Posts filed under 'Nicole Kidman'
With the new baby she’s expecting due in a few months’ time, Nicole Kidman spent Easter Sunday dusting off her parenting skills. Juggling the care of her sister Antonia’s two eldest children, Lucia and Hamish Hawley, and her Australia co-star Brandon Walters, the mum-to-be certainly had her hands full, guiding the youngsters to an early morning church service yesterday.
After beating leukaemia at the age of seven, the 11-year-old will make his big-screen debut in Baz Luhrmann’s epic. Hand-picked by the Moulin Rouge director for a pivotal role in the outback drama, he has charmed his celebrity co-stars, especially Kidman.
“She’s really taken Brandon under her wing. She and Hugh (Jackman) have looked out for him and eased him through the whole film-making process,” a set source said.
After church, the West Australian boy was welcomed back to the leading lady’s Darling Point home for lunch. On Saturday, the lucky lad was shown the Harbour sights during a cruise aboard the Oscar-winner’s luxury boat.
source: Article by Sydney Confidential’s Holly Byrnes
March 24th, 2008
Recently celebrity photographer Annie Leibovitz, famous for portraits gracing various magazine covers including a heavily pregnant Demi Moore and John Lennon wrapped around a naked Yoko Ono, had the chance to create her special form of magic with Nicole Kidman.
Once again Kidman was taken away to a bush location. However this time it was only a small trip to the west of Sydney where a secret photo shoot took place. The session was shot on a paddock near the suburb of Richmond and appears to recreate the Faraway Downs homestead from ‘Australia’.
In footage captured by a National Nine News helicopter, Nicole can be seen standing on a wooden pavilion looking over her shoulder at the camera with her back balanced against a rail. She wears an elegant long blue dress - typical of her character’s pre-WWII English aristocrat - with a long split in the middle that runs down her leg.
Around 50 workers including make-up artists, set builders and a behind-the-scenes film crew can be seen working on the set.
Four screencaps from the helicopter footage can be viewed in the australiamovie.net gallery.
source: ninemsn.com.au
February 23rd, 2008
The February 2008 edition of Vanity Fair magazine features a two page spread on Australia. The issue (on some news stands now) includes a beautiful new photograph by James Fisher and a small summary of the film to wet the appetite of cinemagoers for the new year.
Luhrmann tells us to expect a film with, “big emotion, big comedy, big stars, big stories and big landscapes.”
The Vanity Fair article goes on to say, this journey through Australia’s enchanting topography brings about Lady Sarah Ashley’s gradual renewal, as does the scorching romance between her and her fellow rider. If the image attached is any indication of the heat, we’re in for something special!
If you visit our gallery you can view several new scans and stills, including the aforementioned spread in Vanity Fair.
Many thanks to Narrows101, Olivia and ProjectMugetsu for donating images.
image: James Fisher
January 8th, 2008
With the final shots of Australia in the can, Bazmark Films II have now released several new still shots from the feature film. To view them (as seen left) in full simply visit our ever-growing gallery.
The stench of cow manure lingering in the air, their faces smeared with dirt and bodies drenched in sweat, Nicole Kidman and Hugh Jackman finally dimmed the lights on outback Australia yesterday, after a gruelling nine-month shoot; wrote The Courrier Mail.
For the better part of ten years Kidman and Luhrmann have brainstormed and dreamed of making such an epic. For this reason it’s understandable that seeing a large phase of it come to completion would create mixed feelings. Nicole Kidman said while she was looking forward to a break over Christmas, the anxiety of the curtain finally falling on the film hit her during a dream on the eve of her final scene. “Last night I was crying in a dream and I think it was a bit of anxiety about finishing,” she admitted. “I am very ingratiated having done this film. I have wanted to do it since I was 14 and I didn’t know what it was, but I knew there was something.”
Meanwhile, on set, looking buff for his Wolverine role beginning in three weeks, leading man Hugh Jackman will film his final scene today. “If you could tick any box off a job, this has got every box ticked,” he said, adding it felt “surreal” to finish. “Part of me doesn’t want to let this go. It’s probably the best movie I’ve ever worked on. It’s hard to let go of.”
When asked about the length of the shoot Baz Luhrmann denied breaking the blockbuster budget, but joked; “It’s a secret - I don’t want you to tell anyone - but I’m not on schedule.” “[However] someone said the other day, as far as epics go, not anything particularly out of the ordinary. Not fast. Not slow.”
And what of the pressure to deliver a hit movie? “The expectations are enormous, the pressure of that (is) not comfortable,” he said. “Will this film be a success? I do not know. Could it be that almighty mistake that one is bound to do at some time? Possibly but … we’ll do everything we can to make it as good as we possibly can.”
sources: Sydney Morning Herald, Herald Sun, Courier Mail
images: Bazmark Films II - James Fisher
December 20th, 2007
It has been nine long months, but as of today Australia has finally completed principal photography. Baz Luhrmann and crew can now begin the next leg of their journey through post-production. The cast and crew all gathered together at Sun Studios, Alexandria on Saturday night (December 15th) to commemorate the occasion.
On December 16th Baz Luhrmann and cast member Brandon Walters were interviewed on the Sydney red carpet for Nicole Kidman’s latest release, The Golden Compass.
Baz Luhrmann commented, “I think last night [at the wrap party] there was a genuine, heartfelt feeling of having completed it. You know, that was really the great challenge and in the nine months the crew and every participant has been absolutely unflinching in their passion to see it through, so there’s an enormous sense of joy, actually. I mean, we have another big, big road to go, but there’s a great joy about having completed such a long project, and we are at the end of principal photography.”
You can view the rest of the interview in our multimedia section. As you’ll see, we think young Brandon will quickly gain many fans!
December 19th, 2007
We previously reported that Sir Elton John might contribute music to Australia. Though it first appeared in jest, it now seeems to be a more serious offer and we just might see Elton collaborating with Baz Luhrmann once again! It has been revealed that Elton would “jump at the chance of writing a love song” for the movie, and this week he visited the Fox Studios set to meet with Baz. Elton and partner, David Furnish, were also taken to a private screening room to watch a ten-minute rough assembly of scenes, and they both think that “Australia could become like Titanic on dry land”.
On the day of their visit, Baz Luhrmann was filming close-ups of the ‘Mission Ball’ sequence, featuring Nicole Kidman in a stunning red gown designed by Baz’s wife and creative collaborator, Catherine Martin. Some scenes had already been shot back in May 2007 on location at Sydney’s Strickland House, which we know will double as Darwin’s Government House in the film. A mammoth, end-of-shooting wrap party is expected to take place today in advance of the Australia shoot coming to an end next week.
Source: Daily Mail 1, Daily Mail 2
December 15th, 2007
Nicole Kidman has revealed that Australia is a movie that she has “dreamed of making” since she was a child. She told People News, “It’s just extraordinary in epic-ness. This is the kind of film that I dreamt of making as a little girl. For ‘Moulin Rouge’ we did everything in the studio but for this we’ve been on location the entire time - in Darwin, up in Queensland and then camping out in tents in the middle of the desert.”
Kidman also said that working without a green screen was one of the highlights of working on the film, “Green screen is definitely not my favourite thing. I became an actor because I wanted to act with other actors. That’s been the beauty of Baz’s film - you are on location breathing the air, feeling the impact of the sunsets.”
Kidman’s co-star, Eddie Baroo, has also been chatting about how much he has enjoyed being part of Australia, and has expressed his admiration for his co-stars, “They’re brilliant. I’m not just saying that, they’re brilliant. It’s probably the worst-kept secret that Hugh’s one of the best blokes running around the world. I wish I could tell you why they’re unreal. I tell ya what, when the film gets released and I’m able to talk more, I’ll be able to tell you about the first day I met Hugh. Very, very funny, very funny.”
Eddie Baroo was not allowed to discuss his role in the movie, but we remember him from an image posted right here on this site…
This image is already featured in our gallery and shows Eddie Baroo grappling with the Drover. It would appear that he is apparently about to throw the Drover out of a window, and it could be that Baroo will feature in the scene where the Drover first meets Lady Ashley after a brawl in a Darwin pub. Could australiamovie.net be correct in our assumption? We will have to wait and see!
sources: People News, Geelong Advertiser
December 4th, 2007
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