While Jackman and Foster have only been publicly dating for about 10 months, they’ve been acquainted with each other since the early 2000s. Both are members of the greater Broadway community; as People points out, Jackman snapped a photo with Foster during her Tony-winning, star-making run as the titular ’20s flapper in Thoroughly Modern Millie. One year later, Jackman would host the Tonys for the first time; a year after that, he’d host again and win his own leading-actor-in-a-musical trophy for playing Peter Allen in The Boy From Oz. As a theater luminary herself, Foster must have been aware of Jackman’s electrifying run as Tonys emcee—he did it three years in a row—particularly the year he also performed a number from The Boy From Oz in a cheetah-print button-down and impossibly tight gold pants. In any case, it’s clear they both have greasepaint roaring through their veins.
By the time they’d met, Jackman had already been a married man for years, having wed Australian actor and producer Deborra-Lee Furness in 1996. Foster has had a more tumultuous romantic history. She was married to fellow actor Christian Borle, who would go on to win his own Tony awards, from 2006 to 2009; when she won her second Tony in 2011 for playing another grande dame of musical theater, Reno Sweeney, in a revival of Anything Goes, she famously thanked her dresser as well as her boyfriend at the time, actor Bobby Cannavale. (Like Foster, Cannavale would eventually find love with an Australian—Rose Byrne.) Jackman and Foster remained friendly through this time—even dancing together when Jackman hosted the Tonys a fourth time in 2014—but their relationship was not romantic.
Then came The Music Man, the critically acclaimed Broadway revival starring Foster and Jackman that was announced in March 2019 and originally set to open in October 2020. When rehearsals for the revival began, Jackman was still married to Furness, with whom he shares two children, Oscar and Ava. Foster, meanwhile, had married screenwriter Ted Griffin in 2014 and adopted a baby girl, Emily, with him in 2017. But due to the pandemic and subsequent Broadway shutdown, the revival was put on hold until 2022.
When rehearsals started again, Jackman praised Foster’s immense talent in a story about the show in Vanity Fair. “She can learn a new dance in three hours, and she’s the best dancer you’ve seen on Broadway,” Jackman said of his costar. Foster shared a similar sentiment about Jackman while appearing with him on Late Night With Seth Meyers. “I’m having the time of my life playing opposite this guy,” she said. “It’s a dream come true.” A mutual talent crush had been established.
