I had a fairly enlightened dad, though if you looked at his resume, it might not seem that way. He was a chartered accountant for Price Waterhouse. He was strict, and we had a very ordered life. To this day, I am the least materialistic person I know, because my father didn't raise me to just go out and buy this or that car.

Hugh Jackman

Life Car Art

To me, the smell of fresh-made coffee is one of the greatest inventions.

Great Vent Test

When I come home, my daughter will run to the door and give me a big hug, and everything that's happened that day just melts away.

Hugh Jackman

Home Will Way

Meditation is all about the pursuit of nothingness. It's like the ultimate rest. It's better than the best sleep you've ever had. It's a quieting of the mind. It sharpens everything, especially your appreciation of your surroundings. It keeps life fresh.

Hugh Jackman

Life Your You

I love food, all types of food. I love Korean food, Japanese, Italian, French. In Australia, we don't have a distinctive Australian food, so we have food from everywhere all around the world. We're very multicultural, so we grew up with lots of different types of food.

Hugh Jackman

Love Food World

I've never heard my dad say a bad word about anybody. He always keeps his emotions in check and is a true gentleman. I was taught that losing it was indulgent, a selfish act.

Hugh Jackman

Word Ways Way

There comes a certain point in life when you have to stop blaming other people for how you feel or the misfortunes in your life. You can't go through life obsessing about what might have been.

Hugh Jackman

Life Your You

As an actor, you have many tools - your body, your voice, your emotions, mentally. In film, you have your eyes because they communicate your thought process. In fact, generally in film, what you don't say is more important than what you say. That's not so much the case for stage.

Hugh Jackman

Men Age Your Body

I'm quite an independent person, and I had to be. As a boy and growing into a young man I had to look out for myself. And now I'm very family-oriented. It's a big priority in my life.

Hugh Jackman

Life Family Young Man

To get down to the quick of it, respect motivates me - not success.

Hugh Jackman

Success Respect T

I feel so lucky to have both a son and a daughter, because there's a different relationship with each of them.

Hugh Jackman

Relationship Wit Use

I'd sell my soul for a good cause.

Hugh Jackman

Good Use Us

What I respect as far as in myself and in others is the spirit of just doing it. For better or worse, it may work and it may not, but I'm going to go for it. Ultimately I probably prefer to be respected for that than whether it works out or not, either winning or losing.

Hugh Jackman

Work Respect Worse

Anyone who thinks they're indispensible is fooling themselves.

Hugh Jackman

Who Thinks Think

I'm quite a competitive person, so I do quite like to win.

Hugh Jackman

Pet Win T

I've always felt that if you back down from a fear, the ghost of that fear never goes away. It diminishes people.

Hugh Jackman

Fear You Ways

Your wife is always right. Very simple. I think I'm going to get it tattooed on my forehead.

Hugh Jackman

Your You Wife

If I'm a lush at anything, it's food and drink. I'm not materialistic in any way, but I value food.

Hugh Jackman

Food Way Value

I find that kid actors are great reminders of the simplicity of acting. As you get older, you can sometimes complicate things a little more. You can become too aware of, 'Okay, this is the scene emotionally. This is where we need to be. We've got the climax coming up.' You can start to analyze it too much.

Hugh Jackman

War Time Great

One afternoon when I was 9, my dad told me I'd be skipping school the next day. Then we drove 12 hours from Melbourne to Sydney for the Centenary Test, a once-in-a-lifetime commemorative cricket match. It was great fun - especially for a kid who was a massive sports fan.

Hugh Jackman

Time Sports Life

Now I meditate twice a day for half an hour. In meditation, I can let go of everything. I'm not Hugh Jackman. I'm not a dad. I'm not a husband. I'm just dipping into that powerful source that creates everything. I take a little bath in it.

Hugh Jackman

Power Very Us

I lived with a coffee farmer called Dukale on a trip I made with World Vision to Ethiopia, and realised there's no good reason for the disparity in opportunity around the world.

Hugh Jackman

At the end of drama school, I made a contract with myself: I'd try acting for five years. I was 26. I had already spent eight years working in restaurants and gas stations. So I had seen enough small businesses to understand that that's what acting is: a small business.

Hugh Jackman

I was probably more scared of my high school exams than I was of the Oscars. At the time you think it's everything and if you don't do well, your life's over. Opportunities are gone. So the more you do it, the less the fear is present.

Hugh Jackman

I have two children and it's amazing how in tune they are with nature, with light, with smells, with time.

Hugh Jackman

That's all about the natural order of things, the idea of nature protecting children but also children protecting nature.

Hugh Jackman

Both my parents are English and came out to Australia in 1967. I was born the following year. My parents, and immigrants like them, were known as '£10 poms.' Back then, the Australian government was trying to get educated British people and Canadians - to be honest, educated white people - to come and live in Australia.

Hugh Jackman

My parents were drawn to the idea that there was space and opportunity in Australia. For the meagre sum of £10, you could sail your entire family out to Australia, so that's what my father chose to do.

Hugh Jackman

There was a whole display set up of all the X-Men paraphernalia. My wife couldn't resist telling this 5-year-old boy that I was Wolverine. The little kid looked up at me and he was staring at me.

Hugh Jackman

I just love making a fool out of myself. I made my living as a clown at kids' parties for about three years.

Hugh Jackman

I was brought up in a way that when you're at a dinner party, you don't grab a chip unless it's been offered to everyone else. It's the manners of being brought up by English parents.

Hugh Jackman

There is anxiety, but it comes after you've finished filming because it's out of your hands; people are editing it, they're cutting it, marketing it. And it's... part your career sort of rides on that. But when you're actually filming it's a team thing and it really feels good there for me.

Hugh Jackman

My favorite play in drama school was 'The Bacchae.' It's about a king who literally gets eaten alive by all the women in the play in a kind of orgy - it's related to the word 'bacchanal' - and I loved that idea of animalistic chaos and following our own desires.

Hugh Jackman

My friends say, 'Man you're going to have kids sleeping on pillowcases with your face on it! You're going to be on toothbrushes and magnets and stuff.' I guess now that I'm a dad, I'm thrilled about that.

Hugh Jackman

I had a fairly enlightened dad, though if you looked at his resume, it might not seem that way. He was a chartered accountant for Price Waterhouse. He was strict, and we had a very ordered life. To this day, I am the least materialistic person I know, because my father didn't raise me to just go out and buy this or that car.

Hugh Jackman

You have to eat before you train. Otherwise, that really intense training, after about 40 minutes you start to flag.

Hugh Jackman

I just find the evangelical church too, well, restrictive. But the School of Practical Philosophy is nonconfrontational. We believe there are many forms of Scripture. What is true is true and will never change, whether it's in the Bible or in Shakespeare. It's about oneness.

Hugh Jackman

I once sang 'Summer Nights,' from 'Grease,' at a bar in Melbourne with John Travolta, who's a good friend of mine. He looked cool singing the part of Danny - sitting in an armchair, smoking a cigar - while I got stuck playing Sandy.

Hugh Jackman

I'm a mad lover of sport. You cannot say a bad word to me about sports. So I know business is involved and I know it can be cynical, and, of course, I watch it, but for me it's pure.

Hugh Jackman

As you get older you have more respect and empathy for your parents. Now I have a great relationship with both of them.

Hugh Jackman

If you ask my wife, the biggest fault is my inability around the house. She says the only thing handy about me is that I'm close by. And, I have a terrible memory. I'm bad at saying no. I often double-book. There are a lot of things.

Hugh Jackman

But anyone who's done a musical knows; whether you're dancing or not, physically it's the most difficult thing you can do.

Hugh Jackman

Actually, I graduated from university as a journalist.

Hugh Jackman

The last 10 years I have had to bulk up for roles and I'm naturally skinny, so I have eaten and killed so many chickens! I wouldn't even want to count. I need to balance that out.

Hugh Jackman

I'm doing a new musical on Broadway, which opens in October called 'The Boy from Oz,' where I play Peter Allen. For those of you who don't know, he became first famous in America for marrying Liza Minelli.

Hugh Jackman

I can look back on my life, where there have been moments where things might have gone the other way. Everything is like stepping stones, and I've seen people I admire falter. We're all vulnerable.

Hugh Jackman

Breakfast is my specialty. I admit it's the easiest meal to cook, but I make everything with a twist, like lemon ricotta pancakes or bacon that's baked instead of fried.

Hugh Jackman

I'm doing 'Les Miserables,' the movie. I've done a lot of musicals and a lot of movies, and I know there are not a lot of people in Hollywood who have been down those two paths so I've been like, 'Come on, let's do a movie/musical.'

Hugh Jackman

Singing is incredibly physical.

Hugh Jackman

As a boy, I'd always had an interest in theater. But the idea at my school was that drama and music were to round out the man. It wasn't what one did for a living. I got over that.

Hugh Jackman

It's always interesting - how do you actually convey thought through song? We're used to the convention on stage. In film, we used to be used to it, and now sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't. You need to be fresh and really look at the material.

Hugh Jackman