Hugh Jackman shares marriage and adoption joy on Family Confidential

HE'S been voted one of the world's sexiest film stars, but Hugh Jackman's wife Deborra-Lee Furness has revealed she tried to talk herself out of falling for him.

HE'S been voted one of the world's sexiest film stars, but Hugh Jackman's wife Deborra-Lee Furness has revealed she tried to talk herself out of falling for him.

It was early 1996 and Jackman had scored his first TV role out of acting school, playing a bad boy love interest opposite Furness in ABC prison drama series, Correlli.

Five months later, the couple were married, with Furness describing the instant chemistry between them "like the best dance I ever did."

"He was just thrilling to work with ... we just knew how to move together. It was so wonderful ... falling in love is wonderful."

News_Image_File: Family ... Deborra-Lee Furness, Ava, Hugh and Oscar Jackman appear in ABC1's Family Confidential. Pic supplied/ABC.

Sharing the intimate details of their romance in a new episode of ABC's Family Confidential, Furness said she had broken her golden rule in dating Jackman.

Making a New Year's resolution to herself that year she said: "no dating any actors, definitely not any young ones then it was `hello, meet my husband.' Good thing I didn't listen to myself."

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Just as smitten, Jackman said he has "never known anything so 100 per cent that we were meant to be together. That was it ... when you fall in love, you fall in love."

Both raised by single parents, the happy couple suffered through two miscarriages on their road to starting a family, with adoption always part of their plan.

News_Image_File: Men of steel ... Tony Abbott, Deborra-Lee Furness, Hugh Jackman and Lisa Wilkinson.

Their struggle to cut through red tape in Australia saw them use Furness' US green card to pursue the option more easily in America.

Within nine months of applying, son Oscar was born in a Los Angeles hospital, followed four years later by the addition of daughter Ava.

But it was a Sunday Telegraph article, back in 2007, about the ongoing fight by Australian couples to adopt children from overseas which set this superstar family on a global mission.

Furness "rang the newspaper and the next minute we got the front (page) of the paper and the editor backed me and said `I want to back Deb and her campaign lobby group."

With no lobby group formalised at that time, Furness said she scrambled to set up her own organisation and set out to change Australian adoption laws.

News_Image_File: Hugh Jackman and Deborra-Lee Furness arriving at Kirribilli House.

Six years on, Furness and Jackman were the VIP guests at Kirribilli House, where Prime Minister Tony Abbott committed his government to making adoption easier.

Of his wife's achievements, Jackman said: "I'm not surprised she's having the impact she's having and if you know her mum (Fay Duncan) at all, you'll know it's sort of in the genes.

"This is a formidable family," Jackman said, "who somehow change the world and make everyone happy about it."

Juggling her campaigning with his booming career, Jackman said "we dedicate our marriage to that idea of service. We both love what we do workwise and that helps."

The Jackmans feature on the February 4 episode of Family Confidential at 8pm on ABC1.

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