A Steady Rain runs at the Gerald Schoenfeld Theatre until 6 December

Actors Daniel Craig and Hugh Jackman halted a performance of their Broadway play because of an audience member's ringing mobile phone.

Secretly filmed footage of the incident last week posted online sees Jackman tell the patron to answer the phone during a performance of A Steady Rain.

"We can wait," Jackman is seen saying. "Don't be embarrassed - just grab it."

The Wolverine star and 007 actor play Chicago policemen in the play, which officially opens this week in New York.

Both remained in character throughout the incident, footage of which was obtained by showbiz website TMZ and subsequently posted on YouTube.

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Tickets for Keith Huff's 2006 play at the Gerald Schoenfeld Theatre are among the hottest on Broadway.

According to show producers, it has set the record for the highest weekly ticket sales of a non-musical play.

Before the show officially opened and was still in previews, it made just under $1.17 million (£728,305), beating the previous record of $1.06 million (£659,832) set by comedian Billy Crystal's 700 Sundays in 2005.

In the play, Australian Jackman and Englishman Craig play childhood friends whose lives are changed forever by a tragic sequence of events.

The stars are not the first to respond on stage to mobile phone distractions in the stalls.

Actor Richard Griffiths made headlines in 2004 when he ordered a man out of the National Theatre after his phone went off repeatedly during a performance of The History Boys.

The following year, the Harry Potter star scolded another patron for letting her phone ring during a performance of Heroes in London's West End.