-Our first guests tonight are Tony Award-winning actors
who currently star in "The Music Man,"
which is playing at the Winter Garden Theatre on Broadway.
Please welcome back to the show Sutton Foster
and Hugh Jackman, everybody.
[ Cheers and applause ]
♪♪
Welcome! It's so lovely to have both of you here!
[ Cheers and applause ]
I was -- I was lucky enough
to see this incredible musical on opening night.
There was such enthusiasm because it's also --
It's a show, it's Broadway.
It's people being back out together again.
Is that energy the same every night?
Because it was tremendous the first night out.
-It really has been.
I mean, Broadway was nonexistent for almost two years.
And I feel like there's this shared sense of gratitude
between the people on stage and the audience.
And the show is so joyful, and I'm having
the time of my life playing opposite this guy.
-You had to say that, but thank you.
-I did! But it's really like --
It's like -- It's a dream come true.
-Can you guys clock what kind of audience
you have on any given night?
I mean, you obviously have a lot
of two-person scenes in the show.
Can you make eye contact and know it's this kind of night?
-Mm-hmm. [ Laughter ]
-There's a couple of things. So I'm on stage --
Sutton's not on stage at the beginning,
but I'm on stage behind the thing.
And so sometimes you can hear clapping along with the overture
and we have a little signal, we can tell,
but sometimes the audience goes -- [Whistles] way off.
Like, hecklers.
-Oh, yeah, we did have --
-What kind of heckles do you get during "The Music Man"?
[ Laughter ]
-Good point. Mainly -- Mainly clean.
-Yeah, yeah. -"Kiss her already!"
-Oh, a lot "kiss her already"? -Yeah.
-You do make us wait for it a bit in the show.
-Yeah, we do. -We once got a, "Hey-oh!"
Yeah, that was -- I'm not encouraging heckling.
-Yeah, yeah. Right. Exactly.
-I did -- I stand up at the beginning of the show,
I say one line, and I stand up and I did hear a "Wolverine!"
And I'm like...
"It's gonna be a long night, pal, I'm just sayin'."
-And they're like, "He's not wolverine."
-There's not much of that coming. -Yeah.
He's, like -- The whole show is about a con man.
That might be the twist at the end, that it was Wolverine.
-Ooh. -Yeah.
-"Music Man Deux."
-But we did have a hilarious sneezer.
-Oh, no. -Yeah, it was like --
Someone with a really bad allergy
who probably also is a stand-up comedian
because the timing was perfect on every sneeze.
-Perfect timing. And then this one --
We're in the second act. We have a very long scene
together where we're like, you know,
breaking down and starting to, like, fall for each other,
and this person is sneezing repeatedly.
And then at one point he went, "Bless you."
And I was like, "Oh," and then it was over.
And then he exits and just leaves me
on stage to have to endure the wrath.
-At which point, as I walked out, Sutton goes, "Terrific."
-"Great."
-"Never working with you again. This is great."
-I mean, again, there are all these tremendous moments,
but -- and beautiful songs.
But speaking of live theater, there's a scene in a library
where you have so many dancers
and it's just the amount of choreographed book throwing.
And, I mean, I was there opening night.
I did not see a book fall.
Do books ever fall?
-We were good on opening night. -Yeah.
-Okay. -Yeah.
-But I actually gave a hard hat to the conductor
because I nearly clocked him about three nights ago.
-Really? -I threw it up, and I lost it
in the light, and I'm like, "Uh-oh."
And I -- But I missed it.
And it was literally -- whoom!
But we have a musical --
Patrick Vaccariello has got incredible timing
because it just went -- wheeoop!
-Oh, he hit it back up! -It was pretty great.
-Have you ever, either of you, personally been hit with a book?
-Oh, I have, yeah. I've got pelted in the head.
Oh, yeah. Yeah, yeah.
-Wow. -They fly all over the place!
Then one night it kind of, like, bounced and it went, ga-goink,
and I was like, "Okay."
-So you -- I know you guys had met over the years.
Obviously, this is the first time you're working together.
I would imagine you each have a different reason
to be intimidated going into rehearsals with one another.
Was -- Did that exist for each of you?
I mean -- -Yes.
-Yes, very much so. I was -- Yes, yes.
I mean, you're -- Yes. You're Hugh Jackman.
-So they told you right away he was Hugh Jackman?
-Yeah, they said, "It's Hugh Jackman."
And then it's, like, our names
are, like, really big on, like, a giant billboard.
And I was like, "Oh, God, that's gonna cost a lot of money
when they have to replace me."
Because I'm like, "That's real big.
It's a lot of paint." But I was pretty convinced
I was going to be fired for several weeks.
-Oh, stop it. -It's true, though, you know?
You just get -- But I guess, like, I don't know,
that's part of the reason why you do what you do.
If you were like, "Oh, yeah, I got this."
-But that's a big -- Has it always been that way?
I mean, you know, I know you did "Boy from Oz" in 2004.
I imagine in everything you've done,
I imagine the early days of the rehearsal,
you must always feel that, like,
"Oh, they're going to pull the plug."
-And particularly after the pandemic.
It'd been a while for anybody being back in that room.
I was certainly intimidated. This is a six-time Tony nominee.
-Yeah. -Two-time winner.
Like, I saw her do "Thoroughly Modern Millie"
when you were like 4 years old.
But I've watched everything she's done. It's amazing.
And I'm the guy who, in my first show,
"Beauty and the Beast," it was in my contract
that I had to have singing lessons once a week.
So, you know, I --
[ Laughter ]
That's true, by the way.
It may be a professional first.
"Did you go this week?" I'm like, "Yeah."
"Really?" I was like, "yeah."
-Did your teacher have to, like, sign a note for you?
-100%. -That's really funny.
Well, it's paid off, Hugh, because you're absolutely --
So you know what? That was very unfair
that they made you do that, but it was worth every penny.
We'll be right back. I have more to ask you guys.
That's Sutton Foster and Hugh Jackman. Stick around.