Sweet Soul Music: The Making Of The Sapphires

By Cara Nash

“There was a slight delay, and then this huge eruption,” screenwriter Tony Briggs audibly grins down the line, still clearly in awe of the fervent standing ovation that his film, The Sapphires, received at The Cannes Film Festival. “I thought, ‘What’s going on?’ Ten minutes later, I’m still on my feet and I haven’t moved. It was insane. I was like, ‘Alright guys, come on now!’ It was just remarkable, but it was very genuine because French audiences are tough. If they like something, they really let you know, and if they don’t like something, they really let you know too.”

There was no mistaking the fact that audiences at The Cannes Film Festival fell head over heels for The Sapphires, which screened in the prestigious showcase slot, previously occupied by Australian crowd-pleasers like Strictly Ballroom and The Adventures Of Priscilla, Queen Of The Desert. The film’s dream run continued when it struck box office at Australian cinemas. The Unison of music, unique storytelling and great filmmaking lit a spark.

Set in 1968, when riots, revolution and free love were in the air, The Sapphires tells the story of four aspiring singers and gutsy young Aboriginal women who are given the chance of a lifetime when they’re offered their first real gig of entertaining the troops in Vietnam. Whisked away from their remote mission in rural Australia by an enterprising Irish musician, these three sisters and their cousin soon find themselves deep in the war zones of South Vietnam, belting out soul classics for the American soldiers. While The Vietnam War rocked the world, change of a different nature was on the Australian agenda, with 1968 proving to be the year that Aboriginals were finally given the right to vote. Issues of race and prejudice are indeed part of the package here, but politics are largely – and smartly – kept on the fringes. The Sapphires is a film big in scope, and even bigger in heart, but when you peel it back, it’s a deeply personal story.

It’s actually the tale of writer Tony Briggs’ mother and aunt, Laurel Robinson and Lois Peeler respectively, who toured Vietnam as back-up singers in the sixties. The story first did the rounds as a stage play, which Briggs penned after listening to his mother’s swag of anecdotes. “I’ve always been interested in the history of my mum and dad,” Briggs relays. “During my conversations with mum, she’d often mention her youth, and what she’d get up to. She would often talk about Vietnam, and her time over there. One day, I just said to her, ‘Back up a minute…tell me more about this Vietnam thing.’ I wanted to know how close she was to the danger, and she would tell me stories of being shot at in helicopters or brandishing a gun while playing. One thing led to another, and I just found myself writing these notes. When I asked her about turning them into a play, she laughed. But then I told her that I’d really like to give it a go.”

Briggs was no stranger to the theatre, after having headlined acclaimed productions of Stolen and Yanagai! Yanagai!. The talented actor also has a string of screen credits to his name, including stints on Neighbours, Stingers and The Slap, as well as film credits including Australian Rules and The Drover’s Boy. Knuckling down to write his first stage play, however, was a new experience for Briggs, but one that the screenwriter said had “all the stars aligned.” In 2002, The Melbourne Theatre Company had just kicked off Hard Lines, a programme that aimed to support emerging playwrights in developing their works for the stage. Cut to a couple of years later, and The Sapphires was playing to packed houses across the country. It eventually scored Briggs a Helpmann Award for Best New Australian Work. The screenwriter admits, however, that he always had his eye on taking it to the big screen. “To be perfectly honest with you, it was the thing that I wanted to do first,” he reveals to FilmInk. “It was obvious that this had the makings of a very good film, and I was always focusing on that.”

Thanks to the success of the stage play – which toured with various line-ups for close to eight years – Briggs was approached by numerous producers about transforming the material into a film before Rosemary Blight and Kylie Du Fresne of Aussie production house, Goalpost Pictures, came on board. Regular Goalpost Pictures collaborator and screenwriter, Keith Thompson (Clubland), was recruited to co-write the script with Briggs. “We really wanted to give the film its own voice,” Briggs says. “We had to stick to the heart of what the play was about, and what people loved, which really wasn’t that difficult, but we also had to develop a lot more of the characters. One of our biggest challenges was that we had so much material from the play, but that’s a pretty good problem to have!”

A long-time friend of Briggs, Wayne Blair was always in the screenwriter’s mind as the man to direct the film. The Sapphires marked Blair’s directorial feature debut, but the filmmaker had already revealed his deft hand behind the camera with a clutch of acclaimed indigenous-themed short films including Black Talk and The Djarn Djarns. Blair, however, was at the time best known for his host of impressive theatre work, both as a director (The Removalists, Jesus Hopped The A Train, Unspoken) and an actor (he starred in Phillip Seymour Hoffman’s True West and Steven Soderbergh’s The Mystery Project, both of which ran at The Sydney Theatre Company). Coincidentally, Blair had first come in contact with The Sapphires when he performed a minor role in the stage production. “It was a gig over Christmas, and I needed the money to pay for all the presents,” laughs the director. “Being a professional actor and working in a black musical put a smile on my face. It was just a celebration. Tony’s a great friend of mine, so to work on a project with him like that was great.”

From these humble beginnings to witnessing the story presented on the world stage at Cannes is one epic journey, and the director’s the first to acknowledge this. “I had a ball at Cannes,” Blair says, “but we all worked our butts off. They were very full-on days. They don’t tell you about that part!” In doing the press rounds, the director was touched by the fact that audiences were genuinely interested to learn more about the story that they saw on screen. “It was a little bit eye-opening for audiences with regard to how Aboriginal people were treated,” Blair reveals. “The film was a catalyst for them to find out more. Some remember Rabbit-Proof Fence and Samson And Delilah, but to see it in another film was great to reiterate the point.”

The Sapphires, however, reiterates “the point” in a different way. While the aforementioned Rabbit-Proof Fence and Samson And Delilah earned critical praise (with the latter, of course, snagging the Camera d’Or at Cannes for its helmer, Warwick Thornton) and did respectable business at the box office, they still remained largely arthouse darlings. With its feel-good spirit and irrepressible musical numbers, The Sapphires has more in common with Rachel Perkins’ 2010 box office hit, Bran Nue Dae, which was also an adaptation of a stage musical. Both aspire toward what many other indigenous filmmakers seem wary of: big, mainstream audiences. Interestingly, however, commercial considerations seemed to be something that came afterwards for Blair. “We wanted to reach all blackfellas in Australia first,” the director recounts. “Then we wanted to reach all non-indigenous people in Australia. The third step was to get an international audience. If these four black women and one Irish guy can get to every country in the world, wouldn’t that be something? And in a nice way, we’ve achieved a bit of that. So it wasn’t necessarily the intention at the start, but our eyes really widened in the edit room. We thought, ‘Wow, what could this be?’”

Certainly, much of the broad appeal of The Sapphires comes down to the four leading ladies who play these inspiring onscreen women – and their casting presented Blair with one of his major initial challenges. The casting process was made trickier by the added criterion thrown into the mix: the actresses had to be Aboriginal, there needed to be the correct dynamic of voices and, ideally, at least one of them had to be an amazing singer. Due to the touring stage production, there were numerous line-ups to consider, with one ensemble including popular singers, Christine Anu and Casey Donovan. In the end, however, Deborah Mailman was the only actress recruited who had also featured in the stage version. “I wanted to see every young Aboriginal female in Australia so we could have a great choice,” Blair says of the massive process. “You never know where you might unearth a certain talent. We weren’t biased; it was a blank page for everyone.”

The warm and gifted Mailman was selected to play the eldest sister and “mama bear of the group”, Gail, while then newcomers, Shari Sebbens and Miranda Tapsell, tackle the roles, respectively, of the feisty middle sister, Cynthia, and the conflicted Kay, the sisters’ cousin who has abandoned her Aboriginal roots. The final actress to be cast was Jessica Mauboy, who plays Julie, the youngest sister but perhaps the most ambitious of the four. The popular 2006 Australian Idol runner-up, who made her acting debut in the aforementioned Bran Nue Dae, was deeply touched by the screenplay and grateful for an opportunity to build on her acting experience. “I was on a roll with my second album when I was presented with the script,” the warm and sweet singer-turned-actress tells FilmInk, “and I cried and fell in love with it. I had to read it again, and I cried a second time! It was a really beautiful story that I couldn’t let go, and as much as I had on with work, I knew that I had to play Julie. I knew that this film was going to be hard work. It’s a very different film to Bran Nue Dae, which I loved with all my heart. My character in Bran Nue Dae was quite innocent, and still growing into her life. The difference here is that I get to play a strong and determined woman, who’s almost the leader. That’s like me on the inside. I love to be in control of something that I love, especially with music. I got to take my older sisters on this ride that we never expected.”

The connection between the four actresses was immediate, with Mauboy again being “mentored” by her Bran Nue Dae co-star, Deborah Mailman. “Deb grew up in Mount Isa, and that’s where my family is from,” Mauboy recounts. “I would see Shari and Miranda around Darwin because they grew up in the Northern Territory. Coming from the same background, we really related to each other and connected in a cultural and spiritual way. On the acting side of things, those girls were really there for me. Deb would be saying, ‘Jess, breathe! It’s okay!’ But it was very much an exchange, because I got to teach them about music,” Mauboy smiles.

Further aiding the actresses was the fact that they got to meet the real-life Sapphires (two of whom went to Vietnam) prior to shooting. “That was really inspiring,” Mauboy recalls. “It just got me more passionate to fight for these women and their stories. They’re strong, empowered women, and still to this day, they’re very good singers. Hearing their stories was really eye-opening for me. It was scary because whites and blacks couldn’t be together. That really surprised me. Being so young, I’ve only experienced a tiny bit of racism, and to actually live it on camera was really emotional. It was definitely educational.”

Mauboy says that she appreciated the way that this film, like Bran Nue Dae, touched on these issues without a heavy hand. “I’ve never been a political person when it comes to being part indigenous,” she says, “but showing these things through music was my way of telling this story. I thought that it was going to be quite overwhelming, but it was a beautiful responsibility. I’ve always seen music as bringing people together. It’s wonderful to celebrate these empowering women – who were really the backbone of things – in a not so forceful way through music.”

Certainly, at the heart of The Sapphires is the music, which plays out like an irresistible jukebox of sixties soul, featuring tunes from The Jackson Five and The Four Tops to Marvin Gaye and Otis Redding. Soul’s raw, rocking and redemptive powers are truly on display here, providing the perfect soundtrack to the brave journey of these four women. It was the music that Briggs had grown up listening to as a young boy in seventies Australia, and it was also a genre that provided the screenwriter with his first real role models. “I used to lock myself away and listen to Motown’s greatest hits over and over again as a young boy,” Briggs reveals. “Those songs were very influential in my life, so that’s why the black American sound is in the film. I’d watch these guys when I was young – it was black people doing something for themselves. That was very empowering for me.”

Dig a little deeper, and not only does one learn that soul music soundtracked Briggs’ childhood and teenage years, but due to his family connections, the screenwriter was actually personally in touch with some of these artists. Briggs’ relatives – and particularly his grandparents, Selwyn and Geraldine Briggs – were heavily involved in the politics of Aboriginal land rights and setting up The Aboriginal Advancement League, which champions indigenous welfare issues. “When black artists used to come to Australia, they’d want to meet black people in other countries and connect with our community,” Briggs recalls. “My family was quite instrumental in Aboriginal politics. They were fairly well known and connected in that sense. My uncle and aunty had a place in country Victoria, and The Jackson Five and their father came, and we had a barbeque for them. It was so much fun. I remember really vividly standing there next to Michael Jackson, and having an argument with him and his brother over a swing set. They’re incredible memories.”

While soul music may have meant something different to him, someone else who believed in its power and groove was Irish actor, Chris O’Dowd, who tackles the role of the down-on-his-luck Dave, a man that finds purpose again as The Sapphires’ band manager. “I love that whole era of music, and I’d been listening to loads of Sam Cooke and Al Green around the time that the script came to me, which is kind of cosmic,” the affable actor told FilmInk when we met during his stint in the country last year shooting the film. “It’s to the detriment of the film, but I sing one or two songs…but we’ll see how the edit goes!”

O’Dowd’s musical numbers weren’t cut of course, and the goofy charm and quick wit of the self-deprecating actor – best known for his role in the British TV comedy series, The IT Crowd, and his breakout turn as a warm-hearted cop in the smash hit, Bridesmaids – sees him steal many of his scenes. Effortlessly embodying the booze-tinged soul swagger of Dave, the part almost seems tailor-made for O’Dowd, but the actor came on board quite late in the process. “I got drunk with Wayne one night, and he told me all the people that he really wanted for the role,” O’Dowd laughs, “but they sent me the script and I really liked it. It touched on a whole lot of stuff that I didn’t know about, and that I hadn’t done before. After Bridesmaids, I was getting offered a lot of rom-com stuff that I didn’t think was the right thing to do, so the fact that this was a different genre was attractive. Then I talked to Wayne, and we had a great chat about where the character could go. He seemed open to my take. It all happened fairly quickly.”

As it turned out, being thrust straight into production (Blair says that O’Dowd was “put in costume on Wednesday, had a cast read on Thursday, probably went to the pub on Friday, learned piano on Saturday and Sunday, and was on set on Monday”) actually aided the dynamic, as O’Dowd’s onscreen character was introduced to the girls as he was getting to know the actresses in real life. Similarly, the actor wasn’t too concerned about being overly versed in Australian history. “I didn’t want to be too informed because my character isn’t,” O’Dowd says. “I just wanted to make sure that I wasn’t a step ahead of him, so my ignorance in this situation was useful. Obviously, I’ve learnt a lot more since. It’s a very unique situation here, but at the same time, it’s very similar to a lot of other mistreatments of indigenous communities across the world.”

For first time feature filmmaker, Wayne Blair, overseeing this massive production was an admittedly epic task, but he was aided by his friend and cinematographer (and Samson And Delilah director), Warwick Thornton. “It was big decisions, big risk, big everything… except big budget!” Blair laughs of shooting overseas. “We only had six weeks to shoot the film, so we had to really do our homework. A lot of the film was loose, but for the Vietnam scenes, we had to be very clear. We storyboarded a couple of big moments. Warwick and I were good friends to begin with, but we became better friends during shooting. Sometimes two roosters in the henhouse isn’t good, but in this henhouse, it just worked!”

Interestingly, when the action shifts to Vietnam, the racism that the four women faced in Australia fades out of focus, but when we put this to Briggs, he relays a string of incidences where his mother and aunt still encountered discrimination as entertainers away from home. “At one point, they were told to sleep on the stage after the gig because of their skin colour,” Briggs says. “So there was racism, but there was a lot of stuff that we took artistic license with.” Indeed, there are details that Briggs has opted to leave out of this story, but that’s not to say that the film shies away from the uglier notes of history – the fractured relationship between Gail and Kay reveals in full the painful effects that our policies have wrought – but rather that entertainment factored first and foremost on the screenwriter’s agenda. “That was a very conscious decision of mine,” Briggs says. “Some people like that and some people don’t, but the bottom line is that I want this to be entertaining. I want to appeal to as many people as possible, and humour’s a big part of getting our message across. It’s something that you don’t often get to see in Australian film because the Aboriginal sense of humour is very distinct, but we’ve all used it to get through hard times. One of the exciting things about this was showing a very different side to the Aboriginal community. There’s a fun loving, vibrant type of energy, and to be able to put it on screen, and put it there forever, is such a joy.”

The film’s tone definitely struck a chord with O’Dowd. “That was important,” the actor says. “Not to be flippant about it, but sometimes films about the underclass of society can be so melancholic that it can feel like fucking charity work watching them. For the sake of equality and everything else that this film would hope to achieve, you want the characters to show their flaws and their sense of humour, and not just the way that they’ve been mistreated. Hopefully people will come out of the film with a big smile on their face.”

Briggs knows his roots, but since he first put pen to paper, the screenwriter has always had a very clear idea of who he wants to reach with this film. “Politics has always been a major part of my life since I was born,” Briggs acknowledges. “I grew up around politicians, and I don’t ever shy away from who I am, where I come from, and why I’m able to sit on the phone and have a conversation with you about a feature film. It’s because of those people that I’m able to do the things that I’m doing. This is my way of paying homage to them. That said, I had a sense that if I went down a particular path with politics, people wouldn’t engage with this in the way that I wanted them to. The Sapphires is something different. The mere fact that there are four black women in lead roles in a major Australian feature film is political enough in itself. I’ll save writing a political story for another day…”