Pop Culture

No Stars Over Australia

by Mark Juddery

Feed Magazine, May 2000

HIDDEN IN THE SYDNEY SUBURBS, the National Institute of Dramatic Art (NIDA) is Australia's most prestigious drama school. Cate Blanchett studied there. So did Judy Davis, Toni Collette and Jacqueline McKenzie. Even Mel Gibson went there in the seventies, sharing a flat with fellow student Geoffrey Rush. It's so exclusive that such talents as Rachel Griffiths and Sarah Wynter were turned down.

So what's the most important thing an actor can learn from NIDA? Many alumni will give the same answer: an American accent. Experiencing concept and character is all well and good, but if you want to make your fortune as an actor, Australia might not be the place.

Though the British troupe from the golden years of Hollywood (Ronald Colman, Leslie Howard, Deborah Kerr and the rest) were allowed to be British - or at least sound British - in scores of Hollywood productions, Australians are expected to be multicultural. America's own Meryl Streep might be considered the Mistress of Accents, but Australian actors would see such a talent as simply part of the job.

Many of them (whether NIDA alumni or not) are good enough to fool the natives. Frances O'Connor, who first left home to be English in Mansfield Park, mastered five regional American accents to play Brendan Fraser's dream girl in Bedazzled. It might seem like an unusual role for a girl from Perth, but not everyone in America could do it.

While sharing the stage with Russell Crowe at one awards ceremony, comedian Rob Reiner joked that there should be a special award for the best American accent by an Australian or Briton. Crowe, he implied, would certainly be in the running. "Actually," said Crowe, "I was born in New Zealand." Maybe so, but he has probably done more to promote Australia to the world than any movie star since Paul Hogan. At least, as he tells the media, he "feels" Australian - and he uses the accent whenever he can, even when playing a Roman gladiator. (After all, the Romans didn't speak in mid-American accents.) For his next film, Proof of Life, Crowe argued successfully with producers to make his character an Australian. It was a surprisingly rare achievement.

BRYAN BROWN HAD A CHIP ON HIS SHOULDER. Australia had just voted to remain a Constitutional Monarchy, safe in Britain's loving arms, rather than moving into the twenty-first century as a Republic. Then there was the gala opening of Sydney's Fox Studios, which he considered "a celebration of American film culture".

Even as he accepted his award from the Australian Film Institute (AFI), for playing a genial crime lord in Two Hands, the veteran actor was still perturbed. "A bloke, I suppose, could be forgiven for starting to wonder exactly who owns this country," he said in his usual broad accent. He then proceeded to read out a list of actors who "have not only contributed to Australian cinema, but also to Australian identity."

Crowe was not on that list. As the audience cheered with patriotic fervor, Crowe sat in the front row, clapping sullenly. Later in the night, as he came to the dais to present an award, he had a few words of his own. This is Australia's biggest movie award night, but it's not exactly the Oscars. Witnessed by a viewing audience of far less than a billion, the stars can be themselves.

So there were no glib smiles from his co-presenter, Jacqueline McKenzie. She stood back, arms folded, waiting guardedly for him to say his piece. According to legend, she had experienced his well-known intensity back when they played a neo-Nazi couple in Romper Stomper (1992), and he was supposed to strangle her. Being a method man, he got carried away; the pain and shock on her face had been quite real. Right now, she didn't want to fuel the fire.

Singling out himself and Nicole Kidman, Crowe defended those Australian actors who earn their crust making Hollywood films. "It simply amplifies the broad and infinite nature of Australian film culture," he said. The point was taken, but the applause was a little more subdued. Kidman, in the audience, smiled nervously. Even McKenzie unfolded her arms to join in the clapping, without actually breaking into a smile.

This was in November, just a few months before The Insider and Gladiator would propel Crowe to Hollywood's A-list. But with Crowe and other Australian actors being touted as "cultural ambassadors", as they win fame and fortune overseas, many are left wondering whose "culture" they are actually promoting.

CULTURE IS FREQUENTLY DISCUSSED in Australia, as in any other nation whose "culture" is often reduced to a handful of icons. Obviously, it goes beyond the cycling kangaroos that rounded off the 1996 Olympics. It is apparent in all of Australia's most famous film scenarios, from the outback wasteland of Mad Max to the colorful, suburban kitsch of Strictly Ballroom.

Then there was M:I-2. Australians can talk patriotism as passionately as anyone, but few of them resented this blockbuster. It provided work for local technicians and actors, and was a nice postcard for Sydney, exhibiting the tourist-friendly city in all its glory. But with all the explosions, car chases and close-ups of Tom Cruise, there is no denying that this was Hollywood culture at its most blatant. If you really want to experience Sydney culture through a recent movie, wait for Two Hands or Looking for Alibrandi, which have already been hits in Australia. They have their influences (Two Hands is Tarantinoesque, in a good way), but in terms of character, scenario and society, these movies portray Sydney as perfectly as Taxi Driver or Annie Hall portrayed New York. They're lighter, perhaps, but Sydney displays few of New York's bleaker aspects.

And just as the daring, all-American hero is the stuff of legend, the Aussies have their own legend: the "larrikin". Strong, heroic, but with a laid-back, easy-going nature and a healthy disrespect for authority. A lover of justice, the larrikin will fight for friends, family and country, often against self-seeking politicians and businessmen. No wonder that Ned Kelly, a 19th-century thief and bandit, is considered a national hero.

Fifty years ago, the archetypal larrikin of the movies was Chips Rafferty, who played rugged, no-nonsense types in films like The Overlanders and Eureka Stockade. Rafferty produced many of his own films, attempting to promote Australian culture through an almost non-existent film industry. His countrymen were proud to claim him. Then again, they were proud to claim Errol Flynn. Flynn had begun his career with one Australian film, but always favoured his adopted land of the United States.

In the past 20 years, the biggest star to rise from the Australian film industry has been Mel Gibson, who won local fame through films like Gallipoli (1981) and the Mad Max series. Though he hasn't made a movie there since 1985, many Australians still cling to him as one of their own. It might seem like dreary-eyed nostalgia, until you notice that his screen persona is still more "Aussie" than many of the actors who are still technically (and mindfully) Australian. His strong, rebellious nature has been apparent in everything from Braveheart to the Lethal Weapon films. Even in Payback, playing an utter scumbag, the self-deprecatory humour and peculiar sense of justice is still apparent. A larrikin, no mistake.

In contrast, many other Australian actors in Hollywood are chameleons, changing not only their accent, but their entire manner. This is a worry for those who want to promote Australian culture. What happens when the nation's most famous "ambassadors" are out there playing Californians?

FIVE YEARS BEFORE HER OSCAR-NOMINATED ROLE as the struggling Philadelphia mother in The Sixth Sense, Toni Collette starred in Muriel's Wedding. Muriel was a pathetic, awkward, yet often hilarious and ultimately endearing. The film was popular, and Muriel became as much a part of Australia's film culture as Mad Max or Crocodile Dundee. But despite making her name with that film, Collette has reportedly lost interest in Australian films. For her, there was never another Muriel's Wedding.

Her Hollywood career has also been checkered. But then, Hollywood failures are not like Australian failures. "If you make a bad American film," says Aussie director Bruce Beresford (Driving Miss Daisy, Double Jeopardy), "it will be marketed all over the world. Make a bad Australian one, it will never get shown outside Sydney. Even if you make a good Australian one, it's still hard to get it played."

Now take Jacqueline McKenzie. Soon after being throttled by Russell Crowe, she did her time as the "it" girl of Australian film. Critics loved her, film buffs adored her, but everyone else stayed home (where, thanks to numerous television roles, they still liked her). In 1995, she won two AFI Awards in a single night, as the best actress in both film and TV drama.

At the same time, she reportedly turned down several Hollywood offers to make Australian films and TV shows, preferring the "freshness and integrity" of the scripts. "I don't want to do a bloody film in Hollywood that's got a million people's fingers in the one pie," she announced.

Despite her patriotism, she was finally convinced to go to America - not for a Hollywood film, but for a low-budget independent called Freak Weather, attracted once again to the distinctly non-Hollywood script. The film was made two years ago, but so far it has been confined to the festival circuit. That's the problem with integrity: it doesn't sell.

The next anyone saw of McKenzie, she was making Deep Blue Sea, eventually shrieking to her death in a pronounced American accent. Not a bad flick, if you like monster movies, but not exactly Citizen Kane. For all her idealism, she still needed to pay the rent. Especially as she was living in Santa Monica.

The latest actress to win two AFI Awards in the one night was Sacha Horler, who managed to snag both best actress and best supporting actress last year, for her first two films. In the trade magazine Cinema Papers, she recalled talking to the press: "The first question is often, 'So when are you going to America?' A question that mostly floors me... Not so long ago the question might have had more depth, been more about the work... But the focus is clearly elsewhere."

The logic is that, once an actor makes their name, they go to America, the land of milk and honey. Why not? Everyone else seems to have done it. More to the point, actors are not treated so well in Australia. "Actors are getting paid less now than they were 10 years ago, not including inflation," said Susan Lyons, president of Equity (Australia's actors' union). That was a good two years ago - but despite the efforts of Lyons and others, very little has changed. No wonder the "stars" are leaving home. In a nation where the larrikin is hero, and which reserves its worship for the simple and unpretentious, how could there ever be a true star system?

There is another, more practical reason. The Blair Witch Project was a Major Event, but Australians wondered what the fuss was about. Most of Australia's biggest successes have been Blair Witch Projects - movies made a shoestring, that won the box office. They have introduced a number of actors to the world. Mel Gibson did Tim. Russell Crowe did Proof. Toni Collette and Rachel Griffiths did Muriel's Wedding. Frances O'Connor and Radha Mitchell played a young lesbian couple in Love and Other Catastrophes, made by impoverished film students, which went straight to the Cannes Film Festival.

Russell Crowe is current worth around $20 million per film. He has said that he hopes to make more Australian films, but how could Australian producers possibly compete? In the world of stardust, a home cottage industry might seem increasingly distant.