MEG RYAN: He kind of did, because I kept saying, "Oh, I can't do another romantic comedy. I have to stop." And he said, "No, no, this is going to be different and it's not quite a romantic comedy. It's more an urban fairy tale." And I think he's a really great film maker, and he really coerced me into doing the movie. I'd always heard about him that he was a really good…an excellent actor's director and that's actually very, very hard to come by and I wanted to have an experience with somebody who really, really dug actors.
Hugh, it's interesting that we see a young man from Australia playing an English toff.
HUGH JACKMAN: We're a lot cheaper than the English version, you see.
How easy did you find adopting the accent?
HUGH JACKMAN: Well, to be honest, the accent was probably one of the things I was most nervous of because - I don't want to offend anyone here - but in Australia upper-class Englishmen are usually never portrayed as the kind of likeable leading man. It's usually something else, and I won't go into it. But as I was growing up that was my experience. The moment I put on the accent, which was not that hard for me to sound because my father's English - he went to Cambridge and my mother's English, so I'd been to England a lot. I'd heard the sounds, but still it felt foreign to me and my dialect coach was like, "Well, it kind of sounds right but it also sounds like you've got a carrot up your arse, and it sounds like you're judging the character", and all these things, which I was. So I had to stay in the accent, not in character, for probably about two weeks while I was at home and drove my kid crazy with reading him stories with an English accent. And I certainly drove my wife crazy. But that was one of the main things. And while we're on the subject of research, a woman called Jane Gibson, who's a wonderful etiquette coach here who worked on Sense and Sensibility and other great movies, she helped me out a lot. I did a week's what I call hand-slapping. She literally used to slap my hands during sessions, twice a day. I had to sit on my hands after a while because, you know, I kept gesticulating and she said, "Arh, it's a dead give-away, you're so middle class". So she really helped me out.
The theme of the film refers to much gentler times, with the high profile lives you both lead do you ever hanker for that kind of simple existence?
HUGH JACKMAN: I mean, I loved playing the character. When I had these sessions with Jane they had the kind of feeling of a meditation because what she was describing was the art of etiquette to me. That's what she was trying to instill in me, that the love of paying attention to everything outside of yourself. So, to the person you're with, to the group you're with, to the meal you're preparing; or whatever it is, pay attention to it. It has this kind of effect of calming, slowing down your mind. And, in fact, gesticulating is exactly that. It's a sign of a busy mind which is very unaristocratic, because there's nothing else to worry about except the person you're with. If you're listening you just listen. You know, nod your head and all that stuff. So it may be like a massage, the feeling you get when you have a massage and a bath and you've got no worries. I think, in an ideal world, that's kind of what it was like for Leopold
MEG RYAN: I don't think you realize how fast you go and I don't think, until you stop for a minute, you realize how cacophonous your life is and how easily distracted you can be. [to Hugh] I just want to say about the other question you were asking, is that it all seemed to come so naturally to you. That it was, sort of, overwhelming to everybody on the set all the time that it never felt like you had to strain. To be a gentleman, you know?
HUGH JACKMAN: My Dad will be very happy.
MEG RYAN: Oh well. And it happens so rarely truly to women that you're considered in that way and seen, and it's extremely romantic and it's a very, very simple adjustment. I also think that at least Americans, I feel, have a kind of feeling about a chivalrous action, or a gentlemanly action, that there's something wimpy about it. But Hugh always made it look very strong and feel very masculine.
Okay, what do you think is the best thing about modern life that you just wouldn't be able to live without in the 19th Century?
MEG RYAN: Anesthesia.
HUGH JACKMAN: We used to joke about the sequel, you know, and Kate being pregnant. "I am not doing this without an epidural". You know, or at the dentist. No, there's so many.. I mean, not for a second would I really want to go back but I think the film is… you know, it's a fairy tale. It's highlighting some of the things we've lost, and some of them for good reason. I mean, etiquette developed in a strange way. As I said, it started from an art form - a love of the person you're with. Then it developed into a series of rules which became archaic because the stem of it was lost. So women all of a sudden were not allowed to laugh out loud. It was considered garish. Or even clap loudly and, you know, there's so many things that are romantically not mentioned in the film that we're thrilled they've gone. In fact, there's a great scene in the film where Meg says, "Yes!", and we always highlighted it that that's one of those moments where Leopold kind of falls in love. He begins to fall in love with her because he sees something he's never seen before, and he loves her spiritedness and her freedom, and her ability to talk back and to argue. And this is something he's never experienced with a woman. It's always been polite.
MEG RYAN: And I also think, you know, in the past 20 years there's been so many mixed signals about what proper behavior between men and women really is. Fifteen years ago you could have been slapped for opening a door for a woman, and I think we're just renegotiating that again. For a long time some of these chivalrous gestures seemed like a form of condescension and as women have empowered themselves and been empowered in society more and more, that they now can take on a feeling that it's more about a gesture of respect, mutual respect, than of condescension. So there's been all kinds of strange shifts in the last 20, 25 years.
Meg, you mentioned earlier that you were initially reluctant to jump into yet another romantic comedy, are you becoming concerned that you are only really known for that genre?
MEG RYAN: I don't know. I mean, clearly I've made it my franchise genre, you know, and I don't mind saying that. I mean, it's just sort of true. And I love doing romantic comedies; I'll hopefully always do them. I don't feel particularly typecast because I think I do so many different kinds of things. Whether or not they're seen is another issue, but being satisfied as an actress, I am. I'm offered lots of different things and I do lots of different things. But I can't do anything about how people perceive me or how they want to limit me. You know, I just have to soldier on.
What was it like for both of you riding a horse through Central Park?
HUGH JACKMAN: I've got to tell this because it was particularly humiliating for me, the first part of the story, because Meg had asked me, "You know, the horse-riding scene's coming up. Can you ride?" I said, "Yeah, I'm learning". That was the first mistake. And Meg said, "You're learning?" I said, "Yeah, no, I'm doing a lot of...". She goes, "Alright". So the first day that we were going to ride together, we were supposed to shoot in the afternoon; Meg on the back of the horse. So he was shooting the stuff where you see me in the back of shot riding up towards her, first. So Meg came on the set. First take, I went straight past, through the shot, everything was fine except the horse decided to put on the brakes because he saw a light and… I went straight over the top and landed on my arse. And, of course, it hurt like hell, but the first thing I did was look up and there's Meg going, "Oh no!"
MEG RYAN: I'm getting on that horse before two hours with this guy.
HUGH JACKMAN: And someone said, "You know, if you want to go". I said, "No, I've got to get straight back on the horse, or Meg will never get on the back of the horse with me". So Meg got on, which I shouldn't brush over that. That was a truly heroic thing; to get on the back of the horse with me some three hours after watching me fall off. And we had to gallop through Central Park.
MEG RYAN: No, but I said, "I'm a little bit nervous, not even really about you, just about being on this animal and around all the instruments of movie making". And he said a great thing, which was, "I'm nervous too". It was so beautiful and if he'd said, like, "Yes"... you know. But he said, "No, I'm nervous too" and then I was on for good.
HUGH JACKMAN: I've just recovered from three broken ribs from Meg holding on. But we made it. And funnily enough, later on that afternoon, there was another shot where we were on a punching bag that was placed horizontally and put on ropes because it was an impossible shot. It was through trees and you actually couldn't shoot it even if you could do it. So we were asked to rock backwards and forwards on this thing and make it look like we were riding, right. So we just thought this is the most ridiculous scene. Now, if you watch the movie back that looks real and the one that was real looks fake.
Hugh, this is another movie where you don't get a chance to sing. As someone who started out in musicals, is that a little frustrating?
HUGH JACKMAN: I had a little go at a piano there. No, it looks like if things commit that I'm actually going to be doing something, kind of, yeah... until it's announced, but there's something maybe coming up.
Presumably you're not referring to X-Men 2.
HUGH JACKMAN: Yeah, Wolverine's Christmas Hits! To be honest, I wasn't born a singer; I kind of feel like I became a singer and I worked for three years on stage and by the end of that three years I really was happy not to sing a note for about 12 months, and now I'm really getting the urge and there's a couple of things in the pipeline. But I suppose legally I can't tell you until it's settled.
MEG RYAN: But you can tell me later.
HUGH JACKMAN: Yeah, but I'll tell you later.
Hugh, you originally wanted to be a journalist, are there ever times when you wish you were sitting on this side of the microphone instead of acting?
HUGH JACKMAN: No, I kind of feel you get that as an actor. I think that's what I eventually found out as an actor. All the things I love about journalism, which was very idealistic - I was very idealistic as a student - and pictured myself being a radio stringer for ABC or BBC somewhere in the Middle East just filing reports, or doing investigative things, or changing the world; all that sort of thing. I realized I actually didn't have the passion, or the skill, or the kind of personality for it. But the love of stories and the quest to understand human nature and all those human conditions which, kind of, is your job - right? And then to report it back, that's kind of our job.
MEG RYAN: Yeah, there's a kind of narrative that's the same. That you go out and you're a fact finder and that you're curious about all the things you were saying, and then there's this time when you put it in yourself, and then as a writer you express yourself in words, and as an actor you express yourself, you know, with your being. And so there's a similar sort of sequence of events, you know. But I think this is a very rare situation, sitting on this end of a microphone and being asked questions. I mean, really, once or twice a year for me. So I feel like most of the time I'm you guys watching TV and being curious about the whatever play the Zeitgeist is putting on, you know.