Hugh Jackman Interview, Australia

MoviesOnline sat down with Hugh Jackman, director Baz Luhrmann, and co-producer and costume designer Catherine Miller at the Los Angeles press day for their new movie, “Australia,” an epic and romantic action adventure, set in that country on the explosive brink of World War II.

In “Australia,” an English aristocrat (Nicole Kidman) travels to the faraway continent, where she meets a rough-hewn local (Hugh Jackman) and reluctantly agrees to join forces with him to save the land she inherited. Together, they embark upon a transforming journey across hundreds of miles of the world's most beautiful yet unforgiving terrain, only to still face the bombing of the city of Darwin by the Japanese forces that attacked Pearl Harbor. With his new film, Baz Luhrmann is painting on a vast canvas, creating a cinematic experience that brings together romance, drama, adventure and spectacle.

Here’s what Hugh Jackman, Baz Luhrmann and Catherine Miller had to tell us:

MoviesOnline: Hugh, in the press kit, Nicole says that having kids has helped her learn so much about herself.  Do you feel that you’ve learned some things from having children?

HUGH JACKMAN: Oh, yeah. It makes you learn about yourself. I think it also makes you learn about your own parents because I’ve found myself and my wife quite often says ”Oh, hello Chris,” that's my dad's name, because the things coming out of my mouth sound exactly like my dad that I swore on my life I would never do. The most annoying things. It's sort of bizarre. Yes, you learn about yourself.  You learn about your own relationship to your parents and then how you want to parent and also I've found, your marriage goes to a whole other level. You not only fall in love with your wife in a whole different way but you're also forced to kind of pull together your own philosophies about parenthood even though you may have grown up in a completely different environment and somehow, you've got to become this united front.

So, I'm a big believer that the best way to learn or improve is ‘in relationship to,’ so you have to go outside of yourself. In acting, it's your partner and your director really who you're working with. That's who you have to trust and be open to. It's not a singular experience when it's parenting with your wife. With children, they are just the most pure reflection of the truth at any given moment. For example, not that I'm trying to bring it up, but this thing happened to me, to be labeled with something that, trust me, I never thought would happen and that all my mates never thought would happen and reminded me about it. [He’s referring to being named Sexiest Man Alive on the cover of the current issue of People magazine.] My son Oscar is eight and he goes “You? You've gotta be kidding me!” (laughs) I thought, “It’s the truth!”
 
MoviesOnline: He's keeping you honest.

HUGH JACKMAN: Yeah.
 
MoviesOnline: Congratulations on being named the Sexiest Man Alive by People magazine.

HUGH JACKMAN:  Did you all get a copy of the magazine? I had them put on the seat.
 
MoviesOnline: George Clooney said he was really behind the campaign for Matt Damon. Who was behind your campaign and was there a campaign to keep the Drover shirtless throughout the movie?

HUGH JACKMAN: I had Baz and CM (Catherine Martin) on my side. I needed help a lot. We ran a very strong campaign. I'm not proud of it. I can admit it now. We're the first campaign to run a negative campaign and we've spent years bringing Clooney, Pitt, Damon, McConaughey all down to size and then I was prepared to do absolutely anything (laughs). 

In terms of the movie, there's a kind of great moment when we were shooting the Outback shower scene which, by the way, historically, is absolutely accurate. That's exactly the technique they used. But, as you know, Baz was going for many stars and a movie that is a feast, has high comedy, has high tragedy, it has romance, swashbuckling moments. It has action and adventure. It has everything. So, when we were shooting that scene, I remember saying to Baz, “Are you sure this isn't too much? Are they going to laugh? They're going to think I'm a wanker here.” (laughs) And he says “If we're strong and really commit to the moment, the comedy of it will rise.” There were a couple of members of the crew who took their shirts off after the first little break, one of which oiled himself up a little bit. So, trust me, I got a lot of hell about that scene when we were down there. 

It might have been a lot cooler having my shirt off for a lot of the movie because it was hot. The very first scene we shot was a scene about the triumphant return when we bring the cattle to Darwin. So, it was the end of the drove and I had on what's called a "dry-as-a-bone" which is an all-weather coat. But, inside this coat, it goes down to your knees, is a lining, a thick, padded lining. I had a woolen shirt on and leather pants and I almost fainted that first day of filming. And Poor CM had obviously designed me to be wearing this coat, because we're shooting the end of the drove. I was meant to be wearing it for the whole rest of the movie, the whole drove. Thank goodness she decided to adjust my wardrobe for the rest of it, thankfully. 

BAZ LUHRMANN: Wasn’t that with ice packs?

CATHERINE MARTIN: No, I thought the choices were either a dead Hugh Jackman or a Hugh Jackman in the movie because it was very embarrassing. You hope as a costume designer that you’re going to design things practical enough for the actors to actually be able to wear. And, on the first day, the fittest, most accommodating actor you’d nearly killed by overheating him, so I didn’t do very well on the first day.

HUGH JACKMAN: It was a little bit of my pride and fault to be honest because I was the first day on the horse and we were shooting out of Bowen and, trust me, we're shooting in a place where it's the real deal out there and, as an actor, you don't want to be prancing about with the umbrella above your head and finding my Evian and all that, so I sat on the horse and the First A.D said "Baz will be ready in about five minutes” and “Nah, man I'm fine. I'll stay on the horse” and about a half hour later, “Listen, it might be another five.” “No problem.” After about half an hour, I felt this hand on my back and I said, “What are you doin' mate? I'm fine.” and he says “No, you're not. You're at a 45 degree angle to the horse.” He was holding me up like this. I said, “I might need ten minutes and CM, can I talk to you about this coat?”

MoviesOnline: Was it like 100 degrees?

CATHERINE MARTIN: Yes, it was really, really hot. And so we ended up on that day, because we were kind of stuck with the coat the first day, we cut the lining out and poor Hugh had to wear this vest which was developed for Australian cricket which is a game you don’t have here in the United States, but they have to stand. It’s a very slow, long game and they have to stand in great heat. It’s a vest that you dip in water and it basically keeps your core temperature even.
 
MoviesOnline: Hugh, can you talk about working with your good friend Nicole? Is it easy to kiss a friend or is it a little tougher when you have to do the romantic scenes with her?

HUGH JACKMAN: I've known Nicole for a long time but, to give you some context, when she first came to Hollywood, she lived with my wife (Deborah-Lee Furness).  My wife was living here already so she moved in and until she lived with Tom, was living with Deb so they were very close friends, still are close friends and my wife's really good mates with her. I've seen her at parties and all that. But, it wasn't until this film that we truly got to know each other and become, sort of independent of my wife really, good friends.

Nicole is an amazing person to work with. She has a very mercurial quality and, in the best sense of the word, there's a kind of danger about Nicole. No matter how much you know her, there's always going to be something surprising. There's always going to be something a little unpredictable and keep you on your toes. She's also very generous, incredibly hard-working, very funny actor and I think, on the kissing thing, Baz quite likes sunsets and kissing.

BAZ LUHRMANN: Yes, even when I’m not working.

HUGH JACKMAN: [laughs] So we ended up kissing quite a lot and the true answer to that is it was not the toughest day at the office however it's never particularly comfortable making out with someone in front of seventy people. That's not really something that turns me on. I know it does for some (laughs) but, in terms of the intimacy, what was important, and Nic and I talked about it separately from Baz. We said, “Okay.  We need to really take this seriously. We need to really portray this romance and the passion and the heat between the two.” And even though we know each other, that's the biggest trap, really for actors. Sometimes you can know someone too well and all the heat goes out of the room and you're too familiar. I won't give you the details of that conversation but it was a really kind of adult and very open discussion and, thankfully, when I saw the movie for the first time, my wife is next to me, and after that very first kiss which is quite a lingering, slow kiss, just after it, Deb leans over to me and goes “That was great!” (laughs) So, if your wife can give you the thumbs up, I thought, we're on the right track.

BAZ LUHRMANN: It’s probably worth making a comment about that because, from the point of view of the work that I do on the outside, and people ask this all the time, you know, putting together a key relationship like that, casting that relationship, there is only one aspect of it you can never really know about. You can do all of the workshopping, you can do all of the mechanical elements to it, but you can never know, you will know, the audience will know very quickly whether there’s a true chemical reaction between two players or not. That part of it is something you do not know until the very moment it actually happens. And I’ve been through this a lot because, whether it’s in film or plays or opera, there tends to always be a key relationship at the middle of the work, and really I just know that with you and Nicole, well it’s interesting. How is it going to be? How’s it going to be on the first day when they get together?

We never, of course, did it in rehearsals and I can remember coming up to that moment. Sometimes, you know, you have to be very mechanical with the directing of lovemaking. It’s almost like a dance and you actually have to rehearse it and give lots of direction and it really is as much as “put your hand here”… But I remember on that day that moment happened and some paradox about both you and Nicole being very comfortable with each other and a sort of intimacy between them that belonged to them and when that moment happened, I only gave one direction which was “Great. Again. Slower.” And I remember thinking this is going to be an easy day. We’ll go to lunch soon. So it was one of those things where in the moment I thought well that’s something I do not need to worry about -- the chemical frisson between the two lovers.

MoviesOnline: Well that first kiss does have the longest buildup I think I’ve ever seen. Is there an extended director’s cut where it takes even longer?

HUGH JACKMAN: Slow motion. The other thing I should mention about the kiss is that it’s really amazing for me to kiss someone where I don’t have to have my shoes off, or be in a ditch, or the other actor is on a box, which is not sexy. It was really lovely. I think Nic said the same thing. She said, “I get to look up.”

BAZ LUHRMANN: Miss Kidman, if you’ve ever been in a room with her, I mean she is not the girl next door. She’s a lot of things, Nicole. But if she’s in a room, I mean she is an extraordinary physical reality because she is terribly willowy and tall. And as a personality I think Hugh described her very well. She is electricity in a room, and she is kind of like a thoroughbred – very, very, you know, and it’s like there’s an electricity that just shimmers through the room. Now this is also coordinated with a kindness where... I said this the other day about Nicole. It’s not her fault that she’s so electric. It does keep you on your toes. But she will go to the person in the room who feels the least comfortable and make them comfortable. So it’s a great combination.

Having said that, having worked with her a lot, the player opposite her, I mean, the fact that for the first time she said, a leading man can walk in the room, basically pick her up in his arms and off we go and just stand next to one on one and match. I mean, just on a practical level, that is just such an incredible advantage and put her in a very good place because she just felt she was in the arms of a great dance partner.
 
MoviesOnline: Were there longer takes for the kiss?

HUGH JACKMAN: I don’t kiss and tell. [Laughs]

BAZ LUHRMANN: The DVD extended version is coming soon at Christmas.

HUGH JACKMAN: Yes.
 
MoviesOnline: How was it to do Wolverine with Gavin Hood, and without all of the other X-Men?

HUGH JACKMAN: There was not as much kissing. [Laughs] I’ll probably be talking to you guys about it in a few months, so I won’t go on, but it was fantastic. Gavin Hood is a great director. He’s very strong, and has a great understanding of the journeys and the arcs of characters. These movies are bound by their attention to the characters and the story. All the other stuff, like those powers and all that stuff that’s terrific, is not at the heart of it. It’s themes and its characters and the struggles. That’s the heart of it. Gavin is terrific. I did miss Halle Berry, though.
 
MoviesOnline: How much did you have to practice the horse riding?

HUGH JACKMAN: Baz and I talked about the horse riding, early on. There were some descriptions of the horse riding in the script. I remember one that said, “Drover thunders across the Outback, chasing a beast, a scrub bull. He catches up to the scrub bull, leaps off his horse, grabs the beast by the tail, wrestles it to the ground, pulls out his knife and slashes its balls off.”
 
BAZ LUHRMANN: You left something out. Then, it went on to say, “He is poetry in motion.” [Laughs] You always forget that bit.    
 
HUGH JACKMAN: That’s right! At which point, I thought, “I’ve got to get some lessons here,” [laughs] and I did. Actors lie about horse riding. That’s the old joke. They ask, “Can you ride a horse?,” so you say, “Oh sure, absolutely! Since I was a kid.” But, this was something where the character’s name was The Drover. If the movie was made here, you’d call him The Cowboy. They’re defined by where they are and what they do, this character in particular. For me, when I watch a great rider or a great skier, there’s something beautiful about watching them in their comfort and their ease and their feeling that they’ve been on that horse all their life. In a way, they’re more themselves and more at home on that horse than anywhere else. The key that Baz and I talked about was time in the saddle. Yes, we did everything, from jumping to cutting cattle, or whatever it was. All those different things were really a by-product of just feeling at home on the set.

BAZ LUHRMANN: I think I have to insert a little bit. I think Mr. Jackman is a little bit… Well, it’s hard for you to talk about this on just a really pragmatic level. Look, we worked across the board in all forms, whether it’s opera or all kinds of performance, but Hugh had that goal, he had to be that character, he had to be credible. So yes, did we build a corral? Did we put him with the best people in Texas. Did he….? Yes, all that, but in that film, when there is a stampede, he is on that horse, he is in that stampede. Now the star of the film combines because in a film like “Gone With the Wind,” alright, it couldn’t be just naturalism. We wanted a heightened visual world so it’s a combination of shooting on location, what we called the David Lean and the George Lucas, a visual that’s coming together to create this kind of painterly language in which broad comedy and broad, intense emotion could sit as bedfellows.

But, there is a section there where there is a stampede, he is on that horse in the stampede, he is galloping at 100 hundred miles per hour through all those cattle. When you see that horse caught by that rope, he caught that horse, alright? He threw that rope, he caught that horse. When you see him lay that horse down, and the other night we screened the film for the first time with an audience of 3,000 people in Sydney, Hugh saw the movie for the first time, I was sweating beads not about their reaction to the film but that Hugh would turn to me and say “Six months I learned to be a horse whisperer and all I did was a bit where I laid him down?” In the extended version, there are scenes where he dances with the horse, they do the cha-cha together, you see them having cigarettes.

The relationship he built, and I’m serious about this, the extended footage of what he can do with a horse is simply, and I have to say it because I haven’t said it yet, you know we’ve only done 3 days of talking to people, it’s unbelievable. And I have had to work with people who have had to learn all sorts of things. I have never in my life worked with an actor whose capacity to take on a physical challenge and realize it is at this level and the commitment to it is unbelievable. Sorry to embarrass you. I know you’re the sexiest man in the world but you happen to also be the hardest working actor I’ve ever come to terms with in terms of those physical jobs and I thought it needed to be said because, in this day and age, I bet people think like, “Nah, stuntmen!” No, no, no, no, not in this movie, my friends. That is him on that horse. He did those things and if you want to see it, on the DVD I will go out of my way to expose how real that is because I just appreciate the effort.
  
MoviesOnline: How did you develop the relationship with your horse, beyond just time in the saddle?

HUGH JACKMAN: To be clear, there were four main horses that I worked with. When you work on a film, they’re required to do different things. There’s not really one horse that can do all that. So, one horse is for rearing, and one horse is almost stoned, in personality, because when things are blowing up, you need a horse that can actually just stand there, but that kind of horse is not going to be able to do a stampede and chase.

So, the main horse that we did the work with and did the laying down and all of that, I spent a long time with that horse. It starts with bareback riding. The only way you can really develop a relationship of trust with a horse is to not put a saddle on it because horses can sense it. I learned a lot about parenting from riding a horse. It’s the same thing. You can whack a horse. I’ve seen people do it. They whack them, they kick them, and they do all that, and you can get a horse to do something. But, I was very lucky to have two trainers who taught me how to make the horse feel it’s their idea. I’ll tell you, as a parent, it is the greatest thing I’ve ever learned. [Laughs]

But, when you get on a horse bareback, the horse knows that you trust them. And then, for days, you have to go wherever they want to go, whatever it is. If they want to ride up a hill or jump over a fence, you just go with them and say, “It’s okay. Whatever you want to do, I’m there.” And then, just very gradually, you make little suggestions like, “How about we go here?,” or “How about leading off with this hind leg here? And, now, let’s switch and lead off this side.” And, the horse kind of wants to do it. When you have that, it’s exhilarating.
 
MoviesOnline: So, you’ve learned to stop kicking your children then?

HUGH JACKMAN: [Laughs] No longer did I have a bit between their mouth. It’s amazing!
 
MoviesOnline: What was that horse’s name?

HUGH JACKMAN: His name was Buddy.
 
MoviesOnline: When you have a physical role like this, what do you do specifically to train?

HUGH JACKMAN: I go to the gym in the morning, as much for a state of mind as a physical state. However, when you work with Baz, you may be doing close-up kissing, or you may be jumping over a six-foot fence with a horse. You don’t know what, and that is the great thrill of it, and that is something that I love. Early on in my career, I made the mistake of turning up to shoot a master of a scene and then all of a sudden really waking up at 11 o’clock, you think, “I can’t believe I made that choice and that decision.”

It’s mainly about having the state of mind where, the very first frame, you’re ready to go. In terms of physicality and what you eat, it’s very important because you have to understand that what we know as a protein diet is pretty much what these drovers lived on. When they were out there, they would not eat a lot. They were lean, but they were very strong and muscle-y. I ate a lot of steamed chicken. It’s also important before you train and these guys would do that too. When you wake up, you’ve got to have some food in your belly before you work.
 
MoviesOnline: What did you do in the gym?

HUGH JACKMAN: When I say in the gym, we were in the Outback and I had a caravan with a fireplace and then I had next to it, it kind of looked bizarre, but a rack of free weights.
 
MoviesOnline: So, it was a portable gym?

HUGH JACKMAN: I suppose. We were literally on the dirt, with a few weights. But, it was pretty much all body stuff. Everything I had to do was about being able to be malleable and physical. Those guys out there are strong, and yet they can be thrown off a horse, land on the ground, and then get straight back up again, so you have to be a little bit flexible.
 
MoviesOnline: How does it compare to training for something like Wolverine?

HUGH JACKMAN: For Wolverine, I had to eat a lot more and train with a lot heavier weights, and get my naturally leaner body a little bigger.

MoviesOnline: Do you have to work harder, since you’ve turned 40?

HUGH JACKMAN: Yes. [Laughs] We all know that. You just don’t get away with your errors, shall we say. You don’t get away with them anymore so you just have to be a little more disciplined.
 
MoviesOnline: So, do you work with a trainer?

HUGH JACKMAN: Yeah. It’s funny, even calling him my trainer, because Mike and I have been mates since I was 18. He is actually a fantastic trainer, but it’s really an odd relationship. He’s just the most competitive guy in the world. As he says, “I’ll race you to the door.” He’ll be trash-talking me the whole time, saying, “This is pathetic. I’m going to smash you,” and all of that ridiculous, teenage boy behavior. That’s what we turn into.

MoviesOnline: Since the production wrapped, Nicole has had a baby. Can you talk about how becoming a mother at this stage in her life has it changed her?

BAZ LUHRMANN: Well, it has, but it hasn’t, and I think probably for my own observation, we’ve been in a professional, creative relationship for quite a long time now, and that’s been ever growing actually. I think Hugh’s now come into that triangle and that’s been a really – for a film that had unbelievable obstacles and difficulty and challenge, and really I think we were all tested, and I mean three hundred people were tested at a level of we really can’t do this, we’ve bitten off more than we can chew. But Hugh and Nicole were great cheerleaders in that, and I thought it was a real partnership actually, a triangle out there leading the crew every day, the siren on the wing, and I’m bringing this up because it’s an important context for what I’m about to say.

As a professional Nicole has that relationship. I think we’ve continued to push each others, you know, she’s a high wire act, as Hugh was eluding to. She’s a high wire act in that you all know she goes out on an edge and as a performer she makes choices where we all go, “Are you crazy? What are you doing that for?”  But she does that as she says because she’s got unusual taste, but really I know that’s her way of saying that she wants to go up on that wire again, and she is always challenging herself, therefore she challenges everyone around her. And I think as that relationship director/actor has evolved, it’s become one – what Hugh said, it only about trust, and at some point, how much trust is there? Is there enough trust to take the net away?

So that’s what we all love to turn up and see I think with Nicole. I mean, there’s the acting, she’s a tremendous actor, she’s also a great movie star, and what I mean by that is an old-fashioned movie star, what I mean by that is she’s just fascinating off and on the screen. Now how does that relate to how’s it’s changed her since she’s had that beautiful little baby? Is that the stuff of which that’s made, that makes Nicole, that as a performer and as a person that we know.

That question is a really important one, because there’s a personal relationship. I have made, Tim and I have made with Nicole two very risky, very difficult motion pictures. Funnily enough, over a period now, unbelievably I think it’s like 8 years now, and then we made the Chanel piece (“Number 5: The Film). Funnily enough, every time we get together and make a film, these momentous things happen. Nicole was breaking up in her marriage last time, Moulin Rouge, I went through that border of losing my father when we were filming, and then on this journey, at the end of it, you know – it’s funny because, and we don’t want to do a spoiler here, but there’s an issue about motherhood in this film. In fact, I think fundamentally the film is about that. That’s why I ended it the way I did.

But, and this is true, what happened in this story, because it’s very easy to make nice backstage stories, you know what happens under that baobab tree, that lovely tree, real location shot at Kununurra, again the Lean and Lucas, we had to do close-ups, you know, and we’re on this stage and we brought a bit of the tree into the studio to actually do those very controlled close-ups. So, we’re under the tree, and we call lunch, and Nicole’s like being Nicole, and I’m thinking “It’s going to be an exciting day. What is it do you want?” She’s like, ‘Baz, I have to talk to you. Come over here. I have to talk to you.” I’m like, my eyes are almost rolling in my head, “Oh please, okay what is it?” And she stops and she’s incredibly like transformative, and this is the great thing about that friend and colleague, is that when things are really bad, she can suddenly become unbelievably, super, super centered and just so grounded, and she said, “I’m pregnant.”

And honestly, she burst into tears, and so did I, and we were under that tree that we brought down from up the bush, and it was about the last ‘x’ weeks, and then it was all like, “Don’t tell anyone, don’t tell anyone, I’m nervous.” So she immediately flipped back to “I’m not going to be a burden to anybody,” and then there’s the whole secret that Hugh and Nicole and I had to – we were in boats and stuff, and she had morning sickness and all that. She had little Sunday Rose, and all I can say is, that as an observation, as a technical observation, it is still Nicole, still the high wire act, but there is a center and a sort of – she’s has had the gift of peace that I don’t think she’s found easy to have access to, as easy, and I’ve seen a peace in her, a kind of center to her, and she’s just Nicole, only better.

MoviesOnline: Did you have to go back and re-shoot because she was pregnant?

BAZ LUHRMANN: No, that did not happen. Are you kidding, Nicole? Hang on, people going “Is she really?” Physically no, and also it was at a stage where it was never a problem.

CATHERINE MARTIN: People ask me that all the time, “Did you have to change the costumes?” Absolutely not. Because it was in the very early stages. She was the trooper. She felt pretty sick and she just kept working which was pretty remarkable. And I think Nicole feels really blessed because Sunday Rose is her third child. We met Nicole when Isabella came into her life and we met her as a baby on the Fox sound stage when we did a shoot for Australian Vogue and so I feel privileged to have met two of her babies, two little daughers, and I think that at that very early stage and I think, you know, Nicole is a very caring maternal person and she has a sense of wanting to care for the group and I think it comes very naturally to her. I think she sees it as a great blessing. And, as a mother who had children very late in life, I think it’s sort of a double blessing particularly if you think it’s an experience you may never have and so I think she feels very blessed. She has three fabulous children and that’s a great gift.

MoviesOnline: How do you think the movie will be received in America?

BAZ LUHRMANN: We’ve had this experience a bit on the films we made. You don’t bite off the ambition or do the silly, silly thing of saying, now wouldn’t it be great if musicals could be on the screen again? You flippantly say that and then you embark on, right or wrong, whether you did the right things or not, you really intensely for years try and make that work. And then you bring it out to an audience, and it’s not like with an action film, there’s a predetermined selling mechanism in place. There just is, you know.

If you’re doing a remake of a comic, and this is not to deride them at all because the current one out there is absolutely brilliant, but there is a mechanism, like for Wolverine, how to sell that. Now you turn up and you say, when I was young, I saw this genre, and there was this genre of cinema where we all when we had our little cinema, everybody went to it, and you laughed and you cried and you swoon and there was action, and it was all in one big banquet of cinema that everybody could come to. It wasn’t a time when you said, “Seventeen year old boys, action film. Forty year old women, Sex and the City, art film.” If you’re using the food metaphor, sushi for you, fast food for you, you made cinema – I saw cinema as a kid that was a Thanksgiving banquet, you know, and Gran could say (using weird grandma voice), “Take me to that Thanksgiving, we’re all going to the movies.” And everyone could go, and everyone could come back, and everyone could talk about it, and everyone got something out of it. And that’s considered deeply un-cool now, deeply un-cool even to talk about that. It’s so un-cool, the old people can’t be with the [young people]. That’s very un-cool.

So, there is no mechanism to selling this film, and in fact, and Fox is doing everything they can, but they’re having to sell a slice, they’re having to communicate a slice, or a slice to this person or that person, but honestly what we would love to happen is to invite all of America to Australia for Thanksgiving, and say “Come and share in this banquet of cinema.” But let me say that’s what we would like to do, that’s extremely hard to do, so I would say this. My honest read is this:  the only selling tool for this film is actually, aside from if there are any people here who actually liked the film or got it to communicate it, but it’s the audience. People will see it and tell other people.

I know it’s hard to say, but there’s such a thing as a movie where you can laugh and you can cry, and you can swoon and blah, blah, blah. That isn’t going to be like Kabang on the opening weekend. Our greatest hope is that Gran actually does say, “I don’t care, you should take me to the movies on Thanksgiving. This family doesn’t care about me,” and then someone says, you know, Thanksgiving, and if we get strong through there, and audiences go on and tell other people, really the clever advertising campaign is for an audience to see the movie and tell their friends, “Listen, trust me, I think this is some hours in the cinema worth spending.” So that’s all we got going for us. That’s all we got.

“Australia” opens in theaters on November 26, 2008