GANG WARFARE
After playing a farmer in a galaxy far, far away, Joel Edgerton goes bush for Ned Kelly. He caught up with FILMINK’s Michael Crooks.
“So,” FILMINK continues after the initial exchange of pleasantries, “what are you doing in LA?”
“Just doing meetings and auditions and stuff,” Joel Edgerton says down the line. “What are you doing?”
Edgerton’s wit and his ability to cut to the chase resonate in the characters he’s played, from Will in the glorified soap The Secret Life Of Us, to Shane, the man with the breast fetish in The Hard Word.
A year back, Edgerton was the actor who was suddenly everywhere. “That was all a bit of a funny time for me,” he says. “Because of the way everything came out for me at once – Secret Life was on, and then The Hard Word came out and then Star Wars.”
Looking back on his role as Owen Lars in Episode II, he’s embarrassed by the excessive publicity he got for what he calls a “walk-on role”. And as yet he has no idea how big his role will be in Episode III. Though regardless of the attention that comes with playing Anakin Skywalker’s half-brother, he’s more excited about portraying deeper, richer characters.
In Gregor Jordan’s Ned Kelly, Edgerton plays Joe Byrne’s childhood friend, Aaron Sherrit. “Some people think he was working for the Kelly gang,” says Edgerton, “but he was also in communication with the police. As far as being a traitor is concerned, the movie definitely takes the tone that he did it by way of circumstance to save his own arse, to save his own family. He’s not your hands-ringing-together, licking-the-lips kind of villain; he’s a guy with a conscience. That’s one of the great things that Gregor’s done with this film. He’s treated every character with a certain amount of empathy, a certain amount of drive or dignity or motivation that you can understand. I think it makes the whole saga a lot more rich.”
Edgerton discovered much about Sherrit through archived Victorian court documents about the Kelly case - sourced incidentally by Geoffrey Rush who plays Superintendent Hare in the film. “I tend to get right involved in the history of stories like this just by my interest level,” Edgerton says. “By the end of the film I had quite a heavy grasp of what the situations were. I do a certain amount of research.”
The legendary status that Australians bestow upon their dead outlaws is harmonic with their respect for the Aussie battler. And while Ned Kelly was a battler – perhaps the battler - Australians are well aware that his battle was ultimately a tragic one. “I’m sure if Universal had their way…there’s probably some executives out there who would have enjoyed changing the ending - for the American market there’s a few things working against the film. One of them is that the Kelly Gang has got to die in the end, and the other one is that the boys all had big furry beards. Certainly in their minds that won’t lend to the sex appeal the movie should have.” Edgerton laughs as a thought comes to mind. “It’d be embarrassing for Gregor if he showed a film of Ned Kelly where they all lived happily ever after and they were all clean shaven.”
Michael Crooks. www.Filmink.com.au)
At 6.30am, preparing for another day battling Saxons on horseback with an axe, Joel Edgerton is breaking his silence. The actor outed as Cathy Freeman's boyfriend last month is playing Sir Gawain in a blood-and-guts version of King Arthur in Ireland. With hair to his waist, he has been wading through carnage in his first Hollywood film. "Pretty much every scene, we're on horses," he says on the phone. "Occasionally we get off the horse to kill a few Saxons."
There is another film to talk about - Edgerton's starring role in the romantic comedy The Night We Called it a Day opposite Dennis Hopper, Melanie Griffiths, Portia de Rossi and Rose Byrne. He plays a young rock promoter who brings Frank Sinatra on his ill-fated Australian tour in 1974.
But, first, the obvious questions. Tell us about Cathy. How did you get together, how serious is it and . . . ? Edgerton is prepared. "That's really my personal life," he says. "I like to keep it pretty personal. Although that's kind of a contradiction."
Freeman confirmed the relationship when she announced her retirement. "I'm a little worried that people will blame my boyfriend Joel Edgerton . . . for my decision to retire," she wrote in a London newspaper.
"That's rubbish. The fact is, it is and has to be my decision. It comes from the heart."
Edgerton is disappointed that journalists have been contacting his parents for comment. "The hard part is when it starts to encroach on your family. I'm really protective of my mum and dad."
Are you sure you don't want to say anything for the baying press about Our Cathy? "I'd prefer to keep that private if that's OK with you," he says.
So who is this 29-year-old who is suddenly appearing on the front page of the Sunday papers, shining on screen opposite Dennis Hopper and working in Ireland for producer Jerry Bruckheimer and Walt Disney Pictures? A quick biography: after growing up in Dural, Edgerton went to Hills Grammar School then studied drama at the University of Western Sydney at Penrith. He made his name in Sydney theatre while getting small roles in such films as Praise, Erskineville Kings and Sample People. He made a mark as the scaffolder Will in the television series The Secret Life of Us, appeared briefly in Star Wars: Episode II then impressed as an explosive crim in The Hard Word and the charmer Aaron Sherritt in Ned Kelly. In other interviews, Edgerton has said he loves surfing and his only real job was as a hotel bellboy in Kings Cross. He was photographed at the Australian Open tennis with Kylie Minogue and wants to work again, after Ned Kelly, with his friend Heath Ledger. He has also written and acted in short films directed by his stuntman brother Nash.
On the set of The Night We Called it a Day last November, Edgerton was already saying that things had become ridiculous in terms of his profile. "Secret Life came out and I had that tiny role in Star Wars and The Hard Word all around the same time. I compared myself, I suppose, to a band that has been gigging around pubs for years and all of a sudden you get a recording contract. Everyone says 'you're the new thing'."
He was happy that his career had risen slowly. "I spent five years in the theatre learning a lot of stuff without being in the public eye. By the time I had a public profile, I felt I was riding with a certain amount of confidence in my ability. And confidence in myself as a person and at an age when I was kind of mature enough to cope with it. If I'd have been thrust into that position in my early twenties, I reckon I'd be a f---ing mental case." Now he admits being surprised to get the lead role in a film. "I always knew I was capable of doing stuff like that, but I always assumed that I'd always be relegated to playing supporting roles - best friends and villains and all that."
Edgerton says it was daunting enough meeting Hollywood celebrities like Hopper, who plays Sinatra, and Griffith, as his girlfriend Barbara Marx, let alone acting opposite them.He tells a story about meeting Hopper for breakfast in the United States. The legendary wild man earnestly told him he would play Sinatra with a goatee. "I just said, like a dumb idiot, 'yeah, good choice', thinking in my head, 'how can you play Frank with a beard?' In the silence that followed, he just looked at me and said, 'I'm joking'." On set, Hopper proved to be "such a gentleman", though the young actor came to understand "how much chaos and fun rolls around in his head". Griffith was "even more uncensored" in making her emotions clear to those around her."You've got to watch out that you don't have too many preconceived ideas about who you're about to meet. My wealth of knowledge about Melanie Griffith is learnt from magazines I read when I go over to Mum's house - New Idea and Women's Weekly. And photos of her crying in a cafe like some unstable woman. "She's nowhere near that picture that's created like that [but] you know exactly how she feels. Her heart is right on her sleeve."
In his early teens, Edgerton saw Sinatra in concert. "I went up to the opening of Sanctuary Cove with my parents - Whitney Houston and Frank Sinatra. I remember really wanting to see Whitney and not having the slightest bit of interest in Sinatra because he was, like, old people's music . . . "I got turned off Whitney Houston because she turned everything into a gospel song and it sounded nothing like her albums. But Frank had such an ease and was such a wonderful performer. I think I got my first Frank Sinatra CD when I was 13 or 14."
While filming King Arthur, Edgerton has kept writing a feature script for Nash to direct. He has two - an action-drama and a thriller - under way. "[King Arthur] is whetting my appetite for more smaller, low-budget films and also my own stuff that I want to get off the ground with my brother." While clearly ambitious, Edgerton has already realised the limitations of a travelling actor's life. "I just think that film-making can take up so much of your life that you can let life pass you by," he says. "And I'm not just talking about relationships. I'm talking about relationships with friends and family and time at home." Chasing the dream of being a star is not what it's all about, he says. "I reckon that just spells unhappiness if all you're doing is chasing work around and trying to climb the ladder . . . [But] challenging yourself and getting the most out of work and feeling satisfied with what you put in every day is great."
(Garry Maddox. www.smh.com.au)
