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GQ: Eric Hits Hollywood
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Written By: Mark Hopkins
Typed & Provided By Mona
Australia: April 2002
In case you thought Eric Bana has metal teeth and severed earlobes, you're wrong. He is a crack US commando, oh and the incredible Hulk as well.
There was a time when Eric Bana would have you in hysterics. Living rooms across Australia tuned into his hit comedy series for their weekly dose of Poida, the lager-swilling, mullet-haired bludger. Fast-forward to early 2002, and an audience with Bana at the Park Hyatt, Sydney, is no laughing matter. Gone are the witty one-liners and impersonations. Bana is now a ‘serious’ film actor with a shiny new Equity card – a career change prompted by the critical acclaim for his mesmerizing performance as multi-murderer and cult author ‘Chopper’ Read. When Bana morphed into the crim with metal-capped teeth, full body outline jail tatts and severed earlobes, Hollywood noticed. Without even an audition, Ridley Scott cast Bana in his latest big-budget epic. Black Hawk Down (BHD) is based on a doomed U.S. Special Forces action in Mogadishu, Somalia in 1993. About 100 elite commandos parachuted in from Black Hawk helicopters. The mission – to abduct two Somalian warlords. Big mistake. Eighteen commandos were killed, two of their mutilated corpses were dragged through the street. The other men fought their way out, and America learned the sobering lesson about sending ground troops into foreign wars.
Bana’s role in the high-profile military thriller is an important watershed for the 33-year-old actor. Not only is it his first taste of Hollywood, it’s a chance to carve out a name for himself, to prove he’s not a one-hit wonder. “I’d read the book and thought, wow it would be great as a film,” says Bana, slumping happily into his chair once his on-hand PR girl has left the room. “And then when Ridley was attached to it, I said to myself, ‘What the fuck is he going to do with it?’ It became intrinsically more interesting at that point, and I thought I’d be crazy not to do it.”
Bana signed up for the demanding five-month shoot on location in Rabat, Morocco (the only place that would double as the Somalian capital). He lost the 13 kg he gained for Chopper (“I had to retire my stubby holder”), and spent months of hardcore commando training at Fort Bragg. As Sergeant First Class Norm ‘Hoot’ Hooten, an elite Delta Force soldier, Bana pumped himself up to commando bulk, and trained with real-life ‘D-boys’. “It was a bit of a concern because we were using explosives and live ammunition,” he laughs, pointing an imaginary M-16 in my direction, “but we got to the point when we [Bana and co-star Bill Fichtner] were working out way through buildings, taking down rooms and holding hostages, without speaking.”
Bana found the pain and the military discipline ideal preparation for the physical demands of the shoot, and an opportunity to get into character. “I couldn’t understand how the soldiers were so brave, but I grew to realize that their training has a lot to do with their courage. They’re always performing a function, doing something, so they don’t have time to sit still and be scared and stressed. That stuff comes later.”
The reality of location work on a Hollywood blockbuster hit Bana in Rabat. “Working was by far the easiest part of Morocco,” he explains, lighting a cigarette. “The tough part was being away from home with so much fucking downtime.” Unlike Chopper, where he appears in every scene, Black Hawk Down showcases a huge multi-national ensemble cast – some 35 acting parts – and involves painstakingly recreated battle scenes. So Bana spent long periods of mind-numbing boredom in his hotel room. At one point, he had planned a three-day break in Spain with his wife Rebecca and two-year-old son Klaus. Then Scott told him he couldn’t go.
“Some guys who lived on the East Coast of America got to go home for a couple of weeks, even the Brits would fly back to London occasionally, but I…” he says, working on a dramatic pause, “wasn’t allowed to leave Rabat.” Bana’s role got bigger than the original script, but long days in front of Ridley Scott’s cameras were a “momentous learning curve.” Other actors in the film include Josh Hartnett and Ewan MacGregor.
Several violent films were pulled after 9/11, but Scott decided to release the $US95 million film. The timing was perfect to capture the zeitgeist; BHD was number one at the box office four weeks after it opened. Among the rave reviews, the Washington Post wrote, “The next best thing to being there. That’s how real it feels.”
Instead of taking a vacation or hanging out in Hollywood, Bana flew straight home after BHD, and onto the set of a small-budget Australian comedy, The Nugget. One day last September, while shooting in Mudgee, his mobile rang. It was Ang Lee, Academy Award-winning director of Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon; the chameleon Taiwanese genius who has made such disparate film as Sense and Sensibility and The Ice Storm.
Bana had won the role he’d been chasing for several months, of Dr. Bruce Banner, in Hollywood’s big-budget remake of The Incredible Hulk.
“I remember my American agent ringing me in Morocco and saying: ‘They’re making a movie version of The Hulk, are you interested?’” he says, drumming his empty cigarette box. “It wasn’t until he mentioned that Ang Lee was directing it, that I thought, Fuck me, of course I am interested.”
“I’ve been a huge fan of Ang’s since I saw The Ice Storm and I can’t wait to see what he’ll do with The Hulk. It’ll be very different to your average superhero film.” He’s excited by the challenge of playing a modern-day Jekyll and Hyde. In the cult 60s comic, Dr. Banner is a nuclear scientist with a grim past. His father murdered his mother, and Banner is sporadically psychotic. When he gets stressed or angry, he
turns into green 7’, 600 kilo mass of rage. “What I love about The Hulk is that he’s the only superhero with no control of being a superhero. Superman jumps in the phone booth, Spiderman puts on his outfit, Batman goes into his cave and Dr. Banner lives in complete and total fear of getting angry. What a great acting hook.”
Bana then politely explains that he is not allowed to talk about the movie much, so I ask about his past. Forty minutes into the interview, and it’s the first time he visibly relaxes. With the conversation off either current or future projects, cracks in his professional veneer begin to appear. Feet now on the sofa, coffee cup cradled in his hands, he suddenly breaks into an impromptu impersonation. To my surprise, it’s neither his famed Ray Martin nor Columbo I hear, but the quasi-American tones of Ridley Scott.
“Er, what we’re going to shoot right now is a RPG; a very, very powerful thing. Then I am going to cut to a Somali getting shot…” he says, before breaking off mid-sentence slightly embarrassed. The immigrant’s son – his father is Croatian, and mother German – discovered his talent for mimicry at school in Melbourne. “It gave me currency with teachers that I otherwise wouldn’t have had,” he says, laughing. “I took it for granted until I began to realize that not everyone can do it.” His first stand-up routine in 1991 was such a hit that he jacked in his job as a barman and began working the circuit.
After two years making people laugh in smoke-filled comedy venues and pubs, Bana was restless. “Though stand-up was initially a diversion to acting, I realized I could use it. If only I could get on Fast Forward, then maybe I might get somewhere,” he says.
As luck would have it, Full Frontal – a skit show in the same vein as Fast Forward – came knocking on his door. To this day, Bana credits his experience on the TV comedy for his smooth transition into acting. He played new characters each week and performed for an audience of millions. “I just loved the work and how much you could learn,” he says. In 1997 he won a Logie for comedy, and was cast as Sophie Lee’s kick-boxing boyfriend in The Castle.
Although Andrew Dominik had reservations about Bana’s inexperience, the first-time director auditioned him for Chopper. “We were under pressure to cast a name,” says producer Michelle Bennett. “But we knew he’d convey the complexities. He immediately got the body language, the voice, all of the physical, ‘outside in’ stuff. And there’s a certain charm about Chopper that Eric captured perfectly.”
Is Bana getting giddy with his success? “I don’t know that it hasn’t gone to my head,” he says, brushing cake-crumbs from his mouth. “The only thing that may make me different from other people is I have passionate interests outside of work. If I am not working, the last thing I am interested in is people blowing smoke up my arse. You see, I don’t rely on my work world to fulfill me as a person. As long as I can play with my toys [cars and motorbikes], and hang out with my family and friends, I am happy.”
Out of almost nowhere, Bana is now mentioned in the same tones as Russell and Heath. “It feels good,” he admits, “but it’s not something I take overly seriously. The best thing is that people have finally stopped saying someone’s the next Mel Gibson and are now saying they’re the ‘next Russell Crowe’. I just hope that someone, somewhere down the line is going to be called ‘the next Eric Bana’.”
What's On Weekly: The Incredible Rise of Eric Bana
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Written By: Des Partridge
Typed & Provided By Mona
Australia: October 17, 2002
Eric Bana, emerging as the latest Australian international movie talent, was an unknown to film director Bill Bennett when he hired him to star in his Australian comedy The Nugget.
A friend had shown Bennett an early rough cut of Chopper and Bennett was impressed by ex-TV comedian Bana’s talent – a talent confirmed when the former standup comic won an Australian Film Institute award as Best Actor for his role as convicted criminal Mark “Chopper” Read.
Bennett wasn’t the only one playing talent scout.
After Bana had read The Nugget script and had agreed to play the central role, his international career took off.
He spent 5 ½ months in Morocco filming Black Hawk Down with Gladiator director Ridley Scott and an international cast before returning to Australia to start work on The Nugget at Mudgee – with a budget about one-twentieth that of Black Hawk Down.
He was in his caravan on The Nugget shoot when he had more good news.
His agent advised that he’d been chosen for the title role in one of 2003’s big ticket attractions, The Hulk, directed by Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon Oscar-nominee Ang Lee and co-starring Jennifer Connelly and Nick Nolte (as The Hulk’s father).
“Hey, I’m The Hulk,” he announced to his co-stars, Stephen Curry and Dave O’Neil, after the call.
“Yeah, and I’m Spiderman, and he’s Batman. You’ve had too much sun,” Curry responded.
With his commitment to The Hulk over until next year’s publicity begins before its northern summer release, Bana is enjoying relaxing at home in Melbourne with his wife, Rebecca, and their children, Klaus and Sophia, and rally driving in South Australia this week.
He preferred to drive himself (and co-star Vince Colosimo) from Sydney to Mudgee’s premiere in a hire car rather than travel in VIP luxury.
Bana’s profile will be even higher after his next assignment: playing alongside Brad Pitt in another big budget studio film, Troy, being directed by Wolfgang Petersen (The Perfect Storm, Air Force One).
Locations will be Malta, London and Morocco, and Bana is excited about the Malta part.
“I hope to get over to some of the Grad Prix events in Italy,” says the car enthusiast who holds a motor racing license and is restoring a Falcon XB coupe in his garage.
Bana knows he will continue living in Australia, content to travel wherever his work takes him.
“My most prized possession is my Australian passport,” he says. “I wouldn’t surrender that to anyone.”
He says he’d made The Nugget because he found the script amusing and the characters extremely likeable.
He wants to keep acting, and says the pressure of directing can wait “for another 25 years or so.”
Seem Like a Winner
Filmmaker Bill Bennett hopes there’s gold in them thar hills with his new comedy, The Nugget. Des Partridge went fossicking in Mudgee for this report. {Added information fossicking definition 1. to rummage or look for something 2. mining to search for gold or gems in mines or streams that have already been worked}
As movie premieres demand, there was a red carpet outside the heritage-listed Regent Theatre in Mudgee (four ours by road northwest of Sydney), but there wasn’t a stretch limousine within cooee. {Added information cooee U.K. a call used to attract somebody’s attention}
For last week’s world premiere of The Nugget, filmed in Mudgee, the movie’s star trio – Eric Bana, Stephen Curry and Dave O’Neil – arrived at the theatre on Church St in the back of a Holden ute. {Added information ute Australia, New Zealand a pickup truck}
The unconventional transport for the VIPs at Mudgee’s night-of-nights – the town’s biggest dress-up event since the annual netball social – was deemed appropriate for Bill Bennett’s distinctively Australian comedy. Bennett’s film (inspired by John Steinbeck’s novella The Pearl) is an easy-to-like morality tale about the changes wrought on three friends, rural road workers, who discover the world’s largest gold nugget during a weekend escape from their wives.
Instantly, their lives and those of their partners (played by Belinda Emmett, Karen Pang and Sallyanne Ryan) change as they plan how to dispose of the riches, an estimated $6 million, they will earn from the sale of the giant rock.
To make The Nugget, producer-director-writer Bennett (winner of the AFI Best Film of 1997 with Kiss or Kill) “returned” to Mudgee, where he filmed his 1994 road movie, Spider and Rose.
“Returned” only in terms of film production, as Bennett knows the district well, as his wife and business partner, former actress Jennifer Cluff (remembered for her role as one of the Seven Little Australians on ABC-TV) grew up in Mudgee (population 8200) and still has family there.
She and Bennett have a home in Mudgee which they visit regularly when they can get away from Sydney or aren’t involved in filmmaking outside Australia.
“We originally intended to make The Nugget in South Australia,” Bennett says the morning after the film’s premiere.
He didn’t get to bed until 1:30 am after the post-premiere celebrations for 800 guests at one of Mudgee’s many wineries, and has been working since 5:30 am.
Entertainment media covering print, radio and television from all mainland states were invited to the premiere, and Bennett is counting on the publicity created by the country town premiere to help sell his $5.5 million movie to Australian audiences.
“We decided to come back to Mudgee because we would have been filming during the South Australian winter, and the countryside would have been too drab. I wanted the spring look as the landscape plays a role in this movie, and the Mudgee countryside and the native flora looks great in this.”
"When I was at the Cannes Festival with the film, I saw Judith Crombie (head of the South Australian film office) and she put her arms around me, and said, 'Bill, you made the right decision.' I now owe her a movie, and will be making my next film in the Flinders Ranges next year." Ex-Queenslander
Bennett, 49, moved into filmmaking after an early career as a current affairs reporter for both the ABC and Channel Seven (winning a Logie for his coverage of Brisbane street protests during the Joh era in the 1970s).
His association with Mudgee began when he met his future bride in Sydney, and traveled with her to the pretty rural town to meet the parents.
"Jennifer's father was rather intimidating, and when he asked me what I did for a living, and I told him I was a filmmaker, I looked into his eyes and understood he didn't have a clue about what I did," Bennett says.
He says organizing the premiere in Mudgee had been a way of saying "thank you" to the town for the support it had given the cast and crew during the making of the movie.
"I can honestly say I've never enjoyed making a film as much as I did making this one here," Bennett says.
With international movie sales becoming harder to achieve in the current economic climate, he says Australian films increasingly will have to rely on the home market to earn the money needed for film investors to achieve a return.
"From the Cannes Festival (in March) onwards, everyone involved in selling independent films has been saying this period has been the worst anyone can remember for sales," Bennett says.
"There are a number of reasons. The German tech market which as supported international production has gone belly up, a number of European pay-TV operators have gone belly up, the Dow Jones has dropped. It means to finance Australian films is difficult internationally, and to sell Australian films internationally is even more difficult. I don't think you'll get a situation again like Shine or The Castle selling for around $5 million US. In the current market, people just aren't buying at that level."
"What it means is expensive Australian movies which are hoping to recoup their money out of foreign territories will be struggling. To finance Australian movies internationally is very difficult, and what the international money people want is stars."
"They say, 'Sure, we'll finance your movie, just get us Russell Crowe or Cate Blanchett'. Now they are out of reach financially, and we're in a ludicrous situation."
"It's really tough, and we have this fallacy at the moment that because we have big-budget films shooting here like The Matrix and Mission: Impossible people believe the industry is in good shape. But that's not the Australian film industry. It's attractive for foreign production to shoot here, but as soon as the Australian dollar strengthens, they'll be gone in a flash."
Bennett says with The Nugget the intention had been to keep the budget tight and make a film that was specifically for Australians.
"If it sells anywhere else then that will be a bonus. We've made no allowances for any foreign markets - the film is Australian speak. We didn't take the Australianisms out because we didn't want to compromise the film here. If the film does well here, then the investors will get a return."
While The Nugget is at the forefront of Bennett's concerns for now, he is also preparing for the national release of a markedly different movie, Tempted, staring Burt Reynolds and Saffron Burrows.
He wrote and directed the sexy murder/thriller-with-a-twist which was filmed in New Orleans. It will open in Australia on November 14.
The Nugget opens today.
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