Former Oscar host Hugh Jackman calls Best Picture flub “shocking”

Disney/ABC Home Entertainment and TV Distribution/David M. Russell(NEW YORK) — While promoting his latest film Logan on Live with Kelly, former Academy Awards host Hugh Jackman weighed in briefly on the flub last weekend that led to La La Land mistakenly being announced as Best Picture.

Jackman explained to Kelly Ripa and her guest co-host Jerry O’Connell that he was in Taipei conducting interviews for Logan while the Oscar telecast was going on.

“I saw the opening, thought it was great. Loved Justin [Timberlake]. I thought Jimmy [Kimmel] did a great job,” he said to applause, adding, it, “looked like it was his fifth time around.”

Jackman said at that point, he was called away for interviews, until his assistant made an excuse so he could catch the Best Picture announcement.

“I went in, literally, that whole moment happens, La La Land wins, Mark Platt, producer of that, he’s a friend of mine, I’m watching Mark, I’m like [clapping] ‘Ah, good on ya, Mark!’…So I go back into interviews, three minutes later, [my assistant] comes in, and goes, ‘You’ll never guess!’ And I’m like, ‘Yeah, whatever.’ It took her a good three minutes to convince me it happened! I mean, It’s just so shocking, you know?”

As for Logan, Jackman admitted he’s emotional about his final go ’round as the razor-clawed X-Men hero he’s played for the past 17 years. The movie’s premiere in China brought a massive crowd — and brought home the point to him.

He explained, “People were saying goodbye…people were crying. It’s like, ‘It’s OK, I’ll be back here — I’m doing a movie called The Greatest Showman, I’ll be back here in six months.” 

“It was kind of amazing…I did take a note to myself to say, ‘Remember this, because you may not experience something like this again.'”

Logan, which also stars Patrick Stewart, Dafne Keen, and Eriq LaSalle, opens Friday. 

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