Writer/director Darren Aronofsky's The Fountain is nearly impossible to describe in the form of a short blurb. In its most basic form, Aronofsky's trippy tale is a love story starring Hugh Jackman as a research scientist trying to find a cure for cancer before his beloved wife Izzi (Rachel Weisz) passes away from the disease. But that's just the very short-and-sweet synopsis of The Fountain, and doesn't really do the movie justice.

Even Jackman's hard pressed to describe the movie, and he spent a year working on it with Aronofsky prior to the actual start of filming.

Signing on to The Fountain: ?I met [Aronofsky] January ?04 when he came backstage at The Boy from Oz that I was doing in New York. I knew about The Fountain and in fact my partner John Palermo said, ?You should ask him about it. This is where it?s at. He?s looking to get it up and he?s looking for actors.?

First of all, I was a little surprised that he was coming to see a musical, but he?s a huge musical theater fan. He sees everything. You wouldn?t think so, but he does. He came back and I said, ?I heard about The Fountain and I?d really love to read it.? And he went, ?Mmm, no.? No, he said, ?I don't think so.? I went, ?Oh, I think I?ve overstepped a mark here. I probably shouldn?t ask him.? He rang me the next day and said, ?Were you serious about that or were you just saying that like actors say to directors?? I said, ?I was serious.? He said, ?Okay, well, I?ll let you read it.?

I read it that night and I rang him the next morning and said, ?Look, I don?t want to be presumptuous. You gonna cast me?? I was so moved by it. I thought it was so beautiful. I said, ?I?m in. If you can wait ?til September when my contract finishes, and you want me to do it, I?m in.? And that was that. Well, it wasn?t that easy. He then came and talked to me, showed me everything and then did sort of a little speech to me, which any actor would end up saying yes. But I?m glad that I really listened to him because he said, ?I?m going to ask more of you, Hugh, than you?ve ever been asked to do before on film. I?m going to take you places you maybe even thought you would never go on film. Are you ready to do that?? I said, ?Yeah.? Actually for me, I was thrilled, but he absolutely worked me.?

Practicing Yoga and Tai Chi Underwater: Jackman isn?t exaggerating when he says Aronofsky demanded a lot from him as an actor. But he also placed physical demands on Jackman, including working underwater. ?Oh yeah, those three days underwater? At the end of it, I dunked him though. We were all wrapped and it was great. He knew, I saw him going back from the edge of the pool because he could tell something was going on. Then I got out of the pool and I pretended I had a bad knee. I said, ?I?ve done my knee doing the lotus position.? I?m looking over at him and he wasn?t coming forward. He said to the nurse, ?Go and check out Hugh,? because he knew something was going on. So I said, ?Oh, God, I?m going to have to really go on with this.? Literally about 10 or 15 minutes, finally I laid down and I said, ?Get the stretcher, get the stretcher.? So they had to get the stretcher to lift me. At that point, he came and goes, ?Shit!? As soon as he came over, I picked him up and I ran to the pool. He was really pissed off because he knew I was going to do it.?

Hugh Jackman Explains His Approach to the Three Versions of His Character: ?There?s an essential similarity, in a way, that drives them. But physically, we wanted to make them very different, not only looking? Obviously they look very different, but I created a different physicality for all three.

For Tommy, I made him like a question mark. We had this image of him as a question mark. Darren and I spent hours in rooms, like in rehearsal rooms going through [it]. I?d walk around and around in a room, just trying different things until we kind of felt it was right. But Tommy?s very weighed down by the world and what he?s doing. Look at the film. He?s always hunched over, head sort of down like a question mark. His lab is underground. Everything is under, under, under. He?s always going down steps, if you look at the design. It?s brilliantly done.

Then back in the past, Tomas is a conquistador. He?s a warrior. So whilst he?s strong, physically, and he?s ready to fight, his head is sort of down. He?s very sort of like a racehorse, nothing will stop him. He?s got [blinders] on. Then Tom in the future is worked out. He hasn?t fully come to terms with who he is. He?s still got some problems. He knows how to be physically at his ultimate, so he does tai chi, he does yoga. He meditates. All these things are about maintaining the physical form. He was just more at ease.

I was literally doing yoga, first of all every morning for an hour and a half, two hours. But in between every shot, just to really do that. I remember this from drama school, one of the teachers said people hold their emotions in their body. If you don?t express them, they get locked in your body. Men have very tight hips. A yoga teacher told me this. They have very tight hips, which is the lotus position. That?s why it?s so bloody hard for me to do it. They have tight hips because that is where emotion is stored. So women are a lot, generally, more emotional, and they?re a lot looser in their hips here. There are certain positions like the pigeon, things like that, that were excruciating but I had to do them. And particularly on those emotional days, I would sit in that position for half an hour at a time."

Page 2:Hugh Jackman on The Fountain, Shaving His Head, and the Upcoming Baz Luhrmann Movie