Hugh Jackman takes his morning routine seriously. The actor has spent decades maintaining the stamina required to play Wolverine and perform eight shows a week on Broadway. He is an early riser, a devoted meditator and, apparently, not above breaking into song during a workout. That premise drives his latest campaign with AG1, the daily nutritional supplement brand that named Jackman its global ambassador earlier this year.
In a new spot, Jackman puts his musical theater chops to work, singing his way through a workout while touting the benefits of his daily greens. The partnership is more than a celebrity endorsement. Jackman has been using AG1 for more than five years, after it was recommended by his doctor, and has been a strategic investor in the company since 2021. “I get offered a lot of things, and I just figured it’s got to be something that makes sense to me, that I really believe in, and that I actually use,” he says.
Jackman talked to Variety about his daily wellness rituals, his 30-year meditation practice, his upcoming role in Ridley Scott’s “Treasure Island” and, yes, Wolverine’s future in the MCU. If he is getting up very early, he will not meditate straight away. But he has been a meditator for 30 years. Sometimes he will wait and do it at lunchtime, but he has learned his lesson. No matter what the call time is for filming, he still gets up a little bit earlier and gets everything done. It is better, he says.
He still likes seven or eight hours of sleep, sometimes more if he can. But he was not a morning person until he had a job opening up a gym, which he opened at 6 a.m. He slept in twice, and he was basically told, “You do not want to be late for the people who are turning up for that 6 a.m. workout.” No matter how nice you are, they will not give you too many tries. So he used to set three alarms, and that changed it. From that moment on, he was a morning person.
One of his favorite things, if he is in Australia, is to get up before the sun because he lives right on the beach. He can be in the water as the sun comes up. He does way more walking in New York than anywhere else. Even though it is probably the most condensed city, he walks everywhere or rides a bike everywhere. He likes to be active in the morning.
The AG1 benefit he noticed was that he was not getting sick. For him, getting a cold, particularly as he sings and does concerts or is on stage, has a little more weight. His doctor told him, “Man, you’re a busy guy. It’s hard to get everything you need. It’s almost impossible to get everything you need just through nutrition with a busy lifestyle. Take this, and then you’re covered foundationally, like your gut health.” Jackman says he noticed he was waking up a little faster, was not getting sick, and just felt better.
He also notes that singing and dancing require fitness. If you are going to tap dance, or dance, or do a song-and-dance number, it is demanding. He says it is the fittest he will ever be because singing requires holding a long phrase while the heart rate is high. He has to practice singing while running, jumping rope or doing whatever. The first person he heard about doing it was Mick Jagger, who said he had to run 10 or 15 miles a day to do what he does. When traveling, being fit is key for sleep. Sleep is the number one factor for him.
Jackman learned meditation originally through the School of Practical Philosophy, introduced by a friend named Warwick when he was doing acting. He told Warwick, “There’s something about you, man.” Warwick said he had started meditating. It was transcendental meditation, and it changed everything. Jackman was 22 or 23, and it really changed everything. It gives him a place to come home to himself twice a day, no matter what is going on. He describes it as sinking to the bottom of the ocean, which is always calm and peaceful. It is a twice-a-day reminder of what is there under the surface.
On Ridley Scott’s “Treasure Island,” Jackman says it was really the script. Scott sent him the script, and he read it. He had never read the book and had never seen the movie. He knew various things about it. He did not know how foundational it was — the idea of a treasure map, the pirate and the parrot. Jack Thorne, who wrote “Adolescence” and did “Harry Potter” for the stage show, wrote the script. Jackman called it undeniable. He did not know where it was going, and he was very surprised but satisfied at the end.
As for Wolverine’s future in the MCU, Jackman jokes that he has no idea what anyone is talking about. He says he does have an internal chip, and it is not metaphorical. There is a literal chip, and if he says the wrong thing, he gets shut down. He does not know who controls that chip, but someone is controlling it.
