the ‘30s and today,” says the director. “The kind of man Hugh is playing is even in a way less an accurate portrayal of a period man and more a kind of beautiful, fantastic creation [found in ‘30s movies] like Ronald Colman, Errol Flynn and Cary Grant.”

Though he seems born for stage and screen, Jackman didn’t take up acting until his senior year in college in Australia (he has a degree in journalism). “In my last term I took acting as an elective just to get by because I heard it was a really easy course,” he says. When the class did a play, “out of the blue I got cast in the lead. I spent more time on the play than I did anything else. I just scraped through with my degree.”

After graduation, he trained for a year at an acting school. “I got the bug completely. Then I got accepted into drama school. I was so happy. My dad was all for it. Dad always told us just feel passionate about what you do.”

Jackman received a sign that he was pursuing the right career when he learned that the tuition for the drama school was $3,500. Just the month before, he had been given $3,500 exactly from his grandmother’s will. At first he was worried about approaching his father and telling him he was going to use his grandmother’s bequest for drama school. “But he said, ‘I couldn’t think of any better way for you to spend the money,’” says Jackman. “Journalism was something I would be all right at, but I also knew it wouldn’t occupy my heart.”

When asked how he feels about his rapid rise to international stardom, Jackman flashes a disarming smile and describes doing “Saturday Night Live.”

“It was so amazing to me that I was doing that. I often say to myself, ‘Don’t they realize I am just from Sydney?’ I am a kid and acting is a hobby, and all of a sudden, I am going through the door!”