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Neil Diamond had something sweet up his sleeve for Hugh Jackman!
In celebration of Jackman’s new film Song Sung Blue, in which he stars as one half of a Neil Diamond tribute band, the “Sweet Caroline” singer surprised the actor with a signed guitar.
Jackman, 57, shared a video of himself opening the gift to Instagram. In the clip, the shocked star opens up the instrument and hugs it close to his chest, looking to the camera in disbelief.
“Oh my. That’s from Neil Diamond?” he asks. “Thank you, Neil.”
In his Instagram caption, Jackman called the guitar “one of the most awesome gifts I’ve ever received,” and said he will “cherish [it] forever.”
He also included a photo of Diamond, 84, holding the guitar, which was signed, “Hugh, Keep rockin’! Your friend, Neil Diamond.”
Jackman is currently starring in Song Sung Blue as Mike Sardina, who along with his wife Claire performed as Lightning and Thunder, a Diamond tribute band that made waves in the mid-1990s.
Though the film — based on a 2008 documentary of the same name — is not about Diamond himself, his music plays a central role.
Song Sung Blue writer and director Craig Brewer told Entertainment Weekly that Diamond caught a screening of the film, and seemed to thoroughly enjoy it.
“I was told from his people that they were surprised to see just how enthusiastic he started to get with it, that he was tapping his foot, that he would applaud after each music number, and that he cried,” Brewer said. “He went up to the projectionist, or the person [who] was running the screening, and when they introduced themselves to him, he said, ‘Okay, well, when’s the next screening? Can we watch it again?’”
Brewer said the positive reaction to the film made him “so happy.”
“I just hope he knows how incredibly relevant his contribution to songwriting is,” he said. “Those songs are beautiful, and yeah, he’s a performer, but he’s a writer. He wrote these, he thought them, he felt them in his soul, and then he created them.”
Diamond and Jackman — who stars in the film opposite Kate Hudson — have developed a friendship over the last few months. At the movie’s premiere in December, the actor told the crowd that he’d even enjoyed a sleepover at Diamond’s house in Colorado, which included some karaoke.
“He’s never given his catalog to a movie. He just gave it carte blanche. He just loved everything about Mike and Claire’s story,” Jackman said. “So I took the opportunity on that phone call to invite myself over for a cup of tea. And Neil’s like, ‘Okay.’ And he’s like, ‘Uh, we live in Colorado—.’ ‘Yeah, no problem.’ ‘So you wanna stay the night?’ ‘Great. That’d be great.’”
