Capturing audiences with sweeping melodies and catchy tunes, the P.T. Barnum musical The Greatest Showman has been filling moviegoers’ hearts with song since its release in early December.
The film, which stars Hollywood icon Hugh Jackman as the title role and features Zac Efron and fashion icon Zendaya, centers around the story of a showman trying to make it big in a bleak and gray world. To do this, he gathers up a crew of society’s misfits and outcasts, including broadway’s Keala Settle as a spirited bearded lady, and convinces them that they can prove to the world the beauty of their uniqueness.
The score for this movie musical was composed by the award winning, song-writing duo Justin Paul and Benj Pasek, who recently received a Golden Globe for best original song “This Is Me” one of the many inspirational anthems from The Greatest Showman.
Having already proved his vocal ability as the atoning convict Jean Valjean in the 2012 film adaptation of Les Misérables, Hugh Jackman shines in the role of P.T. Barnum, a man from little means who attempts to make his childhood dreams into a reality and provide a better life for his wife and children. In fact, according to Kristin Smith, a movie critic for Plugged In, “The Greatest Showman paints a portrait of the metaphorical tightrope P.T. Barnum walked, and we’re drawn into his mesmerizing world.”
But one thing viewers of this movie might not know is how Jackman’s star quality glowed even behind the scenes. In an interview for FOX Studios titled “The Story Behind the Making of the Movie,” Jackman reveals how during the filming and recording process, he had to have a skin cancer removed and, with eighty stitches in his nose, he was informed by his doctor that he should not sing for a set amount of time. However, a read-through of the script and songs, an event which had taken eight months to plan, was scheduled for the very next day. Jackman attended but refrained from singing for the entire event with the exception of the final song, a powerful, soul-lifting number titled “From Now On,” to which he couldn’t resist adding his voice. Broadway star Jeremy Jordan, who assisted Jackman with the vocal selections, later tweeted that: “if this movie is half as inspiring as this reading was, we are all in for a treat.”
Zendaya’s performance as an acrobat battling discrimination and fighting to be seen for her art is equally stunning. Her singing voice is powerful, but even more impressive is the fact that she did most of her own aerial stunts by herself. In an interview for The Tonight Show, she said that the movie required a lot of training and upper-body strength building, and included conquering a fear of heights. Zac Efron, who is still today well-known for his starring role in the 2006 iconic, or perhaps infamous, High School Musical, brilliantly captured the struggles of a society elite who joins Barnum’s circus on a whim, hoping it will lead to his lasting happiness. Zendaya and Efron’s duet “Rewrite the Stars” is as visually stunning as it is beautiful to the ears. Efron and Jackman also have a song together titled “The Other Side,” which is a witty, fast-paced number that includes artful glass clinking and rhythmic stomping and is sure to put a smile on the face of even the harshest critic.
Other numbers of interest include “Never Enough,” a haunting, bittersweet song sung by Loren Allred about the endless pursuits of an actress, and “A Million Dreams” sung by Hugh Jackman, Ziv Zaifman (young P.T. Barnum), and Michelle Williams (Charity Barnum), which has a lullaby-like quality and details the power of believing in one’s dreams. The second song, actually, is the number that got Pasek and Paul the songwriting job. According to an article by Playbill, the flow of the song, which transitions “a boy of dreams to a grown man with a childlike imagination” convinced the films director, Michael Gracey, that they were just the right people for the task.
If one is unable to see the movie in theatres, checking out the songs on iTunes, or even on Youtube, might be a great way to gain a new favorite winter playlist.
