Rudd helps Weaver's husband get to Oscars

Kevin Rudd has made it possible for Animal Kingdom star Jacki Weaver to take her husband to this year's Academy Awards with her.

The former Australian Prime Minister, who is now the Foreign Affairs Minister, helped Africa-based Sean Taylor get a tourist visa so that he could support his Oscar-nominated actress wife as she attends the awards ceremony next week.

Rudd and Taylor's mutual friend Rhys Muldoon told The Daily Telegraph: "I got an email from Jacki saying it looked as if Sean would be sitting in his tuxedo watching the Oscars from their home in Redfern because of visa problems, which obviously she was really disappointed by.

"It looked as if he wouldn't get his visa until two days after the Oscars, which was clearly too late, so I put in the call to Kevin and he got on it.

"It all got sorted out very quickly. But that's what friends are for, I suppose. Now our first lady of cinema will be able to take her husband to the Oscars, which she is a little bit over the moon about."