The 'Wolverine' actor said his wife was a big star when he started out and everyone on set wanted to date her.
Hugh Jackman and his wife Deborra-Lee Furness are celebrating their 26th wedding anniversary and the "Wolverine" actor paid a loving tribute to his wife. He shared an image of the couple on a beach cuddling up and wrote, "Today I celebrate 26 years of marriage to my extraordinary wife. Every single day is filled with so much laughter, joy, and backgammon!!!! Deb, you light up my life. I love you with all my heart!" The couple first met in 1995 on the set of the Australian TV series "Correlli," a 10-episode drama, reported Yahoo News. Jackman starred as a prisoner who suffered trauma while being transported to jail, and Furness played the prison psychologist trying to help him recover his memory. While he was just starting out, she was already a star.
"My first job out of drama school—it was a massive break for me. I was really scared," said Jackman, reported People TV. "Deb, she was a big star. I get picked up, and Deb is in the front seat of the car. I'll never forget. She took off her seatbelt and turned around and put out her hand and took off her sunglasses and said, 'Hi, I'm Deborra-Lee Furness, nice to meet you.' I remember thinking, 'I like this girl.'" Jackman says their chemistry was off the charts and it's something he has never experienced since. "This was before we were romantically involved or had any idea that Deborra was interested," he said. "There was a chemistry. And every time we had a scene together, it was unbelievable... Professionally, I've never had anything quite like that again." Furness echoed the same thoughts. She thought to herself, "'Who is this guy? Jack Hughman? I've never heard of him.' And then when we get on the set it was like, you know, you're playing tennis."
Everyone was crushing on Deb but he was the one who got to take her out. He knew she was one even back then. "I knew very early. I knew before Deb knew, even when she tried to break up with me, I knew," he said in a 2018 podcast "Aussies in Hollywood," hosted by Jenny Cooney, a friend of the couple. "I managed to talk her out of it, thank God. I'm a very indecisive person, you know this about me, Deb really knows this about me. I can count on one hand the amount of times in my life anything has felt that clear to me."
But with her, "I just knew 100 percent...I even knew when she was trying to work out reasons to break up with me...That is grace, as far as I'm concerned."
She knew they had an "amazing connection" from the word go. "I feel blessed that I experienced that I feel like I met my soulmate, whatever that is," she said on Anh's Brush With Fame. Hugh Jackman actually went to great lengths to avoid her because he felt she wouldn't reciprocate. "I realized, I've got a crush on my leading lady," he said. "This is the thing you do not do. It's unprofessional and embarrassing." She confronted him, asking him why he wasn't talking to her. "I said, 'I got a crush on you. I'll get over it, I'm sorry,'" Jackman shared. "She goes, 'Oh? Because I've got a crush on you too.' I never in a million years thought she reciprocated," he recalled.
Furness later revealed that she was trying not to date actors, and thus tried to break it off a few times. "I had just made my New Year's resolution. I said, 'I am not dating any actors, and definitely not under 30.' She did break the rule though, with Hugh Jackman. They would start dating and 11 months later they got married on April 11, 1996, and have been happy ever since.
References:
https://www.yahoo.com/entertainment/hugh-jackman-celebrates-26th-wedding-150940834.html
https://people.com/movies/hugh-jackman-remembers-day-he-met-wife-deb-fell-despite-13-year-age-difference/
Cover Image Source: Instagram/thehughjackman
