Azaan Movie.

Aazaan movie is about the character Aazaan Khan - a young upright army officer working for RAW (India’s Research and Analysis Wing) with a mixed lineage of Afghan and Indian parents, as part of his duties, gets drawn in to the murky world of espionage only to find his younger brother a suspected terrorist. 

Azaan Movie Releasing on Date : October 14, 2011

Torn between his love for his country and his brother, Aazaan embarks on his mission of unraveling a conspiracy of science and technology, which turns uglier when he realizes that it stands to threaten the 1.2 billion population of one of the largest developing nations...

 

Last year, she caught every young and old man’s fancy, and became the reason for every woman’s envy after featuring on a hot Playboy magazine cover. Now, model Candice Boucher is looking forward to the release of her Bollywood debut Azaan where she warns that no one should go expecting skin show from the South African hottie. “Those who enter the cinema hall expecting any kind of lingerie on show will return disappointed because there is no skin show in Azaan,” she laughs. “Of course, the script had room for one or two suggestive sequences but nothing more to offer, sorry!”

The 27-year-old is glad that the film’s producers and director have presented her in a completely different, unheard of avatar. “We’ve moved away from the kind of image people have of me. Thank god for this diametrically different role,” adds the first-timer who plays a Moroccan sand artist Afreen, a love interest of sorts for the film’s hero. Mastering sand art, she states, wasn’t easy: “We had a Russian girl to teach me the basic aspects like throwing sand like a pro and playing with it. Otherwise, my on-screen personality is pretty much like who I really am.”

Reports had suggested that Candice was afraid to bare it all because of India’s modern-yet-conservative mindset. “That’s true. I was apprehensive because this is India. It’s got a mixed culture. But it’s not the west where lingerie and swimsuit shoots don’t raise eyebrows,” she explains, adding that she pre-empted that the Indian audience would not appreciate skin show. “I really respect and admire Indians for it. With Azaan, I hope to strike more of an emotional connect than a ‘physical’ connect or a skin show connect.”

Fact file
Candice Boucher is a South African model, who grabbed headlines last year with a picture on the cover of the April 2010 issue of the infamous Playboy magazine. She has also been featured in like Sports Illustrated, GQ, FHM, Cosmopolitan and Elle.

Mod movie news.

Mod movie is inspired by a Taiwanese film titled Keeping Watch. It is a heartfelt, emotional love story between two completely mismatched people.

The movie is about a 25 year old girl named Aranya, who lives in a hill station called Ganga. She lives with her father, Ashok Mahadeo and her aunt, Gayatri Garg. Aranya's father is the head of the local Kishore Kumar Fan club while her aunt runs a restaurant.Aranya and her father still wait for her mother who left them to pursue her dreams in the city.

There is a shopkeeper, Gangaram, who has feelings for Aranya. In order to support herself and her father, Aranya runs a watch repair store where she ends up meeting a stranger named Andy. He comes back everyday to get his water logged watch repaired and leaves a 100 rupees note in the form of an origami swan.

Later,Andy claims to be her classmate in 10th.Eventually, they fall in love.The story takes a dramatic turn when Aranya discovers the truth about Andy.

  

'Mod' will now release Oct 14

Director Nagesh Kukunoor's 'Mod', which was set for a Sep 30 release, will now come out Oct 14.

The film, starring  Ayesha Takia  and Rannvijay Singh of "Roadies" fame, is an emotional love story between two completely mismatched people.

"Ok guys it's official, Mod releases Oct 14th! -- thanks for ur support!!" Rannvijay posted on micro-blogging site Twitter.

Raghuvir Yadav, Tanvi Azmi and Anant Mahadevan will also be seen in the film.

Two days into the new year of 2009 an Afghan man paid the ultimate price for straying too close to the main military training centre on the outskirts of Kabul.

He was out collecting "rocks and grass" when he was shot in the head with a single bullet, according to the Ministry of Defence. He was taken to hospital but died that day.

The MoD concedes that the fatal shot could have been fired by British forces who were training there. Five months later another Afghan man died in similarly tragic circumstances – he was shot in the neck while praying in a field. Local witnesses said the shots were fired by soldiers from the Welsh Guards or the Mercian regiment.

Welcome to friends view new Hindi movie MOD. The best movie of 2011 Mod release on 07 /10/ 2011. You can gets details information about Mod Hindi movie. Actor and actress of mod movie are Ayesha Takia as (Aranya),  Rannvijay Singh as (Andy), Raghuvir Yadav as (Ashok Mahadeo) and others. You can download Hindi movie MOD by internet.

Preview : Mod movie is inspired by a Taiwanese film titled Keeping Watch. It is a heartfelt, emotional love story between two completely mismatched people.

The movie is about a 25 year old girl named Aranya, who lives in a hill station called Ganga. She lives with her father, Ashok Mahadeo and her aunt, Gayatri Garg. Aranya’s father is the head of the local Kishore Kumar Fan club while her aunt runs a restaurant.Aranya and her father still wait for her mother who left them to pursue her dreams in the city. [source : popcorn.oneindia]

MOD Cast & Crew :
Director :   Nagesh Kukunoor
Producer :   Nagesh Kukunoor,  Sujit Kumar Singh,  Elahe Hiptoola
Music Director :   Tapas Relia

Hell and Back Again.

 Hell and Back Again is releasing on October 5, 2011

As the Afghan war neared a decade’s worth of combat, casualties and headlines, the photographer and filmmaker Danfung Dennis was looking to jolt people’s consciousness.

“I was frustrated with photojournalism, and I was frustrated with society back in the U.S. being indifferent to the war,” said Mr. Dennis, who had covered Afghanistan as a still photographer in 2006. “I moved into video and new media to try to shake people up — to show the war’s brutal reality in an honest way.”

Did he ever. “Hell and Back Again,” his new award-winning documentary film about the war, is a tour de force that breaks new ground in the documentary tradition, combining chilling reportage with sometimes dreamy or drugged-up sequences. The film — with clinical precision — peels away the daily headlines to expose the reality of the Afghan war and the devastating burden carried by American service members back home.

In July 2009, Mr. Dennis spent four weeks in Helmand Province with Company E, Second Battalsion, Eighth Marines, as they fought village to village as part of the largest air assault since the Vietnam War. The film opens with a Hollywood-style scene: an inspirational speech by a Marine commander and stunning shots of helicopters flying into battle. Then the real war begins: a terrifying, chaotic battle sequence that ends in the death of a Marine, Lance Corporal Sharp. (Mr. Dennis asked Lance Corporal Sharp’s family for permission to use the images, and they granted it without viewing the footage).

More astonishing battle sequences follow, capturing the horror and futility of the Afghan conflict in a way that mainstream filmmakers never will. The Marines fight day after day against an unseen enemy, seemingly making little headway. They deliver good-will speeches to local leaders who stare blankly, then ask, “If you really want to help us, why don’t you leave?” An Afghan boy flees from his village in the midst of a firefight the American presence has provoked, looking back toward the camera and calmly blowing a bubble as bullets hiss past.

Virtually ensuring that “Hell and Back Again” will never see widespread release, Mr. Dennis graphically depicts an Afghan soldier — cut in half by a mine — being lifted into a body bag as his corpse disintegrates in front of the camera. It is an image myself and other combat cameramen have seen repeatedly, yet never been able to convey to the American public.

Mr. Dennis says it was a difficult decision to include it in “Hell and Back Again.” “We felt in the end it was important not to sugarcoat the war,” he said. “We did not want to match the romantic, false representation of war that is out there.”

Yet these scenes are but a prelude for the greater, more lingering conflict he chronicles. At the heart of the film is the struggle of Sgt. Nathan Harris, a member of Company E, once he returns to the home front. After a bullet tears through his leg near the end of this, his third tour in Afghanistan, the 26-year-old sergeant returns to North Carolina and is ensnared in a nightmare of nauseating pain, addictive opiates and ever-present handguns.

The filmmaker was back in the United States when Sergeant Harris was wounded and did not learn of his injuries until he greeted the Marines as they returned home.

“He invited me to his home and introduced me to his friends and family,” said Mr. Dennis, explaining how the film became focused on Sergeant Harris. “I lived with him, and the story became about one Marine and his life.”

In a surreal tracking shot that sets the tone for much to come, Mr. Dennis follows Sergeant Harris into a local shopping mall. American families shop obliviously in the aisles of an garishly lit megastore as Mr. Harris, framed by enormous TV screens, longingly studies a video game portraying war.

“I’m stressed out,” says Sergeant Harris, echoing a sentiment the filmmaker, suffering from combat stress, says he shared. “This makes me want to lose my mind. I would rather be in Afghanistan where things are simple. It’s more difficult coming home and dealing with all this …”

In scene after scene, zonked on a Ziploc full of medications, in searing pain and heavily armed, Sergeant Harris lurches from one medical appointment to another, brandishing guns, showing his scars to passers-by and conducting himself with equal measures of stoicism and boorishness.

“He was sometimes a tough character to like,” Mr. Dennis admits. “He was trained by his father from early age to be Marine — to shoot, to run long distances; he was groomed to be a warrior.”

Sergeant Harris’s young wife, Ashley, tenderly dresses her husband and shepherds him through his days. Yet in one jarring scene, an enraged Sergeant Harris threatens her with a gun. In another unexplained image — one flashed onscreen for just a moment — he is shown with his weapon in his mouth. These scenes raise questions about the filmmaker’s obligation to intervene. Yet Mr. Dennis, who had been led into battle by Sergeant Harris, seems secure in his refusal to do so.

“The scene where he put the gun in his mouth — that was one moment,” said Mr. Dennis. “For me, it was one image, there was no scene to build, no sequence.” The sergeant, he said, “did nothing I felt was putting himself or others at risk. I trusted him.”

In an interview from his home at Camp Lejeune, N.C., where he was preparing to come to New York City for the film’s premiere, Sergeant Harris praised the film but took exception with several scenes.

“There are a couple things that are out of context because you don’t see the beginning or the end — just a short glimpse into the situation,” he said. ”The gun scene is one of those.”

If there is another filmmaker alive who is has the combination of combat experience, bravery and technical chops to equal Mr. Dennis, I’m not aware of him or her. “Hell and Back Again” stacks one astonishing shot atop the next: perfectly composed tracking sequences in the heat of battle; saturated moody low-light compositions in rainy North Carolina parking lots; gorgeous rich soundscapes.

The emotional intensity of Sergeant Harris’s story is underscored by the film’s relentless cutting back and forth between scenes of the Marine fighting in Afghanistan and his struggles Stateside. That mirroring is masterfully achieved by Mr. Dennis’s editor Fiona Otway, who also edited James Longley’s wonderful “Iraq in Fragments.” Her eye and pacing are crucial to “Hell and Back Again” as well.

Mr. Dennis apparently came to the conclusion that it was not enough to simply create perfect compositions as he sprinted through fields with people firing machine guns at him—he decided to shoot the entire film at f2.8 as well, using a Canon 5D Mark II. At maximum aperture, Mr. Dennis’s depth of field on his 24-70 zoom lens was reduced to inches. Yet Mr. Dennis pulls off one virtuoso shot after another — images that will make Hollywood cinematographers swoon.

The result sometimes bears a startling resemblance to the work of Terrence Malick: dense, atmospheric, at times dreamy and technically impeccable. Its visual impact earned it the cinematography prize, as well as the Grand Jury Prize, at this year’s Sundance Film Festival.

Yet this virtuosity almost refutes the hard grit of documentaries like “Harlan County, U.S.A.,” and something feels lost. Every shadow is revealed, and “Hell and Back” takes on a cold, clinical tone. The protagonist’s pain, as well as a surreal sense of dislocation, is well established. What is not is a strong emotional connection to the Sergeant Harris.

It is hard to see the film and not make comparisons to Restrepo, the other masterpiece of the Afghan war. Restrepo, too, shows the war’s devastating effect on soldiers’ lives, yet it is suffused with warmth and love.

Mr. Dennis spent a year with Sgt. Harris and his wife, and certainly he could have chosen to tell many stories with his footage.  The one he settled upon in “Hell and Back Again” gives the viewer nothing back; one leaves empty, frustrated at the wait for redemption that never comes.  This hard, cold film feels much like the distant war that has gone on for 10 years with little payoff.

 

Teecha Baap Tyacha Baap movie.

 

DAR Motion Pictures (DAR), the filmed entertainment division of DAR Media Private Limited (a DAR Capital Group Company), today announced that their much talked about and awaited Marathi film TEECHA BAAP TYACHA BAAP, is scheduled for a 9th September 2011 release. DAR's earlier releases including LALBAUG PAREL and HAUNTED 3D have not just been amongst the largest grossing movies in their respective categories, i.e. Marathi and Horror films, but have also received a lot of critical acclaim.
Releasing on October 6, 2011
Commenting on the occasion, Mr. Om Raut, Associate Producer, DAR Motion Pictures, said 'Our first Marathi film LALBAUG PAREL was widely appreciated both by critics and audiences alike and set new benchmarks in the regional movie space. TEECHA BAAP TYACHA BAAP in which we have invested a lot of time and effort in putting together will surely surpass if not at par with these benchmarks. We at DAR are extremely happy with the way the movie has shaped up. We have no doubt that this movie will stand out as a trendsetting family entertainer.'

Co-Produced by DAR Motion Pictures and SoBo Films TEECHA BAAP TYACHA BAAP is being directed by Atul Kale. The film not just boasts of a unique casting combination of industry stalwarts like Sachin Pilgaonkar, Makarand Anaspure and Arun Nalawade coming together to share screen space for the first time, but also features the introduction of a new romantic lead pair in Marathi cinema through Abhishek Sethiya and Mrinmayee Godbole. The other key casts of the film include Mrunal Deshpande, Uma Sardeshmukh, Anand Ingle, Jaywant Wadkar, Abhijit Kelkar and Shruti Marathe.

Atul Kale who has films such as DE DHAKKA and MATICHYA CHULI to his credit and is the director of TEECHA BAAP TYACHA BAAP, said: 'TEECHA BAAP TYACHA BAAP is, amongst many other things, one of the most enjoyable and fulfilling movies that I have worked on, made possible by an extremely cooperative and fun loving team who are now family to me. I have always wanted to make a movie which is a good, clean family entertainer and I am confident that TEECHA BAAP TYACHA BAAP will be loved by everyone.

'I thank DAR Motion Pictures and its Chairman Arun Rangachari for giving me this opportunity to shape this film. I am also extremely honoured to have worked with greats like Sachin Sir, Arun Nalawade and Makarand Anaspure,' Atul added.

Commenting on the choice of the release date Mr. Vivek Rangachari, Associate Producer, DAR Motion Pictures, said: 'LALBAUG PAREL our first Marathi production that went on to be a super hit released on 9th April 2010 and so we felt that even TEECHA BAAP TYACHA BAAP, which most definitely will be amongst the biggest films this year, should also release on the 9th. Furthermore, as the post production of the film will only be over sometime around mid-August 9th September emerged as the most logical release date. This would also give us ample time to optimally promote the movie across the state.'

TEECHA BAAP TYACHA BAAP is essentially a story about two families coming together overcoming several obstacles, differences, challenges all along the way. Other credits include Producer Arun Rangachari; Co-Producer Vikas Gulati and Smruti Shinde; Associate Producers Nikhil D'Rozario, Vivek Rangachari and Om Raut; Director of Photography Shailesh Avasthhi; Writer Guru Thakur; Music Director Ajit Parab and Sameer Mahatre; Editor Sarvesh Parab.

Vivek Oberoi has done a cameo in their forthcoming Marathi film titled Teecha Baap Tyacha Baap. Vivek features, for the first time in a Marathi films, in one of the film's principal songs 'Golmaal Hai' along with other leading Marathi stars including Bharat Jadhav, Kranti Redkar, Santosh Jhuvekar, Guru Thakur, Purva Pawar, Bhushan Kadu, Bhargavi Chirmule. Composed by the music director duo of Ajit-Sameer this song has been sung by acclaimed and popular vocalist Avdhoot Gupte.

J. Edgar movie.

As the face of law enforcement in America for almost 50 years, J. Edgar Hoover was feared and admired, reviled and revered. But behind closed doors, he held secrets that would have destroyed his image, his career and his life.

releasing on October 1, 2011

J. Edgar is an upcoming biographical drama film directed by Clint Eastwood, from a script by Dustin Lance Black. The film focuses on the career of FBI director J. Edgar Hoover from the Palmer Raids onwards, including an examination of his private life as an alleged closeted homosexual. The film stars Leonardo DiCaprio, Armie Hammer, Naomi Watts, Damon Herriman and Jeffrey

Warner Bros. has finally unveiled photos of Leonardo DiCaprio as their titular "J. Edgar" Hoover.

The first images of the upcoming drama have hit the Internet and showcase both DiCaprio as the first director of the FBI and Naomi Watts as Helen Gandy, Hoover's longtime secretary. Dicaprio's Hoover looks a bit stressed in these pictures. The Dustin Lance Black-written script tells the story of Hoover's public and private lives.

Clint Eastwood is continuing his trend of directing historical biopics with "J. Edgar." First with the two-parter "Flags of Our Fathers" and "Letters From Iwo Jima," and later with "Invictus," Eastwood has tried to capture the feel of specific times in history through the eyes of specific well-known historical figures. "J. Edgar" will delve into the controversial life of the FBI's first director, including his 48 years at the head of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, his alleged closeted homosexuality, and the accusations that he misused his power for political purposes. 

"J. Edgar" has a star-studded cast in addition to DiCaprio and Watts. Armie Hammer stars as Clyde Tolson, Hoover's protégé and alleged lover. Judi Dench plays Hoover's mother, Anne Marie Hoover.

Ed Westwick is playing Agent Smith, an FBI agent tasked with ghost-writing Hoover's autobiography. Josh Lucas is famous aviator Charles Lindbergh, whose son's infamous kidnapping played a pivotal role in the development of the FBI. Jeffrey Donovan plays Robert F. Kennedy, and Ken Howard is U.S. Attorney General Harlan F. Stone.

"Working with Clint Eastwood, that guy's an icon," Hammer said about the role when MTV News caught up with him at the 2011 Oscars. "Honestly, he is like the nicest, quietest, sweetest man, but he'll get excited about things, and then he'll call 'Cut!' like Dirty Harry." 

The first trailer has debuted for director Clint Eastwood's (Unforgiven, Million Dollar Baby) new biopic J. Edgar, which chronicles the notorious life of J. Edgar Hoover, the first director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation for the United States.

Played by Leonardo DiCaprio, the trailer shows one of Hoover's early accomplishments — expanding the FBI's database of fingerprints — and continues to his more controversial methods of collecting information on political leaders through illegal means (at least, at the time) and the allegations that he was, allegedly, gay.

The sweeping, epic nature of the trailer seems to insinuate that the Academy Award–winning Eastwood could start another Oscar campaign once J. Edgar opens in November, with DiCaprio's performance seeming to be right in line for similar accolades.

'Sahib Biwi aur Gangster'

Mahi Gill and Randeep will be seen together in Sahib Biwi Aur Gangster movie. and they are in the talk from when they were shooting for the movie. There are few scenes between Mahi Gill and Randeep which are really hot.

Recently released song of this movie Jugni, you will also see few hot and sexy scenes in song. Film is going to be great as you can see the trailer. Along with these two Jimmy Shergil will also be playing the lead role in movie. Have a look at the video song Jugni from movie Sahib Biwi Aur Gangster.

Based in a small town in the Northern part of India, Sahib Biwi aur Gangster is a story packed with intrigue betrayal and ambition between a beautiful Begum, her Nawab husband and an ambitious young boy. The Nawab and his Begum, live in their ancestral royal house trying to maintain the status and structure their ancestors had left behind. But due to the changing time, some extreme financial conditions and the long gone habit of a royal having a mistress, the Nawab tries real hard to maintain .

Based in a small town in the Northern part of India, Sahib Biwi aur Gangster is a story packed with intrigue betrayal and ambition between a beautiful Begum, her Nawab husband and an ambitious young boy. The Nawab and his Begum, live in their ancestral royal house trying to maintain the status and structure their ancestors had left behind. But due to the changing time, some extreme financial conditions and the long gone habit of a royal having a mistress, the Nawab tries real hard to maintain his status and financial conditions.

Rated No Rating .

Cast: Jimmy Shergill, Vipin Sharma, Randeep Hooda, Mahie Gill, Deepal Shah

Produced by: Rahul Mittra

Directed by: Thigmanshu Dhulia

Written by:

Running time: 2hr 0min

Opens: Sep 30, 2011 

   Mahi Gill  is the talk of the town for having done a steamy lovemaking scene with co-star Randeep Hooda in this Friday’s release Saheb Biwi Aur Gangster. 

   While promoting the film in Chandigarh on Sunday, the actress opened up about the lovemaking scene and how she shed her inhibition before shooting it.
  “Bold scenes that I am doing in the movie are an indispensable and inseparable part of it. But I think those scenes are only hot, and not vulgar,” Mahi Gill, who originally hails from Punjab, told reporters at a press meet.
   Apparently, the scenes in the movie required Mahi to also shed her clothes.
“I shed my clothes as the movie demanded so and not to hit the headlines,” she said in a matter of fact way.
  But was she comfortable doing the hot scene?
“I was not able to do it. But Vodka is just awesome. One peg of Vodka worked for me and finally I did it. Thrilled by the Vodka-effect, I loaded myself with another 3-4 pegs.” Mahi revealed on a lighter note.
  Saheb Biwi Aur Gangster is directed by Tigmanshu Dhulia and also stars Jimmy Shergill. Jimmy plays Mahi’s husband in the film and Randeep plays her gangster lover.

 

'Real Steel'.

Summer may be over, but the fall season still holds plenty of hot movies worth looking forward to. We're celebrating the coming months of fantastic films all week long with MTV News' Fall Movie Preview, starting with a sports drama mixed with a sci-fi twist: "Real Steel," the robot boxing movie starring "Wolverine" leading man Hugh Jackman and "Lost" babe Evangeline Lilly, which opens on October 7. 

ComingSoon.net has your exclusive first look at four bus shelter posters for director Shawn Levy's Real Steel, opening in theaters and IMAX on October 7 and starring Hugh Jackman, Evangeline Lilly, Dakota Goyo, Anthony Mackie and Kevin Durand.

A gritty, white-knuckle, action ride set in the near-future, where the sport of boxing has gone hi-tech, Real Steel stars Jackman as Charlie Kenton, a washed-up fighter who lost his chance at a title when 2000-pound, 8-foot-tall steel robots took over the ring. Now nothing but a small-time promoter, Charlie earns just enough money piecing together low-end bots from scrap metal to get from one underground boxing venue to the next. When Charlie hits rock bottom, he reluctantly teams up with his estranged son Max (Goyo) to build and train a championship contender. As the stakes in the brutal, no-holds-barred arena are raised, Charlie and Max, against all odds, get one last shot at a comeback.

Not only was his Wolverine role pivotal to the success of the film based on comic-book characters, it was his major-motion-picture debut.

Despite the intense pressure, the jet-lagged Aussie was gracious, forthcoming and generous with his time during an on-set interview in his trailer.

Twenty movies later, Jackman was recently reminded of the encounter at a downtown Toronto hotel, while promoting his latest movie, Real Steel, which opens Oct. 7.

As the 42-year-old sits in his hotel suite chair, he can't resist having a little fun with his nice-guy reputation, then and now.

"OK, let's get this over with," said Jackman, pretending to be terse. "You've got two minutes."

Actually, he's always had time for fans and reporters, especially when he's enthusiastic about a project such as Real Steel.

Loosely based on a Richard Matheson story and a 1960s Twilight Zone TV episode, the Shawn Levy-directed film is a more optimistic, near-future yarn about eight-foot robots who replace human boxers in the ring.

Jackman plays Charlie, an ex-pugilist turned small-time promoter, who can't catch a break, nor manage a decent robot boxer.

Charlie's life gets more complicated when he decides to hook up with his estranged son Max (Dakota Goyo) for the summer. Adding to his dilemma is a former girlfriend (Evangeline Lilly), who starts questioning Charlie's decisions, while a nasty carnival operator (Kevin Durand) looks for revenge and a debt owed. That's even as Charlie and Max discover a 'bot that might win them the championship.

While the movie relies on modern special effects to enhance the robot battles, Jackman thinks the story's impact comes from the classic father-son theme.

"Right from the beginning, Shawn (Levy) and I were like, 'We know it's going to look amazing, and the stuff is difficult to do, and it's tempting to go bigger and bolder,'" Jackman said. "But the essence has to be that relationship."

Jackman credits his young, Toronto-based counterpart, Goyo, who plays the precocious kid. "We really worked well together," said Jackman. "He is a natural, and you never catch him acting."

Praise must go to Jackman, too. He whipped himself into shape - as he usually does - to come across as a convincing former boxer. And he throws some decent jabs, hooks and upper cuts in a few sequences, as well. Mind you, he had world-champ boxer Sugar Ray Leonard training him, which provided Jackman with a different kind of motivation.

After one particular workout, "Sugar Ray said to me, 'You know my name is on this movie.' I said, 'I know. Thanks, mate.' He goes, 'No, I mean, don't make me look bad.'"

Playing Charlie like a not-so-aware boxer is all Jackman nuance, however.

"From the beginning, I automatically felt for Charlie," the actor said. "I know a few Charlie types, and the reason I feel for them is that I can look back on my life, where there have been moments where things might have gone the other way."

Wait a minute: He's multi-talented Hugh Jackman. And Wolverine is his franchise.

"Look at hosting the Oscars," he said, referring to his 2009 MC duties. "I felt that it went well for me (he won an Emmy), but if I had bombed, which was possible, I would have lost confidence real quickly."

It sounds like fans have more belief in him than he does. "Everything is like stepping stones," he said. "And I've seen people I admire falter. We're all vulnerable."

Yet he had no doubts when he accepted the demanding headliner part in the newest film remake of Les Miserables.

"Yeah, I am playing Jean Valjean opposite Russell Crowe (Inspector Javert), and Tom Hooper is directing it," he said in a matter-of-fact tone. "We're shooting in London in the first half of next year."

That caused the delay of his second Wolverine flick, The Wolverine, which was to start up in the fall and will now begin filming next June.

"Yeah, we swapped 'em," he said of both studio pictures, as if it were no big deal.

So Jackman must have been joking about his professional anxieties and his fear of failure - or not.

"July 26, 1996," he said of a job he'll never forget. "I had a panic attack the night before."

He had booked a gig to sing the Australian national anthem in front of 100,000 competitive Australian and New Zealand rugby fans at the Melbourne Cricket Ground. And he still remembers the day clearly.

"I got introduced as star of stage and screen, and I'd been in one TV show and one musical at the time," he recalled. "I got resoundingly booed by 30,000 New Zealanders before I started.

"I had seen people booed off when they sang (the anthem) badly, and never work again."

As we know, Jackman was not one of them. And, for the record, he finished his duties without incident, but the memory serves him well as a 'what if?' moment.

"I still feel like whatever you throw at me is not going to be as bad as that."

I understand sometimes putting faith in certain franchises that will likely succeed, even before they're out. It's a safe bet properties like GREEN LANTERN or CAPTAIN AMERICA will probably warrant sequels, but REAL STEEL? Really?

But that's just what's happening. Writer of the original, John Gatins has been commissioned by Dreamworks to start work on a sequel. I presume that means they're very impressed with what they've seen so far, and have faith it can capitalize on the "robots crashing into each other" trend made hugely profitable by the TRANSFORMERS series.