As a boy, I’d always had an interest in theater. But the idea at my school was that drama and music were to round out the man. It wasn’t what one did for a living. I got over that.

Jackman contrasts youthful enthusiasm for theatre with a school culture that treated the arts as “finishing” subjects—useful for polish and character, but not a serious vocation. The line “to round out the man” captures a traditional, gendered ideal of education in which drama and music are extracurricular refinements rather than legitimate professional paths. His punchline, “I got over that,” signals a decisive rejection of that hierarchy: he reframes acting not as a hobby but as a calling worth staking a life on. The quote also functions as a compact origin story—how social expectations can suppress artistic ambition, and how success often requires unlearning inherited notions of what counts as ‘real work.’