This clip comes from 26‑year‑old Hugh Jackman’s 1994 graduating showreel from the Western Australian Academy of Performing Arts (WAAPA). The monologue demonstrates his innate ability to conjure a scene, inhabit a character and hold our attention while doing so, even at a young age. We see his raw acting talent on display – filmed against a plain backdrop, with no effects or editing to distract us.

It’s a glimpse of the future star as a vulnerable actor starting out, before he would become a leading man of stage and screen. A year later, he played Gaston in Beauty and the Beast onstage; by 2000, he was in Hollywood, beginning his decades-long association with the role of Wolverine in X-Men.

Appropriately, Jackman's line prompt in this clip is ‘So I suppose you're a big success now?’ Yes. Yes, he is.