Hugh Jackman bought a "wad" of lottery tickets for his film crew when a downpour halted shooting.

The Australian actor - who is famed for his generosity towards his fellow filmmakers - is currently filming Les Misrables in England.

Hugh splashed out 250 over the weekend, when rain stopped production for a short while.

"Hugh said he needed to go to the shops then came back with a wad of scratch cards and handed them out to everyone," a source told UK newspaper The Sun.

"It's a nice gesture. No one won, however or if they did they're not saying."

Hugh is renowned for his kindness. The 43-year-old treated his co-workers to lottery tickets every week while filming blockbuster Real Steel last year.

"It's my way of paying taxes. The very first film I did in America, I was embarrassed to say two months in that I didn't know half of the crew's names," he said at the time.

"So I thought that on a Friday afternoon I'll whip by and buy lottery tickets for everyone and hand them out. I say it's an Australian tradition, but it's not."

Hugh plays Jean Valjean in the big screen adaptation of Les Misrables.

The new film boasts a star-studded cast with names such as Russell Crowe, Anne Hathaway, Helena Bonham Carter, Amanda Seyfried and Sacha Baron Cohen also appearing.

Les Misrables is slated for a January 2013 release.