Hugh Jackman

Hugh: (joking that George Clooney wasn't too please with him nabbing the People's Sexiest Man Alive crown from him) George Clooney rang me at two in the morning ... I was half asleep and I said to him, 'Ah, George sweetie, good to hear from you.' ... He goes, "Shut up, Jackman!' ... [He said,] 'I know what you did! You started this big campaign that's been going on and [you] took the title away from me.' I thought that was unnecessary.

Hugh: (on wearing his movie costumes to please wife Deborra-Lee Furness) She loves the idea of me coming home in costume because it makes her feel like she's having an affair - in a good way. When we met, I was cast as a prisoner with tattoos and she'd say, 'Don't take your tattoos off tonight!' and I'd be like, 'All right!' But what works best with her is the stockbroker look. She also says, 'Do your sexy dance for me,' an 80s-like, hip-swivelling number, and that works for me!

Hugh: I've always felt that if you back down from a fear, the ghost of that fear never goes away. It diminishes people. So I've always said 'yes' to the thing I'm most scared about. The fear of letting myself down - of saying 'no' to something that I was afraid of and then sitting in my room later going, 'I wish I'd had the guts to say this or that' - that galvanizes me more than anything.