Maybe Russell Crowe could back out of starring in an epic titled “Australia.” He was born in New Zealand, after all.

But Hugh Jackman? Not on your life, mate.

Jackman, 40, says he saw it as almost his patriotic duty to take work in the most expensive Aussie film of all time. He let his Aussie accent loose, mastered working cattle with a horse, and dove in.

We reached the once and future Wolverine in Hollywood.

I’m guessing the homework started with that World War II Outback cattle-drive classic, “The Overlanders” (1946).

That’s where you learn about drovers, our cowboys and what they represented at the time. Then I spent time out in the country where I could still harbor my old fantasy of working on the land, being a jackaroo or drover. But I had no idea how tough that life is, how unforgiving that part of Australia is.

What strange, alien places in your homeland surprised you, shooting “Australia”?

Hardly any Australians had been to these places. We have a country, the size of the (United) States, with only 20 million people in it. This whole middle of the country is vast, undiscovered, magical. It’s like a frontier, still, to this day.

My absolute favorite was Carlton Hill, in Kununurra, which is where the homestead Faraway Downs is in the movie. There’s another place called Digger’s Rest, we had to get to by helicopter.