Nicole Kidman’s Travel Cost To Canada For Film Promotion Paid By Australian Taxpayers
Nicole Kidman has unknowingly asked Australian taxpayers to shell out $10,000 to fly her to Canada. The fourth richest woman in Australia promoted her film “The Railyway Man” at the Toronto International Film Festival in September using her compatriots’ hard-earned tax money.
The travel grant was given by the government-funded Screen Australia, and was said to be the largest of its type given over the last 12 months.
The film’s producer Chris Brown and director Jonathan Teplitzky also received $5,000 and $10,000 respectively under the travel grant scheme.
The 46-year-old actress’ spokeswoman cleared, though, that Kidman never applied for the grant herself, but Brown had for her. Her rep added that Kidman flew to the Toronto Film Festival from the U.S. for the red carpet premiere and media interviews.
“She’s not getting the money personally, it’s just part of the costs of presenting the film at Toronto, it’s part of the overall costs. She doesn’t get a penny of that money. I couldn’t tell you off hand what the overall cost was,” Brown told Mumbrella, referring to Kidman, who is said to be worth an estimated $320 million.
The director also said that if they had a distributor in the U.S., they wouldn’t have needed to ask for the Screen Australia’s help. And in any case, it wasn’t unusual for Screen Australia to hand out travel grants to filmmakers to support them in promoting their film.
A spokeswoman for Screen Australia also told The Courier Mail that although the information on its Web site’s database read Kidman’s name, the actress did not applied for the grant. The information has since been amended online.
“Someone directly translated the information on the request forms to the database,” the spokeswoman said. This was an error on our approvals page on the Web site and has been amended. The money goes to the production company. This should not be used as an excuse for a vindictive attack against Nicole Kidman.
“The Railway Man” was shot in Queensland, Thailand, and Scotland in 2012, and was released in September at the TIFF, and in December in Australia. It also stars Colin Firth and Jeremy Irvine.