By Erin Free
“Fame and money aren’t all that important,” Kenny Smyth told FilmInk. “If you feed money to a dog, it won’t eat it. And a dog will eat anything, so you know it can’t be that great.” Despite his protestations, Kenny Smyth is famous…really famous. In the middle of a slow period for Australian cinema, Kenny strode forward – the proverbial “knight in shining overalls” – to win the hearts of the nation. The extraordinary success of the film, Kenny, started with its titular character, and the film’s early marketing strategy, which had actor/co-writer, Shane Jacobson, hitting the promotional trail (including interviews, screenings, radio appearances, and so on) “in character” as port-a-loo cleaner and installer, Kenny Smyth.
This conceit worked an absolute treat. Why? Because Kenny is a truly great character: a big, bearish, loveable man who espouses the best kind of principles. He’s hilariously funny, with a quip for every occasion (“There’s a smell in here that will outlive religion,” he says when scrubbing down a particularly messy dunny); he’s a hard worker who never complains; he’s non-judgmental; he’s a devoted father; and, in short, an all around top bloke. But with his prominent lisp and family problems (he’s split up with his wife; his father is a demanding grouch; his brother is distant), Kenny is also a real battler, which just extends his appeal even more. With all of his foibles and gentle flaws, Kenny is without doubt one of the most relatable and recognisable Aussie movie characters of all time. Audiences responded in kind, with the rollicking mockumentary, Kenny, becoming a major smash hit of stunning proportions. “The success is way beyond our comprehension,” director/co-writer, Clayton Jacobson, told FilmInk.
And it all comes down to the character. “After just about every screening came out, people wanted to go and embrace Kenny, and they wanted to tell him their stories,” says Shane Jacobson of his “in character” appearances. “They really enjoyed his turn of phrase and they really embraced him. I can’t do that as easily as Kenny does. It just became really obvious – dare I say that when I go into Myers I still get a smile when I see Santa sitting up there. I don’t ever want him to take his costume off.”
Despite its volatile toilet humour, Kenny – and its quietly heroic leading character – is a smashing tribute to our tradies and, in fact, anyone in the service industry. “If the world can stop walking past these people and give them a little bit of a mind and a nod at them, then the directors have gotten something out of all this, I’m sure,” Kenny Smyth told FilmInk. “If these people, at the end of the day, seem victorious, rather than the guy in the sports car, then that’s great too.”
