Hugh Jackman by no means thought he’d be a karaoke man. However then Neil Diamond occurred.
Starring reverse Kate Hudson within the Christmas Day launch “Song Sung Blue,” the 57-year-old Australian actor portrays not the legendary Grammy winner and shaggy-haired intercourse image, however moderately a Neil Diamond “interpreter,” the real-life Mike Sardina, who, along with his spouse and stage accomplice, Claire (Hudson), discovered surprising success with a tribute band in mid-Nineteen Nineties Milwaukee.
It was this movie that lately introduced the “Greatest Showman” star to Diamond’s Colorado ranch, the place the 2 participated in a singing session that satisfied Jackman to purchase his personal karaoke machine.
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“Normally, I’m like, ‘I don’t want to do that,’” says Jackman, over Zoom from a New York lodge room, as if he’s confessing a mortal sin. “But I did karaoke with Neil, and I’m like, ‘All right, now I’m in.’”
What did they sing? Diamond soloed on “I Dreamed a Dream” from “Les Misérables,” paying tribute to Jackman’s musical theater bona fides, earlier than the 2 duetted on Elvis Presley’s “Can’t Help Falling in Love” and, in fact, Diamond’s personal “Sweet Caroline.” The nice instances by no means appeared so good.
It was a hold session so epic that Hudson, becoming a member of the decision, appears inexperienced with an envy that matches her sweater. “I can’t believe I missed this karaoke party,” she says. “I have a whole karaoke setup at my house with a microphone and everything. I feel very left out.”
Fortunately, when it got here to creating “Song Sung Blue,” it didn’t appear so lonely for her. Primarily based on Greg Kohs’ 2008 documentary of the identical title, the movie is as a lot Claire’s story as it’s Mike’s, following the true couple’s love story set to the tune of Diamond’s intensive songbook. On the peak of their success, which included enjoying with Pearl Jam at Eddie Vedder’s request, the Sardinas grew to become native celebrities, billed because the duo “Lightning & Thunder.”
Hugh Jackman and Kate Hudson within the film “Song Sung Blue.”
(Focus Options)
A Vietnam vet and mechanic with a dream of entertaining, Sardina appears a job tailored for Jackman, who can go from Wolverine to Broadway in a single season. “Song Sung Blue” writer-director Craig Brewer, who first noticed the documentary at a small movie competition in Memphis, Tenn., by no means envisioned anybody however Jackman because the insatiable Wisconsinite.
“It was always Hugh because there’s not anybody else out there who could understand the wild showmanship that Mike Sardina had,” says Brewer, calling from his Memphis house. “He’s doing two layers of a character. He’s playing this working-class guy that loves to entertain any way he can. If he’s got to wear sequined shirts, he’s going to. He’s going to give you everything he has.”
The position introduced a puzzle for Jackman, regardless of having performed profession impresarios like pop idol Peter Allen and P.T. Barnum. “I had to lose Hugh Jackman to be Mike,” says the actor, relaxed in an umber-colored button-down shirt. “How does Mike find himself within his love of Neil? It took me a second to find him and lose my shtick, because I’m a performer too.”
In the end, the answer wasn’t his Neil Diamond impersonation, although Brewer inspired Jackman to make a meal of that. “You can lay a little bit more butter on it,” the director remembers telling him.
As an alternative, Jackman’s breakthrough got here by way of deep self-identification.
“His dream was always huge but this was not how he thought it was going to go,” Jackman says. “It was that ‘one plus one equals three’ thing where, all of a sudden, they found themselves being the next big thing.” Equally, Jackman by no means supposed to change into a film star synonymous with musical theater. He’d by no means even sung earlier than a post-university audition modified the course of his life.
“One of the hardest things to do is fake chemistry,” Kate Hudson says. “You can’t do that. You have to actually fall in love with each other and find the chemical connection.”
(Victoria Will / For The Instances)
Hudson is a less-obvious casting alternative. Although she’s made a profession enjoying rom-com heroines, with “Song Sung Blue,” she’s already producing awards buzz for her flip as a guileless Midwestern mother miles away from the glittering girls Hudson usually portrays, and one along with her fair proportion of trauma. She has to go to some darkish locations, channeling Claire’s melancholy, habit to painkillers and extra — however regardless of her penchant for enjoying extra carefree girls, Hudson says she wasn’t intimidated by the position’s meatier elements.
“When you grow up with storytellers,” she says, referencing her actor mother and father Goldie Hawn and Kurt Russell, “you forget the camera’s there. You’re not thinking about anything glamorous. You’re looking at the role and what it needs. It’s what you long for as a performer. It allows you to almost leave your body.”
For Hudson, the chance additionally dovetailed with a brand new act in her personal life as a recording artist. Though she launched her debut album “Glorious” solely final yr, Hudson has lengthy recognized as a singer-songwriter. “I was always so scared of it,” she confesses of her concern of going public about her songwriting. “But the studio is where I’m very happy. I’ve been in the studio since I was 19, but I just never shared my music because I was too scared to put it out.”
It was a discovery Jackman made whereas they had been recording their vocal tracks for the movie. “I said, ‘You’re a musician,’” he recollects, Hudson beaming at him. “You were so relaxed and in your home.”
“I’ve always had a lot of cheerleaders for me to do music,” Hudson replies, sheepishly.
Some may see it as a full circle second for Hudson, who acquired an Oscar nomination for her efficiency because the groupie Penny Lane in Cameron Crowe’s 2000 rock memoir “Almost Famous.” It was such a formative expertise that Hudson nonetheless stays shut with Crowe. She tells me she’s studying his new e-book, “The Uncool,” to organize to interview him on his tour.
However irrespective of how a lot Penny Lane has formed her life, Hudson doesn’t see a via line from her to Claire. As an alternative, she attracts a line between fandom and musicianship, particularly the excellence between those that chase the excessive of being within the room or backstage residing the life-style, and people who have a track they’ve a visceral must share.
“With Claire, it needs to come out,” she continues. “It doesn’t matter where or what we’re doing or how we’re doing it — we just need to do it. That is also how I feel about music.”
The true-life Claire Sardina and her two youngsters (performed by Ella Anderson and Hudson Hensley on-screen) threw their full help behind “Song Sung Blue.” However Hudson’s intuition was to construct her personal model of Claire with out an excessive amount of outdoors affect. “You want to make a choice in a film because it’s the right choice for the character, not because you’re trying to mimic something,” says Hudson.
Hugh Jackman and Kate Hudson within the film “Song Sung Blue.”
(Focus Options)
That must keep away from mimicry and really feel the second was notably essential for the movie’s heartbreaking second act, through which Claire is hit by a automobile in her entrance yard and loses a leg, plunging into self-loathing, melancholy, physique dysmorphia and habit. Hudson needed to do intensive bodily work to organize to authentically characterize Claire’s lived expertise. “Movement is a huge part of what actors do,” she says. “There’s the emotional part but the physicality is like rebalancing your brain.”
Along with watching YouTube movies of amputees and talking with these within the disabled neighborhood, Hudson acquired helpful recommendation from one other display screen legend — her dad.
“Kurt said that Claire is like Rocky,” she says, referring to the enduring character’s grit and willpower to go the space. “The part that really got my dad emotional was that she just wanted to figure out how to get on her feet.”
Jackman marvels on the bravery and ability of Hudson’s efficiency, noting that she even captured one thing the true Claire advised him off-camera.
“Claire said, ‘The thing is Mike was a leg guy,’” he remembers. “Kate played that so well. That feeling of shame about: Is my partner attracted to me anymore? I found that incredibly moving.”
Hudson welcomed the problem, however she did fear about one factor outdoors her management. For “Song Sung Blue” to work, the actors enjoying Claire and Mike should be in excellent alignment: one the phrases, the opposite the tune.
“One of the hardest things to do is fake chemistry,” Hudson says. “You can’t do that. You have to actually fall in love with each other and find the chemical connection. That was my biggest anxiety.”
Jackman shared this concern. “I remember the first day after our table reading, you said, ‘This movie works if we work,’” he reminds her.
They needn’t have fearful. “They were a net for each other as the other one was up on a tightrope,” Brewer says. “It was incredibly inspiring for the crew to see that kinship and respect.”
Their mutual generosity is obvious in the best way Jackman checks in with Hudson after every anecdote throughout our interview, confirming she has nothing so as to add or right. Although that is their first movie collectively, their repartee is very easy and heat it’s laborious to consider they haven’t co-starred in no less than a dozen motion pictures.
“It felt easy to just inhabit these characters,” Jackman says. “The word that comes to me is trust. All of the scenes, particularly in that darker period, we could just live in that — the frustration, the paranoia, the anger, the loss, the fear. Every take felt really very different. I felt very free.”
Hudson agrees, including with a giggle, “I told Hugh, ‘I’m really tactile. Just tell me if I make you uncomfortable. I’m going to kiss you all the time.’”
It helps that Hudson and Jackman are naturally sunny, curious individuals, celebrities who’ve by no means cared for the sound of being alone. “We like to connect with people,” Hudson says. “There’s no internal process that removes us. We’re both community people. We like to be in the circus. When we’re on set, we sit on set. There’s no separation of crew and cast. It’s very rare that you work with someone who is like that.”
In the end, that openness allowed Hudson and Jackman to strategy Claire and Mike with honesty, important for a movie that’s a fullhearted paean to dreamers at their highest and lowest.
“Eddie Vedder told me something that moved me so much,” Jackman says, a word of emotion in his voice. “He goes, ‘Some might say these people led small lives. Their dreams were so huge and perhaps, naive. But dreams are so powerful that 30 years later, it’s come true.’”
From enjoying Milwaukee dive bars to turning into the topics of a significant movement image, the Sardinas have far exceeded even their very own expectations. To cite one other beloved Diamond tune, it’s sufficient to make anybody a believer.
