Hugh Jackman has been in training for three months — and not for another stint as the super-ripped Wolverine in another “X-Men” movie. This time, he’s keeping fit for the opening number of the 68th annual Tony Awards, which will be broadcast Sunday night on CBS.
“You can’t top that,” Jackman tells The Post. “So we’re going to do something very different, almost taking inspiration from the size of last year’s opening. We just added something to it today, but I can’t tell you what it is or you’d guess it in a second. All I can tell you is I started training in February. I’m still a little nervous as to how it will go.”
Jackman posted a YouTube video last week promoting the Tonys. In it, he wakes up, gets out of bed and starts bouncing — in the shower, while he’s shaving, through a hotel lobby, down the street, in an airport, onto a plane and into an ESPN studio.
“Hugh Jackman has a secret,” the screen reads. “He. Can’t. Stop. The. Bounce.”
It’s hilarious — but I have no idea what it signals. The only thing that occurs to me is Bobby Van’s famous dance — “Take Me to Broadway” — in the 1953 movie musical “Small Town Girl.” Van hops through a small town, greeting everybody along the way. The number lasts four minutes and is a remarkable feat of athleticism.
Jackman is a fan of the old movie musicals, so perhaps he’s worked out his own version of “Take Me to Broadway,” bouncing his way through Times Square and into Radio City Music Hall.
We’ll find out when it airs. This will be Jackman’s fourth time hosting the Tonys. Harris is up to four as well. Only Angela Lansbury, who does not bounce, has hosted more times — five.
“Neil is unbelievable as a host,” says Jackman. “It’s probably not the smartest thing to follow on from Neil. I would put him right up there with Billy Crystal at the Oscars.”
(Harris will perform on the telecast as the titular transsexual from “Hedwig and the Angry Inch,” for which he’s been nominated for Best Actor in a Musical.)
Crystal was a big influence on Jackman as a young man. Growing up in Australia, he didn’t see the Tony Awards — but he never missed the Oscars. In 2009, having become a major movie star himself, Jackman hosted the ceremony.
“I spoke to Steve Martin, who was also very good [as an Oscars host], about it and he said that, for the first 45 minutes, it’s the best audience ever. But after that, the place starts filling up with losers, so get to the end real quick,” Jackman says. “The other thing to remember, it’s never about the host. It’s about the nominees and, in the case of the Tonys, a celebration of the Broadway season.”
The Oscars, Jackman says, is a tough gig. You have to make a show, which will be seen by 1 billion people, out of a lot of awards, film clips and montages — plus the Oscar-nominated songs, which, God help us, have sometimes been performed as interpretive dance. And because the stakes are so high in the movie business, “People are very careful about what they say,” Jackman says. “There’s the fear that if you give a bad speech, your career is over.”
This year, in addition to numbers from the nominated musicals — “After Midnight,” “Aladdin,” “Beautiful” and “A Gentleman’s Guide to Love & Murder” — there will be performances by Sting, whose musical “The Last Ship” opens on Broadway in the fall, and Jennifer Hudson, who will sing a song from producer Harvey Weinstein’s upcoming show “Finding Neverland.”
Jackman thinks once he gets the big opening number out of the way, he’ll loosen up and have fun the rest of the evening. He doesn’t use much of a script because “I’m terrible with scripted jokes.” He’ll just go with the flow and, no doubt, charm the crowd with his affable ad libs.
And when it’s over, you’ll find him at the Tony Ball at the Plaza Hotel “ready for a drink.”
I’m buying, mate!