By Travis Johnson
One thing you really take away from The BBQ is that it’s a really inclusive film – it really tries to spread a wide net in terms of portraying an Australia full of people from different backgrounds and cultures.
That is what it is. As we both know, the meeting place for Australian people is the barbecue, and what I love about barbecues is that there’s no pomp or ceremony about it – you just heat up a bit of metal and throw some meat on it, and everyone agrees to hold a beer while it’s cooking. The film does exactly what you said – the inclusiveness of it is undeniable. Australia is multicultural. I was talking with a journo this morning and she said ‘Do you think Australian is multicultural?’ I said, well, in this room now you’ve got me, I’m Finnish by descent, Manu’s [co-star Manu Fieldel] from France, and she was Irish. The three of us around the table had proven it.
How did the project come together and what attracted you to it?
The script came through first and foremost. Stephen Amis, who’s the director and one of he co-writers, sent the script through. It obviously went through a few drafts like all movies do, and I first read it a few years ago. All films take a while to go from idea to paper to on screen. It’s been through a few changes just with us all doing what we do – dare I use a cooking reference, but you keep throwing in more herbs and stuff until you get the flavor right. But from the get go what I loved about it was in many ways I can’t believe it’s taken this long for someone to make a film about the Australian barbecue to be honest. Now that we’ve done it seems like the obvious thing to do.
What sort of film is it? It’s a family film, it’s a comedy with a good heart, and they’re comedies that do well in this country and something you want to be a part of – The Castle was that, in that world. And the character, Dazza Cook, for me, was like most Australian people: not stupid, just an average guy, optimistic, who wants the simple things in life: a house, a wife that will love him as much as he loves her, some kids and a job, and having a barbecue with a few mates, And, dare I say it, he’s got a fantastic Holden car, too! The character is a celebration not of the underdog, but of the average Australian guy, which I am and, for the most part, my mates are the average Australian bloke as well, and all of that is in the script. It’s a celebration of Australian culture.
You said you got an earlier draft of the script some time back – were there many changes along the way from that version of the story to what we see on screen?
No, not really – it’s all character stuff is the truth. I mean, until Magda [Szubanski, who co-stars] said yes we had a character on paper just called The Butcher, and if she had said no it could have been anyone, male or female. So there’s things like that. But it’s just fine tuning the characters. It seems like a small thing and it can change the script a bit but not in terms of plot or story. Once I figure out who he character is, it starts to inform the dialogue a bit. I threw lines in like “Me not cooking on that barbecue would be like taking he bat off Bradman.” I always like to try and get in a few of my own lines to summarise the character. In one of the early drafts I think he was a touch more ocker and we made him a little bit softer, which was a preference of all of ours in the end, but for the most part it was the same story.
Once Manu came on board as the arrogant French chef we knew we could push that as far as we wanted because he’s French and he’s a chef. But if it hadn’t have been Manu, if it had been another actor I don’t think you could maybe push it that far. So I think once the cast comes on board the script slowly changes to better fit the human that’s gonna play the character.
How did you find working opposite Magda Szubanski?
Aw, she’s fantastic. Me and Magda are mates. I did theatre with her – I did almost a year on stage with her doing Guys and Dolls eight or nine years ago – we did 150 or 200 shows. Mags is fantastic – she brings enormous energy to set, and comic chops. The other thing that I think people know by now is that Magda is an incredible wit and an incredibly wise woman, so she’s fantastic at comedy and such a good egg but she also has wit, and so many of the Scottish expressions in the movie are hers. Acting opposite her, all bets are off. You can literally, in a great way, if you spear off on a tangent and ad lib a bit, she’ll go a long with it without hesitation – you can’t shake her loose, she’s too solid for that.
But by the same token me and Mags have a great friendship and she gets the giggles, that’s it – the whole set’s gone for 20 minutes, I can’t stop laughing and neither can she. It’s a bit like being at high school sometimes, which is good – it makes the workplace a fun place to be, and that sort of stuff matters when there’s a comedy to be played, because a light-hearted set actually does come though on the screen, I think.
The BBQ is out now. Read our review here.
