When you think about the best Hugh Jackman movies, what comes to mind? His heartbreaking turn in Logan as old man Wolverine? His mind bending magician portrayal in The Prestige? Nope, and when asked what movie gets the most response from fans, Jackman mentioned a movie that might surprise you.
Way back in 2006, Jackman teamed up with The Whale and Black Swan director Darren Aronofsky on a genre-bending science fiction movie called The Fountain. It was an interesting film, but not necessarily well received, and it didn’t even make back its budget of $35 million.
Critics were also pretty unimpressed with the film. Michael Atkinson, a movie critic for the British film magazine Sight and Sound, said the film had grand ambitions but ultimately fell flat. ” It’s difficult to recall another American film that, in pursuing a passionate and personal vision, goes so maddeningly, uproariously wrong.”
Regardless, it prompts lively and intense reactions from fans apparently.
“When people stop me, it’s the most passionate response of any movie I’ve done. The ones who get it, have to tell me, and they have to tell me fully what it meant to them,” he told Vanity Fair. Apparently people who like The Fountain really, really like The Fountain.
Jackman also shared another anecdote that fans of the movie will probably enjoy. Jackman said while doing the movie he was “shooting in the bubble” (there’s a bubble in The Fountain honestly it’s pretty hard to describe) and was “exhausted.”
“I was crying, and then I had to walk off into the corner. I couldn’t stop crying. Then they called lunch and I was sitting in the corner of the studio for 10 minutes, still crying. I was laying on the ground, and I was like, ‘Thank God that is done.’ And there was a knock on the door from second ADs going, ‘Okay, we’re going to pick up, we’re going to have another go at that one.’ I was just like, ‘I got nothing. I don’t know. I got nothing.’ [Aronofsky] said, ‘Let’s just see what happens with that.’ I’ve learned from that.”
Now if you run into Jackman, you have a nice point of reference to talk about after you tell him how much you love the movie.