Sitting across
a coffeetable from Guy Pearce in the tragically hip confines
of the Mondrian Hotel, it remains difficult to believe the co-star
of L.A. Confidential - with fellow Aussie Russell Crowe
- isn't a native Angeleno, born into a family of career cops. There
it is, after all, that familiar put-another-shrimp-on-the-barbie accent
Americans have come to associate with winning smiles, reptile hunters
and the purveyors of beer in tall-boy cans.
Admirers of The
Hard Word will have no such problem.
Filmed in Melbourne
and Sydney, Scott Roberts' snappy heist film offers the kind
of zingy dialogue, over-the-top violence and unexpected plot twists
that audiences have come to associate with Guy Ritchie, Quentin
Tarantino and their imitators. But, with its low-rise horizons
and just-blokes comraderie, The Hard Word clearly is a product
of Australia.
The story involves
a trio of bank-robbing brothers, who are able to hone their craft
while also paying their debt to society for a previous conviction.
When things go hinky in their custom-tailered work-release program,
the lads exact their revenge in ways that will simultaneously amuse
and shock viewers. The sultry presence of a back-stabbing moll --
played by a very glam Rachel Griffiths -- only adds to the
fun.
The wiry, 35-year-old
Pearce was born in Cambridgeshire England, in 1967, but immigrated
with his family to Geelong, Victoria, when he was a toddler. Inspired
by his mother's love of theater, Pearce was 11 when he began appearing
in amateur theater productions of The King and I, Alice in Wonderland
and The Wizard of Oz.
Whippet-thin but
obviously buff, Pearce also took the stage in body-building competitions,
ultimately winning the "Mr. Junior Victoria" while still
in high school. He made a name for himself in such TV series as the
Australian soap, Neighbours, Home and Away and Snowy River:
The McGregor Saga. His star turn in The Adventures of Priscilla,
Queen of the Desert led to breakthrough assignments in L.A.
Confidential and Memento. Since then, he's also appeared
in Ravenous, The Count of Monte Cristo, Till Human Voices Wake
Us and The Time Machine.
Pearce lives in
Melbourne, and is married to his childhood sweetheart, Kate Mestitz.
This interview took place last week, in the Mondrian Hotel.
MOVIE CITY
NEWS: It seems as if internationally known Aussie actors -- you,
Rachel, Anthony LaPaglia, Bryan Brown, Judy Davis, Sam Neill, Geoffrey
Rush, among others -- feel a certain obligation to stay connected
with the film industry back home.
GUY PEARCE:
I certainly don't feel an obligation, but, as an Australian, I feel
a need to express myself in the culture I know. I think there's an
assumption that, as an actor, the pinnacle is to become the biggest
Hollywood star you can become. That's not the way I think, really.
Driving ambition
isn't as obvious an obession with most Australian actors, as everyone
thinks it might be with all actors in the world. Russell's a different
case, I think. He wanted to become the biggest Hollywood actor he
could possibly be, and he has.
MCN: It
is a bit of a schlepp, though, to commute from Melbourne to London
and Hollywood.
GP: Yeah,
but the inconvenience is overweighed by the opportunity to stay close
to home ... to tell and be a part of Australian stories.
MCN: The
budgets for such projects as The Hard Word and Till Human
Voices Wake Us are small, and, by nature, their profiles would
seem to be too low to attract big stars.
GP: I just
see it as a weird byproduct of success ... that everyone gets excited
that this small Australian movie was able to attract Guy Pearce,
the big Hollywood actor. I can see how it could be used as a marketing
tool, but I'm just an Australian actor who wanted to be in this movie,
and indulge in the culture I know.
I want to do studio
films, but I don't want to do something that I would do badly.
MCN: We
don't associate the kind of crime and violence we see in Hard Word
with Australia. Should we?
GP: Oh,
yeah, we have crime, but it's relative to the population -- remember,
you've got 250 million people and we've got 20 million in a country
that's a similar size. But, our population is concentrated in only
a few cities, so that's where the crimes occur.
There's a mob,
there's corruption, guys hold up 7Eleven stores and stab people ...
just like in America.
MCN: Are
weapons widely available?
GP: Our
gun laws are very strict. The laws in America are ridiculous to us.
For instance, it's beyond belief that just anyone can walk into a
fishing store and buy a gun.
We have weapons,
but I don't know anyone who has a gun that's semi-automatic. There's
too much legal rigamerole involved to make it easy to own one.
MCN: Are
audiences there willing to search out movies that are aimed directly
at the teen market?
GP: I think
there's a big movie-going culture in Australia, and a really diverse
audience. Someone just asked me how Memento went in Australia,
and I said it was hailed as a work of genius.
People want to
see the blockbusters, but they also love French movies. There's a
need for cultural diversity in Australia, and American independent
films are just as prominent as studio films.
MCN: Memento
just kept getting bigger and bigger, as time went along.
GP: It
probably hit a chord that people didn't know existed. It's the combination
of elements and Chris Nolan's perspective, which is interesting
because the whole movie is about perspective.
So much of what
Chris says makes so much sense. He's so intelligent, and such a cinephile,
he can say to you, "Well, the reason that movie didn't work im
1960 was because of the music chosen for the moment when they went
in on the closeup ... if they had stayed with the wide shot and kept
the music the way it was ..." It was incredible.
MCN: What
were your early favorites?
GP: There
have been so many. There were these two Austrailian films, Breaker
Morant and Merry Christmas, Mr. Lawrence. I remember the
severity of the conditions in those movies. I was also a very big
fan of Mean Streets. You can feel the ground, the grit ...
that perspective .
MCN: How
do you feel about doing a comedy?
GP: I was
influenced by British TV comedies ... odd and kinky little sitcoms
that my mom and I would watch on Monday night. They were clever. I
love Seinfeld and Friends, especially the combination
of a personalities on those shows.
Seinfeld
reminds me of a British sitcom, in a way. It's an observation of life,
then a perspective on the observation. I'm attracted to situations
that make me feel something.
MCN: Your
mother seems to have had a tremendous influence on your choice of
careers.
GP: Mom
took me to a lot of live theater when I was a kid, as well. I started
out doing musicals.
MCN: So,
how does an Aussie land a key role in one of the most entertaining
movies made about Los Angeles?
GP: Back
in 1995, I was going back and forth between Australia and Hollywood,
in two-week spurts. I had a really eclectic year, anyway. I did million
different auditions and I met a million different people.
That experience
solidified a persecitive I had of Hollywood. I love the way it captured
the period, which was quite different than now. Ever since doing it,
I've felt a kinship with Hollywood.
