I once sang ’Summer Nights ’ from ’Grease ’ at a bar in Melbourne with John Travolta, who’s a good friend of mine. He looked cool singing the part of Danny - sitting in an armchair, smoking a cigar - while I got stuck playing Sandy.

Jackman uses a playful anecdote to puncture celebrity glamour and highlight the comic mismatch between image and assignment. Travolta—synonymous with Danny Zuko—gets to inhabit the “cool” role effortlessly, while Jackman, despite his own musical-theatre credentials, is humorously “stuck” as Sandy, a part coded as sweeter and less swaggering. The story also signals Jackman’s ease with performance in informal settings and his willingness to be the butt of the joke, framing friendship and spontaneity as more important than status. Implicitly, it nods to how iconic roles can cling to actors, granting them an aura that others can’t easily replicate.