When Hugh Jackman Instagrammed a picture of himself with a big plaster on his nose, we presumed he’d accidentally hit himself in the face while donning his Wolverine claws (we’ve all done it). But the accompanying caption told us otherwise: “Please don’t be foolish like me. Get yourself checked. And USE sunscreen!!!”.
Turns out a mark on his nose, which he too thought was from fighting on the set of Wolverine: Days of Future Past (out July 18), was actually skin cancer.
It was a basal cell carcinoma, which is the less-aggressive non-melanoma form of skin cancer, and he caught it early, so the 44-year-old has made a full recovery after having surgery in November to cut the cancer cells out.
Of this he jokes,“People presume actors are very vain, but I told the doctor to make it an even bigger scar: ‘Go about 45 degrees up, then a little tilt down – I’ve always wanted one of those’.”
Jackman now lives in Manhattan, New York, but he blames his brush with cancer on his Aussie roots: “Australians – it’s par for the course. I don’t remember being stopped and someone saying, ‘Are you boys wearing sunscreen?’ until I was around 15 or 16,” he told Today Entertainment.
We suspect his scare won’t slow him down, though. On stage and screen for 20 years now, Jackman has won three Tony Awards and was nominated for an Oscar for his role in Les Miserables. A triple threat, he can sing, dance and act – is there anything he can’t do? “I can’t ever see myself doing porn. But never say never!” he laughs.
When we catch up with him on his promotional tour for Prisoners, which is out on DVD now, he’s on good form. True to rumours, the man’s a charmer and an all-round nice guy.
In fact, we discover than Jackman has bought every member of each film crew he has worked with a scratchcard lottery ticket every Friday for the last 13 years. Which makes TNT’s first question to Jackman an easy one: Why the hell would you do that?
To find out why our man Hugh is obsessed with scratchcards, you’ll have to flick through our eMag, or pick up a copy of TNT on the streets of London. It’s on page 17. You can’t miss it.
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It was a basal cell carcinoma, which is the less-aggressive non-melanoma form of skin cancer, and he caught it early,
so the 44-year-old has made a full recovery after having surgery in November to cut the cancer cells out.
Of this he jokes,“People presume actors are very vain, but I told the doctor to make it an even bigger scar:
‘Go about 45 degrees up, then a little tilt down – I’ve always wanted one of those’.”*
Jackman now lives in Manhattan, New York, but he blames his brush with cancer on his Aussie roots: “Australians – it’s par for the course. I don’t remember being stopped and someone saying, ‘Are you boys wearing sunscreen?’ until I was around 15 or 16,” he told Today Entertainment.
We suspect his scare won’t slow him down, though. On stage and screen for 20 years now, Jackman has won three Tony Awards and was nominated for an Oscar for his role in Les Miserables. A triple threat, he can sing, dance and act –
is there anything he can’t do? “I can’t ever see myself doing porn. But never say never!” he laughs.
–
When we catch up with him on his promotional tour for Prisoners, which is out on DVD now, he’s on good form.
True to rumours, the man’s a charmer and an all-round nice guy. In fact, we discover than Jackman has bought every member of each film crew he has worked with a scratchcard lottery ticket every Friday for the last 13 years.
Which makes TNT’s first question to Jackman an easy one: Why the hell would you do that?
