Sep 18, 2026
Author Spotlight: Hugh Jackman — The Boy From Oz Who Became Wolverine, and the Fear He Refused to Run From
A deep dive on Hugh Jackman — the Sydney-born youngest of five whose mother left when he was eight, who found the stage through a childhood he has never stopped talking about, studied his way from a communications degree to a Perth drama school, and turned down a soap opera so he could learn the craft; the song-and-dance man who won a Tony for The Boy from Oz, hosted the Tony Awards four times and won an Emmy for it, then became Wolverine in X-Men (2000); the leading man of The Prestige, Australia and Les Misérables, which won him a Golden Globe and an Oscar nomination, and of The Greatest Showman, whose soundtrack won him a Grammy; the performer recognized by Guinness World Records for a 17-year live-action Marvel career and appointed a Companion of the Order of Australia in 2019; his defining reflections on fear, wrong paths, risk, meditation and knowing when enough is enough; and the legacy of the 57-year-old who has had multiple basal-cell carcinomas removed, campaigns relentlessly for sunscreen, and — as his Wikipedia filmography page drew 153,490 views in a single day during the week Marvel's Wolverine launched on PlayStation 5 — remains, by his own definition, a fearful man who refuses to be ruled by it.