By Matt Zeremes
Is there a mind shift that you have to do to go between directing and acting? “Yeah, a little bit, but I’ve gotten used to it in the last four or five years.”
Is there a fundamental thing that you strive for in both? “I just want to get the colour out of the scene, or out of a moment, instead of being washed with just one colour or emotion. I want to be honest to what the writer has set out to do.”
So when did you get into acting? “I used to do this routine with my cousin called ‘Didgeri-Don’t’ when I was sixteen…”
What was that about? What did ‘Didgeri-Don’t’ do? “We were like The Umbilical Brothers, but with a didgeridoo. All that noise was worse with a didge…”
Where would you guys do that? “Inland Queensland mainly. We went to all the travel shows, and we got good money. Although I had no idea what good money was back then, we certainly got paid. We performed comedy gigs, and nobody had ever seen that type of thing. We still do it sometimes. We’ve been going for about nineteen or twenty years now…our 20th anniversary will be coming up soon.”
When did you last do ‘Didgeri-don’t’? “We did it at my auntie’s 80th. That was the official last time. The old family members have seen it so many times, and they still love it, but we’ve got this new generation of nieces and nephews around the ages of five and six, and they’re like, ‘Oh, my god!’ and people say, ‘Wow! That’s pretty full on.’ We did it about four months ago, and people paid for it, funnily enough.”
You’re this accomplished actor, director and writer now, , yet your family love ‘Didgeri-Don’t’ more than all that? “That’s what I’m known for back there.”
That’s great. You went to uni too, right? “Yeah, I went to QUT in 1995. I didn’t realise that there was an acting school there. I’d heard of NIDA of course, but QUT may as well have been Mars; I had no idea.”
And things have gone upward since then? “I certainly can’t complain. I’ve been in the right place at the right time and I’m getting used to the industry…there have been ups and downs, but it’s been an interesting journey.”
You were great in Ana Kokkinos’ Blessed; how was that experience? “I played an accident assessor, and he was part of The Stolen Generation. He was going through a few hard things in his life because his birthmother had just passed away.”
Was it a good experience working with Ana? “It was great. She’s focused, and she knows every bit of the story. She pulls no punches, you know? Without being too knuckled up about it all…”
Your character was quite full on. How do you get to where you have to go in order to give Ana what she wants out of your performance? “It takes a lot of trust. We’re just continually communicating.”
Do you find it challenging sometimes? Acting and directing? Or do you have a way of working with both where it just seems to flow? “I map it out a little bit, but it’s about being open really. When you walk on set, it could all change, and you have to keep communicating with the director. You just have to leap off that cliff and trust that the ground won’t be that far down.”
Is that something that you instil in your actors when you work with them too? Trust? “When you’re all on the same page, that’s as good as it gets. What I love is when you’re in good company and you’re telling a story together…nothing can take away that experience. Nothing can take away – and this sounds wanky – that journey, when you’re with a good team, and you’re all in it together. Sometimes the best grand finals are the ones that you lose. There’s so much more. Rather than winning and winning again, sometimes the best grand finals are when you get pipped at the post and you’ve gone to the wall together, you know? I love that more than anything, and sometimes that’s played against me because I’ll really enjoy that and some people don’t. Nah, they do, actually, because it’s infectious. Love is infectious, and hope is infectious. That’s on my side. Hate, ego and jealousy are not infectious, are they? When you show people a little bit of love, it goes a long way. Sure, it sounds a little bit nutty, but when you’re all in it together, and you’re telling the same story…there’s nothing like it really.”
Septembers Of Shiraz is in cinemas now. This article was first published in 2009.
