Nicole, Baz and Hugh on the ranch…
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‘2008’s Sexiest Man Alive’ and X-Men star Hugh Jackman joins fellow countrymen ‘Red Curtain Trilogy’ writer/director Baz Luhrmann and co-producer/production designer Catherine Martin in London. By Lisa Keddie.
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The Aussies were out in force in London this December to promote the sumptuous new extravaganza from ‘Red Curtain Trilogy’ (Strictly Ballroom (1992), Romeo + Juliet (1996) and Moulin Rouge! (2001)) director, Baz Luhrmann, aptly named Australia. This ’sweeping romantic adventure event film’ sees Jackman as rugged cattleman, Drover, all buffed up to fit his ‘2008’s Sexiest Man Alive’ PEOPLE title, and sending quite a few jaws dropping in the process, trust me.
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The synopsis: Set in Australia on the explosive brink of World War II, the film sees an English aristocrat (Nicole Kidman) traveling 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 face the bombing of the city of Darwin by the Japanese forces that attacked Pearl Harbour.
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Now, Luhrmann may well be an acclaimed and award-winning writer, producer and director who immediately prompts me to shout (in my worst possible Aussie accent) “Tina Sparkle!” whenever his name is mentioned, but it is fair to say that the man can talk… and talk, which does partially explain why his latest project is 165 minutes long…
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Luhrmann claims the inspiration for Australia came from his childhood love of the genre of having romantic, action, drama and comedy all in one film, or a ‘cinematic banquet’. The other source came one day whilst living in Paris. Luhrmann claims he asked himself about his children that he has with wife and co-producer/production designer Catherine Martin: “who are they”? Obviously, this is in the sense of where are they from, what are their roots - not that he was pointing an accusing finger at his lovely spouse! The idea of having roots was the beginning of a personal journey that took him and his family back to Broome, Australia four years ago.
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The next question was finding a story. The WWII bombing of Darwin provided a great action sequence, but Luhrmann was after a ’soul’ for his epic. “The Stolen Generation stopped me in my tracks”, remarks Luhrmann. “I realised that I was in a place where I could take a difficult pill and put it inside a great big entertainment. This was the genesis of the idea”. The Stolen Generations were children of Australian Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander descent who were removed from their families by the Australian and State government agencies and church missions, under acts of their respective parliaments. The removals occurred in the period between approximately 1869 and 1969. Luhrmann felt that current Stolen Generation stories were done well, but he wanted to bring it to wider attention, in a way that it could not be swept under the carpet. And four years worth of work still saw Luhrmann at a mixing desk in November this year, adding finishing voiceover touches for the character of Nullah.
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So, was this ‘Australia’ an Australia that Jackman knew whilst growing up? “There are parts of this movie that are playing on the stereotype”, admits the actor. “But the centre of the story about the Stolen Generations was something I’d never heard of at high school”. In fact, Jackman claims there was not one Aboriginal child at school, so he did not know any Aborigines. “When I was 19 I spent three or four months in the Outback. That was when I really started to understand the culture and had Aboriginal friends”, says Jackman. “This film really deepened the whole experience for me. Baz and I started living on set in caravans out there. We had open fires outside, and my son would spend most of the nights sleeping out there with me. Then he would do schooling with the Aboriginal kids on set. It was quite profound to be with my son, actually”. The production was on traditional Aboriginal lands and the ‘property’ or size of the land they filmed in was the size of Belgium. “The whole thing felt like an absolute privilege from beginning to end”, says Jackman. “To be in a film set in Australia with Australian everything and Australia in the title seemed like an inconceivable thing… To think that Hollywood would even finance a thing like that… So to be part of that was amazing”.
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Catherine Martin admits that references for the production design of this ‘big historical romance’ immediately came from Saturday afternoon black-and-white TV matinees. These engrained images met with the research that Luhrmann likes every department to do. “My department (Visuals) answers the kind of questions Baz has about what a house might have looked like in that particular region in that period. Or what Lady Sarah Ashley (Kidman) could have woren… What style of hat Drover would have been wearing”? Luhrmann even asked executive music producer Anton Monsted to begin researching music for that era. “We’re all sailors on Baz’s ship”, smiles Martin. “Faraway Downs was flooded two weeks before we were about to shoot, so we were required to bail out the scenery. It’s about getting inside what Baz’s vision for the film is, and then trying to find all the visual references that can help him tell the story”.
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Luhrmann agrees that the research part is fun, obsessive and relentless, and being in the library is quite normal for him. The director claims that every book or piece of research from/on that period would have been collected by his team. “Everything comes from absolute research and reality”, states Luhrmann. Except Australia is a romance and, therefore, an interpretation: “We had a rule that as long as it doesn’t fundamentally change the truth, we can make conjunctions… Cattle never ran to the wharf until the late 30s”. Luhrmann and his wife were guests on the Martha Stewart show recently, showing their book, or their ‘visual scripts’, that includes each scene and all the different images of the time for each scene. These are then turned into characterisations and drawings. “We even photographed Hugh in his fittings and put them in the book. So the books I was showing to Martha Stewart were created before we made the movie, but Hugh is in the scenes with Nicole. When we finish making the movie, we make the final book”, says Luhrmann. “Basically, it is storytelling and there is a story book with pictures of the movie”.
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Back to that ‘Sexiest Man Alive’ accolade hanging around Jackman’s shoulders - just what does the wife think? “The very first thing Debs said was ‘I knew it. I knew I’d marry the sexiest man alive!’”, laughs Jackman. “The second thing was she wanted to know what the process was, how’s it chosen? I said ‘how do you mean?’ and she said ‘was it readers, was it voters?’, and I said ‘I think it’s the editors and whose publicist they are on good terms with at that time’. She said ’so, anyone can get it?’ and I said ‘yes’. She then said ’so Brad Pitt didn’t get it?’ and I said ‘that was a joke, right?’, and she said ‘oh (hesitation), yeah’”.
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Jackman admits that out of Kidman and himself, he was the first to faint on set. “It was unfortunately on the first day. It was on location and it was not the most macho way to start, particularly when we were in the Outback and there were many of the real deal on set as well”, laughs Jackman. “It was incredibly hot and we were shooting a massive wide shot of the return of all the cattle as they come into Darwin. There is a scene where my character rides through the stockyards and is trying to cut off the other cattle getting onboard. So, I was waiting on my horse, ready to go”, recalls the actor. “Half-an-hour later, I asked ‘do you think we’re going soon, as I’m getting pretty hot’. I was wearing a woollen shirt, leather pants and an all-weather jacket with lining in it, and was on a horse that got particularly spooked by umbrellas - so, no umbrella, just sitting in the sun… About 45 minutes later I felt a hand in my back, and I said ‘what are you doing?’ and he [an extra] said ‘what am I doing, mate? You’re at a 45 degree angle to the horse!’ This guy who was an extra was holding me up!” Martin admits it wasn’t the most glorious moment to nearly kill the lead on the first day. Jackman adds, “It was when I learnt that when someone says Baz will be ready in 5 minutes, it’s about time to go eat lunch and then in about an hour from then to get ready to shoot”.
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Ever optimistic, Luhrmann disagrees that an Australian film such as Australia is the last in a dying breed of movies. “I don’t know how it can be a dying breed if I’m just trying to get the breed going”, exclaims the director. “I’d like to think that this kind of film could be made again, with this cast and on this scale - Australian stories with Australian practitioners, doing what America has been doing for a long time, which is to take their stories and mythologizing them so they can play around the globe.” However, Luhrmann does agree that to go out in the landscape with 200 crew members, living in tents, and shooting on location - as in Australia - is definitely a dying breed. He barely got away with it. “We mixed the lean - shooting on location - with the [George] Lucas - use of visual effects in a painterly manner”, says Luhrmann. He also agrees that he was a fool to say that he was doing three epics because one has almost killed him! But whatever Luhrmann does next, don’t be surprised if it is not something ‘fun and quick’.
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Now, back to THAT torso shot - does Jackman believe there should be more gratuitous torso shots in Hollywood films? “No!” laughs the sex symbol. But that scene proved very popular on Oprah. “I remember shooting that scene, saying Baz, mate, are you sure about this? I understand the comedy here and we are in a romp and it is fun… Baz said ‘as long as we are 100 percent bold with it’. It was emblematic of Baz as everything is bold in terms of action, drama and romance, even the first kiss between me and Nicole. Baz said do it again, slower. I thought we were really slow. When I saw the film the first time sitting next to my wife I thought it was even slower”! What Jackman likes best about working with Luhrmann is he pushes the boundaries and has made a film that traverses so many different genres. Luhrmann praises his leads, adding that it is much harder for actors to do that kind of broad humour, as you initially expect an Out of Africa style of film, then wonder where it is going? You expect emotion in a sweeping epic, but not necessarily raw comedy.
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All the panel agree on one thing: If there is one incredible thing in this film, it is little Brandon Walters who plays mixed race (White-Aborigine) boy, Nullah. “As I speak to you, he [Brandon] is probably hitting marsupials on the head up in the Bush”, says Luhrmann. “I would have had trouble finding a seven-year-old European boy who could act like that. To find that boy was like this living nightmare. The team saw 1,000 boys. I went on the road up there with my colleagues and we saw another 30. There were two possibilities out of ten. What is incredible about that little fella [Brandon] is that is not acting. The truth is he doesn’t read the camera - he can look past it with the eyes. Did I fall in love with his eyes? Yes, because his eyes do not blanch from the camera”. His performance was totally profound, admits the director. “He was quite a miracle because no Brandon, no movie…”
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Can we assume that any film with the likes of Bryan Brown and Jack Thompson in the cast is not entirely without incident? “I’m not sure if any of them are tales that we can tell”, laughs Jackman. “They are practical jokers to the core. We were also filming on location, where there were 300 tents were lined out. As the sun went down, the only thing in the building that was permanent was a bar with a pool table. It’s kind of miraculous that we got consecutive days in, really”. Luhrmann compares it to the days of Richard Harris and Peter O’Toole. “I acted in a film when I was younger with Bryan Brown and he was an absolute icon. He had two wives who were sisters, which given that is illegal in our country is a hell of an achievement”, remarks Luhrmann. “He [Brown] was an absolute sex god. He did the first nude centrefold for the magazine Cleo in 1978. He was like the Brad Pitt of that time. To think that one day I would do a film where there was a little Aboriginal boy, current reigning Australian actors in Hugh and Nicole, David Gulpilil [from Walkabout], and Brian and Jack… Maybe that was Nicole’s point [of a dying breed]. Maybe that won’t happen again”.
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“The scene were Jack gets trampled was shot in the studio. His character has his leg impossibly broken. Jack was at a weird angle with his legs underneath, and so many people trod on his b***s and on his legs”, adds Jackman. “And he had this make-up that made him look like everyone had trodden on his b***s! Jack was under there for six hours and was repeatedly offered the chance to come out, but because there was real artistry to make it look good, he said I’ll stay in there. I was by the camera when he recorded the first close-up of that death scene, and when they called ‘cut’, everyone around that camera applauded. It was after that day that I can contest that Jack Thompson IS a legend because he is an unbelievable actor under duress”. Luhrmann adds that Jack actually began his life as a ringer on a cattle station, and he was fired for being too friendly with the Aboriginal stockmen. When the director originally pitched the idea of the script to Thompson, he started to cry, saying that this was his life.
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Jackman claims what appealed about playing Drover was that he is a character who combines some of the iconic imagery, screen archetypes and characters that he grew up with. There are shots in Australia that were openly referencing those characters, too. “Baz gave Nicole and me the opportunity to do on one film what we’d be lucky to do in five films, such as the different genres we were called to play. What a lot of my mates have said after seeing the film is to see in the Drover character his relationship with a young boy. For Australian men my age, the generation above were, in general, quite emotionally removed… So that side of the story, I’m quite thrilled is in there.” Jackman admits that he feels it is more ‘manly’ to be more vulnerable at times and to show your emotions. With Drover, he starts off as the archetypal male and becomes more emotionally vulnerable as the story goes on. “To be able to play that in such a big-scale movie, I loved it!” admits Jackman.
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So, which side of Drover’s character did Jackman feel more comfortable playing: macho Drover in the Outback, or the suited-and-booted, tux-wearing Drover at the ball in the end? “Well, I can tell you which one works best for my wife”, laughs Jackman. “When I wore that double-breasted white dinner jacket, she said ‘wear your costume home tonight’ - she didn’t say that about my other horse/cow-smelling costume”. Jackman confesses that playing Drover at the ball, and him stepping up and claiming his space was more difficult to play. “In real-life, for Hugh Jackman turning up at a ball in a jacket is fine - and if you ask me to sing a song and do the foxtrot, I’ll quite enjoy it, but for Drover, he has to dance, turn up in a suit and do things he’s never done before, so as an actor I had to think, what does it feel like? Imagine wearing something for the first time… The other Drover I lived with for seven months on location. It became more natural”.
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One final, important question: Does Hugh Jackman get a trophy for the ‘Sexiest Man Alive’ - and is it like a large golden phallus? “You just get a whole lot of hell from your mates, that’s what”, laughs Jackman.
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Australia hits UK screens on Boxing Day. Read our review HERE.
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