by Julian Wood
“It was actually the funeral song for my mum’s brother, who had suffered many problems with mental health and addiction as well,” answers He Ain’t Heavy writer/director David Vincent Smith [pictured left] when we ask about the significance of the song that shares the Australian film’s title, and which was secured for use only recently, well after the film was completed. “It was a huge influence in my life. My mum chose that song because she didn’t want his life to be defined by negative components, and she really loved and cared about him, and he was a great person. I thought that song and that name really, and the story behind the song encapsulates that love. We want to make a film that leads through empathy and love.”
Mission accomplished, with Western Australian shot He Ain’t Heavy impressing wherever it plays, despite the melancholy subject matter of a sister locking up her drug addicted brother to try to save his life.
“This is heavily personal film based on a relationship with me and my own brother,” says Vincent Smith. “I did literally contemplate kidnapping him. That wasn’t a film idea, that was a real conclusion to a scenario that I came to. I obviously didn’t do that. That would be a horrific thing to do. But that level of desperation highlights the place that I was in. As I started to talk about this dilemma I was having, I realised just how many people were in the same place and everyone was privately suffering. How far do you go to save someone you love? And how much of your own life do you sacrifice in the process? Trying to juggle a film career is hard of the best of times, and trying to do that while also watching someone you deeply care about fall apart is really hard.”
He Ain’t Heavy stars Sam Corlett as the brother, Max, Leila George as the sister and George’s real life mother Greta Scacchi as the conflicted matron of the family. Corlett, who has notched up key roles in US productions Chilling Adventures of Sabrina and Vikings: Valhalla, returned to Australia for the film, and will next be seen in Netflix’s highly anticipated ‘Yellowstone Down Under’ series Territory.
“I went from 92 kilos during Vikings down to 66 kilos for He Ain’t Heavy,” NSW Central Coast born Corlett tells us. “It was actually a beautiful structure to gift me in terms of all the other work I was doing. For this role, I would do 20,000 steps a day and one meal a day. Having that sense of being an empty vessel made a lot of emotions very available to me and a lot of memories. My earliest memories are being with my mum at Al-Anon meetings and holding hands with all the ladies and gents that were there and saying the serenity prayer. The script, though different to my mum’s circumstances, was familiar in an energetic sense to what David had written.
“With a script as beautiful as David’s, it gives you so much freedom. I think me and Leila had such similar sensibilities in that we were willing to go to the depths, widths, and heights of ourself to honour this story. We know where it comes from, David, and we know how it exists in many of our family’s friends’ lives. Me and Layla, she rode her bike next to me while I was getting my steps in each day. There was something about the script, which just opened the doors to me and Layla connecting so deeply.
“I think I really boarded my days with a bit of a ritual, and within it, most of the time stayed within Max’s energy. And when ‘cut’ was called, I’d just have to lay down and cry until action was called again. It allowed me to love a lot of the things that have happened in my life to death.”
