by Dov Kornits
Radha Mitchell has got to be one of this country’s most underappreciated acting exports. Despite appearing in key roles in blockbusters – Pitch Black, Man on Fire, Silent Hill, Olympus and London Has Fallen – she has always returned home to Australia for work – Rogue, The Waiting City, Looking for Grace, Swinging Safari – and has never approached acting with any level of self-importance.
This is evident when we briefly chat to her about her latest role, as a supporting character in Mark Hartley’s latest feature, Girl at the Window.
“It’s a good showcase for the young talent in the film, and for people that appreciate that kind of thing…” she says about the ‘teen-who-cried-wolf thriller’, as Mark Hartley described it to us recently.
“It’s fun and it’s got a feminist feel to it. You’ve got these interesting young teenage girls bravely dealing with violence. I think all of that’s really cool.”
In Girl at the Window, Mitchell plays the mother of a young woman (Ella Newton), who is convinced that their next door neighbour (Vince Colosimo) is an infamous serial killer. What’s worse, mum is dating him!
“It’s not a movie to take seriously, it’s a date movie, it’s got a Hitchcock-y suspense element to it and it’s fun.”
Reflecting her down to earth quality, Mitchell spends more time speaking about her co-star Ella Newton than anything to do with herself.
“She has a lot of raw talent. She’s very talented. The circumstances of making the film were quite challenging and she was resilient to all of that and just brought a lot of emotional reality to the role. And she’s a funky, fun personality as well. I can see her doing very well in the future. And I think the movie does a lot to demonstrate her talent; it’s a very emotional role. Both the girls in the movie are super fun and cool. It’s got a Clueless vibe to it in some points,” she says, referring to the high school interplay between Ella Newton and co-star Karis Oka.
The challenging part that Mitchell refers to is that the film was shot during one of the many Melbourne lockdown’s during 2020’s Covid peaks.
“It was the middle of a pandemic, so it was an exciting opportunity to do a little project in Melbourne, which is where my family is. It was a good opportunity to be creative in that unusual time period. We had the privilege of being able to actually move around during lockdown because I guess it was called essential work, believe it or not… Filmmaking is essential work! It enabled us to go to various locations. Not that we were going to so many locations, but it gave us some sort of freedom. There were regulations and protocols for health and safety but it was great because during that time when people were unable to move around, we had a certain amount of freedom.”
Radha Mitchell got her first taste of acting when she was only 13 after modelling when she was in primary school.
“I had this agent and one day they were looking for kids for a TV series. I met John Gauci who produced really interesting children’s television, and that was how I got to do this little series,” she says referring to her lead role in Sugar and Spice. “But then I just wanted to finish school and didn’t really get involved in acting until I was at university, seriously.”
Love and Other Catastrophes and High Art followed, two highly regarded indies, one in Australia, the other in the US. “There are so many different lives that you can live, and I think acting actually gives you an opportunity to live a lot of them,” Mitchell says philosophically. “It’s been a very eclectic journey and I’m enjoying being in Australia.
“At the moment, we’re making a show that’s reflective of the ‘70s. That’s the period I grew up in,” she says about her role in Disney+ series Last Days of the Space Age.
Also on the horizon for Radha Mitchell is Robert Connolly’s Blueback, shot in Western Australia and US film Worlds Apart, with Bob Odenkirk and Danny Huston, both also made during the pandemic lockdowns.
“Within the circumstances of what we were going through, I think Mark did an amazing job,” she reverts back to Girl at the Window. “We were shooting down at Werribee Park. You won’t see them in the movie, but there were wild animals roaming around, elephants, just wild jungle creatures. I would like to see a movie where they were in it!
“Mark is really inspiring,” she recalls the experience as we wind up. “He’s a real lover of film, and very much a pragmatist. And I also have to give credit to Antony [I. Ginnane], the producer, who’s just so prolific, and who has become a friend of mine in the process. It was really lovely to be part of that little community.”
Girl at the Window is in cinemas August 18, 2022
