Summary
- Hugh Jackman underwent surgery and couldn't sing for The Greatest Showman demo due to skin cancer, so Jeremy Jordan stepped in.
- Jeremy Jordan provided vocals while Jackman mimed the stage directions in the demo, helping the film get greenlit.
- Despite not being able to sing for most of the demo, Jackman couldn't resist ing in and singing during the ending number.
Hugh Jackman starred in The Greatest Showman - so why did Jeremy Jordan sing his parts for the demo? The Greatest Showman demo was used to sell the idea of Jackman's ion project, but he was unable to sing P.T. Barnum's songs, despite being a talented singer himself. The Greatest Showman chronicles Barnum's (Jackman) formation of his "Greatest Show On Earth" which led to the development of Barnum and Bailey's Circus. A musical journey, Barnum gathers performers who are outsiders or would typically be in carnival sideshows of the time, to create a new spectacle of a show, and works to secure funding despite many obstacles being in his way. While not entirely factual, The Greatest Showman is inspired by real events.
The Greatest Showman was a longtime ion project for Hugh Jackman and the actor spent the best part of a decade trying to bring the P.T. Barnum biopic to the big screen. After all this hard work, the film finally went into production in 2016 with first-time director Michael Gracey at the helm; this was after The Greatest Showman had been in development since 2009. But, before 20th Century Fox gave The Greatest Showman the official go-ahead, the studio wanted to see a read-through of the script and hear some of the songs. In the end, it took a whopping nine years to make The Greatest Showman, and Jeremy Jordan was instrumental in helping Hugh Jackman get The Greatest Showman greenlit.
Why Hugh Jackman Couldn't Sing For The Greatest Showman Demo
Hugh Jackman's many musical movies prove that has a great set of pipes. The Australian actor started out performing in various musical theater productions including Beauty And The Beast, Sunset Boulevard, and as cowboy Curly McLain in a West End production of Oklahoma! which earned him a Laurence Olivier Award. Even after Jackman got his film breakthrough playing Wolverine in the X-Men franchise, he stayed true to his musical theater roots, and in 2012, he played Jean Valjean in Tom Hooper’s big-screen adaptation of Les Misérables. Jackman spent years developing The Greatest Showman while starring in some of these other projects and had to participate in a demo to finally get studio funding.
Unfortunately, the day before everybody was set to meet for the Greatest Showman demo, Hugh Jackman had surgery on his nose to remove skin cancer which required 80 stitches and came with a strict doctor’s order not to sing. Jackman began having cancer treatments for the growth in 2013, but everything had been booked, and it took several months for everyone to get together for the movie's read-through. Thus, it had to happen regardless of Jackman being sidelined as a singer. Despite not being able to sing for producers, Jackman ultimately did have to go back to the doctor's to get restitched after the Greatest Showman demo because he ended up breaking orders.
How Jeremy Jordan Helped The Greatest Showman Get Made
Rather than cancel the read-through and risk the film's future, actor and singer Jeremy Jordan stood in for Jackman, providing vocals while Jackman mimed the stage directions to give everyone an idea of what he’d look like. Jordan was an ideal choice to understudy for Jackman since he's starred in several musicals including Newsies, Bonnie & Clyde, and The Last Five Years. The demo itself took a long time to prepare and if it was postponed due to Jackman being unable to sing, it's possible The Greatest Showman would've never gotten made.
Jeremy Jordan sang for almost the entirety of The Greatest Showman demo since Jackman couldn't lend his voice at that time (casting was also not yet finalized for the film). However, while Jackman obeyed his doctor’s orders for the majority of The Greatest Showman demo, one song got the better of him. When Jordan started singing The Greatest Showman’s ending musical number, "From Now On," Jackman seemingly felt so inspired and moved by the song that he couldn’t help himself and started singing along to the power ballad. He wasn't sorry that he ended up going against his doctor's orders to not strain himself by singing, saying on Instagram that the song he sang during The Greatest Showman demo was "worth it." Whether that was what convinced Fox to go ahead with the film is unknown but director Michael Gracey certainly seems to think so, calling it a “euphoric moment” that helped The Greatest Showman get made.
Is The Greatest Showman 2 Ever Happening?
As hard as it was to get the first film made, talk of The Greatest Showman 2 has been stirring for a few years, mainly from the main cast themselves. Both Michelle Williams, who plays P.T.'s wife Charity Barnum, and Hugh Jackman himself, have expressed a strong desire to make the sequel. Williams told Variety that she hopes a sequel to The Greatest Showman gets made because "I would make another one of those in a heartbeat." Jackman is also eager to get started on The Greatest Showman 2, as he doesn't want to be too old by the time it finally happens. Speaking with LADBible, he said "it did take us eight years to get that first movie made... So if there's going to be a sequel, and I'm not going to be on a Zimmer frame, we better get going."
Of course, none of this means that a sequel to The Greatest Showman is actually happening, but Jackman and Williams are still hopeful.
