Phone off? Hugh Jackman stops Broadway show for ringing

Actor Hugh Jackman gestures to fans at a red carpet event for the Japan premiere of ''X-men Origins: Wolverine'' in Tokyo September 3, 2009.

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Theatergoers won't forget to turn their cell phones off again, after Australian actor Hugh Jackman stopped a Broadway show to ask one audience member to stop a phone from ringing.

"You want to get that?" Jackman said in character, after the ringing interrupted a tense moment in a preview performance of "A Steady Rain" last week. The show officially opens on Tuesday with Daniel Craig starring opposite Jackman.

"Grab your phone, it doesn't matter," said Jackman as the ringing continues.

"Come on, just turn it off ... we can wait. Just get the phone," Jackman continues to applause from the audience.

"Don't be embarrassed. Just grab it," he adds.

An amateur video of the incident was posted on video sharing website YouTube on Monday, and it seemed clear that the audience member did not want to reach for the phone at risk of being embarrassed. After several rings, it stopped.

"A Steady Rain," by playwright Keith Huff, is a drama about two Chicago policemen and their differing accounts of a few days that changed their lives with both Jackman and Craig adopting Chicago accents for their characters.

Early reviews of the play, which is scheduled to run until December 6, have praised the two actors, with a BBC review saying the pair had a "natural rapport and shared the spotlight," meeting all audience expectations.

Jackman, 40, best known as the superhero Wolverine in the "X-Men" movies, is returning to Broadway after his hit 2004 Tony-award winning role in the musical "The Boy from Oz."

Jackman and 41-year-old Craig are among a list of high profile film stars appearing on Broadway this year, which includes Geoffrey Rush, Catherine Zeta Jones, Sienna Miller, and Jude Law.

(Writing by Belinda Goldsmith, Editing by Bob Tourtellotte)