Nicole Kidman & Hugh Jackman at 'Australia' premiere in US

Nicole Kidman and Hugh Jackman have graced the red carpet in the Big Apple for the premiere of their latest film, Australia. Several fellow Australians joined them, including actress Naomi Watts, Kidman's husband, singer Keith Urban, Olivia Newton-John, Rupert Murdoch and the film's director Baz Luhrmann. Kidman said she hoped to give audiences the chance to visit her homeland. "I hope people see the landscape and, you know, fall in love with it the way that I'm in love with it," she said. Jackman said: "It's a metaphor for the far away. I think a lot of people know about Australia but a lot of people haven't been there. "A lot of Australians haven't been to the place where we shot, and yet what the movie shows is this particular part of the world, and I think even if you go to the movie you have an experience that you don't normally get." Set in the 1940s, Australia tells the tale of an English aristocrat, played by Kidman, who inherits a sprawling Outback property and falls in love with a rugged "drover" or cowboy, played by Jackman. The film is the most expensive ever made in Australia, costing £130 million, and is Luhrmann's first film since Moulin Rouge, seven years ago.

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ITN | November 25, 2008

Tags:. .drover. .newtonjohn. .aristocrat. .jackman. .sprawling