This is the number
Hugh Jackman landed on for the likelihood of
The Greatest Showman ever actually happening;
even as he was nodding that, yeah, sure, it
sounded like a good idea.
It’s 2009, the year before the Lipton Ice Tea
ad and faking a friendship with Michael Gracey.
Hugh Jackman is knee-deep in his fi rst standalone
X-Men fi lm Wolverine, which is due out that May.
But, right now, it’s February and he has another
commitment fi rst: the Oscars. Opening the Oscars,
in fact, with a number he’s worked up with
producer Larry Mark and director Bill Condon.
Jackman’s performance is a smash with television
audiences around the world, so much so that Mark
approaches him afterwards. “He said, ‘I really
think you should do a movie musical about P.T.
Barnum,’” remembers Jackman in a different
London hotel to Michael Gracey, just a few days
later. “‘A fi lm that showcases the side of you that
we see at the Oscars or the Tony Awards.’”
So why 10 per cent? Though Jackman went
to theatre school and had enjoyed a stint in
musical theatre as a cub actor, he was, somedecades on, more used to fl ashing claws than
pearly whites. Moreover, this was a pre-La La
Land world: musicals were still considered to be
desperately uncool and full of risk.
Ten per cent, however, is more than enough
for a man like Hugh Jackman, who explains now
what compelled him to begin development. “It
was the story and the character and the idea of
perhaps playing to my strength, which I’d never
really had the chance to do in fi lm. A lot of the roles
I play are very different from me, so the chance to
play someone a bit closer to either who I am or
how I’m perceived to be [felt like] a good idea.”
By that fi rst day on the Lipton Ice Tea set 12
months on, Jackman had a script. Not that one
had anything to do with the other. Not yet. Not
until the wrap party, when Michael Gracey heard
a line he’d heard at every other wrap party. “When
every star has had a bit to drink, they always — in
the excitement of the moment — say, ‘We should
do a fi lm together!’” Gracey rolled his eyes,
remembering previous occasions, early on in his
career, when he’d told his mum and dad excitedly
that, “Oh my God, this massive star wants to make
a movie with me,” only for the call to never come.Left: Star Hugh
Jackman as P.T.
Barnum, with
director Michael
Gracey. First
colleagues, now
friends. Right:
Disaster strikes
for Barnum. Below:
Acrobats Anne
(Zendaya) and
Phillip (Zac Efron).
“Hugh likes to remind me that when he suggested
doing a fi lm together, I wasn’t that impressed,”
laughs Gracey, who took the proclamation with
the pinch of salt he felt it required.
Jackman, however, was for real. “It was so
clear that Michael was on top of it and all over
it. [But] he goes, ‘Yeah, whatever, Jackman.’
When I did ring him, I remember him going,
‘Shit, you meant it!’”
Gracey, without a feature to his name yet,
was excited by the risk associated with a musical
— particularly as an ex-animator (a profession,
he says, that draws people “obsessed with dance
and movement”) and one of fi ve kids to a musical
theatre-obsessed mum who fi lled the house with
music when he was growing up. Not only that,
but he craved the opportunity for originality.
“We live in a time in cinema where there is
a lot of recycling of material and making fi lms
that have already been made because there’s
name recognition, an in-built audience,” says
Gracey, suddenly serious. “These are words that
make a lot of people feel comfortable. But at
a certain point, our generation owes it to itself
to create our own original musicals.”
A mutual passion and belief established,
Jackman sent Gracey the script. But what they
really needed to move the project on was what
every great musical needs — fantastic songs. The
two of them agreed: once they had three songs
they loved, they’d take it to 20th Century Fox.
But where would they get those songs?
Cue the second lie, also fortuitous. This one,
however, was a little less white. Songwriters Benj
Pasek and Justin Paul may now be the hottest
ticket in (musical) town after La La Land and
their Oscar win. But back then, they were just
two guys who’d written the songs for a Broadway
show (A Christmas Story), and who were in Los
Angeles for meetings. One of those meetings
happened to be in the offi ces of 20th Century
Fox. Where Michael Gracey happened to be
working on The Greatest Showman. Which
someone at Fox happened to mention in passing,
along with the thought that maybe they should
see if the director was down the hall at that very
moment. Which they did, and he was. Once
the three of them were in the room together,
Gracey felt sure he had his songwriters. His gut ❯