The Greatest Showman: Does Hugh Jackman actually sing and dance in the film?

The period musical drama shows triple-threat performers – Hugh Jackman and Michelle Williams – act, sing and dance in The Greatest Showman which tells the story of P.T. Barnum. 

Australian actor Hugh Jackman portrays circus founder P.T. Barnum in the film – an American who founded the Barnum and Bailey Circus in 1871 and managed to pull himself out of poverty to become a self-made millionaire.

Jackman has already demonstrated his singing in Les Miserables where he played Jean Valjean and performed the numbers live on set.

In The Greatest Showman, the actor not only shows off his singing skills again but he went through 10 weeks of rehearsals for the dancing numbers in the film.

He told Variety he learnt the routines alongside co-stars Michelle Williams, Zac Efron and the rest of the actors.

The film is the directorial debut of Michael Gracey who built a recording studio on set to capture the actors at their best.

“Vocally, sometimes you have those ‘I can do anything’ days, and the next day you’re at 80% so on those days when you’re feeling great, we would just pop over to the studio and record,” Jackman told Variety.

“There’s a couple of bits where I sing notes that I’ve never sung. I couldn’t have done that live.”

The actor rehearsed every single day for 10 hours a day for the role which sees him dancing across rooftops, juggling bottles and doing backflips and jazz hands across the circus stage.

Jackman said: “Our brilliant choreographer would not accept any complaining from me. I have done a lot of dancing, but this was the most challenging.”  

Michelle Williams also shows her versatility in the film by not shying away from the dancing and singing numbers in the movie.

In 2014, she played Sally Bowles in Cabaret and showed audiences what her vocal chords were made of.

The Greatest Showman sees Williams perform A Million Dreams with Ziv Zaifman and Hugh Jackman along with a performance of Tightrope. 

She said of singing in an interview with the New Zealand Herald: “I have just found that it makes me happy.

“I find that singing and dancing is a direct path to joy. And I just wanted more of it, that’s why I wanted to make the film.

“Singing is a natural for me. I don’t know if I’m the greatest in the world at it, but I just love it.”  

The Greatest Showman is in cinemas now.