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Actors Cauldron
With two actors- screenwriter and director RACHEL WARD and producer/co-star BRYAN BROWN- in charge, the haunting drama BEAUTIFUL KATE is the ultimate performance piece.
Were you always intending to adapt this film yourself (Beautiful Kate is adapted from an American novel by Newton Thornburg)?
Rachel: No, I wasn't at all.
Because there's a real art in that, isn't there.
Rachel: Yes, there is. An incredibly underrated art. It took me a long time to learn to let go of material that wasn't working for my story. And to understand what that is. And because I had to change it so it could work from America to Australia, plus I had to update it two decades... But it was a universal story, and it was what I was looking for. I actually wasn't looking for an Australian story. I very much wanted a story that was set here, but that had universal themes that could work everywhere.
Another risk too is directing your first film. Can you talk me through moving from shorter films to features?
Rachel: I felt I was absolutely able, qualified to do that. I think when I came through the FFC (Film Finance Corporation of Australia, which has now been amalgamated with the Australian Film Commission to become Screen Australia), there was a sort of policy very much to encourage filmmakers to start making longer shorts, rather than short shorts. The Big House was half an hour, and so was Blind Man's Bluff. Which had positives and negatives. Positive in that I was really able to develop skills. Negative in that it was very hard for me to place the films in festivals because basically all the major festivals [take shorts that] are 15 minutes or under. And part of the process of doing short films is to forge relationships with festivals, and I missed out on basically forming those relationships. I did go to Sundance.
How did you come to cast everyone else? Did you know Ben Mendlesohn and Rachel Griffiths?
Rachel: Well Ben was almost so right to play the role that I was almost scared of it. I just thought it can't be this easy. I did want to change Ben physically...they're quite boyish his characters and the way he presents himself he's always got the runners on, he's always got the hoodies on. He's got a sort of boyish quality and I wanted to lose that. I very much wanted him to be a man in it.
Bryan: You're used to Ben as adolescent but he has to play an adult. It's an adult part.
Rachel Griffiths is very much against type here, she's more low-key.
Rachel: I suppose that character I saw as, much less attractive than Rachel probably. I saw the character as very unsophisticated, probably a little bit overweight, very much a woman who had been left behind and is just doing her duty. These sort of physical attributes were just not in the picture and Rachel brings such an attractive quality that I was concerned.
Bryan: She wasn't a victim, you know it was her choice to do that. That's what's great about her, it lifts the movie the way she plays her character.
She seems smarter than everyone too.
Rachel: Yeah, she definitely had a wisdom. She had a selflessness that the others didn't have. The others were all very self involved and that's why she's the heroine of the piece really.
Did you have to do much intensive work with Sophie Lowe? I mean, it's such a challenging role for a newcomer.
Rachel: Not really. I had about 3 days of intensive rehearsal with the three young kids and actually, I did work with them and I worked with them doing exercises that I did years ago at drama school. I don't know if it necessarily shaped the performance but it really helped make them comfortable with each other.
Bryan: When I rehearsed with them we did the scenes.
Rachel: Yeah but the initial rehearsals for them was just about familiarity and comfort with each other.
Can I ask about the score, because the music is beautiful in the film. Tex Perkins and Murray Paterson did the music. Is that a pre-existing friendship with you guys?
Bryan: It was always going to be Tex. She always had it in her mind that it was going to be Tex's music.
Rachel: It's very much him and Murray Paterson and Murray has worked with ‘Dark Horses' as well so it's very much a sound that they were both very familiar with and I didn't want them to deviate from that. I wanted his melodies - I didn't want the music to tell the audience how to feel, I didn't want it to manipulate. I wanted it to sort of accompany the pictures.
Is this a side of filmmaking you enjoy?
Rachel: It's great fun to play with the music. We did have to pull back. At one point we took so much out, then you guys came in and went "Oh my God, put it back!"
Bryan: Well you're trying to get the balance of your story right and make it effective at the end. She always knew her elements, she knew sounds, atmosphere, look. As for having it absolutely right in her head, that was going to be the game she was going to have to play to find out about it.
BEAUTIFUL KATE is in cinemas from August 6. For more on BEAUTIFUL KATE, including interviews with BEN MENDELSOHN and SOPHIE LOWE, check out this month's edition of FILMINK.