“Koen West has got to step up in his own life and be a better person,” director, Wayne Blair (The Sapphires), tells FilmInk of the central character in his new TV series, Cleverman. “He has to fully grow into who he should be, spiritually, for his family, for himself, and for his community and, I suppose, the world. Initially, he’s a fly by night con-man. He’s charming, he’s sleeping with his best friend’s girlfriend, and he’s taking advantage of the world. Then he just has to grow up, unknowingly.” In short, Koen West is a charming rogue with the potential to be much, much more, and that pretty much equates to an actor’s dream. Playing him is engaging up-and-comer, Hunter Page-Lochard, who impressively held his own against international import, Christina Ricci, in the little seen Aussie drama, Around The Block. Though he’s also appeared in the hits, The Sapphires and Bran Nue Dae (as well as projects like the dance-based feature, Spear, and the web series, Shit Creek), Cleverman is undoubtedly set to be the young actor’s breakout role.
Hunter Page-Lochard in Cleverman
Backed by ABC-TV locally, and set to screen on the BBC in the UK and Sundance TV in the US, the indigenous-driven Cleverman is set in a wholly recognisable near-future Australia in which ancient creatures, the “Hairypeople”, have re-emerged to take their place alongside humans. Their integration into society, however, is far from easy, with government agencies unwilling to recognise the Hairypeople (or “Hairies”, as they become pejoratively known) as citizens, and forcing them to live isolated in a heavily policed area known as The Zone. Thrown into this hazardous, politically explosive mix are Waruu (Rob Collins) and Koen (Hunter Page-Lochard), battling human half-brothers with a decidedly divergent take on the current social climate. Waruu is the self-appointed leader of all the disenfranchised people of The Zone, while the reckless, freewheeling Koen mines the whole situation to his advantage. When their Uncle Jimmy (Jack Charles) passes the mythological power of the Cleverman to Koen (much to the chagrin of his more morally sound and upstanding brother), this already fevered and fractured picture of Australia will become even more fascinating, and Koen will truly step into the light.
“Cleverman will definitely be seen as an Aboriginal unrequited superhero of some sorts,” says Wayne Blair. “He is a superhero, which hopefully kids or young people around the world will grab and hold on to, because the intellect behind our Cleverman is quite unique.” Series creator, Ryan Griffen, who drew from Aboriginal folklore and even sought permission from Aboriginal elders to make Cleverman, explained before the series’ premiere at this year’s Berlin Film Festival premiere that he wanted to take 60,000-year-old stories and “put them in a modern environment.” Adds Wayne Blair: “In our modern day story, Cleverman is a hero that’s been there for 60,000 years. And unknowingly, he’s come back again in the shape of this young 25-year-old man.”
FilmInk spoke to Cleverman himself, Hunter Page-Lochard, at The Berlin Film Festival…
So you knew Wayne Blair from The Sapphires?
“I’ve known Wayne since before The Sapphires. He did two short films before that, and I was in those. I was about five or six when I did the first one with him, and the second one, The Djarn Djarns, was actually at The Berlin Film Festival, and it won the Crystal Bear award. I played the lead in that as well. I was about seven.”
Did you go to Berlin?
“I was at school. I had to go to school! I didn’t really understand the gravity of it, to be honest. I didn’t know what the festival was.”
It’s quite an innovation bringing TV shows here. Do you feel like it’s a good fit, to have it here amongst all these films?
“I think so, because of how fast TV is changing. It’s becoming much more cinematic. This is a great step to include it in that world, but it’s still fresh. They don’t really have television festivals, do they? It’s still a part of that industry, and it’s still the silver screen, but it’s just looked at as just the TV box. People can have stories on such a big spectrum like Cleverman. When I try to explain Cleverman, there are so many different avenues to go down, and that can only be translated through television shows. It’s cool that the festivals are doing that now, so they can showcase bigger stories.”
How would you explain the concept of the Cleverman? We don’t learn that much about him in the first few episodes. He’s sort of a shaman, a mystical figure, in Aboriginal culture? Would that be an accurate statement?
“The Cleverman is a very important figure in our culture, and it always has been, for generations of our culture. Personally, I believe that the Cleverman is a bridge. He’s a spiritual person who is a bridge between the dreaming and the real world to keep balance. Do you know Avatar: The Last Airbender? It’s an animated series, and then M. Night Shyamalan did the bad remake of it. It’s the same kind of thing. The funny thing about that is it’s actually in quite a lot of different cultures. In the western folklores, there’s a clairvoyant, and someone who can connect to the spirit world and be in the present. That’s a Cleverman. He’s got really important roles, and there are different types of Cleverman because there are so many different lands and clans within Australia, within the same culture. The Cleverman has different roles, some can shape shift in stories and some are magic men. Ryan Griffen, the series creator, grabbed all of those stories and was inspired to do his own version of Cleverman.”
Iain Glenn, Hunter Page-Lochard and Rob Collins in Cleverman
Is it going too far to call him an Aboriginal superhero?
“I would love to be calling him an Aboriginal superhero! Ryan Griffen and I had a little conversation on set, and I asked him where he wanted to go with this, and he said, ‘I would love it to be an Aboriginal X-Men.’ So we’re always touching on the fact that it is a little bit of a superhero show, and it’s also in the world of sci-fi as well. We are creating our own interpretation of the Cleverman, and that we’re allowed to call him that. But that’s just a personal thing. It’s more important to touch on what an actual Cleverman is because they actually technically exist within our culture. Ryan also put it to me one time that the whole first season for Koen is like the first act of a Marvel film where the character is getting these new abilities and testing the waters. That’s our first season.”
Is there the scope for a bigger second season? The stories are certainly there…
“Yes, the stories and the characters are there, and Ryan has a big world in his head. He has ides for a lot of other characters. I think that he actually wanted to do twelve episodes to start with, and they probably said, ‘Look, we can test the waters with six.’ In my own opinion, that makes it a little bit better because we can focus on what the actual story is rather than getting too much into the special effects and the sci-fi. That’s what I love about it – the sci-fi and the special effects are quite subtle. It’s not so in your face and overdone. The show has its own spirit. Maybe this spirit might grow, and it’s possible that there are a lot of stories and characters that are roaming around in Ryan’s head. Once you get involved, it does touch on personal and cultural stories too. There are so many stories in our Dreaming. We can pull a lot from that.”
Hunter Page-Lochard in Cleverman
There’s a lot of talk about diversity in film and TV right now. Do you think that Cleverman fulfils that need for stories that aren’t really told in Australia?
“It’s still quite young, you know? There are shows like Redfern Now and Black Comedy, and other shows are starting to come up that do have black faces and multicultural elements. It’s slowly happening, and this will give it a rocket boost, because it’s not explicitly a black project, though it is at the same time, if that makes sense. The subtlety that Ryan and the directors have carried through that, showing the Aboriginal essence but keeping it sacred at the same time, is great. That comes through with the different array of characters and actors.”
How do you think that Aboriginal folk in Australia will take to this? Will they think that it’s cool?
“To be honest, personally, I think because this culture has had its problems with colonisation and trying to regain their independence and their identity, that they are still quite fragile and they are healing their wounds, and because of that, it’s going to be 50/50. You’ll always have the people that disagree, and then you’ll have the people that embrace it, hopefully. Hopefully it is not 50/50 and it is 100%. At the end of the day, it is an Aboriginal story on the screen, which has never been done before like this, so let’s embrace that.”
Cleverman will launch on ABC and ABC iView on Thursday, June 2 at 9:30pm. Stay tuned for more on Cleverman right here, and for more on the show, head to its Facebook page. And be sure to check out our interviews with director, Wayne Blair, and actresses, Frances O’Connor, Stef Dawson, and Tasma Walton.
