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Autumn and the holidays used to promise moviegoers a handful of sweeping, big-canvas movies designed to transport audiences to different times and places as well as woo Oscar voters with their grand scale and ambitions.
Those films have largely disappeared from movie theaters, but one of cinema’s most romantic directors hopes to bring them back in style, at least for one season. With “Australia,” Baz Luhrmann is trying to revive the David Lean-style wide-screen historical drama in much the same way that “Moulin Rouge!” helped bring back big-screen musicals.
Set on the eve of World War II, the film has Nicole Kidman playing an English aristocrat who travels to Australia to sell a family cattle farm and instead winds up falling in love with both the remote terrain and a rugged cowboy (Hugh Jackman). The movie is an expensive, lavish labor of love, a valentine from Luhrmann to his native country and an opportunity to show the rest of the world the hypnotic beauty of Australia’s Outback.
The film opens Nov. 26. LA.com Film Critic, Glenn Whipp, spoke to Luhrmann and Jackman about the film.
Read more…
On making an old-school epic:
Luhrmann: When I was growing up, the genre I loved was the sweeping romantic epic. Four-category movies. And that’s what this is. It has comedy, romance, action and drama. You don’t have movies like that anymore. Maybe you hit two of the categories, but not all four. And that’s what I’m trying to do.
Jackman: They don’t make them nowadays, and for good reason. When they work, they’re fantastic, but they’re incredibly hard to make. You need a brilliant director with just enough craziness to undertake it.
Luhrmann: It’s a movie for the whole family. And that’s death, because you think, “Oh. It’s a children’s movie.” No. But children can see it. It’s the kind of movies families used to see over the holidays. It will make you laugh, make you excited, make you swoon.
Jackman: The movies Baz found inspirational for this were “Gone With the Wind,” “Out of Africa,” “From Here to Eternity” and “The African Queen.” Movies in that true Hollywood style where the landscape is as big a character as the people in it. That’s what gives the story scope and size.
On their collaboration:
Luhrmann: One exciting thing about making movies is working with actors and showing people a side of them that they otherwise did not know. With Nicole (Kidman), people didn’t realize she could be funny. With Hugh, it’s him putting across the iconic cowboy character with wry, offhand humor. It’s the kind of leading man performance we don’t see much anymore.
Jackman: Nicole told me that whatever you think the movie will be, it will be slightly different because it’s Baz. Baz is an artist. He’s always creating. All his movies ultimately have a great message about love — love conquers all despite the rules of society. That’s definitely a theme in this.
On the “love” between Jackman and Kidman as seen in a particular “Australia” publicity photo lighting up the Internet:
Jackman: That’s a good shot, that one. Even my wife said, “That’s a hot photo.” It’s weird because my wife and Nicole have been mates for a long time. Neither of them would like for me to mention how long. They used to share an apartment together when Nicole first came to L.A. So I’ve always had a lot of affection for Nicole.
Luhrmann: Again, you look back at those movies I mentioned, and you have Gable and Leigh, Bogart and Hepburn, Streep and Redford. They’re not pairings you might immediately imagine, but there’s a lot of heat when opposites attract.
Jackman: Definitely one of the things you can say about Baz’s movies is that there’s unbridled passion. And these two characters have a sexual attraction, a magnetism, they can’t deny. On shooting in the Outback Jackman: The Outback, there’s something sexy about it. Everything that matters in town — how you dress, the bar you go to, the car you drive — is stripped away to the bare essentials. Just who you are. That’s where things can happen.
Luhrmann: It’s the last remaining true frontier. There’s such an abundance of nothingness. Even with the Sahara, you have people there. Here, there’s an extra and profound beauty.
Jackman: When I was 19, I spent a number of months in the Outback on an African mission. I was with a group building houses. And I stayed on one for about a month. That was a defining time for me. For a second, I didn’t think I was going to come back. There’s something very hypnotic out there.
Luhrmann: Kununurra (the tiny town in northwestern Australia where some of the movie was filmed) is where I reconnected with the movie. I went there before we started shooting and stayed by the river one night. I had a fire. I may have had a tiny splash of wine. OK, maybe two tiny splashes let’s not go there. And I never left for six weeks. The sense of stillness was incredible.
On what the movie means to them as Australians:
Jackman: I’ve never been this invested in a movie, that’s for sure. In every way. The aspirations of this film are to appeal to everybody, yet it is a movie called “Australia.” My home is Australia. The idea of it not working is one I don’t really want to contemplate.
Luhrmann: To take this genre and use my country as a canvas that’s a tall order. We’ll see if I’ve succeeded.
September 13th, 2008
Fall Movies
By BROOKS BARNES for the New York Times
Hugh Jackman is a big, macho movie star. Got it?
In talking up Mr. Jackman in advance of “Australia,” his coming romantic epic, three executives at 20th Century Fox all described the actor as a “rough-hewn” throwback to Hollywood’s classic leading-man types, a “young Clint Eastwood.”
Baz Luhrmann, the director of “Australia,” which co-stars Nicole Kidman as an aristocratic cattle owner, also talked up Mr. Jackman’s manliness. “There are not many actors who have an ability to pick up a Nicole Kidman, throw her on the bed and ravish her with believability,” Mr. Luhrmann said.
Perhaps feeling that description was not vivid enough, Mr. Luhrmann added, “He is also excellent with a cattle whip.”
Read more…
Here’s what Mr. Jackman’s bosses and colleagues are trying to say: Mr. Jackman, 39, is on the verge of megastardom, the kind that comes with Oscar nominations and demands for script approval. But to join the short A-list of male movie stars he must move past all that girly singing and dancing stuff on his résumé.
In Hollywood, where typecasting remains very much a force, Mr. Jackman retains a slight stigma. Isn’t he the guy who won a Tony Award for playing a flamboyant gay songwriter in “The Boy From Oz” on Broadway? Didn’t he host the Tony Awards for three years running? And didn’t he also produce and star in “Viva Laughlin,” that campy CBS musical series that bombed last year?
With “Australia,” which Fox plans to release on Nov. 26 in North America, Mr. Jackman will get the chance to prove that he can play a big-time romantic lead in a big-time movie. And with any luck, the film will be part of a one-two punch erasing any lingering worries about his ability to open a movie. “X-Men Origins: Wolverine,” in which he reprises his “X-Men” role as a hirsute mutant in need of a nail file, opens on May 1.
“I think it will surprise people,” Mr. Jackman said of his performance in “Australia” during an interview on the Fox lot. “I’m never that worried about positioning myself, and I don’t like labels personally or professionally. But this is definitely the straight-down-the-line, classic, old-school leading-man role I’ve been waiting for.”
Mr. Jackman was not Mr. Luhrmann’s first choice. Mr. Luhrmann intended for Russell Crowe to play the character, a brooding drover with no name who helps Ms. Kidman’s aristocrat drive cattle across a barren homestead during World War II. But Mr. Crowe and Fox sparred over money. (At the time the combative actor fumed to a reporter, “I do charity work, but I don’t do charity work for major studios.”)
Mr. Luhrmann, the director of critical darlings like “Moulin Rouge!” “William Shakespeare’s Romeo + Juliet” and “Strictly Ballroom,” said Mr. Jackman was initially under consideration for the smaller role of a greedy land manager. “I was keen to have Hugh in the film, but I didn’t immediately see him as the drover,” Mr. Luhrmann said, adding that Fox worried about Mr. Jackman’s marketability.
Fox grew more comfortable with Mr. Jackman’s star status after “X-Men: The Last Stand” opened in 2006 with strong results (it ended up making more than $450 million worldwide), and Mr. Luhrmann had become impressed with Mr. Jackman’s gung-ho attitude. Ms. Kidman, a friend of Mr. Jackman’s wife, the Australian actress Deborah-Lee Furness, gave her approval at a party in Los Angeles.
“Nicole came bounding in and said she heard I was talking to Baz,” Mr. Jackman recalled. “I said: ‘Yes, I’m very excited. But I haven’t yet seen a script. Tell me, what is it like?’ And she responded: ‘Oh, I haven’t read the script. It’s Baz. Just sign on.’ “
Not long after, Mr. Jackman found himself enduring intense horse training in Texas. For the role he would need not only to woo Ms. Kidman’s character, who inherits an enormous cattle ranch in a remote part of Australia, but also to ride herd over 2,000 cattle and rope horses. In one scene he would need to jump off his horse and grab a stampeding cow by the tail. Another scene called for him to stand in the center of a corral and lasso a wild horse.
Mr. Jackman played down the rigor required by most of the wrangling work. But even he was impressed with the lassoing. “The horse went ballistic when I got that rope around his neck,” he said. “My gloves ripped, the rope peeled skin off my hands. I just remember being so happy that I did it that I didn’t care at all.”
Filming took place in Australia’s barren Northern Territory. (In the film Ms. Kidman’s character owns a sprawling desert property near Darwin, a small Australian city bombed by the Japanese during World War II.) The shoot came with dust storms, scorpions and, down the side of a cliff from Mr. Jackman’s trailer, a lagoon slithering with crocodiles. The shoot lasted 157 days in total, an epic period even for an epic drama.
“I almost fainted on the first day,” Mr. Jackman said. “Incredibly hot, incredibly remote.”
It was a long way from his days starting out in musical theater in Sydney, a time when he worked as a part-time clown at children’s parties. (In another job around that time, a pre-muscled Mr. Jackman was paid to stand in the lobby of a local gym as the “before” model.)
One early role came from the Sydney production of Disney’s “Beauty and the Beast.” He played the prince. He went on to a starring role in a local tour of Andrew Lloyd Webber’s “Sunset Boulevard,” and eventually landed the role of Curly in an acclaimed London revival of “Oklahoma!” in 1998.
During that production, a permed Mr. Jackman had his first professional encounter with Mr. Luhrmann. It didn’t go well: he auditioned for the romantic lead in “Moulin Rouge!” and was passed over for Ewan McGregor.
Mr. Jackman came out O.K., though. During the same time, he was a backup choice for the Wolverine character in “X-Men” and got the part after the original actor, Dougray Scott, backed out because of a conflicting film commitment. Aside from the “X-Men” movies, Mr. Jackman’s movie career has mostly included films that missed expectations, including “The Prestige.” Whether “Australia” will work is unclear. Fox hopes it will be an Oscar force, and the footage is lavish. Mr. Luhrmann said he was influenced by sweeping classics like “Gone With the Wind,” “The African Queen” and “Out of Africa,” which Mr. Jackman says is one of his favorite films.
But the film is commercially risky. Historical epics can be a tough sell, as “Troy,” “Kingdom of Heaven” and “King Arthur” have recently proved to the studios’ dismay. And Ms. Kidman’s recent track record at the box office (“The Stepford Wives,” “Bewitched,” “The Invasion,” “The Golden Compass”) has been scanty. (The film also represents a big departure for Mr. Luhrmann, who has developed a passionate following for his colorful visual style, which often places characters in over-the-top worlds bordering on fantasy. But “Australia” is darker and more realistic looking, and includes a subplot about the government’s forced removal of Aboriginal children from their families.)
Mr. Jackman always has a backup in “Wolverine.” Judging from his reception in July at Comic-Con, the huge comic book and movie marketing convention, the action film will be a blockbuster. More than 6,500 fans at Comic-Con greeted him like a deity when he made a surprise appearance to plug the movie. People were screaming and chanting; one woman burst into tears. “It was my little rock-star moment,” Mr. Jackman said.
People who work with Mr. Jackman gush about him, too, to the degree that one starts to wonder just how badly other stars are behaving. “He is the most centered, incredibly focused actor I’ve ever worked with,” Mr. Luhrmann said. “I know everybody always says that in Hollywood, but I really mean it.”
Nina Tassler, the president for entertainment at CBS, said she had no regrets about “Viva Laughlin” because of Mr. Jackman’s involvement. “Working with him was one of the highlights of my entire life,” she said. Mr. Jackman, she added, was intimately involved in aspects of the project like script writing and marketing - rare for movie stars moonlighting in television - and said she found him humble and unassuming, an opinion echoed by others.
In wielding his charm, Mr. Jackman, whose offices on the Fox lot are located in Shirley Temple’s former dance studio and who watches “Judge Judy” in his spare time, likes to use humor. “You can’t cut my hair or my beard - but you can trim my nose hair if you like,” he said to a stylist readying him for a photo shoot.
And his looks - five appearances on People magazine’s “50 Most Beautiful” list and counting - don’t hurt his bankability either, as the director Bryan Singer, who hired Mr. Jackman for “X-Men,” helpfully pointed out in an interview.
As for that “rough-hewn” label? “That’s studio-speak for a lot of chest hair,” Mr. Singer said.
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September 5th, 2008
Nicole Kidman’s in London and Hugh Jackman is walking around Sydney clean shaven. Yes folks, the filming of pick-up shots has concluded! However, dont start counting your sleeps until the premiere of Australia just yet, because there’s been a slight change in plans.
The departure of the highly anticipated fifth Harry Potter installment has created quite a shuffling frenzy in the scheduling department of many major film companies. With the wizard vacating the November 21st position, and being held over for release until next year, many major films have quickly jockeyed into prime marketing position to round out the season.
Not surprisingly, one of the first to stealthily move in for the kill was the well known Bond enterprise, further creating a ripple effect. Executives have been left to question which is the right release date for their films. Originally being slated for a November 13/14 release, Australia has skipped in to the (pre-thanksgiving) position left vacant by Potter, November 26th. Variety reports that this date will be used for the American and Australian release.
Other movies set for release on November 26th include, Transporter 3 and Bolt. Obviously utilising this date without the immediate presence of a pre-existing brand debuting simultaneously is an effort to see the Bazmark film maximise its box office presence.
source: Variety
August 28th, 2008
The August 22nd issue of Entertainment Weekly is a special 2008 Fall Preview edition. As one of the major films being released this year, Australia is of course featured as one of the major releases.
The four page spread includes a two page article with behind the scenes info from Luhrmann, Kidman and Jackman (pictured right).
Jackman discusses his national pride and enthusiasm to become a part of this film, regardless of the controversial departure of Russell Crowe who was previously attached as the lead. “I don’t mind if I’m off-the-bench second, third, reserve-doesn’t matter,” said Jackman. “I just didn’t want to miss out on being part of the film.”
“Baz makes very few films, but when he does, he puts his heart and soul into it,” says Kidman, who earned her first Oscar nomination for Moulin Rouge! “He’s not churning anything out. It’s vert much coming from within his blood.”
You can read Baz and the rest of his devoted cast talk about their unique movie making experience in our transcript archive. Additionally, the article, along with new images, has been scanned and uploaded to our gallery.
August 16th, 2008
Brandon Walters, the 11-year-old Aboriginal boy from Broome who was plucked from obscurity to act in Luhrmann’s latest feature film, will now also star in the tourism campaign, which follows a New York couple escaping to the Australian wilderness.
The one-off campaign, which will cost Tourism Australia $50 million over 12 months, does not mention the movie directly, but will reflect its emotion, Baz Luhrmann told reporters in Sydney on Tuesday.
“What we hope to do is convey an emotional experience that is possible from going the extra distance and coming to this unique special place on the edge of the world,” he said. “When Tourism Australia came to us, we were reticent at first because we did not want to confuse the promotion of the film with a tourism campaign. …The more we talked, the more I realised that we both had the same aims — to celebrate the truly unique and transformative power of this ancient and extraordinary continent. With this in mind, we agreed to put our team into the conception and realisation of a contemporary campaign which, while not aping the film, reflects this singular and attractive truth.”
This isn’t Luhrmann’s first foray into blending one of his films with an advertising opportunity. He directed a “Moulin Rouge!”-inspired Chanel commercial starring Kidman that looked a lot like the movie.
The “Australia” campaign has been conceived to celebrate the continent and will feature themes of romance, adventure, transformation and Aboriginal music
It’s also a Hollywood studio’s dream of free movie publicity. The 30- and 45-second TV and movie spots, which will begin airing in October, will feature “an urban couple transformed by an adventure,” Gysberts said.
Executive General Manager of Marketing, Nick Baker, said, “We remain one of the world’s most desired tourist destinations, but converting that desire into reality is becoming harder than ever for many travellers. …The need to create urgency and fashionability around a country’s ‘brand’ is stronger than ever and even Australia, which has long enjoyed an exceptionally high brand reputation, needs to keep its marketing fresh and compelling.” He added, “There is no better way to do that than to secure the help of one of the most creative and innovative talents, Baz Luhrmann, his creative partner Catherine Martin and the entire Bazmark team. …The themes of romance and adventure, coupled with the power of the Australian land and people to transform, will resonate in the tourism campaign, as it does in the film.”
The campaign will run in cinemas, on television and online and in print. It will run from October 2008 in 22 of Tourism Australia’s international markets with two advertisements - one for eastern markets and one for western markets.
ABC radio program PM have reported on the release at length, listen to the opinion of experts, industry insiders and the man, Baz Luhrmann himself. Download the report in our Media section.
Additionally view a video report from Nine MSN Australia
sources: Tourism Australia, LA Times, utalkmarketing
July 29th, 2008
Recently in a surprise appearance our resident Drover attended Comic-Con in San Diego to promote his forthcoming film Wolverine. However many astute fans observed that the Australian’s appearance seemed to resemble another movie he’d been shooting earlier this year, namely, Australia. Access Hollywood caught up with Jackman at Comic-Con and found out some interesting news.
Weeks after giving birth to daughter Sunday Rose, Nicole Kidman is already preparing to go back to work. According to her Australia co-star, Hugh Jackman, Kidman is heading back to the set of the epic film.
We are doing a little bit of re-shooting in a couple of weeks so she is sort of back to work finishing off the film,” Jackman told Access Hollywood at Comic-Con 2008 in San Diego on Thursday.
Jackman said he is happy for his friend’s baby news, but explained that filming on the project, directed by Baz Luhrmann, was tough during her pregnancy.
“I am beyond happy for her. I mean she is a amazing woman. She’s been a great friend of ours for a long time,” Jackman told Access. “To have this moment is just thrilling. It wasn’t always thrilling for her while we were shooting in Australia, let me tell you!”
Kidman was forced to withdraw from several action scenes on set due to her pregnancy - and it was her withdrawal and several other intense moments that helped Jackman figure out Kidman’s special news.
“For the last month, I remember she said, ‘I have to tell you I am not riding the horse,’” Jackman recalled. “She did all the riding and all of a sudden, in the last few weeks, she wasn’t riding a horse at all and I said, ‘I think I know!’ She goes, ‘Really? How did you know?’ I said, ‘Well, the fact that you were throwing up almost between every second take kind of gave it away.’ She goes, ‘Really? Do you think everybody knew?’ And I was like, ‘Yeah!’”
source: Access Hollywood
July 25th, 2008
British edition of the EMPIRE film magazine has a great four page feature on ‘Australia’.
The magazine has four glossy pages with a great on set encounter from one of the writers at Empire. We get to hear from Baz Luhrmann, about the scale of the epic he’s taken on and the expectations involved in that. CM and Nicole Kidman have their say and Mr Hugh Jackman even gets a peek in towards the end.
“This is a land far, far away,” trills Luhrmann. “Metaphorically speaking, it has a sense of fairy tale about it.”
“This is the last of a dying breed, this kind of movie,” Kidman enthuses, harking back to those days before CGI, when you make your epic - African Queen, Doctor Zhivago - you had to drag your production lock, stock and barrel into the wilds. “I mean, they don’t build stuff like this anymore. To feel that air and see people ravaged by the elements, as hard as it is, it’s exquisite.”
For those wishing to purchase the magazine, Empire’s August 2008 edition is currently available at news stands in the UK and via vendors carrying international magazines. Thanks to Hengist from the Australia Forum you can view scans of the magazine in our gallery, or if you’d like to read the article you can do so in our transcripts archive here.
July 6th, 2008
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