Sex and the City star Sarah Jessica Parker touches down in Melbourne

The Daily Telegraph reports

AN international airline crisis couldn't keep Sarah Jessica Parker away from visiting Australia for the first time.

The Sex And The City superstar touched down in Melbourne this morning after her flight was changed from Qantas to Emirates at the eleventh hour last night.

The 46-year-old, who is travelling without her family, arrived with a personal entourage of seven and headed straight to her suite at Crown Casino.

She will skip the Cup tomorrow to attend at a press conference for her new romcom I Don't Know How She Does It before attending Oaks Day on Thursday.

The fashion icon was looking decidedly un-Carrie upon arrival as she climbed from her plane and into a waiting limo wearing a black and white long-sleeved cotton T-shirt, lumpy grey woollen wrap and loose hair.

With her world-class fashion entourage at hand, we can expect a major transformation before her press conference tomorrow.

The Qantas shutdown also stranded a slew of other celebrities due to touch down in Australia this week.

But thanks to some quick-thinking tour managers and publicists - not to mention corporate credit cards capable of taking a $25,000 first class airfare - most of them made it into the air at last.

This is how the flight schedule for the big stars en route to Oz is faring:

Kim and Khloe Kardashian

Not due to leave New York until tonight, the ubiquitous reality TV sisters are on standby, with organisers of their Sydney trip hoping Qantas will revoke its flight freeze in time.

A "plan B'' is ready to be put into action.

The pair are to attend a party at Hugo's in Kings Cross on Wednesday night.

Joan Collins

The Golden Globe winner is due to appear at Melbourne Town Hall on Wednesday night for her A Night With Joan sell-out show, which is an intimate and anecdotal retelling of her life.

"Everything is on track,'' a source said yesterday. She will appear at Oaks Day on Thursday and in Sydney next Tuesday.

Sharni Vinson

The former Home And Away star is one lucky gal, having flown in from her LA home early to visit family. She was renegotiating her Qantas flight to Melbourne from Brisbane to attend the Swisse Marquee at tomorrow's Melbourne Cup.

Kings of Leon

Stranded in South Africa last night, where they were touring, the Tennessee rockers were hoping to get into Sydney early for a few days off before their first of nine Australian tour kicks off on Friday night at Allphones Arena.

The tour was originally slated for March but was pushed back after drummer Nathan Followill had surgery on a torn bicep, so a second postponement would be disastrous for fans.

Revealed: Leonardo DiCaprio's luxe life Down Under

Annette Sharp, The Daily Telegraph, reports


IN the flesh, Leonardo DiCaprio hardly fits the Hollywood playboy profile.


Standing next to Richard Wilkins on stage at The Star last Tuesday, it was Wilkins who epitomised the LA style - tall, blond, tanned, slightly grizzled and expensively dressed, a cinephile might have mistaken him for the Hollywood star on the dais.


Wearing a crumpled cotton navy jacket, a plain open-neck cotton shirt, casual shoes and no make-up, the shorter man to whom Wilkins handed the microphone didn't radiate star power at all. Until he opened his mouth.


Then in a practised, quiet cadence that sounded like the audio track to countless American civil war documentaries, DiCaprio took ownership of a vast and noisy hotel lobby with a minimum of fuss thanks to 800 revellers being suddenly awestruck.


It quickly became clear how this slightly geeky boy-man commands the attention of a seemingly endless trail of supermodels and Hollywood "it girls".


He is matinee cool and his appeal has not been lost on a cheer squad of Aussie models including 2008 Australia's Next Top Model contestant Alyce Crawford, 21, and 20-year-old Kendal Schuler, who has been described as a lookalike for his ex, supermodel Bar Refaeli.


As millions of film-lovers know, DiCaprio is the highest-paid actor in the world and can command $40 million a movie. He topped Forbes magazine's highest-paid actors list with estimated earnings of $77 million between May 2010 and May 2011, eclipsing second place-getter Johnny Depp on $50 million.


The Hollywood heavyweight has been in Sydney since the end of August after reuniting with the director credited with launching his star into the stratosphere with 1996's Romeo + Juliet, Australian Baz Luhrmann.


Luhrmann has cast DiCaprio in the title role of his $120 million The Great Gatsby, currently shooting at Fox Studios and on location in Rozelle, and the actor has made Sydney home until Christmas.


At 36, DiCaprio is only two years younger than Robert Redford was when he played Gatsby in the 1974 version of the classic novel.


Yet the former child actor with the open face and youthful disposition is still largely regarded as a boy and not a man staring down the barrel of 40.


An only child, DiCaprio, whose parents split when he was one, was groomed for stardom but resents the fame that has made him a prized paparazzi catch.


Intensely private, he has played cat and mouse with Sydney media since arriving and has taken to hiding under a large baseball cap and being driven about in a convoy of vehicles, with body doubles employed as decoys.


Home has been a five-bedroom, five-bathroom harbourfront mansion in Vaucluse with its own pool, private jetty and luxury cruiser. But after being discovered at the $10,000-a-week rental in his first weeks here, DiCaprio has also taken a complimentary suite at The Star, where he has his own butler, driver, limo and access to the casino's luxury jet.


For company DiCaprio has been enjoying time with his Gatsby co-star Tobey Maguire, a close friend for 20 years after the pair met at auditions for a failed spin-off TV series of Ron Howard's film Parenthood in 1990.


Director Luhrmann and his wife Catherine Martin look to have recommended some of their favourite haunts for dinner - the French bistro Felix and Woolloomooloo Wharf's Otto Ristorante early favourites of DiCaprio and his castmates, who also include Carey Mulligan, Joel Edgerton and Isla Fisher.


A week after settling into Sydney, DiCaprio's 24-year-old actress girlfriend Blake Lively, with whom he has now split, flew into town for a quick three-day rendezvous. During her stay, the pair visited Aria Restaurant at Circular Quay and Featherdale Wildlife Park at Doonside before she packed her bags for home with a gift from The Family Jewels in Paddington.


Other establishments to enjoy his patronage have included the nightclub Beach Haus, a popular hangout, where DiCaprio is rumoured to have twice picked up beautiful young companions.


He last month accompanied Mulligan and Maguire to a Sydney Swans game and has been spotted at Bondi - but not on the beach, rather tucked up at Icebergs.


Some have claimed that he has been miserable here - he abandoned a Harbour cruise with Maguire's family after spotting paparazzi nearby - yet Edgerton says he has been in excellent form.


"I think he is fantastic ... Not that I expected anything otherwise but he is an incredibly level-headed, down-to-earth regular guy who happens to be a great actor and one of the biggest movie stars on Earth," Edgerton said.


"There are obviously the trappings that go with that but there's never ever any real indication that he buys into that legend - he's just really cool and chilled out."


With all that fine dining under his belt, DiCaprio has kept himself in shape with workouts at the Hyde Park Club gymnasium and bike rides in Centennial Park.


Having last week taken up with underwear model Madalina Ghenea, life is looking very sweet.

Strickland House to get expanded heritage curtilage

Strickland House in Sydney’s suburb of Vaucluse has been the setting for several movies.

The house and its beautiful gardens became a backdrop for Thank God He Met Lizzie (1997) starring Richard Roxburgh, Cate Blanchett and Frances O’Connor, The Sugar Factory (1998) with Matt Day, Rhondda Findleton and Anthony Hayes, and The Road from Coorain (2002) starring Juliet Stevenson, Richard Roxburgh and Katherine Slattery. 

The property portrayed the White House in the Dennis Hopper, Melanie Griffith and Portia de Rossi movie The Night We Called It a Day (2003), but the scenes never made it into the final cut. 

More recently Strickland House played a starring role in the Hugh Jackman and Nicole Kidman movie Australia (2008) and Mao’s Last Dancer (2009) with Chi Cao, Bruce Greenwood and Kyle MacLachlan. 

Nowadays, the estate is back in the spotlight as the Heritage Council of NSW moves to preserve the area surrounding the property.

Jonathan Chancellor reports on the Property Observer website 

The Strickland House estate, also known as Carrara, set on the Vaucluse harbourfront in Sydney’s east, seems set for an expanded heritage-listed curtilage.

The Heritage Council of NSW has proposed extending the property’s listing by including a large area adjacent to the Vaucluse Road boundary and Nielsen Park, which has entrance gates, garden, and tiled 1930s Neo-Georgian former dormitories.

Woollahra mayor Isabelle Shapiro has welcomed the move, which comes 21 years after Strickland House’s initial heritage listing.

“I applaud the Heritage Council of NSW for making a commitment to preserve this magnificent site for future generations,” Shapiro says.

“Retaining an appropriate area of land around a heritage item is an important step in protecting the properties heritage value and significance.”

Strickland House is a 1850s marine villa with a largely unaltered landscape setting.

The five-hectare land parcel closely reflects the original subdivision from the land grant made to pioneer settler William Wentworth in the 1830s.

It contains buildings landscaping and other structures relating to the history of the site from Aboriginal ownership through its colonial history as a grand maritime estate to its 20^th-century use as a convalescent home and later aged-care facility.

The original Victorian Italianate mansion, Carrara, remains essentially intact, with the two-storey residence constructed of dressed sandstone walls and an attic storey made of timber.

John Hosking substantially developed the grounds of Carrara. Subsequent occupants including Henry Moore and members of the Allen family, leading political figures in the 19th century.

The original villa, Carrara was built in the 1850s in a large landscaped setting, including a strong relationship between the house and the water. The two-storey segmental bay projection is striking and represents a relatively early use of such a feature. The remnants of the sandstone wharf adjacent to Milk Beach contribute to the strength of this association.

The proposal is supported by Woollahra Council, the Woollahra History and Heritage Society, with a final decision not expected for a number of months.

Leonardo DiCaprio is every bit the Hollywood leading man

 
Click on picture to see the video!

Source: Herald Sun

Tim Vollmer, The Herald Sun, reports

LEONARDO DiCaprio made his much-anticipated first appearance on the Sydney set of the The Great Gatsby on Friday, complete with period three-piece suit and trim straw boater hat.

The star, who plays mysterious millionaire Jay Gatsby, strolled the set with co-star Tobey Maguire, rehearsing lines before hopping into a vintage yellow convertible to film a scene behind the wheel.

While Leo had been conspicuous by his absence earlier this week, he was on deck all day Friday as filming went into full swing.

The stylish DiCaprio looked every bit the Hollywood leading man.

The film set is built on the grounds of Rozelle's abandoned White Bay power station, which has been recreated to resemble a barren wasteland on the fringes of 1920s New York.

The Great Gatsby is expected to inject more than $120 million into the NSW economy over the four-month shoot.

While much of the movie will be shot inside the lots at Fox Studios, the main set that remains unseen is the mansion of Leo's millionaire character, Jay Gatsby.

Butler, Worthington, McConaughey join CG, 3-D "Thunder Run"

Reuters’ Tim Kenneally reports


LOS ANGELES (TheWrap.com) - Gerard Butler, Sam Worthington and Matthew McConaughey have joined the cast of Freedom Films' upcoming Iraq war movie "Thunder Run," Freedom's CEO Brian Presley announced Thursday.


The film, which will be an all-CG, 3-D effort, is based on David Zucchino's novel "Thunder Run - The Armored Strike to Capture Baghdad," which chronicled the taking of Baghdad by American military forces in 2003. Ken Nolan, the screenwriter for "Black Hawk Down," and Robert Port are adapting.


"Thunder Run" will employ the same motion-capture technology as used in "Avatar," and a proprietary facial-capture technology that the Graphic Film Company is using in the upcoming "Night of the Living Dead: Origins 3-D" -- which, like "Thunder Run," is directed by Simon West.


"We are very excited to have attracted this outstanding level of acting and writing talent. 'Thunder Run' will be the first ever conventional war film made to utilize this revolutionary facial and motion capture technology and state of the art CG and 3D," Presley said. "Simon and I have developed this project over the last five years so it will be nice to see it come alive."

Hollywood tops up on sunburnt countrymen

Sandra Hall, The Age, reports


IS the Australian leading man becoming a marketable figure in Hollywood?


It's taken a while. A young Mel Gibson raised the possibility in the 1980s. Then came Russell Crowe, Hugh Jackman, Heath Ledger and Sam Worthington, among others. At last, their efforts have achieved "an Aussie mystique of sorts", to quote Gavin O'Connor, the director of Warrior. More specifically, O'Connor sees Australian actors as being more intimate with life's rugged realities than their smoother American counterparts.


You can observe this effect in action in Joel Edgerton's performance in Warrior opposite the equally hot and sweaty British prospect Tom Hardy (Inception). They both play Americans - estranged brothers who take on cage fighting, a mixed martial arts sport involving boxing, wrestling, ju-jitsu and kickboxing. There are rules but if you're not already familiar with them, don't expect to get a handle on them here. All that is clear is the fact the brothers are going to wind up in the ring together.


The cause of their estrangement is Nick Nolte, who has never lost his ability to make trouble. He plays their father, Paddy, a former boxing trainer and alcoholic whom neither son has forgiven for knocking their mother about. But after an absence of 14 years, Tommy (Hardy) has come to his father with a demand - that he help him train for Sparta, an international mixed martial arts contest with a $US5 million purse.


Tommy's older brother, Brendan (Edgerton), knows nothing of this. An ex-boxer, he is a high school physics teacher with a wife, Tess (Jennifer Morrison), and two children. But he, too, is resuming his career in the ring because his teaching salary can't pay the mortgage and the medical bills.


With the help of the Aussie mystique, this is shaping up as Edgerton's year. He is also on show in the prequel to John Carpenter's The Thing but this is the movie that could propel him into the big time.


O'Connor is not the most sensitive of directors. Excitable is the word for him. He's heavy on big music, tight close-ups, large crowds, hyperactive editing and declamatory dialogue. His taste for the inspirational makes Rocky seem like a delicate exercise in social realism. But he's been astute enough to sign up actors who can somehow persuade you to overlook the triteness of their words.


Let's start with Nolte. His Paddy is a remorseful, exhausted-looking character whose world has contracted to the point where he's content to spend his days plugged into an audio recording of Moby Dick. With Herman Melville in his ear, he can try to forget the past and stave off thoughts of the future - until Tommy comes back.


Hardy's performance is essentially one long sulk yet he and Nolte pull off a couple of poignant scenes together. He's such a muscular bundle of concentrated energy that you can't look away for fear of missing something extraordinary. He'd be a wonderful Caliban.


In contrast, Edgerton makes deceptively light work of Brendan, who likes the kids he teaches and is happily immersed in family life. It's an attractively relaxed performance and O'Connor is right. While he looks as if he really can throw a punch, he's also unpretentious enough to seem at ease doing the washing up.


The film's settings, too, impart an air of authenticity. Much of it was shot in Pittsburgh with an excursion to seedy Atlantic City for the gung-ho finale. And while I found the fighting matches pretty incomprehensible, there's no denying O'Connor's ability to extract the maximum amount of suspense out of Brendan, the underdog, and his steady climb through the ranks.


This is a movie that defies analysis. Try to take it apart and it disintegrates into pure corn. I think it qualifies as a guilty pleasure - which probably won't hurt its chances at Oscar time. Its three leads certainly deserve consideration for their artfulness in being able to infuse it with intimations of quality.


For Edgerton it's good news. His Brendan looks as if he belongs in a much better film. He makes a great calling card for an actor who's been doing fine work for a long time.

Kylie ruled out as The Voice judge

As reported on Bigpondnews.com

BBC bosses have ruled out plans to cast Australian pop singer Kylie Minogue as a coach in their new talent show The Voice.

Sources close to the UK program said the star's representatives had asked for a fee of around STG2.5 million ($A3.86 million).

"We just can't afford to pay those big salaries," they said.

The BBC has been criticised in the past for paying large salaries to its stars and recently unveiled plans to axe 2000 jobs as it tries to make savings of 20 per cent.

Chart star Jessie J has already signed up to the show, which is being seen as the BBC's answer to The X Factor.

In the show, contestants will win through purely on the strength of their voices rather than how they look, with "blind" auditions.

Kylie's younger sister Dannii spent four years as a judge on The X Factor in the UK and has been tipped to appear in the next series of Britain's Got Talent. Dannii continues as a judge on Australia's Got Talent.

The US version of The Voice featured Christina Aguilera and Cee Lo Green as coaches.

Other names linked to the show include Lenny Kravitz and Tom Jones.

Grease star Olivia Newton-John is back in leather 33 years after her starring role in famous film

Hell for leather: Olivia Newton-John attends the premiere of A Few Best Men at the International Rome Film Festival

Article in the UK Daily Mail

In 1978 Olivia Newton-John had admirers around the globe lusting after her thanks to her role in Grease.

Fast forward 33 years and she's wearing leather again, just like her character Sandy Olsen did after her transformation.

However, the leather dress she wore at the premiere of A Few Best Men at the 6th International Rome Film Festival didn't quite capture the youthful allure of her biker jacket in the hit musical film.

Olivia, 63, wore the number as part of an all-black ensemble for her red carpet appearance at the premiere of the new comedy film in which she plays a character named Barbara.

And she wore the dress well, matching it with a sheer cardigan, boots and a handbag.

A perfect ensemble for one of her age, a demure cut in a slightly daring material.

The actress was accompanied by her husband John Easterling at the premiere.

John, founder of the Amazon Herb Company, wore a simple yet sharp black suit with a grey scarf for his appearance in Rome alongside his wife.

Earlier in the day Olivia wore a slight different, though equally black, outfit for a photocall ahead of the premiere.

She wore a blazer, white shirt, black leggings, boots and a tie for the event and looked great.

Earlier this week the couple were awarded the Stroud Award of Freshwater Excellence by the Stroud Water Research Center at its annual Water's Edge gala at Longwood Gardens in the suburbs of Philadelphia.

The Stroud Award of Freshwater Excellence(TM), also known as the SAFE Water Award(TM), is awarded for outstanding achievement to those who contribute broadly to the conservation and protection of fresh water.

Olivia and her husband, also known as Amazon John, are both staunch supporters of rainforest conservation and known for work in conserving the Amazon River watershed -- the largest in the world.

A Few Best Men is a comedy about a groom and his three best men who travel to the Australian outback for a wedding.

The film is directed by Stephan Elliott, best known for directing The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen Of The Desert back in 1994.

 
Smart casual: The actress is looking great for 63

Test your showbiz knowledge! The answers

1. Who am I?

I am an Irish-born actor who has also worked as a film director, editor and scriptwriter. I have lived in the U.S., Australia and New Zealand and have worked with Meryl Streep in two movies, Plenty (1985) and A Cry in the Dark, a.k.a. Evil Angels (1988). I was awarded the O.B.E. in 1993. I own a vineyard in the Gibbston Valley, Otago, that produces a Pinot Noir called Two Paddocks.

Sam Neill

 

2. Name two movies that feature:

Toni Collette and Ben Mendelsohn         Spotswood, Cosi           

Toni Collette and David Wenham            Cosi, The Boys
Toni Collette and Barry Otto                   Lilian’s Story, Cosi        

3. Multiple choice:

Eric Bana’s

Father is a/ German  b/ Croatian  c/Austrian       
Mother is a/ Russian  b/ Greek  c/ German

Eric Bana’s father is b/ Croatian, mother is c/ German     

4. Quote:
Which actor said: “Acting gives me sleepless nights, pimples, rashes, anxiety but also a deep satisfaction somehow. It makes you feel more human.”? Colin Friels       

5. Who was the first Australian actress to win the Best Actress Academy Award? Nicole Kidman

Test your showbiz knowledge!

1. Who am I?

I am an Irish-born actor who has also worked as a film director, editor and scriptwriter. I have lived in the U.S., Australia and New Zealand and have worked with Meryl Streep in two movies, Plenty (1985) and A Cry in the Dark, a.k.a. Evil Angels (1988). I was awarded the O.B.E. in 1993. I own a vineyard in the Gibbston Valley, Otago, that produces a Pinot Noir called Two Paddocks.


2. Name two movies that feature:

Toni Collette and Ben Mendelsohn        

Toni Collette and David Wenham           
Toni Collette and Barry Otto


3. Multiple choice:

Eric Bana’s
Father is a/ German  b/ Croatian  c/Austrian       
Mother is a/ Russian  b/ Greek  c/ German


4. Quote:
Which actor said: “Acting gives me sleepless nights, pimples, rashes, anxiety but also a deep satisfaction somehow. It makes you feel more human.”?


5. Who was the first Australian actress to win the Best Actress Academy Award?



Answers in upcoming post...

Danielle Spencer and Russell Crowe - how they stay grounded and normal in Sydney

Report from The Sunday Telegraph website

HE demonstrated his prowess with a sword in Gladiator, but it turns out Aussie actor Russell Crowe is equally adept when it comes to wielding a pair of barbecue tongs - after all, he gets plenty of practice.

Inviting The Sunday Telegraph into their Bellevue Hill home, wife Danielle Spencer said that sharing a few snags together as a family was one of the ways the couple, who married in 2003, managed to stay grounded and provide a normal, down-to-earth upbringing for sons Charlie, 7, and Tennyson, 5.

"We are very Aussie, very normal. We love a barbie - Russell is very good at those," Spencer, 40, said. "It's great getting the family together."

Far from being the hard MAN shown on the big screen, Spencer said her husband was actually a big softie and that the 47-year-old Oscar-winner - who is working on Superman in Chicago - struggled with spending time away from home.

"It is a big wrench for him. He loves what he does and his work but he really does miss the boys," she said. "He gets unhappy being away and can't wait to see them."

Spencer, who has released an acoustic EP of songs from her album Calling All Magicians, co-produced with Steve Balbi, revealed she isn't afraid to say what she thinks to her husband - and expected him to do the same: "I am certainly not a shrinking violet."

But in his absence, she has enlisted her lads' help ahead of her November 10 concert at The Vanguard in Sydney.

"If I am trying to decide on a mix I play it in the car and they tell me what they think," she said.

2011: a stage oddity

The best moments - such as Jack Vidgen's victory - of Australia's Got Talent are being revisited, along with the worst.

Article by Melinda Houston, The Sydney Morning Herald

Hats off to the weirdly wonderful in Australia's Got Talent.

SOME love the heart-warming sight of a kid nailing Nessun Dorma. Some thrill to the potential of a singer-songwriter with a guitar. For lots of us, though, the fun of watching Australia's Got Talent is the combination of ''car crash'' and ''WT …?'' that's become a hallmark of the popular show.

''Variety is a cornerstone of the series,'' executive producer Stevie K. Murray says.

And after five seasons and a recent refresher compiling the clip show Australia's Got Amazing Talent, he's seen it all. In the audition shows the judges would see about 400 acts every year.

Before that, though, a team of producers pre-cull the talent, putting thousands of hopefuls through their paces. And - as viewers might suspect - Murray says there's no act too odd to make it on screen. A very few are not fit for broadcast on national television. Mostly, though, the cull is about making sure all-important variety is preserved.

Says Murray: ''People do need a semblance of talent.''

The producers will also assess whether an act is a one-trick pony.

No matter how amazing the feat, it needs to be something that can be developed through the auditions, into the show proper and then potentially on to the semi- and grand finals.

''After that, though, it's mostly about making sure there's an even balance of acts,'' Murray says.

''Acts are often influenced by what's happened the previous year. So after Susan Boyle, for instance, we had thousands of mothers turning up singing opera. We had to filter that.''

Beyond those basic requirements it's a free-for-all, and as regular viewers know, the potential for injury doesn't seem to be a concern.

''For me, personally? I like an act where there's an ever-present danger of something going horribly wrong,'' Murray says.

His list of favourites is suitably eclectic.

''I did love Herb Patten,'' he says. ''A guy playing John Lennon's Imagine on a gum leaf, who picked his instrument from a tree outside before he went on. That just blew me away.''

Also on his top-10 list are indigenous pole dancer Matty Shields (''I still haven't figured out if he was serious or not''); the 11-year-old who simply rumbled his stomach for two minutes; and the guy who came on with electric model aeroplanes attached to a helmet by strings and then proceeded to roller skate around the stage (''It was good but when the strings started to get tangled, it got better'').

''Then there are the acts like Jack Vidgen, or Chooka,'' Murray says. ''Generally speaking, I love it when someone does something you just weren't expecting. It's not that you're doing something I haven't seen before - it's that I never expected you to do it.''

All this and more will be re-presented for our entertainment and edification in three compilation shows featuring the best and worst of the past five seasons. Some weight is given to the serious talent and there'll be a bit of ''where are they now?''.

But we'll also get plenty of the bizarre and the bonkers that make AGT what it is, including unseen footage from auditions. ''It's a bit of a potpourri,'' Murray says. ''And it's been a lot of fun for me just revisiting a lot of these acts, being reminded of some of the stuff that's been on the show over the years.''

A sixth season of AGT proper is, of course, in the works and Murray is looking forward to seeing what the auditions deliver.

He's certainly spent the past five years astonished by just what people can do and are prepared to do.

''What I haven't seen yet, and I would like to see, though, is someone eat a lot of food in a very short amount of time,'' he says. ''But that's just my own personal thing.''

Punch drunk success

Story by Giles Hardie, The Age

Ten years ago Joel Edgerton thought his career was about to explode. Now, success has finally arrived, partly against doctor's orders.

“You take a few punches in the head, but that was kind of fun.”

Joel Edgerton is talking about his time shooting the numerous fight scenes for Warrior, in which he plays an out-of-retirement Mixed Martial Arts cage fighter whose never say die attitude leads to many, many poundings in every one of his fights. He could just as easily have been describing his career.

Edgerton had already shot Warrior when he last toured Australia for a press tour, a little over a year ago, for Waiting City a critically acclaimed, but relatively low profile Australian film. At the time, he knew everything was about to explode for him career-wise, he just couldn’t tell anyone.

“Work was starting to roll along,” he recalls, “I’m pretty guarded about it all.”

Edgerton was hesitant to celebrate, having had false starts before.

“I’ve had times in my life where I’d worked on a few things and I thought it was going to push things to a different level and it just didn’t.”

Almost a decade ago, Edgerton was shooting at Fox Studios with George Lucas on the second (and later the third) Star Wars prequel, in the role of Luke Skywalker’s Uncle Owen. A role in King Arthur followed, yet the momentum never quite swept him up. Now, with two Hollywood films releasing this month alone (he can also be seen in The Thing), and Edgerton back at Fox Studios to shooting on The Great Gatsby in the major role of Tom Buchanan, that momentum has well and truly kicked in.

Still Joel is modest about his new star status. “At the moment, I feel like things have shifted only because I get asked to jobs a lot more than I used to. I get asked to do jobs without having to audition for them.”

“Things have definitely changed. I feel like the doors have opened wider and I can choose between things.”

That false start ten years ago, those punches to the head, have actually prepared Edgerton for the new, spectacular success.

“I felt like it would feel different,” he admits. “It doesn’t feel any different, but I do. When I look at the circumstances surrounding it, I’m very thankful of it, and I realise that I’m swimming around exactly where I wanted to be ten years ago and I’ve got those opportunities now.”

There has been at least one advantage to not being a “movie star” until now, and that is his role in Warrior, for which he’s receiving significant awards buzz. Basically, if Joel had been a star, he might not have wanted it, and director Gavin O’Connor certainly wouldn’t have wanted him.

Warrior, at that point an unkown script about cage fighting “wasn’t high on the list to do for other actors,” Joel explains. That suited O’Connor, according to Joel “he wanted two actors who didn’t have a lot of movie star baggage.”

The other actor without baggage is Tom Hardy, another whose career has skyrocketed since shooting Warrior.

Not only did O’Connor need two actors without baggage though, he needed two with a fairly clear calendar. Edgerton says of the casting rationale, “he wanted two guys, and he founded Tom and I, and he needed us to get there a couple of months early, and train hard, and start to kind of look like we belonged in the cage.”

Edgerton, playing the former MMA figher Brendan Conlon, certainly looks like he belongs - as the poster and trailer attest - yet Hardy as his brother Tommy looks like a veritable man mountain.

Edgerton got along very well with Hardy, but envied his bulk.

“I was about as big as I could get with the amount of food I was shoving in to me, and the weight I was losing,” he recalls. “I wasn’t going to get any bigger.”

“And he (Hardy) just looks huge.”

Edgerton also envied Hardy’s shooting schedule as the big hitting Tommy, whose fights tend to be over in a matter of seconds.

“Tom, he’d walk in and do a fight and it would take a day to shoot,” Joel explains. “I would take a week, two weeks to shoot just one fight.”

“I literally am a punching bag to some of the best fighters in the AMC.”

Some of those punches landed, and even if he thought it was fun, Edgerton’s character’s pain endurance wasn’t all acting.

“I was actually advised by a doctor here in Sydney that it probably wouldn’t be a good idea to do the movie.

“But I wasn’t going to let that stop me. I’m not smart enough to take advice like that.”

A trip to The Great Gatsby set

Following yesterday’s article in The Daily Telegraph, I decided to take a drive out to the grounds of Rozelle’s abandoned White Bay power station to see whether I could get a glimpse of Baz Lurhmann’s 1920s New York set and perhaps watch cast and crew at work.

Getting close to the set wasn’t easy. The first location I drove to was bustling with paparazzi activity. The photographer standing next to me had a camera lens big enough to move into and set up home. So, there I stood with my pocket Digital camera snapping away, hoping I’d pointed it in the right direction and caught a piece of the action. Sometimes size does matter, ladies and gents!

Although I didn’t have the necessary equipment to take pictures of Leonardo DiCaprio’s nose hairs, I did manage to get shots of the Long Island train, a handful of vintage cars, authentic-looking billboards advertising ladies products, financial services and top hats, and cast leaving the set for their lunch break. Below are a dozen of the “best” pictures taken this morning… Click on the pictures for a full-size image!

View of the slums of New York set – the heaps of dirt are all fake

The same set from another angle – notice the vintage cars and horse-drawn carriage

The Long Island train

The full set with the abandoned White Bay power station used as a backdrop

Vintage billboard advertising

Close-up of the set buildings – Michael’s Restaurant (on the left)

The train, set and vintage cars from an other angle

The cast and extras on their way to lunch

The cast on a lunch break, piling into shuttle buses

The shuttle buses leaving the set – notice the Sydney Harbour Bridge in the background

A catering tent for The Great Gatsby team set up next to the abandoned White Bay power station

A band provided during the lunch break to entertain cast and crew. They were playing retro 20s music, probably to keep the cast in character.