Smash hit

()The film has a huge budget to recoup; between $135 and $150 million. And that’s not all: it must help sell a planned spin-off TV series (called Transylvania), video games, an animated DVD with Jackman’s voice and a theme park ride. Lashings of CGI action there may be, but that kind of success can only be delivered by the charisma of its leads (Kate Beckinsale adding glamour to Jackman’s growing star power).

“I believe this is one of the most expensive green-lit pictures that Universal has done,” Jackman says in reverential tones. “If not the most expensive. Steve handed the script over to the head of the studio, Stacey Snider, on a Thursday afternoon and she had green-lit it by nine the next morning. It was one of those no-brainers.”

If Jackman is nervous at the prospect of so much riding on his broad shoulders, he is not showing it. We meet in New York a couple of hours before he is due on stage at the Imperial Theatre on Broadway in The Boy from Oz, a musical that depicts the life of the late Aussie entertainer and gay icon, Peter Allen. He is unfailingly polite, relaxed and displays a fine sense of humour. He is a “very happy bloke”, and why shouldn’t he be? Jackman has managed what most actors hope for but rarely achieve: a career of contrasts.

He went from Oklahoma! on the West End stage to X-Men — his first American film — and straight from the set of Van Helsing to Broadway and The Boy from Oz. He is well aware, of course, that in his game you need luck on your side. “Oh yeah, that’s for sure.” But when your chance comes you still have to deliver. And when the director Bryan Singer offered him Wolverine — after a couple of big names dropped out — Jackman grew the sideburns, slicked back the hair, pumped up the muscles and “went for it”. And he proved he could do mutant rage just as well as he can sing Oh, What a Beautiful Mornin’.

He found acting at school, Knox Grammar, back in Sydney, where he was born the youngest of five children to English parents. But school was mostly about achieving, academically and on the sports field, so drama was never really a consideration. “It was a Presbyterian school with a Scottish background and you were meant to become a doctor or a lawyer.” He opted for journalism and studied for a communications degree at the University of Technology in Sydney. But as soon as he graduated he changed his mind: “I just didn’t think it was me.” Instead, he applied for a drama course at the Western Australia Academy of Performing Arts in Perth and was on his way.

()In Australia he did a mix of television, stage musicals and a couple of small-budget films. But it was his decision to move to London that gave his career a boost. In 1998 he was cast as Curly in Trevor Nunn’s eye-popping production of Oklahoma! and won rave reviews as a result. Jackman is “completely at home” in the UK. His parents separated when he was eight and his mother returned to live in England, where her children were frequent visitors. “It’s an easy place for me to slip into. I’ve always felt my English heritage is a big part of who I am. Having said that, it doesn’t seem to lessen the enjoyment when we nail you at cricket.”

After X-Men he moved on to the lacklustre rom-com Kate & Leopold with Meg Ryan, the thriller Swordfish with John Travolta, and then X-Men 2. There will be a third in the series, he believes, if the studio, Fox, can find a way to please the increasingly famous ensemble cast — since the first film Halle Berry (Storm), Rebecca Romijn-Stamos (Mystique), Famke Janssen (Jean Grey) and Jackman have all seen their pulling power, and their fees, increase enormously.

“My feeling is that they will do an X-Men 3. I think that they should, and that’s not as a cynical money-making venture. I think creatively there’s room for another one. And that’s the great thing about Bryan Singer: he’s committed to making great movies.”

Jackman is also being strongly touted as the next James Bond and it’s easy to see why — he has the looks, the physique and he has already proved he can do action. “Yeah, I’ve put those rumours around,” he jokes. “I’d love to do it. It’s a great role but there’s been nothing official.”

In the future, he’d also love to do a screen musical, but first he has committed himself to the Broadway run until September and then it’s home to Melbourne and a break while his wife, the actress Deborra-Lee Furness, makes a film with the director Ray Lawrence (Lantana). “I’m looking forward to just being at home for a while.” He met Furness on an Australian TV crime drama, Correlli. “She was the star: Debs played a psychologist and I was the criminal. There was a bit of lust between the bars and we did a lot of extra research.”

They have been married for nine years and have a three-year-old son, Oscar, who sleeps with a talking Wolverine figure. “I can hear him from the other room in the middle of the night when he rolls over on to it and it says: ‘I’ll slash you in half!’ He hugs it, because it’s Dad. He even dressed up as Wolverine for Hallowe’en last year. I can see years of therapy.”

Perhaps not. Maybe, just like Dad, there’s a career waiting to explode. Son of Wolverine? Don’t bet against it.

Van Helsing opens nationwide on Friday

A man of many parts

Not just an action man, Hugh Jackman has proved that he's no joker when it comes to his range of roles on stage and screen

Lovers At one with the rom-com queen Meg Ryan in Kate & Leopold

Fighter Flexing his muscles as Wolverine and Van Helsing

Singer First seen in Oklahoma!, he's now The Boy from Oz

Dad In Swordfish. Off-screen he has a three-year-old son, Oscar