Hugh Jackman shares key life advice he got from Patrick Stewart

Hugh Jackman played Wolverine for more or less 17 years, but he considers simple life advice from Patrick Stewart to be his greatest superpower.

Jackman starred alongside Stewart and Ian McKellen in the X-Men film franchise, beginning with the original in 2000. During Thursday night's (July 15) The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, he was asked what he has learned from both acting giants.

The Oscar-nominated actor started with McKellen: "Ian is a theatrical beast, so I was brought up in the theater as well, and [X-Men] was really one of my first big films. And he said to me, he goes, 'It's going to feel really uncomfortable. Acting on film feels uncomfortable, but it will look great. Just go with it.'"

But it was Stewart's perspective on how he starts every day that has particularly resonated with Jackman.

"I've learned so much from Patrick," he told Colbert. "The greatest tip he gave me about life itself—not so much acting—he said, 'I learned when I was about 60, and I wish I had learned when I was younger: I give myself time of the day at the beginning.' So, he wakes up—if he's got a 5 o'clock wake-up call, for a film, he wakes up at 4 a.m. He goes and gets a cup of tea, comes back to bed with his favorite book."

"He says, 'I don't read the paper, it makes me angry. I don't read emails, it just stresses me. I don't read a script, I get nervous,'" he continued. "'I just read a book. Like a novel. So I know that no matter what happens for the rest of the day, I've had a half hour.' ... And so, I've done that. My wife and I wake up every morning, and we go get a cup of tea—coffee, for me—and we sit in bed and we just read."

Colbert then pivoted to ask Jackman to name his dream role. The Australian icon first said King Lear as "the one for me," and then he added Bill Murray's groundskeeper character in Caddyshack as the other.

As it stands, the 52-year-old is starring as "private investigator of the mind" Nick Bannister in Reminiscence (in theaters Aug. 20) and as Harold Hill for his Broadway return in The Music Man. The Emmy and Tony winner previewed both with Colbert.

Watch the clips, as well as a trailer for Reminiscence, below.