Hugh Jackman
Actor · Wolverine and The Greatest Showman
Australian actor and stage performer who played Wolverine across two decades of X-Men films and led The Greatest Showman and Broadway's The Music Man. He learned Transcendental Meditation at drama school and has kept it up since his twenties; for years his mornings ran coffee, cold shower, thirty minutes reading aloud with his then wife Deborra-Lee Furness, then meditation. Getting back into Wolverine shape in his mid-fifties put his training, fasting and eating for size back in the headlines.
- Entries
- 25
- Does
- 16
- Recommends
- 5
- Discusses
- 4
Books
5 books in this stack
- BookRecommends$$$Cheap: Roughly under $50, or under $15/month.
Here is New York
One of two short books he gifts most often, a habit picked up from Billy Shore of Share Our Strength, on the logic that a short book is a gift and a long one is a burden. E.B. White's 1949 account of New York still holds up, he says, for anyone who lives in or loves the city.
Source: The Tim Ferriss Show #444 transcriptView item: Here is New YorkOn record from 1 of 62 tracked people: 1 recommends it - BookRecommends$$$Cheap: Roughly under $50, or under $15/month.
The Overstory
Gifted to him by Senator Gary Hart, and the most affecting fiction he has read in years. It breaks his own short-book rule, so his advice is to stick with it: the misdirection pays off when you realize the book is about trees, and he promises you will notice things in your own backyard you never saw.
Source: The Tim Ferriss Show #444 transcriptView item: The OverstoryOn record from 1 of 62 tracked people: 1 recommends it - BookRecommends$$$Cheap: Roughly under $50, or under $15/month.
This Is Water
The other book he gives regularly: the Kenyon commencement speech by the author of Infinite Jest, which he calls a 15-minute book. Short enough that the recipient never feels guilty about it.
Source: The Tim Ferriss Show #444 transcriptView item: This Is WaterOn record from 1 of 62 tracked people: 1 recommends it - BookDiscusses$$$Cheap: Roughly under $50, or under $15/month.
The 4-Hour Body
He credits Tim Ferriss's book for two things. One is the cold baths he used through the Wolverine films. The other is a broader view of what actually works in a gym, formed over three years working in one, watching members train five days a week without changing.
Source: The Tim Ferriss Show #444 transcriptView item: The 4-Hour BodyOn record from 2 of 62 tracked people: 1 recommends it, 1 has discussed it - BookDiscusses$$$Cheap: Roughly under $50, or under $15/month.
The Second Mountain
The book he and Deb were reading aloud each morning at the time of the interview. Five minutes was often enough. Whatever one of them had been worrying about overnight would surface.
Source: The Tim Ferriss Show #444 transcriptView item: The Second MountainOn record from 1 of 62 tracked people: 1 has discussed it
Gear
2 pieces of gear in this stack
- GearDoes it$$$Cheap: Roughly under $50, or under $15/month.
Heart rate monitor
Wore one through The Music Man at his trainer's request so she knew what she was working with while trying to bulk him up. It showed roughly 1,500 calories burned per show, eight shows a week, which is why his intake climbed to 4,500 a day.
Source: Variety: Hugh Jackman Is 'Bulking' Up for Wolverine by Eating Over 8,000 Calories a DayView item: Heart rate monitorOn record from 4 of 62 tracked people: 2 do it, 2 recommend it - GearRecommends$$$Mid: Roughly $50 to $500, or up to $50/month.
Rowing machine
His desert-island pick. A trainer who had rowed told him to row when the director of Australia needed him lean a month out: seven minutes, four times a week, aiming at 2,000 meters. Add some chest work and push-ups, he says, and that covers fit, healthy and strong. He warns you will hate him for it.
Source: The Tim Ferriss Show #444 transcriptView item: Rowing machineOn record from 1 of 62 tracked people: 1 recommends it
Apps
1 app in this stack
- AppDoes it$$$Cheap: Roughly under $50, or under $15/month.
Waking Up
Uses Sam Harris's Waking Up app quite regularly, alongside his own TM practice, and names Harris as one of the people he has learned most from through podcasts.
Source: The Tim Ferriss Show #444 transcriptVisit wakingup.com (opens in a new tab)On record from 2 of 62 tracked people: 1 does it, 1 recommends it
Supplements
1 supplement in this stack
- SupplementDoes it$$$Cheap: Roughly under $50, or under $15/month.
Caffeine
Makes himself a coffee first thing, before the cold shower and the reading. During a stage run he limits how much he drinks, because eight shows a week is a constant fight against dehydration.
Source: The Tim Ferriss Show #444 transcriptView item: CaffeineOn record from 14 of 62 tracked people: 10 do it, 1 recommends it, 3 have discussed it
Protocols
9 entriesStructured routines and practices with a defined method.
Progressive overload built around the classics: barbell bench, deadlifts, squats, weighted pull-ups, presses and dips, split by muscle group across the week, with supersets and circuits added to finish the muscles off. Form and smarter prep, he says, are why the later films came without the injuries of the first ones.
Source: TRAIN: Hugh Jackman Workout and Nutrition TipsA cold shower every morning, before the reading and the meditation. He picked up ice baths from The 4-Hour Body while preparing for Wolverine and used them through the later films, where he credits them as a great way to lose fat.
Source: The Tim Ferriss Show #444 transcriptBulking for Deadpool & Wolverine meant a chef-prepared day of black bass, Patagonia salmon, two chicken burgers and two grass-fed sirloins, upward of 8,000 calories, after building from 4,500 while still doing The Music Man. He told Chris Wallace he did it the old-school way and apologized to the chickens of the world.
Source: Variety: Hugh Jackman Is 'Bulking' Up for Wolverine by Eating Over 8,000 Calories a DayRuns a 16/8 window when bulking so the size goes on without fat. He finds it far easier than eating every two to three hours, which he found brutal, and says he sleeps much better on it. Spoken in 2017, around the Logan press tour.
Source: TRAIN: Hugh Jackman Workout and Nutrition TipsPress-ups, varied pull-ups and dips make up a big bodyweight block in his training. Weighted sleds and heavy ropes too. He says the combination helps the agility and flexibility the stunt work needs.
Source: TRAIN: Hugh Jackman Workout and Nutrition TipsLearned TM at drama school and has kept the mantra practice since. He describes the settling as a cloudy glass of water clearing, and says he comes out with a finer energy and clearer intention rather than a burst of drive. Falling asleep mid-session, in his view, is fine and probably what his body needed.
Source: The Tim Ferriss Show #444 transcriptMuch of the physical prep for Deadpool & Wolverine was dance training with stunt coordinator Brian Smrz, he told People. His body was sore at first but still responding, and the surprise for him was how good it is for the brain.
Source: Fox News: 'Wolverine' star Hugh Jackman says it took a team of 8 people to get him into superhero shapeHe trains with Beth Lewis, a former powerlifter and dancer, and credits her for much of his thinking on relaxation over strength. What he thinks is called the 85 percent rule: athletes told to run at 85 percent often run faster than at full effort because form and relaxation improve. He applies it to fight scenes, which he calls dance. He prefers a Wednesday matinee six weeks in to opening night.
Source: The Tim Ferriss Show #444 transcriptA trick from his singing teacher: as you breathe in, imagine you are breathing out. Tense singers pull the larynx up as they inhale, he explains; the ones who make you melt inhale as if relaxing, so they are prepared before the note arrives.
Source: The Tim Ferriss Show #444 transcript
Habits
7 entriesRecurring behaviors recorded in public statements.
Every morning he and his then wife Deb read the same book aloud to each other for at least 30 minutes, splitting it half and half, before they meditate. He nicked the idea from Patrick Stewart, who wakes 30 minutes early to read whatever his call time. The day invariably gets away from you, he says, so doing it first means the time together has already happened.
Source: The Tim Ferriss Show #444 transcriptTwice a day for decades, from age 23. A few years before the interview he dropped the sense of duty and now sits every morning without fail, adding a second session around lunchtime whenever he is on a film set or in a theater run. Restless legs make late-afternoon sitting uncomfortable, so the second one comes earlier.
Source: The Tim Ferriss Show #444 transcriptEvery morning he writes the day as if it has already happened, in past tense and in specific detail, then texts it to his coach for accountability. That night, or the next morning, he rereads it and scores the day out of ten. He recommitted to the same practice daily through the shoot of The Greatest Showman.
Source: The Tim Ferriss Show #444 transcriptAfter a show he would happily eat and then spend an hour on a puzzle, and has to set an alarm to make himself go to bed. Thousand-piece Wentworth puzzles of places he has been are the pick. Probably another form of meditation, he thinks, and his restless legs never trouble him while he is doing one.
Source: The Tim Ferriss Show #444 transcriptHas worked with life coach Lauren Zander, whom he found through Dr. Mark Hyman, for four years, and says the work has changed his life. Her job, as he tells it, is to call him on perfectionism and safety-net thinking. Federer has a full-time coach, he points out, so why not invest the same in the art of living.
Source: The Tim Ferriss Show #444 transcriptAfter repeated basal cell carcinoma biopsies on his nose, he has used each one to ask people to wear high-SPF sunscreen, saying the damage from 25 years earlier is only coming out now. If it reminds even one person, he says, he is happy.
Source: NBC News: Hugh Jackman posts video on new skin cancer scare and urges fans to 'please wear sunscreen'He is not teetotal. But on Broadway and on tour he never drinks before a show, and really limits it after. Waking up in catch-up mode before a performance means drawing on reserves that do not come back.
Source: The Tim Ferriss Show #444 transcript
In their own words
Checked word for word against the linked source
“I have a cold shower first … from your 4-Hour Body book when I was getting ready for Wolverine, the old cold bath. So I have a cold shower every morning.”
The Tim Ferriss Show #444 transcript (opens in a new tab) · 30 Jun 2020 “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.”
The Tim Ferriss Show #444 transcript (opens in a new tab) · 30 Jun 2020 “I do a daily design every day. I create as if in the past tense of what the day had been. … And then at the end of the day, I score it out of 10. I keep myself accountable to what I was trying to manifest or make happen.”
The Tim Ferriss Show #444 transcript (opens in a new tab) · 30 Jun 2020 On Daily design
“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.”
O, The Oprah Magazine: Oprah Interviews Hugh Jackman (opens in a new tab) · 15 Jun 2006 “With my diet I go with a 16/8 intermittent fasting regiment, and that really works for me. With 16/8 you allow an 8-hour window in which to eat … I sleep so much better as well.”
TRAIN: Hugh Jackman Workout and Nutrition Tips (opens in a new tab) · 28 Jun 2017
Stack notes are paraphrased. Anything in quotation marks is a short excerpt copied from the transcript it links to. Not medical advice. Not affiliated with, endorsed by, or reviewed by anyone listed. How this works.