People Mixtapes were "like a kind of engagement ring" for Hugh Jackman
What we know today as playlists used to be mix tapes - usually analog music cassettes with personally compiled songs. They had a special meaning for Hollywood star Hugh Jackman, as he tells the German news agency DPA in an interview.
20.11.2025, 02:05
SDA
"If you gave someone this mixtape, it was like an engagement ring," recalls the Australian actor ("Deadpool & Wolverine", "The Greatest Showman"). "When I think of playlists today - I don't just play them to someone. Because when you listen to someone's personal playlist, it's like a diary."
Jackman celebrated the European premiere of the music film "Song Sung Blue" in Berlin on Wednesday evening (theatrical release in German-speaking Switzerland: December 25). In it, the 57-year-old plays a couple together with Kate Hudson ("Almost Famous") who are united in love and music with performances as a Neil Diamond tribute band - but also have to go through hard blows of fate.
"For me, music is healing"
Hugh Jackman has apparently also experienced difficult times - and let music help him: "For me, music is healing," Jackman told DPA just before the European premiere. "I can think back to so many moments in my life where music has carried me through things, where it has picked me up. It has shaped parts of me. For me, music is one of the great joys and connections in life."
For Jackman's film partner Kate Hudson (46), who also performs as a singer in addition to acting, music is not just a useful professional tool: "Music is the best language. The most unifying, the least threatening language. It sounds totally cheesy, but music has saved my life again and again and again."
Romantic mixtape by Kate Hudson
When it comes to her personal favorite music, Kate Hudson is apparently less secretive than Hugh Jackman. In a joint DPA interview, she told Jackman about a mixtape for romantic hours: "I had a great make-out mixtape in April. (laughs) I'll share that with you sometime!"
Maybe Jackman will let Kate Hudson listen to his private playlist, because it's not one hundred percent secret after all, says Jackman: "No, not completely secret. But when I play it, I think: this person will probably know me better than if we had spent a year together. And that's just by listening. That's the power of music, because it connects to the deepest part of you."
