CraveOnline: How do you train for an intense role like this versus the comic book superhero roles?

Hugh Jackman: I go to the gym in the morning as much for a state of mind than for a physical state. However, when you work with Baz you might be doing a close up kissing at 8:30, you may be jumping over a six-foot fence with a horse, you don’t know what and that is the great thrill of it and that is something I love. I had early on in my career, 10 years [ago] made the mistake of turning up to the shoot or master of a scene and all of a sudden you're really waking up until 11 o’clock  and thinking, “I can’t believe I made that choice, that decision.” So it's mainly about a state of mind where having the very first frame you are ready to go. In terms of physicality and what you eat, it is very important because you have to understand that the nano protein diet as we know it is pretty much what these drovers lived on that were out there. They would not eat a lot. They were lean, they were very strong but they were quite lean and very muscley in a way.

Hugh Jackman: A lot of steamed chicken. It is also important before you train and these guys would do that too. When you wake up you have to have some food in your belly before you work.

CraveOnline: How does it compare to preparing for Wolverine?

Hugh Jackman: Wolverine I kind of have to eat a lot more, train with a lot heavier weights and get my naturally leaner body a little bigger.

CraveOnline: How was it doing Wolverine with Gavin?

Hugh Jackman: Not as much kissing, no. I'll probably be talking to you guys about it in a few months so I won't go on but it was fantastic. Gavin was a great director, very strong and has a great understanding of journeys and arcs of characters. These movies I think live or fail by their attention to the characters in the story. All the other stuff, all those powers and all that stuff which is terrific is not at the heart of it. It's themes and it's characters and the struggles, that's the heart of them. Gavin's terrific.

CraveOnline: Was it nice to get your own movie without all the other X-Men?

Hugh Jackman: I did miss Halle Berry though.

Hugh Jackman: Oh yeah, we worked with drovers. So they were up there with us the whole time and yes, talked to many of them. In 1988, which was our bicentennial, they did this extraordinary drove, not dissimilar to the film, filmed it and had this great central character who was near the end of his working life. He was almost 60 and he was kind of given this task of droving in the old fashioned style, exactly as it would've been done in 1940, because now of course they use trucks and helicopters and lots of other things. He was the real thing. I mean, I could never have spoken exactly like this guy because those guys live in the outback, live forever in fear of swallowing flies every second of the day so every bloody thing that they say is like that [mumbles] and they never bloody open their mouth. But to understand the way they were on the horse, to see them day after day cracking whips, that kind of footage was amazing. Then we worked with the real deal. I used it as a kind of standard for me. I wanted the guys to come up to me and say, "Mate, you actually look like you could drove some cattle." A couple of times I got compliments like that and it meant more to me than anything in the world. And also, I'd just watch them all the time, how they crack the whip. It's always very tempting as an actor to crack a whip. When guys have been on the horse for 20 years, cracking the whip is no more important than turning the indicator signal on in your car when you've been driving for 20 years. It's just second nature and so that was the thing I really wanted to get into.

CraveOnline: Was that shower scene natural?

Hugh Jackman: Are you kidding me? We choreographed that scene. I think Baz spent about 20 minutes placing each individual soap sud on me in exactly the right [spot].

CraveOnline: Did you want the drover to be shirtless the whole movie to show off for the ladies?

Hugh Jackman: There's a kind of great moment when we were shooting the shower scene as it's called now, the Outback Shower, which by the way historically is absolutely accurate. That's exactly the technique they used. I remember saying to Baz, I said, "Baz, are you sure this is not too much? Are they going to laugh in the right way? They're going to think I'm a wanker here." And he says, "If we're strong and we really commit to the moment and the comedy of it will rise." There were a couple members of the crew who took their shirts off after the first little break, one of which oiled himself up a little bit, so trust me, I got a lot of hell about that scene when we were down there. It might've been a lot cooler having my shirt off for a lot of the movie because it was hot.

CraveOnline: Is it a nice excuse to mack on the happily married Nicole Kidman?

Hugh Jackman: Well, I’ve known Nicole for a long time. To give you some context, when she first came to Hollywood, she lived with my wife. My wife was living here already, so she sort of moved in and until she moved in with Tom, she was living with Deb. So they were very, very close friends and still are very close friends. It’s sort of like, "Oh, my wife is really good mates with her" so I’ve seen her at a lot of parties and all of that, but it wasn’t until this film that we truly got to know each other and sort of become, independent of my wife, really good friends. On the kissing thing, Baz quite likes sunsets and kissing, don't you? So we ended up kissing quite a lot. The true answer to that is that it was not the toughest day at the office. However, it’s never particularly comfortable making out with someone in front of 70 people. That’s really not something that turns me on. I know it does for some, but in terms of the intimacy and what was important, Nic and I talked about it separately from Baz. We said, "Okay, we need to really take this seriously. We need to really portray this romance and the passion and the heat between the two and even though we know each other, that’s the biggest trap, really. For actors, sometimes you can know someone too well and all of the heat goes out of the room and you’re too familiar." I won’t give you any of the details of that conversation, but it was a really adult and open discussion.

CraveOnline: That first kiss has the longest buildup I've ever seen. Is there an extended cut where it just takes 20 minutes?

Hugh Jackman: Slow motion? … I don't kiss and tell.

CraveOnline: How much horse riding did you practice?

Hugh Jackman: Baz and I talked about the horse riding early on. There were some descriptions in the script of the horse riding. I remember one, it was early on: Drover thunders across the outback chasing a beast scrub bull. He catches up with the scrub bull, leaps off his horse, grabs the beast by the tail, wrestles it to the ground, pulls out his knife and slashes its balls off, or something like that. … At which point I thought, "I've gotta get some lessons here." And I kind of did. Actors, they lie about horses. That's the old joke. Can you ride a horse? Sure, absolutely, since I was a kid. But this was something where the character's name was The Drover which if the movie was made here, it'd be calling someone The Cowboy. So they're defined by where they are and what you do, this character in particular and there's something really, for me, when I watch a great rider, when I watch a great skier, it's something beautiful about watching them. Their comfort and their ease and their feeling that they've been on that horse all their life. And in a way, they're more themselves, more at home on that horse than anywhere else. So the key that Baz and I talked about was time in the saddle. Yes, we did everything. We did from jumping to this to cutting cattle, wherever it was, but all those different things was really a byproduct of just feeling at home on the set.

CraveOnline: How has your life changed since you're Sexiest Man Alive?