If Julia Gillard could have found a handy time warp around Sydney's Fox movie studios, she would have crawled into it.

There she was, surrounded - as she put it herself - with some ''incredibly groovy people''...and the grooviest of them all, Hugh Jackman, suddenly sprouted the political equivalent of deadly claws.

Hugh, chuckling that he and Julia had indulged in a little rehearsal for the new version of Wolverine, the movie that has made him world famous, declared that Ms Gillard was enormously talented at martial arts.

As a slightly quizzical look crept across the prime minister's happy face, Hugh blundered on that she was very good with ''the nunchakus'' - weapons consisting of two solid pieces of wood joined by a chain that have the ability to do frightful damage to opponents.