THE PINK-WALLED EXCELSIOR Hotel, on Venice’s Lido, is more than used to famous film stars mingling on its terraces. Since the Italian city’s celebrated film festival began, it’s played host to everyone from Greta Garbo to Clark Gable. Today it’s the turn of Hugh Jackman. The genial Australian star is, depending on your tastes, famed for the razor-clawed superhero Wolverine in the X-Men films or barnstorming, Broadway-sized performances in musical movies like 2017’s The Greatest Showman.
We’re seated in the downstairs restaurant, overlooking the sun-dappled waters of the Adriatic Sea. Jackman, 54, sporting a navy suit and white shirt, is trim and toned. We’ve met sporadically over the years, right back to 1999 when he starred in a little-seen film, —playing a truck driver who writes romance novels. He’d just come off a breakout turn as Curly in an Olivier-winning revival of “Hollywood to me is not a
