You might think that a performer would have to be naturally graceful to perform song-and-dance routines in a major movie musical. But Hugh Jackman scored the title role in The Greatest Showman despite being, by his own admission, spectacularly clumsy. Chatting with Yahoo Entertainment about the stylish, tuneful take on the life of legendary circus ringmaster P.T. Barnum, the Australian actor recalled one particular occasion where he belly-flopped in very public fashion. “I had to half-run to get off-camera, and I tripped on hay,” he recalls. Falling to the ground, his head went right through a Papier-mâché obelisk. “Everyone’s singing and dancing, and I’m trying to get my head out of this thing!”
Jackman’s co-stars Zendaya and Zac Efron had their own accidents while filming the aerial ballet that accompanied their big musical number, though none as comical as getting stuck in Papier-mâché. “We’d get a perfect one in the bag and be so ready to level up for the next take,” Efron remarks. “And then the next time, we’d be just a little bit off and [collide]! They’d have to lower us down.” Fortunately, all that pain translated into a show-stopping setpiece. “You can’t shoot something like that and be flawless all the time,” says Zendaya, chuckling. “But It’s worth it after get to see the finished product.”
The Greatest Showman is currently playing in theaters.
Watch Hugh Jackman lay out a potential Wolverine musical:
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