Eric Bana on 'Munich'

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Source: London24.net
Internet: January 26, 2006

He's played characters torn from classical literature and comic books, but for his latest big screen outing actor Eric Bana has got his teeth into a role more at home on the front pages of our newspapers.

Eric Bana - "I'm an actor, not a bloody politician!"

Munich, directed by Steven Spielberg, is the retelling of the aftermath of the murder of 11 Israeli athletes at the 1972 Munich Olympics.

It had been dubbed "The Olympics of Peace and Joy", but it was the catalyst for a bloody campaign of revenge which still reverberates around the globe today.

In the film, Bana, 37, plays Avner, a special agent charged with leading a small band of Israeli assassins to kill the Palestinians responsible for the Munich tragedy.

It is a story that has, unsurprisingly, drawn criticism from all sides, but the star of Troy and Hulk is unapologetic.

"I think the controversy is a healthy sign," says Bana. "No-one can sign off on what actually happened. So there are some facts and some poetic licence involved. How you join the dots doesn't change the central themes of the film, about notions of home."

It's a subject close to Bana's heart - as he says he isn't tempted to leave his native Melbourne for the glamour of Los Angeles - but Munich is also about the cycle of violence at the heart of terrorism. However - like Spielberg who has stayed silent about his views on the film - Bana prefers to let the film do the talking.

"I'm an actor, not a bloody politician! But I couldn't be more proud of the film. I think it achieved what it wanted to do and it's a different movie for different people."

He freely admits to not knowing that much about the situation before signing on for the part - "Growing up in Australia, you aren't really taught Middle East politics," he says - but once on board, he made sure to get to grips with the history... as much as anyone can.

"I was aware of events but nowhere near aware enough," he says. "The more you know, the better equipped you are to play the role. "

"I did meet the real Avner and he was generous and very helpful. You can never do too much research, it all affects the character."

And Avner goes through something of an emotional rollercoaster ride during the film. And as it becomes clear that his team's "righteous" mission isn't quite a righteous as it first appeared, he begins to question everything he thought he knew.

"The part took its toll," admits Bana. "Ninety per cent of it is what's going on inside his head. The emotions stayed with me and it was a really hard part to get rid of at night. I didn't really get a lot of sleep."

But it wasn't just Bana enduring some sleepless nights. With a film so tuned into current events, the film-makers kept a close eye on the news and hoped nothing would happen that would stop the film being made.

"We just had to hope," says Bana, who also starred in Ridley Scott's Black Hawk Down which opened just after the events of 9/11. "The bombings in London actually happened during filming and that was quite a poignant moment as it was a predominantly British crew."

But away from the troubles of the real world, Bana says he had a wonderful experience on set with Spielberg, a director well known for his lightening fast shooting schedules.

"Steven is like an audience member and his enthusiasm is wonderful to be around. He felt so passionately about this story, it was exiting to be on set with him.

"And it's great to see a director like Steven not be set in his ways. The shoot had a very loose, organic dimension as he was deciding what to shoot as we went along."

With so many high profile movies already behind him, it feels like Bana has been a fixture in the Hollywood A-list for years but in fact, he only came to worldwide prominence in 2001 with the Australian movie Chopper about real life criminal Mark "Chopper" Read.

And although he may now be best known for his intense characters, Bana started his career as out-and-out comedian.

"I did stand-up and sketches. I much preferred the sketch shows," he says, adding that the nature of comedy is good training for getting the best out of a dramatic scene.

"It helps you understand when something just isn't working. Plus it makes you braver - you can't ever be embarrassed."

But with a string of high-quality roles behind him, that's not something he's going to have to worry about.

Gentle Giant

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Written By: Donaa Freydkin
Source: USA Today.com
Internet: January 9, 2006

NEW YORK — In the Munich movie poster, he is the human face of vengeance. As undercover agent Avner, he sits slumped over with gun in hand, the weight of a fledgling nation resting on his shoulders, a man torn between duty and defeat.

Eric Bana keeps a low profile
in his native Melbourne.

In person, Eric Bana projects none of Avner's angst and paranoia. He's a former stand-up comedian and sketch comedy performer who loved the hit The 40-Year-Old Virgin, laughs easily at himself and mocks the whole promotional process. He's just in from Sydney, where he rung in the new year at a friend's wedding with his wife, Rebecca.

"My favorite part of the interview is the 401 assumptions before you've even started speaking, based on what you're wearing, what you've chosen to eat, how the waiter looks at you," he says over salad and white wine at the Four Seasons restaurant. He mimics a reporter writing a story: "As his double-shot cappuccino arrives, his smile widens."

Munich director Steven Spielberg calls Bana "a very gentle soul with a tremendous sense of humor. He's a gentle giant."

Today, Bana is dressed in a dark sweater, jeans and sneakers, a mustard-colored leather jacket draped over his shoulders, a day's worth of stubble on his face. Thanks to his wife's ministrations, he packed sweaters and a coat for his three-day trip to frigid Manhattan.

His amiable nature had little to do with why Spielberg handpicked him to headline the difficult, big-budget project. Despite critical kudos for the 2000 Aussie drama Chopper and high-profile turns as emotionally conflicted David Banner in 2003's Hulk and Brad Pitt's heroic enemy Hector in 2004's Greek saga Troy, Bana, 37, has not broken out at the level of, say, Russell Crowe or Hugh Jackman. He's ruggedly handsome and masculine, but perhaps because of imperfect teeth, an off-center nose and casually mussed hair, not cover-boy pretty. But going green did the trick with Spielberg.

"I took my kids to see Hulk the weekend it opened," Spielberg says. "I admired how this very strong leading-man character could become so instantly vulnerable. He wasn't afraid of crying. I could see his strength even before he became digital green guy. I knew going in that Avner was going to be divided. I needed someone who could be strong and unrelenting."

That's why Ang Lee cast the then-newcomer in Hulk. "We went to a lot of deep, psychological places. He has a very melancholy screen presence," Lee says. But "he's an extremely nice guy, very charming."

Though the movie has earned mixed reviews, critics have hailed Bana's performance as Avner, a Mossad agent who heads a group of operatives avenging the deaths of 11 Israeli athletes murdered by Palestinian terrorists at the 1972 Munich Olympics. One by one, Avner and his group eliminate those ostensibly involved with the killings. Yet each death exacts an ever-higher emotional toll.

The movie was expected to do well going into awards season, but at the Golden Globes, it's up only for best director and best screenplay.

Film historian Leonard Maltin says Bana "is not a personality actor. He's able to disappear into the parts he plays. In Munich, it's crucial that you relate to that character, because if you don't, there's no movie."

As bodies pile up, Avner wonders whether he's killing the right men and whether the sacrifice of being away from his wife and baby for months at a stretch is worth it.

As soon as he got the part, Bana started doing his homework. He read dozens of political and historical books about Middle East politics. Bana says he interviewed Mossad operatives and also met with Yuval Aviv, the man upon whom Avner is based. (Aviv's claims that he was involved in the manhunt have been questioned.)

And Bana, who speaks in a laid-back Aussie accent, worked on his speech patterns.

"It was so convincing," Spielberg says. "When he's undercover, he speaks in a flawless German accent. He would vacillate from that to his Israeli accent."

Bana wondered whether the politically charged project would go forward because the subject matter could prove too sensitive or incendiary, given nearly daily headlines about suicide bombers.

"I was still in shock that we actually made it. This project always felt to me like it was hinging on the 6 o'clock news."

Once he got to work, playing a morally upright assassin grappling with guilt took its toll.

"For many, many weeks after I finished, I would find myself doing many things I would never ordinarily do," he says. "Where I'd position myself in a room, what I'm aware of — my senses were just so heightened. If there was a crime in my vicinity, I'd be a great witness. Put it that way."

Spielberg, too, "was pretty obsessed" by the movie, Bana says. "There was just nothing going on except this film — nothing. I don't remember what scene it was, but I remember doing a take once. He came up to me and he grabbed me. He got really close to me, and he said, 'You're in the zone. I'm in the zone. We're in the zone.' That's really cool."

After work was a different story. "Making this movie caused us to have a couple of beers just to deaden some of the sting," Spielberg says.

When the shoot ended in September, Bana hopped on a flight to Sydney. Living 7,530 miles from Hollywood makes it harder to meet directors or audition for films.

"When I go on the plane to fly home, I'm literally capable of forgetting what I do for a job," he says."That also comes about because I choose to take massive breaks between projects, and because I choose to do this ridiculous thing of keeping home, home."

Bana doesn't intend to have "a filmography of 100 films. What I'm most excited about is at the end of my career, being able to look on my shelf of DVDs and go, 'Wow.' I try to focus on that more and more. Does (the movie) stand up?"

When working, Bana has found it important to stay close to loved ones. "We all found shelter from the storm in different ways. Eric found it by having his children (Klaus, 6, and Sophia, 3) and his wife on set," Spielberg says.

"The fact he's so grounded in his personal life allows him to come to each character, as different as they might be, in an almost virginal way," says Curtis Hanson, who directs Bana in the fall gambling drama Lucky You. "He comes at them to immerse himself without dragging along his emotional baggage."

Bana will have little luggage when he starts his next movie, the small-budget Aussie migrant drama Romulus, My Father, co-starring German actress Franka Potente. "I can drive home on the weekends, which I'm still in shock about."

In Sydney, Bana takes his kids to school, barbecues with the family, follows his favorite Australian football team, the St. Kilda Football Club, and races cars. "That's my No. 1 focus outside of work, hobbywise. That's what I wanted to do as a kid, but I never had the money to pursue it as a career." The actor's interest in collecting classic cars was something he could share with Spielberg, who says they bonded over their hobby while filming.

Bana met his wife, Rebecca Gleeson, when she was a publicist at a local TV station where he worked. She's "a book freak," and she just gave Bana The Lovely Bones and The Kite Runner.

"Eight and a half years later, still going strong," he says. The two are done having children because "I think two is a good number."

If Bana sounds absurdly normal, that's because he is, say those who have worked with him. "He actually is that nice. It's sort of extraordinary," Hanson says. "He'd relate to the craft-services guy the same way as he'd relate to the cinematographer."

Adds Spielberg: "He's got all his priorities straight. He's one of the few actors who doesn't need to act to be happy. If he never acted another day in his life, he'd be a very happy man."

Eric Idol

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Written By: Elizabeth Khuri
Source: LATimes.com
Internet: September 24, 2006
Provided By Lesley & Banalust

Eric Bana plays a mean air guitar.

He looks awfully good in leather too. But where Bana really rocks is on the motocross track or in the garage, messing around with vintage motorcycles and automobiles, like the 1974 Ford GT Falcon that he just finished restoring.

Oh, and in front of the camera. The 38-year-old actor (who, for the record, likes Powderfinger, Foo Fighters, Jet and Pearl Jam) was an American soldier in "Black Hawk Down," a scientist with a temper in "Hulk," a Trojan warrior in "Troy" and a Mossad agent in "Munich."

In the upcoming "Lucky You," with Drew Barrrymore and Robert Duvall, Bana is a professional poker player. And in "The Other Boleyn Girl," now filming in London, he plays Henry VIII opposite Scarlett Johansson and Natalie Portman. For that role he's most likely decked out in leggings and other Tudor garb, but for us he donned clothes with an edge from the 2006 fall collections: dark colors, military jackets, a little leather and a lot of rock 'n' roll.

Steady As He Goes

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Written by: Michael Fleming
Photography by: Jim Wright
Typed By Mona
USA: October 2006


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Steady As He Goes Big-hitter directors like Steven Spielberg, Ridley Scott and Ang Lee sing his praises, and his movies have more than a billion dollars worldwide. So why is Eric Bana still such a mystery?

In light of the recent controversy regarding Gibson's anti-semitic remarks, to what degree do you think he should be held responsible?
At the end of the day, any crap that comes out of your mouth, you have to own. There are varying degrees of responsibility when it comes to cinema, and the final vision. We can all say, "I'm not completely responsible for the effect a film has," or you could say things were "out of my control." But one thing you can't ever blame anyone else for is what comes out of your mouth. We all have to live and die by that, and wear the weight of our words. Even I've done interviews where I've read the remarks and thought, "Wow, I was a bit looser with my words than I wanted to be." But, hey, it came out of my mouth. But he has kind of owned his words, the things he has said, hasn't he?

In the cases of Cruise and Gibson, and Russell Crowe last year, who do you think is more to blame: the media, for blowing the situations out of proportion; the public, for eating up the gossip; or Cruise - or Redstone - and Crowe and Gibson themselves for their actions?
It's definitely a combination. That's a tough one. I guess you look at the Gibson case and you know straight off the bat that it's going to attract a lot of hate, a lot of press. And, pretty much, rightly so. He's never really going to get away with that. Whereas with Tom, you look at what he did and question whether he was really out to hurt anybody.

Some actors have been outspoken in taking on causes, and it's been frowned upon at times. Are you political?
Would you ever use your celebrity to back a cause? I have a cause back home that I like to do what I can for. It's a charity. But politically, no. We do have some level of responsibility -- not politically, but socially I do. That's fair to expect. You can have an effect by the work you do, the movies that you're in and what those movies say. In a way, that can become your voice.

What do you think of the people who go out there and back issues or candidates, like George Clooney or Sean Penn?
A lot of times I have a lot of respect for it, especially when the person knows what they're talking about. If they don't know what they're talking about -- watch out. I wish I could be as knowledgeable as one of those people about so many different things, but I'm just not. Back home, I'm not interested in getting into politics, but if you ask my opinion about how we can stop seventeen-year-olds from having car accidents and killing themselves in a riot, I'll get into that.

If there is a misunderstanding about you among the public, what do you think it is?
I have no idea, because I have no idea how I'm perceived. I have absolutely no handle on it whatsoever. It's good and it's bad. It gets to the point where I actually completely forget what I do for a job. So that's a tricky one. When I'm not working with Richard on Romulus, I'm actually not an actor; I'm not a movie star. I'm just a guy who happens to be a father and a husband and a mate and a son and all that stuff. It is tricky because how we identify ourselves with ourselves, our work and our profession, is a part of that. And at times I do struggle with it because I forget that that's a part of my world. But when I do remember, I don't really understand where I stand within that world.

Do you understand the public's fascination with celebrity culture, and are you susceptible to it as well?
Yes and no. I get it on a human level, in the sense that everyone wants to know a little bit of gossip, everyone likes to hear something about someone. But I'm not that interested in hearing it about people that I know. So I don't understand the fascination with celebrity. Some events are not as interesting to the public as the media would like them to be, to a degree. But it makes sense. It's an industry. It's a business.

So what do you owe the public as a movie star?
It's pretty simple. You owe them to not ever walk through a film. You owe them to make correct choices and not sell your soul to a movie that you don't really want to do, and then not deliver. You have to deliver. You can't be a fake. Whatever you do, you've got to give it your best and believe in it. It's fair to expect that. You can't do it for a payday.


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