1. Kidman is one of the least emotionally-accessible actresses who ever disgraced the silver screen. And, like Demi Moore in the '90s, she's top-paid even though no star vehicle of hers has been a blockbuster.

2. Thanks for citing the great Fred Schepisi, who's hands down the best widescreen-framer in the business.

How can you guys forget Russell Crowe?!  The wikipedias say he was born in New Zealand but moved to Australia as a young child and began his career there.  Indeed, according to the IMDbs, he dropped out of "Australia" over salary, despite his friendship with Kidman.

If you want a good Kidman movie (and Australian movie) where Kidman is Australian (and also her natural red-headed self), check out Dead Calm (1989), also starring Sam Neill and Billy Zane, who is not Australian.  It's a superior thriller about a couple with a tragic recent past who, while sailing out in the Pacific, encounters a sinking boat and a lone survivor (Zane).  Terror and suspense ensue.

Cate Blanchett ...

/heavy sigh

/stares wistfully out the window

Trip down memory lane:  Fine films with Kidman that you should rent but may not think of renting:  The Peacemaker ('97), with George Clooney, and Malice ('93), with Alec Baldwin and Bill Pullman (and Gwyneth Paltrow in a small part, and Bebe Neuworth as a detective).  Both are well-done, above average genre pictures, the former a save-the-world-from-a-nuke action thriller, the second a my-doctor-who-thinks-he's-God-removed-my-healthy-ovaries-after-a-night-of-drinking-while-a-serial-rapist-is-on-the-loose-in-a-sleepy-college-town-where-folks-like-us-restore-old-Victorian-mansions-with-mild-mannered-husbands-played-by-Bill-Pullman mystery thriller, penned in part by Aaron Sorkin but containing no politics and, I think, some nudity.

Happy Thanksgiving!

jhildner... to paraphrase Maxwell Smart, that's the second time this week I've watched one of those.

thanks for the chuckle

Has Mel Gibson fallen so far that he has become a non-person? The absence of him and Crowe on the list makes it look like you're trying to make some kind of statement. Both were born elsewhere, but both were raised Australian and were introduced to the world through Australian films.

It's interesting that a significant minority of Aussie actors who've made it in Hollywood were blessed with American passports.

Nicole Kidman was born in Hawaii to Australian parents.

Cate Blanchett was born in Melbourne, but is the daughter of an expat Texan.

Mel Gibson, of course, was born in Peekskill NY and didn't migrate to Oz until he was 12.

As an American living in Australia, I must say that it's not quite fair to say that Australia has "basically no population."  Australia's population is roughly equal to the New York City greater metropolitan area, or about 20 million.  What's more, half of that twenty million lives in just two cities, Sydney and Melbourne, so while the image of Oz promoted in America--by Fosters ads and by "Australia" the film--is one of wide open spaces, in point of fact the vast majority of Australians are coastal urbanites.

I've given some thought, tho, as to why Australian actors seem to be so successful in American film, especially given that locally produced Australian film is in a sorry state.  I think it has much to do with the high quality training for actors available through the Australian National Institute for Dramatic Art (of which a large proportion of the performers you listed are graduates) coupled with the lack of the kind of acting opportunities at home that keep similarly well-trained British actors safely in the UK.  Also, Australians in general tend not to be prima donnas.  I think they have the reputation in Hollywood of getting the job done with a minimum of offscreen drama.

Just to nit pick, but Sam Neill is a New Zealander, a much smaller place which at a population of 4 million is still a long way from having "virtually no inhabitants".

Yglesias's comment seems a strange nitpick.  Jackman's not playing an Aussie part?  The relationship with Britain and some of its citizens played no part in the history of Australia?  What exactly is his point?