Jack Thompson Joins Cast Of Baz's Australia, Maybe

You would think that after all these years of reading about the movie business, I would learn to be just a tad more cynical about casting announcements -- or denials for that matter. A mountain of speculation has surrounded the casting process for Baz Luhrmann's Australia -- just recently I passed along the news that Bryan Brown was possibly the latest actor to join the Australian "who's who" of actors who are attaching themselves to Luhrmann's epic. The film tells the story of Lady Sarah Ashley, (Nicole Kidman) a woman who falls for a cattle driver (Hugh Jackman) after tracking down her adulterous husband on the eve of WWII. Earlier, we had asked the question -- is Bryan Brown the third lead? Well, it looks like the answer might be no.

The biggest fan site for the film has posted the news that Jack Thompson has been "unofficially " confirmed for the part of a cattle baron in the period love story. At this point, I wonder if there's a working actor in Australia who hasn't been attached to this film at some point. Meanwhile, the website has also been keeping tabs on Luhrmann himself, who is currently in Bowen, Australia to do location work for the project. This time I'm not going to jump the gun. When it comes to casting this movie, I'll believe it when I see it from now on.