He's been voted the sexiest man alive. He will host next year's Oscars and is starring opposite Nicole Kidman in Baz Luhrmann's epic Australia. Michael Dwyerasks Hugh Jackman where it all went wrong

THE SURPRISE choice to present the Academy Awards ceremony in February, Hugh Jackman was described by the show's producers as "a consummate entertainer" with "style, elegance and a sense of occasion". He responded: "I never imagined that I'd one day have the chance to be up on that stage. I know it will be a fun and memorable celebration."

Meeting Jackman in London last week affirmed that he has the qualities to fit the bill. He is tall, dark and handsome, urbane and quick-witted.

Checking out his background beforehand, I learned that he graduated with a journalism degree in his native Sydney. So I asked if he's kicking himself for getting sidetracked by this acting lark.

"The only reason I didn't pursue journalism was that it was very hard to get a job back then," he replies. "And there was this grading system from A to D. It seemed to me that starting out as a D-grade journalist would mean doing lots of stories that I wouldn't want to do. While I was stalling, I got into acting."

Yet he ended up working for powerful Australian press baron Rupert Murdoch, who owns 20th Century Fox, the company that made Jackman's four X-Menmovies and the epic western, Australia.

"Before long, everyone will be working for Rupert Murdoch," Jackman declares with a hearty laugh. "Actually, he is a very good friend of mine. I know him and his wife Wendy very well. My wife and his wife are close friends, and our kids play together. Two years ago we all spent Christmas Day on his boat in the Caribbean."

What's Murdoch like, then? "He's incredibly personable, likeable and generous - and very charming. He remembers everything about the family and asks questions about all of them. I probably see a side of him that others don't get to see. He's given me some good advice, too. He's like that. And I'm good friends with his son Lachlan. We're around the same age."

On the subject of age, I note that Jackman turned 40 in October. "I did, man," he grins. "I love it. I've got a wife who's a little older than me and she thinks I've been 40 for about four years now, so I was kind of used to it by the time I got there."

He's married to Deborra Lee-Furness, a fine, versatile actress in her own right, and they have two adopted children. Coincidentally, their son is named Oscar.

They met in 1995 on the Australian TV series Corelli. "Deb was the star of it," Jackman says. "She played Louisa Corelli, a prison psychologist, and I got a role as a prisoner. So there was lust between the bars. It was meant to be serious drama, but it was a little bit Danielle Steel, to tell you the truth. Anyhow, it worked out very well because we've been married for 12 years."

Quite a long time for a couple in the film business? "Yeah," he laughs, "it's a gold wedding, right?"

Given that so many prominent Oz actors are in Australia, why isn't his wife? "Good question," Jackman says. "I have another actor mate who told me it's humiliating that he's the only actor in Australia who's not in Australia. But Deb was doing another film, and anyhow, I don't think there was anything for her in the film."

In AustraliaJackson engagingly plays a tough, cynical cattle drover unexpectedly drawn to a prim English widow (Nicole Kidman) who inherits her husband's ranch outside Darwin. "I met Nicole when she first went out to Hollywood and shared a house with Deb, who was working there," he says. "So I've known Nicole for years, which was useful when it came to us working together on Australia, although there's always been a bit of mystery about her as long as I've known her.

"It's easier to work with people you know, but that can be a problem, too. It's something you've got to really watch when you're working with someone for a long period of time. Familiarity can breed contempt in terms of the camera because it picks up everything. My feeling is that the worst that can happen is that you and your co-star hate each other. The next worst thing can be that you really like each other and you can get so comfortable that the air goes out of the room. We couldn't allow that on Australiabecause there had to be a sexual tension between the drover and the Englishwoman."

Jackman says that Kidman surprised him time after time during the movie's long shoot. "You're never quite sure what's coming, and that's fantastic. She's like that in life, too. She's an amazing actor, as we all know. The movie star side of her is this electricity she brings into a room. It's not that she's a Method actor, or that she's always in character, but on a Baz Luhrmann film, from the moment you arrive on set and even in a costume fitting, you're kind of in character because there could be a camera on you at any point. With Baz there's no real separation."

Running close on three hours, Australiasets a slender storyline against an epic backdrop. As audiences have come to expect from Luhrmann after his exhilarating Romeo + Julietand Moulin Rouge, his ambition is unstinting and production values are of the highest standard in his lavish new movie.

"Baz is an absolute perfectionist," Jackman says. "It's not uncommon for him to do 30, 40 or even 50 takes. Somehow he does it in a way that doesn't make me crack up, although I had to draw the line when we preparing one scene. He was feeding me Nicole's lines and mimicking an Englishwoman's voice as he was saying them. That was too much. I couldn't stop laughing. I told him to please stop impersonating Nicole."

The most expensive movie in Australian history, the film addresses the Japanese bombardment of Darwin in 1942 and the scandal that was the "stolen generation" of mixed-race Aboriginal-Caucasian children taken from their families. "Baz researched the entire history of Australia," Jackman says.

"He read everything and then settled on those two very dark points in the country's history. Many Australians don't know elements of those stories.

"The Japanese force that attacked Australia was twice the size of the force that hit Pearl Harbour. They attacked Darwin 64 times because it was a strategically important port with oil to fuel the American warships. The oil tankers were painted white, which made them easy targets. Then, in one of the great botch-ups of the war, they rebuilt them and painted them white again, and they were attacked again."

Jackman said he learned nothing about the "stolen generations" when he was at school. "Finally, our government made an apology this year, after decades of brushing that aside," he says.

In his late teens, Jackman spent a summer building houses at an Aboriginal settlement. "I was a bit lovesick at the time, so a mate and I went there with a group and we built two houses. When we finished the job, the others left and I stayed on to help out at the general store. I was the only white guy on the settlement. I made many friends and was so happy there that I kept extending my stay until I had to go back to university."

As we talk about Australia, I mention that Kylie Minogue once told me about what's called the "tall poppy syndrome", whereby Australians feel the need to cut down natives who rise too high. "That's true, and she's experienced it, too," Jackman says. "What I love about the Australian character is that we come from a convict mentality that is anti-authoritarian and with a real passion for egalitarianism. It's a point of pride. Take our politicians. They try to behave like ordinary blokes with no airs and graces and with their sleeves rolled up.

"Even famous Aussies will play the underdog because to do the opposite is not really liked. It's an interesting dynamic and they do like to cut you down to size. But I think it's changing. The Olympics in Sydney brought about a quantum shift in confidence. I could feel it watching the opening ceremony."

Unusually for an Australian movie, it is Jackman rather than Kidman who is treated as a sex object in Luhrmann's film - during a sultry scene where he's washing himself while she's watching. "I questioned what Baz was doing with that scene," he says. "I wasn't sure if people were going to laugh or if they might think I was a complete wanker. I just had to go for it. I had so much oil and fake tan on my body, and the lighting couldn't have been more favourable." And Jackman was recently voted Sexiest Man Alive by US magazine People.

"Yeah," he drawls nonchalantly, elongating the word. "That's actually a prerequisite now every time I do an interview. I was quite shocked at the reach of that thing, no matter where I go in the world. My wife says she could have told them that years ago."

•  Australiaopens on St Stephen's Day and will be reviewed on the Arts page of next Tuesday's Irish Times