Hugh Jackman was Barbra Streisand’s first choice for new duets album

Hugh Jackman still can’t believe he was Barbra Streisand’s top choice when she started recording a new duets album.
The diva has teamed up with a host of movie stars for her new release, Encore: Movie Partners Sing Broadway, and she recently confessed she wanted the Les Miserables star to join her in the studio for a rendition of the ballad Any Moment Now.
Jackman admits he was stunned to get an email direct from the singer.
“I was like, ‘I don’t know how on earth this has happened’,” the Wolverine star says.
Streisand explains she chose Hugh for the song because she thought he could help her act her way through the Marvin Hamlisch-penned track from the play Smile.
“Being an actress, I like to sing songs that give me something to act,” Streisand explains. “I heard the song and I thought, ‘This is a way for me to use actors who act and sing with Broadway material’.”
Babs also recruited Alec Baldwin, Antonio Banderas, Jamie Foxx, Melissa McCarthy, Chris Pine, and Anne Hathaway, among others, for the project.