Starlet disappointed by lack of kangaroos at airport

Fairfax Media

NO FLY ZONE: American actress Kristen Bell says she was disappointed by a lack of kangaroos when she landed in Sydney.

Reuters

HOPPING HOPEFUL: Kristen Bell at the premiere of the movie Couples Retreat.

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Memo to Prime Minister Kevin Rudd and Tourism Australia: Please send more kangaroos to Australia's international airports.

American tourists are disappointed.

Particularly Hollywood starlets.

Kristen Bell, a member of the all-star voice cast of new animated film Astro Boy, has just returned to Los Angeles after a promotional tour in Australia.

The actress, who plays the Peter Pan-like orphan Cora alongside characters voiced by Nicolas Cage, Charlize Theron, Freddie Highmore and Nathan Lane, says she was disappointed when she landed in Sydney.

"I, like every other stupid American, assumed the kangaroos would meet us at the airport and they would want to hug us as much as we wanted to hug them," Bell tells AAP in an interview in Los Angeles.

"That's really the perspective we have here.

"Going there kind of opened my eyes that that's not the case."

The 29-year-old, who shot to stardom in 2004 in the TV series Veronica Mars, is a cast member of the new series Gossip Girl and stars with Vince Vaughn in the American box office's No 1 comedy, Couples Retreat, did get to meet some of Australia's fury friends during a VIP tour of Taronga Zoo.

"We did get a backstage tour of the zoo and got to see some of the marsupials they reared there," Bell says.

"I did find out about the koalas and how eucalyptus makes them high and why they sleep all day.

"They're little druggies."

The new Astro Boy feature film is the latest version of the story about a young boy transformed into a robot and disowned by his father. The character was created by manga king Osamu Tezuka in 1952, became a TV series in 1963 and enjoyed other TV series and big screen incarnations.

The new Astro Boy film has an environmental message, with Astro Boy banished from Metro City, a metropolis hovering above polluted Earth.

"Astro Boy, when he is rejected by his father (voiced by Cage), falls to the surface of the Earth and meets up with Cora," Bell explains.

"The two of them have a connection, form a friendship and then she feels very betrayed when she finds out he is a robot."

Bell missed out on a kangaroo welcome at the airport, but she did enjoy plenty of Australian fare.

The actress made headlines recently when she revealed she is so picky with her food she always packs plenty of her American favourites when she travels abroad.

She did not have to worry while in Australia, dining at Icebergs at Bondi and feasting on pizzas from restaurant Made in Italy.

"I loved Australian food," Bell says.

Astro Boy opens in Australian cinemas October 15.

- AAP