Hugh Jackman Gets Spotlight by Breaking Character

I’m always telling entrepreneurs to stay in character in order to build a solid brand, but sometimes it pays to step out of character for a minute to get attention. Woody Allen’s characters jumped on and off the screen in Purple Rose of Cairo. Speakers know the best way to get an audience’s attention is to interrupt themselves or break character.

Hugh Jackman got a truckload of publicity–the whole world is reading about his current project, A Steady Rain just ’cause Jackman broke character in the middle of a dramatic scene to tell an audience member to turn off a ringing cell phone. The articles all give a nice bio of Jackman and a writeup about the play. Not too shabby. Almost worth planting someone in the audience and doing it on purpose…