Hugh Jackman Once Played a Clown for Kids Birthday Parties
Hugh Jackman has definitely had his fair share of different acting roles, but did you know he was once a birthday party clown?
Yes, you heard it right: the X-Men star, 54, once used his Tony Award-winning skills to entertain kids at birthday parties, though he doesn't seem to think he was any good at it.
In a throwback clip from an appearance on The Howard Stern Show, Jackman told the host all about the pre-fame gig, which he said started out okay before it eventually took a terrible turn.
The Logan actor said he was sometimes "good" at the job, as long as his clients were under the age of 3. Apparently, Jackman was once more like his The Greatest Showman character than we thought, as he said he would juggle whatever item he could get his hands on, doing anything he could to keep the kids entertained.
"At a 3-year-old's party, I was the best," he recalled. "I could juggle three things—I could juggle kind of anything, like swords, anything for three, but nothing more."
"I'm energetic. No problem," he added.
However, it was the parties for slightly older children that eventually led to the end of his clowning days, especially after one event went particularly wrong.
"I remember the last gig I ever did—an 8-year-old's party. Now that's tough," he told Stern, 69.
"I remember the kid going, 'Mom, this clown is crap!' And I was like, 'Shut up, kid!'" he recounted with a laugh.
In an attempt to troubleshoot, Jackman said, "I looked in my bag, and I would sometimes juggle an egg and I'd break it in my hand, right? So I just got out three eggs, and it broke. And the kid's like, whatever."
That's when things took a turn for the worse, as he explained, "It ended up with the kids having the eggs, throwing them at me. And that was working. They loved it."
Not only that, but Jackman also said the kids were "piling and kicking the shit out of me," an experience he called, "pathetic."
"But they were happy," he insisted. "And I'm looking at my watch like, 'Ten minutes left to go!' And that was it. Never went back again."
While we wish that clowning could've gone better for Jackman, we're definitely glad that he eventually found his way into some more serious showbiz!
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