After 1998’s Pi and 2000’s Requiem for a Dream, director Darren Aronofsky helmed The Fountain, released in 2006 to commercial and critical disinterest. But that doesn’t mean its director and star, Hugh Jackman, don’t have a certain fondness for it.
In a new Vanity Fair interview, Hugh Jackman and Darren Aronofsky sat down to discuss The Fountain and its place in both of their careers.
As Jackman put it, The Fountain “was a real turning point for me as an actor…I have had, and still have, an immense trust and honesty with Darren about everything, to the point where Darren would often be right next to the camera while we were shooting. It made me realize how much I want and rely on strength, vision, collaborators, people to help guide me that I can trust. And the experience confirmed to me that was the way I should go.”
As for Aronofsky, “Well, for me, it’s a long journey that’s still ongoing. I think there’s a deep love for that film that I haven’t gotten from anything else and that it keeps coming.” Aronofsky noted the elements that have an impact on viewers, too, recalling an encounter with a particularly sick man. “He basically said that The Fountain helped him figure out his life and his death. He got all emotional. And it was interesting for my parents who never really quite got that one. They got really choked up. So the impact of it in that way is so meaningful for me, that it really has touched a lot of people that have gone through loss.”
Jackman also noted the film’s importance to his fans. “When people stop me, it’s the most passionate response of any movie I’ve done. The ones who get it, have to tell me, and they have to tell me fully what it meant to them.” Really? It’s not Movie 43?
As far as future collaborations between the two go, Aronofsky is hopeful. “I would work with Hugh on anything if it aligned…We haven’t been blessed with time on set together, but we keep talking about it. We keep getting really damn close, and it will happen again. I have faith in that.”
Although The Fountain a box office failure and critical miss, it has since developed a small cult following.
What are your thoughts on The Fountain? What would you want to see in a future Jackman/Aronofsky collaboration? Let us know your thoughts on the film in the comments section below!