Hugh Jackman has been acting for more than 30 years. Most fans love him as “Wolverine,” on Broadway, or on the Oscars stage.
Therefore, very little surprises him anymore when he’s on a film set. Until one day, the Australian actor complained to a director and walked away holding a piece of humble pie he still talks about a decade later.
Emmy-winning actress Zendaya plays a huge role in the story Jackman still talks about a decade later.
In 2016, Jackman was cast in a film with the then-rising star who was mostly known for Disney’s “Shake It Up” and “K.C. Undercover.
This week Zendaya turned 30, and the industry has spent the last several years catching up to what Jackman says he clocked 10 years ago.
She was cast opposite Jackman and Zac Efron in “The Greatest Showman,” the musical about P.T. Barnum that Jackman had spent years developing and also produced.
Zendaya would play Anne Wheeler, a trapeze artist, a role that required her to actually get in the air.
She trained for months, building upper-body strength she says she no longer has. Then she got to the real set and found the rig sitting 15 to 20 feet higher than the one she’d practiced on, with no net beneath it, because 19th-century circuses didn’t use them.
Jackman appears to remember their filming days all too well. Speaking with Bilt founder Ankur Jain at an event promoting the Global Citizen partnership, the 57-year-old actor dug up the memory again.
“I remember on day one saying, ‘This young woman is going to be the biggest star of her generation,’” Jackman said.
The moment that convinced him wasn’t a big musical number either. It was a first take. Zendaya nailed it right away. But when Gracey called for another one, Jackman didn’t understand why. So he went over to ask.
“I pulled him aside and said, ‘What are you doing, her first take was amazing,’” Jackman recalled.
Gracey’s answer landed somewhere between a compliment to her and a gentle drag of everybody else on the call sheet: “I know, but I didn’t want to embarrass you or Zac, so I thought I’d make her do more than one take.”
Jackman has never been quiet about it. Back when the film was still in promotion, he told Entertainment Weekly in 2017 that Zendaya was in a category by herself.
“She’s what I call a unicorn,” he said. “I don’t know if there has been anyone like Zendaya or will be anyone ever again. That girl makes it all look absolutely effortless.”
Zendaya has also shared that working with Jackman boosted her confidence, especially during her trapeze stunts. She did most of the stunts herself, despite her fear of heights.
Jackman sensed it and gave her four words that changed everything: “Zendaya, you’re a bada—.”
During rehearsals, she was relatively fine. But when she got on the actual production set with no safety nets in sight, Zendaya got a little worried.
That’s when her nerves kicked in.
However, she told host Jimmy Fallon it only took one line from Jackman for her to pull it all together.
“Right as I was going to go up in the cherry picker, Hugh Jackman walked by and he goes, ‘Zendaya, you’re a badass,’” she told Jimmy Fallon on “The Tonight Show.” Her response was immediate: “Take me up! Hugh Jackman called me a bada—!”
hugh jackman and zendaya are pure Art pic.twitter.com/y90FnNkF44
— bones (@howlettstark) December 5, 2017
Based on that day, Jackman considered Zendaya a complete breakout star who could do it all. It’s worth mentioning that the two shared more than just screen time together.
Their voices sit on the same track, “The Greatest Show,” the film’s opening number, which also appears on the “The Greatest Showman Soundtrack” album.
This isn’t the first time an actor spoke highly about the “Spider-Man” star. In June, Jordyn Curet described how a surprise encounter with Zendaya helped shape her own path before she’d even finished high school. The same passing-the-torch energy Jackman was describing, one generation down.
The prediction has aged well. Zendaya turned 30 on Sept. 1 holding two Primetime Emmys for “Euphoria,” which made her the youngest woman to win lead actress in a drama, plus a Golden Globe, “Dune,” “Challengers” and a run through Christopher Nolan’s “The Odyssey.”
Just last month, she returned as MJ in “Spider-Man: Brand New Day.” The film opened July 31 to the biggest domestic weekend in box office history at $360 million. It also crossed $2 billion worldwide in three weekends.
She also entered the decade as a newlywed after quietly marrying “Spider-Man” actor Tom Holland in August, according to TMZ.
Jackman said it on day one. Others needed the extra 10 years but caught on nonetheless.
