Hugh Jackman, the Sexiest Man Alive according to People magazine is going to be the host of the Oscars. The Australian actor will host the 81st Annual Academy Awards which airs on Sunday, Feb. 22 at 7 p.m. This year the award show is taking a different approach gearing away from the previous big-name comedians such as Ellen DeGeneres in 2007 and Jon Stewart in 2006.

The actor said that he was "excited" about the honor, not nervous. "My acting teacher always said, 'No, don't say nervous, you're excited,'" Jackman told Barbara Walters in an interview to air on her annual Oscar night special. "And actually, that's the truth." The host must personally entertain more than a billion people while keeping all the parts moving, and be able to expedite the constant swing of the spotlight from one expensively dressed star to the next.

But Jackman himself is quite experienced from this point of view as he hosted the Tonys for three years, winning an Emmy for his work in 2004, and it can’t hurt to have been voted Sexiest Man Alive by People magazine as I previously mentioned.

Beyond that, he’s popular for his Wolverine movie role, and in New York he’s fondly remembered for riding through Central Park on a horse in the 2001 movie "Kate and Leopold." The 40-year-old actor will next be seen onscreen in "X-Men Origins: Wolverine" this summer. He says that while he likes singing and dancing, his favorite thing to do is act, and he told Walters that he sees all the Oscar-nominated movies each year.

He's grateful for the advice of former Oscar hosts Steve Martin and Whoopi Goldberg, both of whom "have impressed upon me that the Oscar live audience would be the best I've ever had - at least at the beginning of the show." However in order to help make the show more fun and less formal - and to stanch that goodwill leak - producers Lawrence Mark and Bill Condon have reconfigured the Kodak Theatre.