Since actor Hugh Jackman was born in Australia and Nicole Kidman's parents were from Australia, the two Hollywood A-listers know a thing or two about the harsh rugged terrain of the Outback. And since director Baz Luhrmann is also from Australia, it was a perfect fit for the trio to come together for Luhrmann's latest film aptly titled Australia, about a wealthy socialite that inherits a ranch in the Outback who enlists the help of an exploring over-lander to help move cattle across the unforgiving terrain while the Japanese attack the town of Darwin. Interestingly enough, it was the same Japanese bombers that attacked Pearl Harbor only months earlier.

While doing press for Australia, Baz Lurhmann's first film since Moulin Rouge!, Nicole Kidman and Hugh Jackman chatted to journalists about how they survived the blistering heat of Australian Outback, the history behind the film, and why their Outback experience is a one shot deal.

How hot is the Australian Outback? As you'll find out, it was hot enough for Jackman to pass out while sitting on a horse.

Did making the movie change the way you look at your country?

HUGH JACKMAN: Yeah, it did for me. When I was about 19 I spent some time in that region and it had a fairly profound effect on me, and I sort of forgot about it until going back up there shooting particularly in Dakimberly and these amazing, magical places. I had my family with me shooting on a film with some great Australia - some of the greatest Australian actors and directors and production designer - everything was kind of so amazing. Spending time with the indigenous actors and the people up there welcomed us to their country and allowed us to be on their property, learning about more and more about their history. You have to understand the stolen generation was not something I never heard bout in high school. I don’t know about you, Nic, do you?

NICOLE KIDMAN: No.

JACKMAN: I don’t remember ever hearing about it until I went to university, so it was something that I knew about, but it’s still, as a topic in Australia, has been always put to the side. So it gave me a much greater understanding, I suppose, of the area, about the situation, about the need for reconciliation and many of the other details. I didn’t know that the same planes that bombed Pearl Harbor bombed Australia, you know, four weeks later, or that it was bombed 63 times, or that many Aborigines were killed but they were not included in the count, the death toll.

So officially it looked like not so many had died but of course we had no idea. So there were many things, but in terms of an experience, the movie itself, I think, offers you an experience whether you know Australia or not. But for Australians, most of us living on the coast, living in urban situations, that part of the world and making a movie in that part of the world is one of the greatest blessings I’ll ever have, I think, as an actor, ever.

KIDMAN: I got to explore it and I think that’s what happens when, you know, I mean I’ve always said, 'I want to go and explore Dakimberly, I want to go and see the northern territory and those things,' and I’ve just never have done it. And so to be able to explore it while making a film so you’re actually living culturally in those areas and experiencing it, that was what was very precious. And then at the same time discovering some of that history where things I didn’t know, including the bombing of Darwin.

Can you talk about being pregnant while you were shooting and the diary you kept?

KIDMAN: It’s really hard to say what I’ve learned. I’m never quite sure until many years later, but, yeah, I was doing a diary. I was actually - I was going to release the diary, and then I went, ‘Oh, this is too personal, I can’t release it.’ And then somehow it ended up - bits of it ended up in the press and so people have read little bits of it and stuff, which I think it was - I mean for me, yeah, I became pregnant on the film, but the biggest gift was getting to play this character, and once again working with Baz [Luhrmann] because I believe he’s the most innovative, in terms of filmmakers, working in the world today.

And I think that Baz pushes the boundaries in terms of cinema, and that’s the people I enjoy working with and so that’s probably - that was the biggest gift of the film, and then obviously personally, I got my daughter out of this too. It was a combination of many, many things for me. And I’ve always wanted to make a film, since I was a little girl that celebrated Australia, but celebrated - I think I wanted to make a grand love story and that’s what I see this as. I think that it celebrates love and that’s where I’m at in my life right now.

Can you talk about motherhood in the film and becoming a new mother?

KIDMAN: I mean - I loved working with Brandon. Initially when I met Brandon Baz and CM have a place up North where we worked on Moulin Rouge and where we did a lot of the rehearsing and the work on this in preparations to head out north, and Brandon and I are both shy, so I remember Brandon standing at one side of the room and me on the other side of the room and I thought, ‘Oh my gosh.’ I looked at Baz and thought, ‘How are we going to get it so this boy trusts me?’ He’s not an actor, so he doesn’t now what he’s dealing with. He doesn’t know how to pretend or fake anything. And I just sort of thought, ‘Okay, gently does it.’

And throughout the rehearsal process I just let him come to me and slowly - I let him tell me stories, stories about where he comes from, which I think Baz will tell you how he found Brandon, which were just riveting. Then he would tell me about his grandmother and his culture and slowly I think we both kind of drew each other in. And by the time we started shooting I was so excited to see him every day. And he would run over to me, and usually a boy of that age isn’t that affectionate. But he would run over and sort of throw his arms around my waist and I just loved being around him. And he had his sister who would stand in for him sometimes who was the same age, and I just developed a very, very strong bond and pact. And I said to him, ‘You know, you can always trust me. I’ll never let you down. And we’re here to give you an experience in this film and make you really great in the movie.’ And I hope that’s what he feels that he got from that.

I mean he’s a little man now, isn’t he? But as a mother, myself, I think that gave me the ability to feel very comfortable around children, which I do. So, that, and then, you know - When you work with a child like that age, you have to - Baz would say, 'Okay, we have to get this particular line and this particular emotion.' So you don’t necessarily stick to the script, let alone the emotional sort of trajectory of the scene, you go for moments, really, improvising. And that’s what it is. And a child gets tired and then disinterested, so many different things, which people don’t realize when you’re working with a small person, particularly one that has no references in terms of cities and all of those things, and is used to just going, ‘No, I don’t want to do this anymore,’ going off and shooting a ‘roo.

JACKMAN: I just remembered something that I’d forgotten. Later on when we were shooting, Brandon had been going, I don’t know, months at this point. Remember the scene we shot on Mission Island with all those kids and there’s a scene where I rescue the kids and I say, 'C’mere kids. Now listen, we’re going to get on that boat over there. You’ve got to be very, very quiet, like a turtle.' Now when we go to shoot, the kids - it was quite late at night. They were so excited. It was like 10 o’clock at night because we were shooting at night and they had to be done by twelve. And literally the first take, the camera’s behind me, here. And I’m looking out, and all the kids, of about ten kids, four of them are going, ‘Uhh!’ at the camera, like it’s a news camera, just sort of - I’m thinking, ‘This is going to be a disaster!’ And Brandon turned to them and says, 'Hey, listen, you’ve got to concentrate! Look at the drover, don’t look at the camera!’ And I went, ‘He’s picking it up real quick.’

Going to live in the Outback, away from it all. Is that something you’d like to experience again in the future?

KIDMAN: No, I won’t be experiencing it again in the near future. I think that was the point of this film for me, this was a once in a lifetime experience and I knew that I would be going up to places like Cananara and working in these conditions. One, because it’s just not - as we said, this is the last of a dying breed of movies. I mean to actually go to these places is very, very difficult. We’ve got photos of the whole crew living in these little tents and extreme heat. And as an actor working - obviously I’m very fair-skinned and I’m not sort of - that’s not where I’m at ease, put it that way.

I got off the plane in Cananara and went, ‘I’m not going to survive!’ And then drove two and a half hours to a set on a dirt road and thought, ‘Wow, this is really - Baz had spelled it out. It’s going to be really tough.’ And being in that - also, on top of that, the costumes, in terms of the restriction of them - I mean, CM uses everything that’s real. So the materials and everything is - it’s wool, it’s leather, it’s been researched, perfectly replicated. And so I thought, ‘Okay, here we go!’ And one day I fainted. I was on a horse and I don’t know if anyone here’s ever fainted, but you feel that nausea and before you know it, you’ve passed out, before you’ve actually been able to go, ‘Hold on!’

Luckily the guy that was wrangling the horses was able to catch me. That’s the sort of conditions but that’s what we wanted to do for the film, and at the same time that was my character in that environment, so all of that works. And then as I adapted, my character was adapting. And that, as an actor, you’re taught to use what’s around you. Don’t ever try to pretend it’s not there, use it. So I wouldn’t take my baby there now to do it, but I knew that this film for me at this time was something I’d been heading towards for a long time. Hugh fainted, too.

JACKMAN: You’re so competitive. I was the first to go. I went on the first day of shooting. Trust me, as a leading man, that’s just not the way to do it, particularly on location in a pretty touch town called Darwin where everyone’s watching. It was really hot, middle of the day, and I sat on the horse and the AD came up and said, 'Listen, Baz will be down in five minutes, five, ten minutes.' And CM had me in leather pants, a woolen shirt and a dry as a bone coat with lining on the inside. And my horse hated umbrellas, so there were no umbrella, I just had my hat, and these leather pants made for sitting on a horse.

So they’re really kind of - when you get off the horse I look a little bit ridic[ulous] - like a kid wearing his dad’s pants sort of thing. So he said, 'Do you want to get off the horse?' I said, 'Oh man, I’m up here now, I’ll just wait five or ten minutes.' Half hour later, ‘Listen man, I think it’s going to be like five or ten minutes.’ I said, 'Like really five or ten minutes?’ He goes, 'Yeah, yeah, now Baz is ready to see the cattle, it’s no problem.' And about 45 minutes later I feel a hand on my back and I said, 'I’m all right, I’m all right.' He goes, ‘No, you’re not. You’re at a 45-degree angle to the horse!’ Yeah, I was gone, that was it. And CM had to change my costume.

But, you know, we had dust storms. We had, I think, the first recorded rain in the dry season in a hundred years. If there had been rain a hundred years ago, we had twice the amount they had a hundred years ago. We had a thing called equine flu, which, I don’t know about you guys. I never heard of it before. Basically it’s horses catching a cold, but it never happened before in Australia. It happens in other countries, and so the entire horse industry shut down any movement of any horses. And when you’re making a movie in the outback, it’s not a great thing. We couldn’t move the horse at one point and there reasoning was - I’ll never forget, they said, 'This virus can jump eight kilometers at a time.' I said, 'Eight kilometers! My trailer’s eight kilometers away! There’s no one around!'

So it was - we had some hardships, but in the end I would not take that time away for anything. And my son was with me, who’s eight, and he actually lived with me out in my caravan. And we had a campfire every night and then he’d wake up cooking catfish for breakfast in the morning. And it was - he cried his eyes out when he had to go back to the tent. I’ll never forget it. So it was kind of extraordinary.