During contract signing, great emphasis was placed on not recording or writing anything during the shoot which might give away the plot.

I received a special grilling by one managerial type due to my listing of occupation as "journalist". She wanted to make sure I wouldn't be writing anything during production, and just stopped short of searching me for a hidden microphone.

The reams of shaky, hand-held camera phone footage on You Tube from behind the scenes tend to suggest that not everyone took their contract seriously.

Weeks went by and I heard nothing. My autograph had improved in the meantime as I figured I'd be needing this skill.

The next call back was for costume fitting and a haircut. Leather braces, high-worn trousers and a smashing knitted vest and I was right in the part.

Any questions that required answering, I did so with as much suave as I could gather, just in case any of the wardrobe people were asked to recommend someone for a speaking role.

My hair needed little alteration. That comes from having kept a parted hairstyle since I was five. That was it for that visit.

Again, weeks went by and I heard nothing. Then the call: "Could I come down to be part of a dusk-to-dawn shoot?"

"Yes I could," I replied, again in a very leading man way.

It was an excited trip down. I wondered what my trailer would look like. All these thoughts soon vanished as I stood in line with the other 300 or so extras summoned for just that scene.

Then the waiting began. The 4pm requested meeting time seemed a long time back when it reached 6pm. It seemed even further back at 7.30pm.

Slowly the wardrobe people called groups in to get dressed. From there, they were whisked off to the set, another kilometre or so away.

At roughly 8.30pm, any "remainders" (that was me) who hadn't been dressed were hastily ushered into the communal dressing room. Not quite the light-bulb studded mirror I'd expected but exciting all the same.

Then it was off to the set. The scene in question was a 1940s style outdoor picture theatre, supposedly in Darwin, complete with low-slung canvas chairs, corrugated iron walls and no roof for most of it.

I was shown my seat. That would be the dark seat. I almost stumbled sitting down, it was that dark.

I was seated beside a lady, whom I shall just call Vera. Vera, it seemed, had worked in Hollywood all her life. I write "it seemed" because I'd not been seated more than two minutes when the instructions began.

"Now, when that chap raises his umbrella and points to the screen you're supposed to look at the screen and pretend your watching a movie," she said.

"And when that Aboriginal gentleman stands up and yells out in the middle of the scene, we are all meant to yell out at him to sit down.

"Now you'll want to keep a look of wonder on your face, like it's the most exciting thing you've ever been to. That's what Baz told us to do."

The "Baz" she refers to, of course, is the film's director, Baz Luhrmann, touted as a modern day Cecil B DeMille or Frank Capra.

Vera seemed to know him by a first name basis. I thought I must be sitting beside a real professional here, despite her talking an awful lot about every single detail of the set.

My journalistic nature took hold and a little further probing revealed Vera actually worked at the local nursery. All she knew, and was now relaying to me, had been learnt in the past few weeks as she'd been on "several shoots".

It seemed to be a common element throughout the town of Bowen. As I gazed around it soon became apparent I may not be among Australia's acting elite at all.

In fact, one of the "theatre attendants" looked very much like a bloke I went to school with, who is now a school teacher. Turns out, it was him. I later heard the school forced him to take leave without pay, as it did with any staff tied up in this "little video project", before really putting the foot down and saying teachers could only do night shoots.

I soon gathered tales of Hollywood fever gripping the small horticulture and fishing town. There was the one where the builder had scored a role as an extra but he had employed an apprentice. So he went and saw the production team, and they put the apprentice on the payroll as an extra as well - problem solved.

Then there's the fascinating fact that a good proportion of the Australian townspeople and solders aren't actually Australian at all.

As soon as the call went out for extras, hordes of migrating backpackers, most of whom had stopped in Bowen to pick tomatoes and capsicums, soon found themselves posing as lean, tanned 1940 Aussies.

The logic was pretty simple: why spend days in the burning North Queensland sun bent over picking smallcrops, when you could get the same money (or better), be fed and watered, and be part of one of the biggest films of the decade? Not a tough choice there.

Then there's the local church pastor who got a role, along with several farm hands and business leaders.

Mayor of the Whitsundays Regional Council, Mike Brunker, who pushed hard to get the movie shot in Bowen, was promised a part as well.

Still, the town has been stung a bit. Apparently the production company has had little contact with the town since the glitz and glamour left.

Mayor Brunker has made it quite clear he was not impressed to learn neither Hugh nor Nicole would not be attending the Bowen premiere.

Last week the two stars appeared on the influential Oprah Winfrey Show. Having seen an advanced copy, Oprah has become a big fan of the movie, something which Tourism Australia has welcomed with open arms.

But as the discussion with both actors carried on, Kununurra got a mention, Darwin too, Sydney was flagged as the capital of Down Under (courtesy of a Harbour tour video by Hugh), but nothing came Bowen's way. It seemed a bit harsh, considering last year Hugh admitted his son Oscar was in love with the town and wanted to move there.

During the shoot, the town was alive with celebrity sightings and film frenzy. Like something from The Simpsons, the bakery was soon producing Nicole's Nice Apple Turnovers, and Hungry Hugh's Hamburger Specials. One of the town's masseuses was apparently getting plenty of work curing the aching muscles of lead actors and important types.

There was great disappointment when a rumour that Nicole Kidman's country music star husband Keith Urban was going to do an acoustic set at one of the local pubs on a Sunday afternoon. The crowds came - Keith didn't.

Schools ran short film competitions, the word 'Bowenwood' was painted on the town's water supply tank, and every second person seemed to have a photograph of themselves with Hugh or Nicole.

Obviously, I was one of the alternating people, as neither of the major stars were within cooee of my scene.

I managed to pick out David Wenham, Barry Otto, Ben Mendelsohn, Bryan Brown, all being fussed over. Baz was down the front, relaying orders and ordering take, after take, after take, after take. When everything is costing $1000 per minute, you tend to make sure you get everything right.

Yet, it was still exciting to see the sheer effort that goes into a project such as this. The scale of the beast, the money invested, the way it can manipulate a town and turn it to its every whim (apparently a local gym opened early every morning so an already toned Hugh Jackman could have a private workout).

And there I was, a part of it, be it a small part. The outdoor movie theatre scene ends with a simulated tropical thunder storm sweeping across, sending patrons running.

It was here my acting became particularly real, not in an effort to escape the oceans of water being pumped on us, but more so to get away from Vera before I could be conned into listening to another tale about her two-week career in film.

And that was it. The only scene I appeared in. Locals are in plenty of others though. Just ask them - they'll be able to tell you the exact frame by the end of the month.

The owner of the only cinema in town (the old school Summergarden Theatre) will apparently run the film eight sessions per day, seven days a week, while it's popular.

And it looks like it will be popular for a long time.

(The Australia trailer has been playing in front of just about every movie at the Summergarden for more than six months. Regular Bowen movie goers almost know it by heart.)

Despite the grumblings of the local jogging group that their path may have been upset due to the film, or the Bowen dogs that were kept awake howling all night at the constant hum of generators powering lights and machinery, Bowen embraced its time in the spotlight.

The project poured thousands of dollars into the town and has ensured its place in film history.

As for my film career, this may be as close as I get to Tinseltown.

But when those broad, sunburnt landscapes flash up on silver screens throughout the country, forever captured in celluloid glory, I will always be able to say: I was a part of that… and so was Vera.