Hugh Jackman Tells A GREAT Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson Story

Hugh Jackman joined Rich to promote The Death of Robin Hood, a film that strips the folk hero of his tights, his merry men, and most of his heroism, and the conversation ranged from mythology to a bike ride home during the Knicks' title run.

Jackman explained the unusual take came from writer-director Michael Sarnoski, who made Pig with Nicolas Cage and A Quiet Place: Day One. Sarnoski built the movie from a short ballad about Robin Hood's death that he'd read at ten, imagining the mythic outlaw dying quietly in a priory bed years after the merry men disbanded, hunted by the descendants of people he killed. It's a story, Jackman said, about the weight of guilt and violence, and ultimately about redemption. The poster line "he was no hero" appealed to him precisely because everything is nuanced, and the film, shot in Northern Ireland with much of the same crew and locations as Game of Thrones, became a cautionary tale about the stories we tell to cast ourselves as heroes.

That theme, Jackman said, is why he's drawn to flipping characters on their heads, from P.T. Barnum to Wolverine. It feels human to him, because everyone is doing their best while carrying a darker side we ignore at our peril, and taking accountability is part of redemption.

Then, by Jackman's own pivot, came Yankee baseball and a confession that he's all NBA right now. The Australian, who grew up on five-day cricket matches, has lived in New York for years but never with a championship team, since the Knicks' last Finals trip came just before he arrived. His best story was the clincher: finishing a theater show with two and a half minutes left and a four-minute bike ride home, he predicted the score by the city's noise, cheers from apartment buildings meaning the Knicks led, ten silent blocks telling him it was the close game. He nailed it, and marveled that the biggest city in the world feels like a small town when the Knicks bring everyone together.

The interview closed with a round of Celebrity True or False, and Jackman's answers were better than the premises. He confirmed getting booed by 30,000-plus New Zealanders for singing the Australian anthem, but said the loudest booing of his life came in a burping contest against Justin Timberlake at the Kids' Choice Awards, where even Kenny G told him he sucked. He admitted peeing his red tights on the final F-sharp note while carrying Belle in Beauty and the Beast, committing to the note as an artist. He confirmed The Rock gave him the 6,000-calorie Wolverine diet, including the rule that if you're not sick at the end of your cheat meal, you haven't cheated, after sending a photo of his own modest burger-and-fries cheat meal and getting roasted. He recounted performing "From Now On" through 80 nose stitches from skin-cancer surgery to greenlight The Greatest Showman, bursting them and having them redone. And he told the David Bowie story, where the icon, his Prestige co-star, simply glazed over and walked away mid-anecdote without a word.