The Tim Ferriss Show - #444: Hugh Jackman on Best Decisions, Daily Routines, The 85% Rule, Favorite Exercises, Mind Training, and Much More

Episode Date: June 30, 2020

Brought to you by Magic Spoon, low carb, high protein, and zero sugar cereal. “Everyone takes a shower every day, and we don’t complain about it. We do it out of discipline. There will always be an excuse not to meditate.”  — Hugh Jackman Hugh Jackman (@TheHughJackman) is an Academy Award®-nominated, Golden Globe- and Tony Award-winning performer, who has made an impression on audiences of all ages with his multi-hyphenate career persona, as successful onstage in front of live crowds as he is on film.I’ve wanted to have Hugh on the show for nearly a decade, and—even with my sky-high hopes—he absolutely over-delivered. In our conversation, we dig into lessons learned, routines, favorite books, exercises, intuition, meditation, and much, much more. Hugh was very gracious with his time, and this is one of the longest interviews he has ever done. Trust me—Hugh delivers the goods, and we had a blast. Enjoy!***This episode is brought to you by Magic Spoon Cereal! Magic Spoon is a brand-new cereal that is low carb, high protein, and zero sugar. It tastes just like your favorite sugary cereal. Each serving has 11g of protein, 3g of net carbs, 0g of sugar, and only 110 calories. It’s also gluten free, grain free, keto friendly, soy free, and GMO free. And it’s delicious! It comes in your favorite, traditional cereal flavors like Cocoa, Frosted, and Blueberry.Magic Spoon cereal has received a lot of attention since launching last year. Time magazine included it in their list of Best Inventions of 2019, and Forbes called it “the future of cereal.” My listeners—that’s you—get free shipping and a 100% happiness guarantee when you visit MagicSpoon.com/TIM and use code TIM. ***If you enjoy the podcast, would you please consider leaving a short review on Apple Podcasts/iTunes? It takes less than 60 seconds, and it really makes a difference in helping to convince hard-to-get guests.For show notes and past guests, please visit tim.blog/podcast.Sign up for Tim’s email newsletter (“5-Bullet Friday”) at tim.blog/friday.For transcripts of episodes, go to tim.blog/transcripts.Interested in sponsoring the podcast? Please fill out the form at tim.blog/sponsor.Discover Tim’s books: tim.blog/books.Follow Tim:Twitter: twitter.com/tferriss Instagram: instagram.com/timferrissFacebook: facebook.com/timferriss YouTube: youtube.com/timferrissPast guests on The Tim Ferriss Show include Jerry Seinfeld, Hugh Jackman, Dr. Jane Goodall, LeBron James, Kevin Hart, Doris Kearns Goodwin, Jamie Foxx, Matthew McConaughey, Esther Perel, Elizabeth Gilbert, Terry Crews, Sia, Yuval Noah Harari, Malcolm Gladwell, Madeleine Albright, Cheryl Strayed, Jim Collins, Mary Karr, Maria Popova, Sam Harris, Michael Phelps, Bob Iger, Edward Norton, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Neil Strauss, Ken Burns, Maria Sharapova, Marc Andreessen, Neil Gaiman, Neil de Grasse Tyson, Jocko Willink, Daniel Ek, Kelly Slater, Dr. Peter Attia, Seth Godin, Howard Marks, Dr. Brené Brown, Eric Schmidt, Michael Lewis, Joe Gebbia, Michael Pollan, Dr. Jordan Peterson, Vince Vaughn, Brian Koppelman, Ramit Sethi, Dax Shepard, Tony Robbins, Jim Dethmer, Dan Harris, Ray Dalio, Naval Ravikant, Vitalik Buterin, Elizabeth Lesser, Amanda Palmer, Katie Haun, Sir Richard Branson, Chuck Palahniuk, Arianna Huffington, Reid Hoffman, Bill Burr, Whitney Cummings, Rick Rubin, Dr. Vivek Murthy, Darren Aronofsky, and many more.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

At this altitude, I can run flat out for a half mile before my hands start shaking. Can I ask you a personal question? Now would have seen an appropriate time. What if I did the opposite? I'm a cybernetic organism, living tissue over a metal endoskeleton. The Tim Ferriss Show. This episode is brought to you by ExpressVPN. I've been using ExpressVPN since last summer,

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Super, super simple. And by the way, it's not just me saying all this about ExpressVPN. You've got TechRadar, The Verge, CNET, and many other publications rating ExpressVPN as the number one VPN in the world. So consider protecting yourself with the VPN that I use and trust. Use my link expressvpn.com slash Tim today and get an extra three months free on a one-year package. That's expressvpn.com slash Tim. Visit expressvpn.com slash Tim to learn more. This episode is brought to you by Magic Spoon. Magic Spoon is a brand new cereal

that I eat just about every day that is low carb, high protein, and zero sugar. I just ate a huge bowl of their cocoa flavor about an hour ago after a short workout. Magic Spoon cereal has received a lot of attention since launching last year. Time Magazine included it in their list of best inventions of 2019, and Forbes called it the future of cereal. It tastes just like your favorite sugary cereal from childhood, remember that? But it's actually good for you. Each serving has 11 grams of protein, 3 grams of net carbs, 0 grams of sugar, and only 110 calories. It's also gluten-free, grain-free, keto-friendly, soy-free, and GMO-free. All the things. It's delicious. And I don't say that lightly because most of this healthy version of X stuff is not delicious, but these guys really nail it. Magic Spoon has nailed it.

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Take a look. This episode is brought to you by AG1, the daily foundational nutritional supplement that supports whole body health. I do get asked a lot what I would take if I could only take one supplement. And the true answer is invariably AG1. It simply covers a ton of bases. I usually drink it in the mornings and frequently take their travel packs with me on the road. So what is AG1? AG1 is a science-driven formulation of vitamins, probiotics, and whole food sourced nutrients. In a single scoop, AG1 gives you support for the brain, gut, and immune system.

So take ownership of your health and try AG1 today. You will get a free one-year supply of vitamin D and five free AG1 travel packs with your first subscription purchase. So learn more, check it out. Go to drinkag1.com slash Tim. That's drinkag1, the number one, drinkag1.com slash Tim. Last time, drinkag1.com slash Tim. Check it out. Hello, boys and girls, ladies and germs. This is Tim Ferriss, and welcome to another episode of Check it out. habits routines favorite books and so on that you can apply to your own life and this particular episode i think delivers the goods and then some my guest is hugh jackman i've wanted to have hugh

on the show for a very very long time who is hugh jackman if you have to ask that i don't know where you've been living under a rock i'll keep this intro short hugh jackman is an academy award nominated golden globe and tony award-winning performer who has made an impression on audiences I'll keep this intro short. Hugh Jackman is an Academy Award-nominated Golden Globe and Tony Award-winning performer who has made an impression on audiences around the world, certainly audiences of all ages, with his multi-hyphenate career persona. He's done everything. He is as successful on stage in front of live crowds as he is on film. He's a beast in the gym. This man does it all. You can find him on Instagram, at The HughJackman, Twitter at RealHughJackman, on Facebook HughJackman. And there is one resource I'll mention here. He talks about converting

photographs into puzzles, and the website for that is PortraitPuzzles.com. It'll all make sense. He'll tie it all together. And without further ado, please enjoy a wide-ranging, thoroughly enjoyable conversation with none other than Hugh Jackman. One quick note on timing for context. This episode was recorded on May 21st, 2020, before the death of George Floyd. Hugh, welcome to the show. Tim, great to be here, man. I'm very excited. I am so thrilled that we are able to connect on the podcast. I've wanted to do this for so long.

Yeah. And I have so many different questions I've wanted to explore with you. And I thought we would start, this might be a strange place to start, but I'll start there nonetheless. And that is, in the course of doing homework for this conversation, I found an anecdote that you, in the mornings, sometimes read a book with your wife or read to each other. Is that something you still do? And how did that start? Every day. I nicked the idea from Patrick Stewart. I was on set with Patrick Stewart, for those who don't know him, he's a great actor who played Professor X in the X-Men series, Star Trek, lots of stuff. And he said to me that when he was about 60 he realised

that he was never going to read all the books that he wanted to read in his life. He did the calculation. And so he decided that no matter what time his call was, let's say he's picked up at 5, whatever time he would have woken up, he wakes up 30 minutes earlier, gets a cup of tea and goes back to bed and he reads. And he said, I don't read the paper because it makes me angry.

I don't read my emails because it usually makes me anxious. Gets my mind going. He said, what's the other thing he doesn't read? Doesn't do emails. Oh, scripts. He won't work. He said that makes him anxious. He said, I read a book, the kind of book that you pick up when you go on vacation. I've got nothing to do book. And he's been doing that for years. And he said, the reason i do it first thing in the morning is the day just gets away from you and you think oh i'll read later in the evening but you don't he says on weekends he spends an hour so for christmas this year i gave deb a couple of books which i got off your podcast from your from seth the esther perel seth godin one about their five

books oh yeah which absolutely yeah we've now read all of them. And we met Esther and I signed up for Seth Godin's marketing kind of workshop thing that unfortunately got cancelled. Anyway, so we wake up. Whatever time we're going to get up, I go down, I make a cup of coffee for me, a cup of tea for Deb. We come back up. I have a cold shower first.

Another thing I learned from you from your four-hour body book when I was getting ready for Wolverine, the old cold bath. So I have a cold shower every morning and then we go back and we read. And we read for at least 30 minutes and then we meditate together. And that way it's become our, like, favourite time of the day as a couple. And we know that no matter what happens in the day, which invariably gets away from you, you've had that quality time together. And so that's just been a godsend. It's been an absolute blessing. If I'm looking at, for instance, my own experience with my girlfriend, who I'm very close to and we live together, it's so easy to say we're going to find the quality time at dinner, after dinner, at this point in the afternoon, and then the day gets away with you.

So you're front-loading it in a way so that it doesn't get lost. And do you read the same book at the same time? Do you read out loud to each other? you read out loud to each other we read out loud to each other so we we split it up we do half half and we read out loud to each other and it's interesting if you've got something on your mind you know often it stirs during the night and and it could be i'm not just talking negative stuff it could be ideas i find the evening when your subconscious is probably brewing at its highest level, lots of ideas or anxieties come to the surface. So I find the first thing in the morning,

you know, we'll be five minutes into reading. Right now we're reading David Brooks, The Second Mountain, that book. And we might just stop and say, hey, I'm worried about this. Could be something about the kids or stuff or stuff's on my mind. And then we'll just end up talking about that, you know. But often just the reading itself sparks things in us, gives us ideas, things to talk about, come together with. But we read the same book out loud to each other. And I'm going to come back to the meditation because you mentioned it. But since we're on the topic of books, what books, if any, come to mind? I know you read a lot.

Have you gifted the most to other people? I learned this from a great mate of mine, Billy Shaw, who's often known as St. Billy, runs No Kid Hungry, Share Our Strength, you know that organization? I do. Yeah, they're incredible. And so he came over to my place one day and he gave me two books that I now gift very regularly. One is E.B. White's Here is New York. And the other one is David Foster Wallace's speech, This is Water, his commencement speech. I've heard you talk about the David Foster Wallace one, so I know you know that. And he said, I said, oh, I haven heard you talk about the David Foster Wallace one, so I know you know that. And he said, I said, oh, I haven't read either of these. And he said, man, I learned a long time ago, it's really nice to give books, but it can be a burden to give a big book because people feel like, oh, I'm going to see him in a month. Oh, shit, I'm having dinner

with him next week and share him with a book. But like the David Foster Wallace is a 15-minute book and the E.B. White book here is New York. The New York had a program post-World War II where they were invited by the greatest writers in the world to come to New York and just pay them for three months just to write essays about New York. So that was his and it's amazing to read a 1949 account of New York. So that was his, and it's amazing to read a 1949 account of New York and how much of the spirit still resonates now. So that's the little book that to anyone who lives in New York or likes New York, I give. And in terms of fiction, and this completely breaks that rule, Tim,

because this is a long book, but I was gifted it actually by Gary Hart, Senator Gary Hart, who I played in a movie, The Overstory by Richard Powers. I'm not sure if you read that, but that's the most transformative bit of fiction I have read in a long time. I need to read it. It's been recommended so many times. It's sitting on my Kindle, and I started reading it. I remember I read for about a half hour and it said, whatever it said, 0.001% complete. And I went, oh my God, how big is this book? It's big. And stick with it. For those who don't know the book, could you give it just a quick description? Yeah. It's Richard Bowers, I believe it won the Pulitzer. I think it did. It's a piece of fiction interweaving about eight storylines of humans.

But what you realize, the misdirection of the book is, by the end, you realize the book is completely about trees. So we might relegate trees or nature to some five or 10% of our awareness. And this book, what it does is draws you in, in these incredible human stories and these very varied characters and their varying degrees of interaction with nature in various different forms. But by the end, you realize the book, actually the main character of the book is trees, is nature. And it completely reverses the way you look at the world when you walk outside. Now, I promise you, after you read that book, Tim, you will sit in your backyard and you will notice things

you have never noticed before. Oh, I'm in. All right. My complacency has been called. I will read the overstory. Stick with it. It works on you in the way nature does. It's patient and it's in no rush.

It's slow and it's steady and it's true. Well, I think the word true maybe is a segue to meditation. I know you've meditated for decades now, and you and Deb meditate in the mornings. And I say that as a segue because at least for me, meditation has been a tool that helps to provide clarity in some respects. Could you describe your meditation practice and what you feel are the main benefits that are derived from that practice? Sure. I was introduced to meditation when I was at drama school. And it was a form of transcendental meditation. There's lots of different types of meditation. Just very briefly, it involves the use of a mantra, which you are given, which you repeatedly sound.

And the very basic concept is that the nature of our minds is to always be working, always be thinking. And the trick to life is not letting that mind be your master, but to let it be a servant, then it's an incredible thing. Once it's running the show, it's very easy to get off track. So during this period of meditation, you are given a mantra, which was described to me as, the mind is often called the monkey mind in Eastern philosophies. So a monkey is very energetic, and if not given something to do, will be mischievous. So a monkey, you know, is very energetic and if not given something

to do will be mischievous. So the mantra is like basically saying to the monkey mind, I need you to climb to the top of that telegraph pole. And when you get to the top, I need you to climb back down. And when you get to the bottom, I need you to climb back up. And when you get to the top, I need you to climb back down. So it's just giving this activity. So the mantra or this word that is silently repeated ends up fading away. And the best way I can describe it is the effect that it has on me. I mean, sometimes I fall asleep, by the way, which is totally fine and clearly what my body needed. But when you first pour a glass of water, it's cloudy. And then in a period of time, that all settles and you see crystal clear through the glass, through the water.

That's what meditation does for me. It's got that feeling where things drop down. I have a feeling of coming home, the feeling of experiencing my true self and not just being caught up in the monkey mind or being reactive to life. And it gives me a finer energy. I don't always get out of meditation ready to do a one-hour Peloton class, but i always come out with a finer energy um it feels my intention feels clearer um my listening is is um more purposeful and and things feel easier and more connected do you meditate then twice a day in these these the what i guess one might consider the the traditional tm format do you if you meditate in the afternoons or later in the day, how do you time that for yourself?

So I always did it twice a day for years. So I started when I was 23. I'm 51 now. So I did it very regularly twice a day. And about three or four years ago, I kind of let go of the duty element there was, and I can be guilty of this. This is good for you. You should be doing this.

Don't fall off that wagon. You know, it's a slippery slope. And once I let go of that, I just had a kind of experiment with myself. I was like, okay, why don't you meditate when you really want to meditate? And that has turned into a practice where it's every morning for sure. And then definitely when I'm working, if I'm on a movie set or I'm working in theater, there will always be a second one. But sometimes I'll let the afternoon one go.

And when I say afternoon, I can't sit down, I get restless leg syndrome. So after about four or five o'clock, it's uncomfortable for me to sit for 20 minutes. So I will do it around lunchtime or just after lunch. I'd love to use this as a path to talking about self-care and maybe to sex up the expression a little bit. The building and recharging of your energetic reservoir. And here's why I'm using such fancy wording, but I think it's appropriate. We have a few mutual friends and one saw you perform on stage in, I believe it was New York. And what he said to me, this is someone, Peter, who can work easily 12, 14 hours a day if he wants to for seven days a week, nonstop for years at a time. And he said that he could not conceive of doing what you do even twice a week. And let alone the maximum number of times you might do it in a given week.

I don't know what that number is. You could speak to it. But could you describe your emotional energy practices and replenishing approach when it comes to, let's just say, stage performances and stage work? Because it's really hard for me to even wrap my head around how you have that much energy output repeatedly in a given week. You see, I find this hard to believe, man, because I sit here and I hear you and Peter talking about the hundred mile swim that you did or some of the crazy stuff. That sounds to me like, wow, I didn't even know the human body could do that, let alone the amount of training it goes for, that kind of pushing through, that energy that pushes through pain. Or if you see that documentary, Kim Swims, when I watch her, I just go, wow, that's amazing to me because I know in my heart that I was born to be on the stage.

It's taken me a long time to feel the same feeling on a sound stage for acting but my one of my favorite movies of all time and definitely my favorite quote from a movie of all time is from chariots of fire which i loved as a kid and eric liddell who's the religious runner who decides not to run on the sabbath during the olympics you've seen the movie right i have yeah so there's this great where he's meant to be going off after the Olympics to do missionary work in China, handing out Bibles or something, and his sister's talking to him. She's like, you've got to throw away this silly running thing.

We have really important work, God's work to do. Why are you doing this and spending time on this, you know, basically kind of accusing him of not following God's will. And he just says, he looks at her and he says, but I feel his pleasure when I run. And I've always somehow that line, it always makes me tear up just saying it. That's what I feel on stage. There's a kind of natural energy. And

what I keep saying to my kids, actually, don't settle. Find that thing that resonates with you in that way, where you feel some kind of the pleasure of the universe, of consciousness, like there's some joy where you feel you can do it longer. And in that way, it's not such a Herculean effort, although I'm going to tell you in a second I have a bunch of sort of rituals and things that I do to make sure that I can be my best. But there is a natural energy that I understand other people going, I don't know how you do that, but maybe that's in the same way I don't know how you train for ultram marathons, for example.

So in terms of self-care, on Broadway I have a bunch of rules or when I was doing my tour. I certainly don't drink alcohol before and I really limit it after. It's really important for me to wake up feeling in a good frame of mind rather than that feeling of catch up. You know, that feeling if you wake up and you go, I just want to go back to bed, then that's a really difficult place to be in if you've got to perform that evening because then an anxiety comes in that you're going to be withdrawing on reserves that are not replenishable. I don't go out after any show and I would have loved you to come and see I'm doing the Music Man come, but I never go out

and I make that's a blanket rule. I don't go out with anybody, partly because the party I've just had on stage is better than anything I can imagine anywhere else. The other thing is I think it's really important for me to get quiet, to allow what has happened, the energy of what has happened, because there is a lot of energy. I think I'm the only actor I know who I can be asleep within 45 minutes after getting off stage.

There's something very calming. It's like you've had your greatest workout, you have a bath, that feeling after the bath after a great workout in the evening where you just can sit and be at peace with yourself, that I love. So I limit the amount of coffee I have just because you're battling dehydration with stage work all the time. I know what my routine is before I go on stage and I'm religious about it. And that's more about quieting my mind.

I don't ever want my monkey mind saying, oh, you didn't do your warm-up today or you only half did it or this or that. You haven't stretched. You haven't done that. You didn't really eat very well today. You might be, you know, my mind can easily pick up on that, the perfectionist side of me. I always take a minute before I go on stage, literally before,

to pause and just connect with the senses. So even if I'm not in the opening of a show, I will stand in the wings. I first of all like to just listen to that titter of excitement as people come in to the theatre because I love the theatre myself and I remember that and it reminds me of how privileged I am and how much I owe every single audience member at every single show. They're not coming in to see my fourth show of the week. They're coming to see the show for the first

and probably only time in their lives. And who knows what they've sacrificed to get there. So I really take that minute. And then I fall still and remind myself that this is all in service of something. I say a little, I say om paramatnaminama, which means I dedicate this show or whatever it is to the service of the absolute, that there is something

beyond the show, some reason we're doing this. Same for your show. You know, there's got to be a reason beyond just what the immediate thing is there. And that just connects me to that. I'm pretty quiet during the day when I do a show. And the other thing I really try to do is read and listen to other stuff. I had a great acting teacher, Lyle Jones, who said to me, he goes,

you can't call yourself a real actor unless you expose yourself to ballet and classical music and David Attenborough. You should be so inquisitive and curious and find inspiration from surprising places. It could be a walk in the woods, but that stuff feeds you so that in the act of performing, which is very much giving out, you have enough energy there and stores, I suppose. They'd be the main things. I'm so pleased we finally made time to get on the podcast. This is just fantastic.

Me too, man. I was saying before we got on, I'm going to say it now. I was a little nervous. I was asking myself, I went for a bike ride this morning, and I wasn't nervous like heart pounding, like I'm about to go on a talk show and I've got to perform. Not that kind of nervous, but I think because this is the only thing I can think of, the only bit of media really that I actually consume, that I'm now participating in and I

thought to myself what why do I consume it and the reason that I listen in is that I have learned apart from people in my inner circle I've learned more from your show in the last two years than anywhere else uh I countless examples Seth Godin, Esther Perel, Sam Harris. I do his waking up app quite regularly. So there's so many things that I've learned. And I always feel like I'm going to get some wisdom that will help me in life or the people I love. And I think the nervousness came from a bit of a habitual thought pattern with me is like, oh, well, you're not that good. Like, you don't know that much, man. Like, you know, you're not, you know, you've done all right,

but you're not the person that people are going to listen to on Tim Ferriss, you know, and get into bits. You know, those doubts that clearly have fueled me in my life and i i mentioned that a to compliment you on what you've created but b just to be completely open and honest that uh i have those doubts you know that i'm i'm not good enough which have driven me and um yeah sorry if i'm going off off piste here no i you I'm going off piste here. No, you're not going off piste. There's no such thing in these conversations.

And I really appreciate the kind words. And it means a lot to me that you listen to the show. And I also want to say that for those people who might wonder what you are like in person, that there's always a risk in meeting your heroes, meeting the people you might be inclined to put on a pedestal. And as far as I'm concerned, you are in person with your friends, with your family, with your fans, everything that someone would hope you to be. So I just want you to know that, at least for me, you are one of the most reassuring of high-profile celebrities in that sense, because it is easy to kind of fall for a facade. And you've been very inspiring to me in person. And I'll

just give a few examples where I'll talk about a pattern that I've observed, which is that you are polite to everyone. I mean, I've seen you shake hands with everyone you meet you from from the whether it's the sort of janitor up to a prime minister you're you extend the same courtesy to everyone and i think that's i think that's a rarity so uh thank you for thank you for being you and i'd like i'd like to ask about in a sense how you were shaped and i'd love to ask about about your dad, if that's possible. And I have a specific example that jumps to mind. And this is from a piece some time ago in Good Housekeeping. So I want to give credit where credit is due.

But the quote here, and feel free to correct it, this is from you. I remember at one point being in a fellowship, and everyone used to wear the fish symbol. It said you were a Christian. So I asked my father, dad, why don't you wear that at work? And he said, your religion should be in your actions. He said a great, great example. Could you speak to what impact your father or family had on you in terms of lessons learned? Yeah. I'm glad you mentioned that story. That actually came to mind a couple of days ago.

My dad, you know when people talk about their, oh, my father always told me this. There weren't many times the dad would come up with a sentence. But there's a few I remember. You cannot overinvest in education. That's one he would say to us. And he says, if you're ever in doubt of what to do, go and learn more, is what he would say.

Your actions, that one, it was, I actually now remember it. It was, I was very, we grew up very religious. My father was converted by Billy Graham and my mother and father, I think, went to the Billy Graham crusade and my father was not religious at all and became a born again Christian. My mother did not. That was one of the things, actually, I think that, you know, brought the end of their marriage. They sort of went down different paths. And my, so my dad was not a Bible basher.

He rarely talked about it. And I remember saying, Dad, because I was really about 13, 14, I was really in church groups, fellowship groups, and I got one of those stickers that you put on the back of the car and I said, Dad, we should put that, like we're meant to do that. We're meant to spread the word and do this. And when he said that to me, I was disappointed. I thought he was copping out, but only later did I realize that when he said,

people should know you're a Christian through your actions, he's so much more powerful. If someone eventually comes up to you and says, you know, there's something about you, man. I don't know what it is, but I'd love to know where I can get it. Then there's an opening, but someone, people have noticed how you act is far stronger than what you say. And we all know that. I often speak a little more about my dad in interviews because my mom left when I was eight. So I was brought up from that moment on primarily by my dad. And so I got a lot of those lessons as I was growing into a man with him being around.

But my mum, I always remember her saying, she says it to this day, everyone needs to feel appreciated. It doesn't matter what they do. It doesn't matter who they are. That's a need in everybody. And I sort of have extrapolated that out to being people need to be seen um i've learned a lot of that from brené brown um they need to be seen for who they are and appreciated for what they give and i've seen my mother in particular and my father do that. And that's

something we were all taught. So it has become a natural thing. And it really pleases me. I see that in my kids too now, that they're picked up on that. And it's a little, really doesn't take a lot, but it's that outward facing understanding where people are coming from, walking in their shoes to a certain degree. And no one, to be honest, there's no better example of that in my life than my wife, Deb. She's because you could argue that that's the way I was brought up. It's kind of like manners, you know. That's the way I was taught to be.

You know, I couldn't go to someone else's house. And to this day, I always offer to clean up, even if I'm going to someone's dinner party, they always say no. I always, if there's a bowl of chips on the table, I will offer, I won't pick one up until I've offered them to everyone around me, even if it's not my house, all that stuff that I've learned. But my wife acts purely from instinct, from heart. So she cannot walk past someone homeless in the street. And, you know, I'll stop quite often, but sometimes I'll go, oh, I'm just too busy.

I can't deal with this right now. She will never do that. It's like an instinct, an impulse. That kind of, that's where I think manners or any way you're brought up somehow goes to another level of truly connecting. That's what I've learned from her. So there have been three big influences. And Deb is, of course, an amazing, amazing woman in her own right. And if she would like, I can certainly link to some of her works in the show notes as well, because I do think that the sort of dynamic duo of the two of you is a very important combination.

You've had dinner with us. I can't tell you how many people invite us for dinner and they'll be saying, listen, if she's busy, that's fine. But because Deb does light up a room i'd love to ask about journalism or communications this is maybe going to seem strange i just remember what it was about my dad oh fire away let's go there stickler on ethics if you get an invitation to go uh to i don't know go across the road to your mate's place for dinner and then an hour later you get an invitation from the Queen of England to go to the Buckingham Palace, you stick by your first one. It was just a stickler on ethics.

You keep your word. Even if it does not benefit you, you always keep your word. That was a big one. My dad was always big on ethics. And the other beautiful one, I remember when my, because his relationship didn't work out and it was a big source of pain for him. You know, he shared with me, it was a real feeling of failure for him around his marriage. And when things started to take off for me with X-Men, he very rarely offered advice at all about parenting, nothing. Even when I asked him for advice at one point, at one point I had an opportunity to be in a TV show.

I got cast in a TV show and at the same time I got a spot at a very revered acting school in Australia, the Western Australian Academy of Performing Arts, and over the weekend I had to choose do I go on Neighbours, which Kylie Minogue, Guy Pearce, Margot Robbie, you know, all these people, that was the breeding ground, or do I go and study for three years? And I asked my dad on the Friday.

I said, Dad, I don't know what to do and I need your help. And I was 22 at the time. And he said, I can't answer that for you. And I was really like, come on, Dad, please. Anyway, by the Sunday it was clear to me I wanted, you know, obviously his lesson about education had sunk in and so I went, no, I need to go and study because I want to feel that not only do I belong on, you know, a TV series set,

but I can also audition for the Royal Shakespeare Company in England. And I didn't feel I had that before I studied. So I went off and studied. And when I told Dad the decision, I remember he saw it. He goes, oh, thank goodness. I said, you knew? And he goes, of course I knew. I said, couldn't you have just saved me this grief the last few days and told me? And he goes, man, he says, you're a man. You have to make those decisions on your own. Now, as a father, I have a 20-year-old. I don't know if I'd be able to hold my tongue. If I could see it so clearly, go right, don't go left, to be able to hold back.

That was another great bit of advice. I've gone off, and what were we talking about before? Well, I was going to bring up journalism and communications, but I might go. We can go somewhere else. That was one topic sort of on the list, but we can go in any direction that we like. I'll tie it in, in the sense, it's a curiosity for me as to how you came to be so well-spoken. There are many performers I've met, many people who are excellent on stage, on camera, who nonetheless in person or in interview otherwise are not as facile with words as you are. And I noticed in doing homework, and I don't know if this is a factor, but that you were initially, well, I should say, at the University of Technology in Sydney,

studying communications in hopes of becoming a journalist. Is that true? True. Yeah. So I'd love to hear you speak to why that's the case and perhaps just try to paint a picture of how you came to use words in the way that you do. Thank you, man. I haven't had that compliment before. I'll take it. You're welcome. I've interviewed 400 plus people and I can tell you. My wife says I can be a little too verbose sometimes.

She's like, all right, got it. Got the point. Wrap it up. So if I look back, I was always in the debate team, loved debate. My brother is probably the most successful barrister in Australia, certainly in his field of law, an incredible debater. My other brother, like, so we used to get into it at home and certainly with my oldest brother who was a Rhodes Scholar, you had to be on your game or he would literally eviscerate you in one line.

So I probably learned PES there. Kind of reminds me of Jordan saying, I really learned how to play basketball from trying to be my brother growing up. And then I was in the debate teams and all of that. And we always had family dinner every night, Sunday lunch as a family. There was always conversation. So in a way that was always encouraged. And in my family, I'm certainly, I don't stand out as a speaker, but if I think about it now, it was really something that was always prized. And so I came out of high school

with pretty good scores and I was accepted into a degree, a dual degree in economics and law. Interesting. My father was a, my brother was a lawyer or going into law at that time. My father was an accountant his whole life for Pricewaterhouse. And I was good at maths and I really was interested in people and good at speaking. So law and economics. And I went off and I had a gap year, halfway through the gap year, I was like, actually, I don't know what I think. I don't think that's for me. But I didn't really.

I just knew I was very much a people person and interested in that. And this communications course was new at the time in Australia, and I went and studied there without really knowing anything about it, to be honest. But I knew media was a big part of it. And gradually, as I went along, my love, particularly for radio, more than writing, blossomed. And so I did graduate with a journalism major, that degree. But honestly, the biggest thing that happened for me at college was that I did a play in my last semester, which I didn't mean to do. I was doing, I had to fill a minor elective. And my friend said, you got to join the theater class because it's the easiest thing possible. You turn up for four hours a week. There's no exam. There's no

play and you pass. I was like, great, I'm done. So he decided for the first time in the course's history to do a play. And I begged to get out of it. And by ballot, I got the lead role. There was no auditions. And only when I graduated, as I was graduating, I realized I've just spent 90% of my time doing that play and loving it. And I said, there's something wrong here. Like I'm doing investigative journalism. Surely I should be really more passionate about that. Maybe something's off. We went and actually toured the play to another university

that was half theatre and half communications. And I remember viscerally walking into the place where we were staying. We were staying at a student house. There were eight people in this house. The smell of weed was just suffocating as I walked in. But what I remember was the moment I walked in to that house and I met those people, I had this feeling all over my body that I'd made a mistake,

that I should have been here. Oh, I should have been doing this course. I knew then. And it was deeply frustrating to me to be three weeks away from graduation thinking, oops, I think I turned right and I was meant to turn left. And so, yes, officially I graduated as a journalism major, but I never studied it i went straight

to go and study acting after that so that was uh my sliding doors moment i guess but but it has funnily enough i do get a lot of journalists and i don't consider you a journalist you just as a journalist tim no i think that that would would insult any actual I don't know, man. I don't know. I've got a lot more understanding of the world around me from your podcast than almost everything I read. I appreciate that. By the way, Ken Burns, you thank you for putting me on to Ken Burns. Amazing. During this whole quarantine, I watched all Civil civil war i watched the whole of vietnam and

my son and i about to get into baseball that i mean how i could go 51 years without really seeing everything ken burns has done is a crime but anyway thanks for that yeah special man oh and that that podcast you did with him was incredible um so but anyway it was uh yeah journalism has come in handy for me because i talked to a lot of journalists and i instinctively have an empathy for them i think most people in my side of the game fear not fear them don't like them like distrust them see them as a battle and i don't that. I know the pressures they're under, how little they're getting paid, and that often they're being asked, told to ask questions of me that they don't want to ask, but they're told if you don't come back to the newsroom without a

quote about whether he's going to have another child or blah, blah, blah, you know, don't come back. So I can see that when I'm listening to them, I just have an empathy and a real appreciation for what they do because when faced with the, all right, you've graduated, go be a journalist. I was like, I don't think I can cut it. I don't think I can do it. It's a really, really hard job. So it has come in handy. At the end of drama school, did you make a contract with yourself about pursuing acting? And could you speak to that, please? Damn, your research is good. So I had worked, I don't know how many jobs. I graduated drama school at 26. So gas station attendant, I dressed up in a koala suit

for the National Parks and Wildlife Foundation. That's a tall koala. Oh, yeah, totally. And, yes, I've been punching the kidneys by 14-year-olds, you know, the whole thing. And, yes, I told them to fuck off, all of that, you know. Restaurants, but the thing I learned from working in all those jobs that if you start a business, it could be a pizzeria,

it could be a bar, a restaurant, anything, you have to give it seven days a week for five years. And after five years, you may be able it seven days a week for five years. And after five years, you may be able to pull back a little bit. You may be able to be in a position where you've built the brand to a certain point. You may be able to hire a manager. You may be able to hire staff to make things a little easier. But no one really goes into owning their own business thinking, oh, this is going to be the easy life. They do it because there's something they want to create. They don't want to be told what to do and they go out

and make it happen. And it dawned on me really only in the last semester of drama school that that's what I'm doing. I'm going out there. There's no, no one's employing me in their company to be an actor and then sending me out. I have to go and rehire every time I go for a job and my brand is my name. So I have to

build that up. And so I thought, okay, what have I learned from all these jobs? I've got to give it seven days a week. So I vowed to never wait for the phone to ring. I was going to write letters. I was going to start me and Simon Linden, my fellow mate I graduated with, we're going to start a theater company, which he did, by the. We're going to start a theatre company, which he did, by the way. I ended up getting a job straight out of drama school, got lucky, but the Tamarama Rock Surfers, which is, you know, in Bondi in Australia, still going today after 25 years. But my feeling was you have to drive, you have to work, you cannot be a victim, you cannot wait for the phone to ring, you have to go out and generate and get your brand out there and get going so I figured five years was the time because

I was 26 so five years I'm like 31 we all hear stories of people staying too long at the party I mean if you go to LA there's just so many people who stay a good 10 years too long at the acting party you know and they're like I met know, I met a guy at my gym and he's introduced me. He's the guy who parks the car around the corner of his place. He knows someone who's a friend of the casting agent and he's put in a word and I think I'm going to get a, you know, that story comes out and this feeling of it's going to happen next week

and I figured 31. Okay, 31. If it's not happening, be stoic. by the way thanks for ryan holiday and the stoicism all that stuff love um be stoic be hopeful but work your ass off but know when it's time to leave the party so after five years at 31 i'd done x-men it was all sort of happening for me it didn't happen immediately in terms of what most people think of as success, but certainly after that first five years, I did actually mentally say to myself, all right,

another five years and we'll see how it goes. I don't like the word career. Particularly when I began and I say to actors, I said, I'd be wary of the word career. I said it's not a right that you're going to act. 98% of actors are unemployed. It's a privilege when you get a job. And don't expect there'll always be one around the corner.

Work your ass off as though this is the last one and you have to be at your best to get there because that's kind of what it takes. So I'll admit, I don't redo the contract anymore. Just a quick thanks to our sponsors So I'll admit I don't redo the contract anymore. favorite flavor is cocoa. Each serving has 11 grams of protein, 3 grams of net carbs, 0 grams of sugar, and only 110 calories. Try Magic Spoon today by grabbing a variety pack at magicspoon.com slash Tim. That's magicspoon.com slash Tim. Second and last, ExpressVPN. ExpressVPN keeps my data secure and encrypted all without slowing down my internet speed. It is so easy, so fast, you don't even notice it's running. So if you're on public Wi-Fi anywhere and don't want your data sniffed, you don't want creepers looking in on what you're doing, this is what I use. Go to expressvpn.com

slash Tim to get an extra three months free on a one-year package. That's expressvpn.com slash Tim. What were some of the best decisions that you made in the first few years of working hard, pounding the pavement as an aspiring slash working actor? Well, definitely going to drama school. That was before. That was a huge turning point. I had a big I just had also this attitude you've got to say yes to everything when you graduate just say yes go for everything when my agent called me and said they're looking for someone to play Gaston in Beauty and the Beast in a musical I was like well I'm a theater actor I'm not a singer she said you know

I just think you should go for it and And me saying yes to that audition and going and getting singing lessons was a huge turning point. I mean, you know, now I've done a bunch of musicals and I've learned a lot over those years, but I did not think I could ever do that. So that was a big one. And doing Beauty and the Beast, man, in my contract, I think I must be the only actor in history, in my contract it said must get a singing lesson once a week,

paid for by the company. So I was a professional, on paper, professional musical theatre actor and I had to go and get singing lessons, which I love, man, because I was singing eight times a week in a show. Getting a singing lesson every week, that's really where I learned how to sing. So that year was amazing for me. But I had a, this was more of a turning point. After, I remember when I was doing Beauty and the Beast, I started that, getting well known for that.

And I remember seeing something like, they had a list of people, what are they doing for Christmas kind of thing. And they had Hugh Jackman, singer. And it was up at the theatre. Someone put it up in the theatre, and I just remember going, uh-oh, I'm being labelled as a singer. I said, I'm an actor. Like this is a problem. This is going to affect me.

And it did become a problem. I couldn't get an audition for a film because there was, I don't know, about the rest of the world, but in Australia a kind of snobbishness about musical theatre, that you weren't an actor, you were a performer, stagehand, you know, jazz hands, and that's not acting. So anyone in musical theatre can't act. I couldn't get an audition.

It drove me crazy. So I made a choice then to get out, basically. I'm going to get out of theatre, musical theatre, and I'm just going to concentrate on acting until I've established that. Then maybe I can go back to it. And just as I decided that, my agent, Raymond, said, Sir Trevor Nunn is coming to do Sunset Boulevard in Melbourne. And I said, I really want to meet Sir Trevor Nye.

He was a huge hero of mine through drama school, the Royal Shakespeare Company, everything, like huge. I really wanted to meet him. That's really who I wanted to work for. I bet it was a musical and this was another 12 months and I thought now it's going to be back-to-back musicals. I'm going to be even more entrenched down this path. You know, it was a one-way street.

I actually, and I think back, it's a pretty arrogant thing, I rang the casting director myself and I said, I need you to do me a favor. And I had met, I knew her. I said, I really want to meet Trevor and I want to audition for him, but I don't want to do the job. She said, what? What do you mean? I said, I really want to meet him, but I've made this decision. I've got to go into acting, but can you just do me a favor? I just want to meet him and I want him to see me act. So I went in. The audition was the most incredible hour I've ever spent. I learned so much.

Like one hour on an audition, he taught me so much about acting. He heard me sing and then he came and worked with me for 40 minutes. And I remember about halfway through that going, okay, if he gives me the part, I'm going to do it. It doesn't matter to me if it's a musical or not. I've got to work with this guy. I feel it in my gut. I've got so much to learn from him. And that was a massive turning point. I got the part. I learned an incredible amount from him. He then went on to cast me in Oklahoma and London. And really working with him gave me the confidence to be able to take on the world stage. I'm not sure I would have had the confidence to do that before him. But I suppose

the lesson of that or the turning point of that was when you have that gut feeling, go with it. And I haven't always done that, by the way. And you can learn actually not long after that. So after I did Sunset Boulevard, I doubled down on my commitment to not doing musicals, right? Or after I go home, I'd now done three musicals and I still couldn't get an audition for a film. And I got an offer to do The Boy From Oz, which I went on to do here on Broadway about 15 years ago. And when I heard the pitch for that show, I had that same feeling in my gut. Oh my God, this is going to be amazing. You've got to do it. But my head was saying, you've done three musicals. Stop. When are you going to be amazing you've got to do it but my head was saying you've done three musicals stop when are you going to stop you've got to stop you made a commitment so I turned it down and when I went to see that show two years later by the way I still hadn't got a film audition pretty much when I went to go and see that show I was actually sick to my stomach because

it was everything I knew it was going to be when they pitched it to me. And there I was making some strategic plan in my head and it was wrong. And from that moment on, I have always followed my gut on stuff, even if it doesn't make sense. I have so many questions about this. I love where we're going. And I was going to ask you about intuition, but first I have to ask just a brass tacks question, which is the casting director who did this favor for you, why do you think they did that? Because that seems to me to not be a small ask.

Why did they feel compelled to do that? What persuaded them? It's a small um industry in australia and i'd just come out and i'd got quite a lot of recognition i think for that first musical and i think she was thinking i'll give him the benefit of the doubt on this one because i think I'll see him again in something you know what I mean um and I really pitched to her the reason I got into acting was I'd seen those you know tapes from the Royal Shakespeare Company the Barton tapes and I'd watched so much about Trevor Nunn and to me that was my dream was to one day be the Royal Shakespeare Company and working for Trevor Nunn. Like that was my dream. So I think I pitched it very passionately. I owned up to the arrogance. I said, I know this is a really unfair thing to do. And I, to this day, don't know if

she told him that or if they knew. Maybe that's why Trevor, as I was telling that story, I thought, is that why Trevor spent an hour with me? He was like, I'm going to convince this guy to do it. I'm not sure. But anyway, yeah, it's a really good question as to why. It was a kindness, but I remember her doing it through gritted teeth. I remember her going, all right. Right, guy. Okay.

This is not the easiest ask she's ever received but nonetheless it happened and in a few of the instances you've mentioned you have and not all but you've you've honed it it seems over time listen to this gut feeling this intuition this i would say sensitivity that that you seem to have even when you've had huge sunk costs, right? So you've invested years into education pointing you in one direction. And then at the 11th hour, you go, hmm, okay, well, I turned right, I should turn left, and you turn left. And then you have these examples that you've given. How do you relate to intuition or that gut feeling now? Is there a certain way you think about it or have become more tuned to feeling it? And I'm asking in part because I've spent a lot of my life trapped in the front of my brain and hyper-analyzing things. And it has often been a disservice because it's overpowered feelings, intuition on deals, partnerships, friends, or foes that I should have listened to. So I'd just be curious to know how

you have developed a relationship with listening to that. I've never been asked this question. I think this is probably the most vexing, most important, vital thing to work out in your life, certainly in my life. And I think about it a lot. To answer the question of what I do now, I think I need to take you back. I've never really said this before publicly, this particular thing I'm going to say, but as I told you, I was brought up in a very religious household. So a lot of the messages I was getting and instructions for life came through the examples of Jesus and through all these characters and the parables in the Bible. And I carry them very close to my heart. I can remember praying nightly for I don't know how long to God. I remember just

saying, I don't care, God, what it is you want me to do. If you want me to collect trash, I'll collect trash. I do not care. But please make it clear to me what you want me to do. Please make that clear. I had much more fear of being on the wrong path than I had fear of failing at a path, if that makes sense. That whatever that decision was, whatever that moment of clarity becomes, whatever gets you to that feeling of Eric Liddell on Chariots of Fire, I feel his pleasure when I run. For me, that was always, and I carry it today, even though my feelings about religion are different than what they were when I was younger, the essence is the same, that there is some calling, as Joseph Campbell would talk about, follow your bliss. There is some calling that is beyond the conscious brain's strategizing of how

to be happy and successful or meaningful in life. There's something elemental and instinctual. And honing that, the people I admire the most really hone that ability in big decisions in their life and in too small day-to-day decisions. So now I still, like you, battle with that because I can be dominated by my mind, my brain, pros and cons, think this through. And I have been working with a life coach, Lauren Zander,

now for four years, and this is one of the biggest things we focus on really understanding what it is you're here for what it is you want to do having those priorities very clearly set out so that those turning points in your life become clear and just to add to that when you get married or when you make a commitment, a lifelong commitment to someone and you have kids, then the first question Deb and I will always ask is, is this good or bad for our family? So if it's bad, we won't do it. If it's good, we will. You know, so that's a very simple thing, but that's my number one priority. And I just remembered the thing about my dad. I don't think I said it. When I got famous

and things were going really well for me, he turned to me and said, he said, don't forget to always check that everything's okay with Deb at every point. And I was like, oh, okay, that's great advice. So anyway, I got off pace. But the decision-making, I still ask that every day. And I should have mentioned this up front in terms of that first question you asked me in terms of performing and the things you do daily. I do a daily design every day. I create as if in the past tense of what the day had been dreams it can be crazy it can be wild and then at the end of the day I I score it out of 10 I keep myself accountable to what I was trying to manifest or make happen and one thing I a consistent theme in that

is that I listen to the messages that they they come in crazy ways. They come in strange, but clear, concise ways. Okay. So I've just come full circle. Let me give you an example. I'm going to go back again. I, in terms of knowing to get into acting, right? Following those examples, I went and studied, sorry, auditioned for an acting school and I got in. I got in on the reserve list. So I didn't get on the first time round. This was a one-year course I did before my three-year one. I just snuck in and I was so excited after graduating as a journalist, I can't, I'm going to go to acting school for one year. And then I got a letter in the mail a week later saying, congratulations, you're in.

Please make sure you come with the $3,500 tuition fee. And it had never dawned on me that it was going to cost anything because when I was young in Australia, secondary education was free, like all university was free. So I was like, uh-oh. And I thought I've got to go and ask my dad. And I've just graduated from college and I thought I've got to go and ask my dad, and I've just graduated from college, and I thought I can't do that. I literally ripped up the letter, screwed it up,

put it in the bin, and I'm not joking. This is to me one of those signs, crazy signs that are just like a wallop in the face. I got a check the next day from my grandmother's will, she died three months before, for $3,500, the exact dollar amount. And yeah, I mean, that's an obvious example. That's when the universe is going, all right, you're an idiot. I've given you a lot of signs. You went off and did the play. You walked into that house. You got that sign. You knew this is where you're meant to be. is it and maybe so it's time to move on and you're about to throw it up because the three and a half thousand dollars and that party me to go down you're going to kind of falter the first hurdle and then the wallop comes to my face and so i've had really clear moments of that but i ask every single day, not ask, I manifest every single day that I will

hear those messages. And they're not just about me, they're about my kids, they're about my wife, they're about my friends, they're about purpose, they're about meaning, they're about life and men coffee, there's all of that stuff that the direction I'm meant to go will become clear to me, 100% clear in my gut. Remember what I said about being verbose? Feel free to cut up, edit away. Oh no, I wouldn't say verbose. This is definitely suitable for long form. Okay. The question of intuition. So one of the fine-tuning questions I have, which is based on something you said earlier, which is even if it sometimes doesn't make sense, what I've noticed in my own experience is that oftentimes in retrospect, the most important times to listen to intuition, which you could

think of any number of ways, right? You could think of it as a few million years of pre-verbal evolution giving you a signal. You could think of it in a multitude of ways, but oftentimes the most important examples of me listening to intuition have been when it has seemingly made no sense, where it hasn't been obvious. Are there any examples that come to mind for you where you're like, it just didn't seem to make sense? I couldn't connect the dots at the time, but I just felt I knew I had to do X. Are there any examples like that that come to mind? And if not, that's okay as well. You know, when I perform on stage, I ad lib quite a lot. I go off script. I go to things. I pull people out of the audience. I do stuff like that.

I learned that from doing The Boy From Oz where the character did that 10 minutes a night and this is not a big life-changing moment but the first thing that came to mind was just last year I was on stage and I never plan. People always think I've either planted someone in the audience because of what comes out. They'll either be funny or something will happen. Or I've at least spent the first half of the show scouting the audience and scanning to see who I'm going to pick, but I don't. I use that as an example of just trusting that in front of 20,000 people in Madison Square Garden,

I'm just going to go with my gut on who to pick. And there's a reason for that. And I promise you nine times out of ten something happens that is just crazy. And maybe it's because of that intention to be open and just to meet the situation as it arises. But I remember being in Sydney and in the middle of the show I'd spotted this kid and I was going on singing a song.

I stopped the song. Something in my head said, you've got to grab that kid. So I said, I went up, and the kid was dressed in the Greater Showman outfit. That's probably what attracted my attention, which is not uncommon, to be honest, but I went and grabbed him, and he came up on stage, and he started getting teary. And I was worried that actually I'd got like an 11-year-old kid up on stage and it had been overwhelming for him.

And so I just sort of brought it down. And then he shared his story that he had just, this was his first outing after recovering from brain surgery, and that The Greatest Showman was the thing he listened to every single day, the being here. To cut a long story short, I looked out, myself included. His father had also died. His father was a famous guitarist.

I didn't know any of this in Australia in a famous band. He had died two years before. So the day he got his diagnosis, and by the way, not all this came out on stage. I found a lot of this out afterwards. But something in this kid made the entire audience melt and cry. The kid ended up staying on stage with us for the entire evening his dream was to one day perform he grabbed his guitar he I got his guitar up he sang in front of 20,000 people he got a standing ovation tears are streaming down my face everyone you know he then went backstage he joined us for the rest of our time in Sydney he came backstage with his mum and this was you know when you're doing a show with a hundred people in an arena

and your brain goes go over that kid my head was screaming don't listen to that you're halfway through a number you're two hours into the show people have already been here for blah blah blah like this is you know and going with that that moment was one of the most transformative in the entire thing and i have no idea why it came to me and i have no idea why i stopped but i'm really grateful i did it seems to me from the outside looking in at least that you've cultivated the ability to surrender in specific circumstances like that, if that makes any sense at all. And that seems to be a huge strength.

I want to come back to something you said. I've had to work on that, by the way. I really have. Because I can be a bit of a control. How have you worked on it? With Lauren Zander, my coach. She always jokes and she goes, oh, hello, perfect Tommy. She's like, you've got this alter ego, perfect Tommy in there.

She gets it from Buckaroo Bonsai. I don't know if you ever saw that 80s movie. Yeah, I know the movie. Yeah. So, and perfect Tommy, right? She goes, oh, you're perfect Tommy. So, you know, sometimes even when you gave me that compliment at the beginning, when you say, you know, you seem to be, you know, you're always kind to everyone. I'm like, is that the real me or is that just perfect Tommy, you know? So but she's really made me work on that and to trust myself, do the work that you need to do. Don't do an ounce more than you need to do.

And I was more prone to be an overworker, an overwarrier and miss some of the fun of my life because of it. And I've really worked hard on doing that on film, of letting go on stage, of not letting my own expectations get in the way. And if we come back to the design of the day, if I'm remembering the phrasing you used, is that a paragraph that you write down in a journal or type out in the morning, which if I'm getting this right, is today I did X, today I felt this. It's past tense for the day to come. It's happened. So it's, yes, it's past tense. It's already happened. There's no,

I really hope, I think that I'm going to try, I will, like today, my son and I had the best hour together laughing and talking and we connected on some of the most elemental things in ways we've never connected, that kind of thing it will have. And I do that every morning on a text which I send to her because, as she says, you know, we all need to be accountable to someone. And I'm looking at them now. Our relationship goes to new levels of honesty and intimacy.

So that's, you know, just that kind of thing that Deb and I can, who it's the best, really the most successful part of my life, is my family life. But why not go for more? There's new levels. There's other things. There must be things that I'm keeping hidden or I'm ashamed of that I should share, you know. So I write that every day and then either that night or if I'm too tired in the morning,

I read it again and go, oh, wow, shit, that was a four out of ten. Like that day did not turn out at all like that. And then it's got to do with belief, really. And I'm new to this man i like my wife's always been into manifestation and i was like i don't know if that's the way to live life like you know isn't more to be open like in presence and dealing in that stoic way deal with what's coming can we really manifest manifested but i'll give you a really great example so of that manifesting um the greatest showman and i have not told this story i was

on the fence about it for a long time uh the studio were on the fence i wasn't sure if they were going to make it we i wasn't i just wasn't sure if our script was in the right place and I had lots of reasons for that. And so Lauren, my life coach, who I found through Dr. Mark Hyman and has changed my life, she'll text me saying, I need to slap you. And I'm like, okay. So I ring her up and she goes, all right. For example, sometimes she'll ring me up and say, you know,

I think in general you're a i think it's sometimes i think in general you're a good listener but sometimes i think you're better looking like a good listener than you really are a good listener i was like oh all right challenge accepted slap taken but in this case she said to me i think you're preparing to choke i think you are laying the safety net for the greatest showman to not work and you're thinking up all the reasons outside of yourself why it won't work. And you have 24 hours to either decide to get on or get off. But if you're on, you need to be 100% in.

And I was like, she's right. I wasn't preparing for a choke. What was the word? It's like maybe you're preparing for a choke, but I clearly, it's easier to do that in life. You know, I'm going to give it a go. I'll give it my best. You know, look, I'm not sure.

Musicals are really hard. Original musicals's impossible. You know, with the studio, I won't spend this amount of money on this writer that we wanted. We got this writer, but you know, we're going to give it our best. Like you're right there in your language, pretty much going to fail and you're preparing yourself for the failure and you don't want to fall too far. so you've got the safety net so that when it fails you go yeah well you know if the studio spent a bit more money on the writer or blah blah blah blah xyz so i hung up the phone slap taken a little stunned and i just sat down for about an hour and i imagined what that movie was going to be in its end and I imagined the effect

it would have and why we were doing it and then I wrote all that down and then I wrote that down every day to the day we finished principal photography and then I had to recommit again when we're in the editing process and I just let me be clear, our director, by the way, Michael Gracie, I have such high regard for him because from the moment we started and eight years he was working on that film, everything that's happened with that film, he used to say, this is what's going to happen. This is going to be a movie that's going to be around forever. This is going to be one of the legacies of your career, Hugh, blah, blah, blah blah he would say all these things and I used to say to him I said Mike this is your first film tone it down a little bit dude like why don't we just

say we make a great film do we have does it have to be one of the most successful films he would literally say this is the most successful musical of all time and he would never deviate from that ever so i'm not saying i was the only person manifesting but i do think that was a big turning point and when lauren slapped me around that changed my intention to that project completely and i don't think that ensures you against failure but that quote of don't ensure yourself for failure you know what i mean don't just don't have that safety net out all the time i really learned that from lauren and that's probably one of the best career examples i can give of that daily design what what strikes me about that is number one the consistency the daily practice the second is the accountability

like you said yeah texting lauren and which is something that i now want to do even with a friend i mean people listening could for instance just find an accountability partner where you text each other in the morning and then at 5 p.m or 6 p.m each evening you check in and you have to score off against that accountability partner. It just seems like such a wonderful practice. And I'd like to talk about practices, and I just have a few more questions for you. And I'll pull from a quote first. You can tell me if this is accurate or not. This is from an interview in Oprah Magazine, but it relates to meditation, And I'm going to use this as a segue, but I love the analogy that you use, which is everyone takes a shower every day and we don't complain about it. We do it out of discipline.

There will always be an excuse not to meditate. In the Hindu tradition, there's something called ahankara, if I'm saying that correctly, or the ego. The ego is- Ahankara. Ahankara. There we go. The ego says, you don't need to meditate.

You don't need to meditate, man. You're really busy. What about the kids? But do I say I can't shower today because I have to make time for the kids? No. And one of the, I'm sure, many elements that seems to be a discipline for you is your physical practice, exercise. You've transformed yourself multiple times, certainly. And I've seen you work out. It's enough to make me want to retire my sneakers. It's just outrageous, the intensity involved. And I'd be curious to know if there are any particular exercises or types of exercise that you have found to be particularly good bang for the buck so if you're if you had to just take the desert or island test and you could only take a handful of exercises or X Y & Z

with you yeah does anything come to mind roaming machine definitely a roller Rowing machine. Definitely. A rower. There's a reason the rower is usually empty at the gym because it's difficult. And a lot of people want to say and feel they've worked out and they want to get a sweat, but they don't necessarily. And I learned a lot of this from your book. And I worked at a gym, by the way, the four-hour body. I worked at a gym for three years. So I saw a lot of people coming in five days a week and not really changing anything about them. And the rowing machine, I think if you add in some chest work, some push-ups, that's everything you need to keep fit, healthy, strong.

And I've learned a lot of that. I work with Beth Lewis, the trainer, who you can look her up. She does a lot of free classes right now, I think, during COVID. I found her through Peter. Do you know Beth? Have you met Beth? I know of Beth. Well, she was a power lifter and a dancer. So it really is great for me

because, I mean, in the past, even with someone like Wolverine, I have to prepare to look physically away, but I can't get injured. So I can't prepare as a bodybuilder. I have to be able to prepare as a really jacked, ripped athlete slash dancer because fighting is dance. There's more relaxation in a fight scene than there is strength, which is probably the case for if you think of all the great athletes you see, there's relaxation. And that movement has moved in sports. That's why you see every sprinter poking their tongue out now and dancing around with joy before they run the 100

meters you know that sense of having the right level of relaxation i think they call it the 85 percent rule if you tell most sort of a type athletes to run at their 85 capacity they will run faster than if you tell them to run 100 because it's more about relaxation and form and optimizing the muscles in the right way. So Beth has really taught me that. But the rowing machine, man, you can't go wrong. And forget time. Just do the seven-minute thing.

And I had to do this for a film, a movie in Australia. Baz wanted me to be big, and so I was big. And then about a month before he said ah doing a lot of research about these uh jackaroos or cowboys he goes they're lean they're all lean lean lean and I'm like dude you asked me to get big I've been getting big and he goes I need you lean so I went to my trainer and he goes who was a rower and he said you want to get lean row so apart as well as the ice baths that I learned from your book, which I used all through the Wolverines, particularly the later Wolverines when you see me in better shape, that's a great way to

lose fat. But seven minute row, four times a week, and the goal is 2000 meters. And when you try it, at some point, you're going to hate me for it but still that's the quickest best way that's that's excellent advice yeah that the rower hits your entire almost your entire posterior chain and then you do some push-ups and you're you're in good shape yeah it's such a good building exercise for deadlifts and all these core movements compound movements getting your scapula everything sort of in the right place and you're breathing and relaxing your neck, you know, at the same time as doing it. Yeah, I would say the rower. And I love the 85% run at 85% effort example that you gave. I find so much truth in that statement. I haven't ever thought of it, but you could apply that to sitting down and writing. You could apply it to almost anything

where being over tense is not your friend. It's not going to help you. No, no. And that's my, like, everyone's got different things. If I was coaching me, myself, like if I was the coach and Hugh Jackman was on my team, I wouldn't put more pressure on him, push him more. I wouldn't yell at him, scream. I've got that motivation. If anything, I have had to work from building up insecurity. So I'm not good enough. I need to work extra hard. If I do everything perfectly and I work my ass off, then I'll be okay, that kind of thing, which in the end does certainly limit your ability to enjoy your life

or enjoy the row or the show or anything like that. But it doesn't get the best out of you. It really doesn't. So I mentally quite often during the day just before I do an activity, imagine that it's done, that feeling I have when it's done and gone well, and I go into it with that. I love that. It's that Viktor Frankl quote, live life as though it's the second time

around but you got it wrong the first time. It's a good one, and that's what works for me. Or even if you practice a simple thing, just sit down and as you're breathing in, imagine that you're breathing out. Because a lot of us, me included, and I got this from my singing teacher, I breathe in with a, all right, I'm going to sing this big note. All right, let's hope it goes well. And all of a sudden I'm tense and my breathing has gone up, my larynx goes up, and I'm going to sing this big note. All right, let's hope it goes well. And all of a sudden I'm tense and my breathing has gone up, my larynx goes up, and I'm going to have to work my ass off

to get that note out, right? Whereas the great singers, the ones that make you melt when you listen to them sing, when they're breathing in, preparing, it's like they're breathing out. They're relaxed as they breathe in. Oh, I love that. And then they're already prepared. So there's some of the little things I use.

And I suspect you're a little similar to me, Tim, right? You work better with the 85% rule? I definitely do. I mean, if I think about the times when I've performed best, it's never when I'm whipping myself extra fast and extra hard with a cat of nine tips because I don't need that. No, I don't like going to an opening night. Opening night, you feel everyone like, this is an opening night.

It's going to be the best. And I just want to go, hey, chill out, everyone. I prefer to go to a Wednesday matinee six weeks into the run. That's when you're going to see the best show. So the trick is how can you get there? And by the way, do you know the 85 rule do you know where that came from i do not it came from um a guy studying carl lewis the sprinter you couldn't understand why a guy who was routinely coming last or second last after 40 meters

which traditionally in sprinting was meant to be where you won, you won in the first 40 from the start, how someone like that would always win by 10 yards at the end. And some people said, well, he's just a slow starter, but he's got a long stride, da-da-da. And then someone, this guy was studying it for a year, a sprint coach, and someone gave him finally one of those head-on shots. You know, they invented at the Olympics that head-on shot where you watch them come down?

Right. And he watched it over and over again, and he said what he realised Carl Lewis did at the 50-metre mark, 60-metre mark, was that he did nothing. His breathing was exactly the same. His form was exactly the same as it had been between metres 25 and 50, whereas everyone else starts to push to the end, trying to try a little extra harder. He said their face would scrunch up, their jaw would tighten, their fists would start to clench, whereas Carl Lewis stayed exactly the same. And then he would just breeze past him.

So that's where he invented the 85% rule. I love it. I love it. I love it. I need more of that in my life, to be honest. I think that's something that I need to cultivate. And just a few short questions left to you. I really appreciate all the time. And this one is something I think is near and dear to your heart, and it's puzzles and games. So you, some people know this, but not everybody realizes

that you're a connoisseur of puzzles and games. And I'm wondering for someone who has been perhaps a little too serious, taken themselves and their work a little too seriously and they need or want to explore puzzles or games, are there any that you might, any approaches or specific games or puzzles you might recommend people start with?

Start with a thousand piece, right? Anything less than that's probably going to be, like a thousand pieces is good. You know, and that'll take you a few weeks probably, but it's just enough of a challenge. Don't pick up the black and white photo, right, on the front cover to start with. Have some colour, make it a little easier.

I love the company Wentworth. There's a few other puzzle companies, but Wentworth, when you put it, it's got like this, some technology, when you put the piece in, it's like squeezing a pimple. It goes, oh, it's like the best. Like you know. Like there's some puzzles that are made a bit cheaply and you're like, I think that fits. Sure, this has got something about it, click technology

or something. And you go, oh. So, yeah, clearly I'm into it. That's amazing. See, after a show, you say, what do I like doing after a show? Like if I could have my way, I'd eat something and I'd just spend an hour doing a puzzle. I actually have to set my alarm to make myself go to bed because I can stay up till four in the morning doing puzzles.

And for someone with restless leg syndrome, by the way, it doesn't come up at all when I'm doing a puzzle. Let's start with a Wentworth 1000 piece. Do you have two things? Do you have any recommendations on subject matter for the image? And then number two, what do you get from assembling puzzles? What is it that makes it so addictive to you can send in a photograph and I did this one at Christmas so I did this for Deb for Valentine's Day I sent in a photo of the two of us it's a shot she loves and we're on a vacation to a place we always go to so as I'm going through it it's reminding me of where I've been of that feeling in that moment and because you look at

a scene all the ones of New York you're looking at this scene for about a month and you're focusing in my new details of this building that building or that tree this tree when you go back to that place you go out into that world your appreciation of the world is so much greater I guess I'm not an artist but how artists must feel when they're trying to solve colour, that when they watch a sunset, they're appreciating it in a way far more. They spend all that time immersed in different colours and combinations and composition. Why is it so addictive?

I don't know. The reason I got into it, I got into it at a point, my father had just had an operation or something, and I thought I've got to find something for the two of us to do together. And he had no interest. Like we were at 30 minutes in and he was like, yeah, I'm out. And I had not done a puzzle since I was like eight years of age and now I'm addicted to them. So it stuck for me. I think it's probably another form of meditation in a way. It stops my mind going. There is a weird sense of accomplishment even in every piece.

Oh, I've got that piece. It's detail. It's your zoning in on this image for a month and looking at it and looking at the detail. It's just deeply satisfying to my mind um my being i just i just feel very relaxed when i do it i feel guilty when i do it because it's a very solitary thing and i try and get the kids involved you know really to upset the guilt but they're not into it really so you know yeah It sounds like to me I need to take a picture of a beautiful outdoor space, have it made into a puzzle, read the overstory, and work on it.

Yes. That sounds like it would. Where do you sit and have coffee? Do you sit out in the backyard there? Where are you? I sit outside. I'm very fortunate to have a lot of trees nearby. Take a photo of that, right?

That's great. You send it off to, I think it's, oh, I'll send it to you. I can't remember the name of it off by heart. I put it on my website once, my jigsaw puzzle or something. I'll put it in the notes once you send it to me too. Yeah. And then when you go out for that coffee, it will always be different to you. You'll notice things that you've never noticed before and that is i think that's a big part of the art of living it seems to me and is becoming sensitive to noticing the little things because you know the little things i couldn't agree more i couldn't agree more in isolation i love that you use that phrase art it is an art that's i mean i i used to think it was an australian thing like i think it was an australian thing

like oh come on all the americans always have you know therapists psychiatrists and come on you know silly but it's a little arrogant to think you've got it all sorted out why wouldn't you want to help like roger federer is the greatest tennis player of all time and he is a full-time coach, right? Right. So why Pavarotti? Pavarotti had a singing teacher to the end of his life. Why wouldn't we invest that in the art of living?

And so certainly with me, with Lauren Zander, that's changed my life in the last four years big time Hugh I so enjoy our conversations and this has been so much fun and I really applaud you for dedicating yourself to the art of living and continual improvement and also sharing your gifts with the world I think that you you really are, and I hope this doesn't come off as trite sounding, but you really are what a diehard fan would hope you to be. And I don't mean that in a superficial way, but the kindness that they see, the compassion that they see, that is not an illusion. And I feel that's important to underscore because I do think it's rare. I do think it's rare. And I recognize that

that's not just how you popped out of the womb. That's required deliberate thought and practice and awareness. So I really appreciate that. I appreciate you. And thank you so much for taking the time to spend some time today. Honestly, it was my pleasure, really. And keep up the great work and good luck with the puzzle, man. You too. You too. I'm telling you, man, I think I know enough about you. Your girlfriend is going to rue the day I ever met you. I'll have to make sure I have a backup puzzle for Valentine's Day.

That's a great way in. I'll offset the risk. And to everybody listening, you can find show notes on everything we discussed. And there will be lots, lots of goodies at Tim.blog forward slash podcast. And until next time, thanks for tuning in. Hey guys, this is Tim again. Just a few more things before you take off. Number one, this is Five Bullet Friday. Do you want to get a short email from me?

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