TORONTO - Stage and screen star Hugh Jackman admits he was anxious about bringing his song-and-dance show to Toronto next month.

"Toronto is, in my mind, probably next to New York one of the most important theatre towns in North America," the affable Aussie performer said Thursday during a brief promotional stop in the city.

"When I first started (the show) -- I'm very honest -- I was probably a little intimidated to come here straight away because I hadn't even put the show together."

"Hugh Jackman in Concert" is slated for July 5 to 17 at the Princess of Wales Theatre after last month's sold out, critically hailed debut run in San Francisco.

The Tony Award-winning talent said he wanted Toronto to be the show's second stop because he was already familiar with the city, having shot his first American film, 2000's "X-Men," here.

"I spent three months here and saw some theatre here and I know a lot of out-of-town things come here. It's got a great theatre audience," said Jackman, 42, decked out in a form-fitting black golf shirt and grey slacks.

"It's a theatre city so that's where I wanted to come next."

Jackman's experience here in Toronto this time around will no doubt be much different, given the colossal fame he's achieved since he shot "X-Men."

"I didn't realize how good it was at the time because I had zero fame," said the Sydney-born actor, who was named People magazine's Sexiest Man Alive in 2008.

"In fact nobody knew who I was, at all, and no one really knew what 'X-Men' was, so it wasn't like we had fans following us. I was shooting this big movie and I was loving it.

"I just could go anywhere. It was complete anonymity when I wasn't working. It was just delicious."

In his one-man show, the magnetic Jackman is backed by an 18-piece orchestra as he performs his favourite musical numbers that reflect on his life and career, from his role as Wolverine in the "X-Men" franchise to his other films and his stellar stage career.

Songs in the lineup include "Soliloquy" from the musical "Carousel." Jackman said it's his favourite tune to warm up his voice to.

As he recently discovered at the San Franciso showcase, his daughter, Ava, is also quite fond of it.

"There's a little bit in it which the lyric is: 'My little girl,"' he said before he started to sing the verse: "'My little girl, pink and white as peaches and cream is she.'

"And my daughter was in the crowd one night in San Francisco, sitting on my wife's lap and she started sucking her thumb and getting all shy. She thought I was singing to her. It was very sweet."

Jackman -- who has hosted the Oscars and the Tonys -- also dances, tells stories, plays audio and video clips and shows "some embarrassing photos" in the show, he said. And he spends quite a bit of time performing the role for which he won a Tony -- irreverent 1970s singer-songwriter Peter Allen from the Australian musical "The Boy From Oz."

"There's a fair bit of going out into the crowd and occasionally pulling people (up)," he warned with a smile. "Don't sit in the first two rows -- there's a little tip."

"The Boy From Oz," which opened on Broadway in 2003, marked a turning point in Jackman's career.

When he first signed on to the show, his film career was on fire with the "X-Men" franchise and some worried his stage work would hinder his film career as it had in his past, he said.

"A lot of people around me were saying: 'Whoa, you don't go to Broadway now. 'X-Men' is out, it's big, you've got the sequel coming, you've got movies lined up, this is your moment. It doesn't necessarily happen for very long, it doesn't necessarily happen at all, but when you get that opportunity you just stay with it and you certainly don't go to Broadway for 18 months to play Peter Allen in sequins."'

But when he won the Tony, as well as a string of other awards for the role, and his film career kept soaring, it proved he could have success both onstage and onscreen, simultaneously, he said.

"Often the things you think are not going to work, work, and things you think are, aren't. So all you've really got as an actor is that instinct -- that gut instinct," said Jackman.

"So from that moment on, I thought: 'It doesn't matter if it's theatre, if it's a blockbuster movie, an indie movie, if it's a television show --forget about the perceived bigness of it, just go with your gut."

Jackman signed on to do the one-man show after filming for "Wolverine" was postponed and Darren Aronofsky dropped out as the director.

He said they're "getting very close" to choosing another director.

Jackman said he's also game to play Jean Valjean in a film version of "Les Miserables," if it ever happens.

"I know that movie's around and I have definitely thrown my hat in the ring for it but I don't know what's going to happen," he said. "I love that part."