Conversations with Eric Bana of THE FORGIVEN

how is everyone doing I haven't seen you in a while I'm Stacy Wilson hunt from New York Magazine and vulture I'm very happy to be here what did you think of the movie it's amazing story huh very good story I'm very honored tonight to be speaking to the star of this film Eric Bana please come out thank you really we're really close so I'm gonna notes to slide over here like very very yeah we're gonna have a staring contest or something so before we get to the movie I always like to talk a little bit about your journey to this point and I followed your career for a long time but I've always interested to know and find out how you sort of went from comedy to playing a lot of serious parts you were pretty funny young man I saw a lot of funny clips of you online and various shows and such but I also found a really funny interview that you did where you visited a bar where you used to work and you showed the interviewer that you were a busboy so tell me a little bit about then how that led to comedy yeah well I literally I busted in through the side door for those of you who don't know so I my introduction to the business was was through comedy I was a stand-up comedian in Australia for many many years initially and I didn't even I can't even really remember how that came about other than I had a feeling it was the only thing I could do and I had people encouraged me which is kind of interesting right I mean I was really interested to hear what Jordan Peele was saying this week about him finding his voice through other people to keep writing that script and so I was a bit of an idiot at school and used to do impressions and all that sort of stuff and I think it's kind of interesting that I end up gravitating to what people told me I was good at but I never really had huge aspirations of being a comedian acting really interested me so I did stand-up comedy and then I moved into sketch comedy television sketch comedy which is where I really found my feet because my brain was more prolific as a sketch comedy writer and performer than it was stand-up and once I was doing sketch comedy oddly enough the show that I was working on had a lot of actors on it and not that many comedians on it was only two or three out of it I'd say 12 of us that were comedians and so I just learnt off the classically trained actors that were on the cast and I after a while I was like it's not a huge amount of difference between what we're doing what they're doing and maybe I could act if I wanted to so I didn't really have a huge kind of like smoke screen mirror curtain between the two and I just kind of arrogantly felt as though I could take the leap and that it was mainly about perception more than anything else you know you're either acting to get a laugh or you're acting to elicit a response or an emotion and I just kind of refused to cloud it too much so that's kind of how the jumps came and what was the entertainment business like back then it was this mostly in Melbourne or where did you go to Sydney to try to get more opportunities no Melbourne is the main city in Australia no they're kind of equal in entertainment terms but Melbourne was the comedy capital and I was lucky enough I sort of started stand-up during well as good and bad timing it was I entered the workforce during the recession which was terrible but comedy was having a boom in Australia and in Melbourne in particular we had a lot of great live venues and I would never have got my start today because none of those venues exist or very few of them do when I started out you know working for nothing as a tryout then you've got the $30.00 spot then he got the $60 spot then he got 120 dollar spot and that structure just I don't think really exists as much anymore so a lot of it was about timing comedy was booming we made great sketch comedy in Australia I mean as good as anywhere and I was able to ride the back of great directors and great cast members and great writers and co-stars so it really was all about that worked out so the first thing I saw you when was this crazy movie chopper you guys seen this movie it's crazy it's the only one I can think of to describe it and I think if it came out today you would be a lock for an Oscar nomination because this this performance is really really stunning what were your I guess your biggest fears and taking on something so big a true story transforming your body kind of like putting yourself at the forefront of the story which which I'm sure it was controversial to a lot of people what what did it feel like at that time it was very controversial was based on a real person who was a extremely violent real criminal who at that stage had completed many many years in prison and was released so that was a bit intimidating because I was playing him he was very unstable and his mind would change from day to day whether he liked what you were doing on or not so it was quite intimidating and the movie itself was controversial a because you know our film structure in Australia's a lot of those sort of films are rely heavily on government funding so any independent film coming out of Australia has a lot of government and money invested and a lot of people we're not happy about the fact that we were making this film and they were confused and a little bit pissed off that I was cast in a role because they then assumed that it was going to be too much of a comedy and I they didn't really know who Andrew Dominik was cuz he hadn't made a film yet and they had no idea how serious and how good a handle he was going to have on the subject matter so it was very controversial and we nearly got dropped a couple times and went into turnaround and we nearly disappeared which was great for me because I spent basically nearly two years in prep you know I was the longest period of time I've ever had to prepare for a character I was really after a month by the way but you know whatever gained the weight and you gain like 30 40 pounds or something yeah it was about it was about 30 pounds I think there abouts how did you do that I always love to know what what like what you put yourself through quote-unquote eating doughnuts etc well indie film right so we shot for four weeks and we only had a four week production break for me to get fat for the next four weeks which is not long right seriously for it to read on on camera so it was very ugly it was gross it was it was gluttonous but it was worth and it showed but I kept it going during the second a lot of filming so by the end of that second full week block it was quite substantial and yeah I mean I wouldn't do it again I wouldn't do it my age now but I was younger than and had the time to do it probably felt like Morgan Spurlock felt at the end of his documentary very similar yeah and I didn't have the luxury of you know taking toxicology tests and checking my iron levels and I was like am i fat yeah and you know is it showing on screen no go need some more Donuts you know it's more sodium in Euboea it was everything make pies beer Donuts french fries burgers just fish and chips like be our hero is definitely involved yeah the sacrifices you guys make for your craft it's really amazing I was and I've always wanted one derp this what kind of attention did you get after that what was Hollywood knocking on your door where they're like who is this crazy guy when they saw this movie I mean did you have agents calling you or did you kind of still exist in the Australia business yes at that stage in Australia I was well-known just for comedy so I I was already established there but not as an actor and here I'd had a couple of people knock on the door potentially but but at a very arm's length degree for TV stuff and for comedy so I'd already been here and I'd taken a few meetings and I was trying to get my head around the television structure here the pilot season staff you know because at the time I thought maybe I might get hit hunted for SNL or something because that's it would have been a very easy transition to do what I was doing in Australia to a show like SNL and then I heard about these crazy long contracts and I was like wow how do people do that and like as if you should be worried about that but did you audition for pilots and did you have no I did no Jesus came and I met a few people and stuff and then I went back to Australia and then the chopper thing happened and the first the first thing was we got accepted into Telluride so as my first film festival was was to Holly ride and then we went from Telluride to Toronto and I've got a little bit more word-of-mouth and then as as sometimes happens you know it I don't even know if it matters that much what the quality of the work is but you know your name becomes a commodity and then suddenly people are headhunting you and I didn't even tell if they'd seen the film or not but it didn't matter you know and so yeah so off the back of that I then search for an agent and spent about two weeks here meeting with everyone talking to I was determined to leave leave town without hiring anyone because I really wanted to get it was such a mystery this town and how it worked and the business and I really needed to get my head around it and I didn't want to walk away with you know an agent and manager this or that because I was like I can't even work out how the whole business works so after two weeks I decided who to sign with and then went back to Australia and ended up at what was then William Morris and then for a long time I didn't even have a lawyer and then I slowly added a lawyer and I added a publicist and like try to keep it really mean lean and mean for as long as I could and tell me what it was like to be cast by Steven Spielberg and Munich was that a major turning point for you that was a good day I have a feeling that's a good phone caller it was yeah it was it was incredible I was actually here I'm trying to remember the circumstances were kind of crazy so I was here to read to reshoot a fight scene in Troy between myself and Brad Pitt because that day right there we had had to shut down the production because it was a hurricane and it was the only scene left the film was the big fight scene at the end so we got sent home and then came back four weeks later to go to Cabo to suit this scene and so I get to LA and the stunt directors like we you guys got to do some rehearsal before we you know you have to speed but let's just do a refresher and Brad walked in with a cast on his leg and he'd done his Achilles but hadn't told anyone and so I was here I'm like dude could you have not told me before I got an apply from Australia you know so they literally sent me home again but while I was on that trip my agent got a call saying Stephen wants to meet with Eric he's shooting the terminal out in the desert somewhere and we cut we didn't know exactly what it was about but he'd done some snooping and found out that that the Munich topic may be one and I by complete coincidence had already read Jorge Jonas's book vengeance and thought it was incredible so I go out there and in the lunch break I sit down and meet with Stephen and have this conversation he's telling me about the Munich Olympics and like yeah remember that I mean I remember reading the book of Allah and he said so I'd love you to play this character of ours now and I hopped in the car and I was driving back to LA and my agent called me and he said do you how do you think it went and I was like I I don't know I'm I think he was offering me a role in the film but I'm not 100% sure and he's like dude you you got the part you got the part you know and I was like didn't by myself you know the middle of day I was like oh my god this is incredible and so it was before it was um it really was it was because and I was just sort of in shock and and and it was also because growing up with like 70s movies as my favorite kind of period I was like I'm gonna be in a thriller that's set in the 70s by Steven Spielberg that was all kind of just too much to to take on mmm that's amazing and how nervous were you on that first day did you had you built yourself up enough to like except I'm in this movie I'm the lead I always wonder what goes through people's minds on that very first day of work yeah it was intimidating I arrived light because it was only time it's ever happened in my whole life that I work back-to-back and I've never done it before when I've always had really big gaps between films but I was on a film that was shooting here that then pushed and we ran way over and I literally had to have I did a like a six now a day here in LA hopped in a car went to the airport flew to Malta got off the plane they put my family in one car took them to the hotel took me to the set cut my hair put some clothes on me straight into a night shoot so I literally worked on two films on both sides of the world and the one for me which was the one shooting day they will and it's a crazy story I wouldn't believe that if anyone told me that and it's never never come close to having a game but so I was I was just too kind of frazzled to be anything other than just what are we doing and can I get a coke and then and then you know just to stay awake and then you hit I think we'd a coke get a channel to channel one can go to one go to could we get a coke for Eric good crew get a coke can we get a coke for Eric place you can we go oh they're gonna think I'm this diva that has to have a coat before the before the camera rolls or but I just want to stay awake you knew that you knew and then that you're a number one on the call sheet when that many people we're trying to get your Co there's nothing worse than hearing that China yeah go to go to go through yeah we go coke blues because what now we haven't got a couple gods like a wall your bag air coke may very well people ask for a lot crazier more way more ridiculous I haven't asked for a scenes I swear to God and how did your life change after that movie was obviously nominated for Academy Awards I mean it's just such a stunning maybe I'm just like thinking about it right now was it was that really sort of when you thought gosh I'm really I'm in the business I've been accepted and welcomed or were you still struggling with am I am I Australian am I in Hollywood did you kind of wonder where you fit in I always felt like it was really important to never ever even try and get a perspective on that and I still die cuz I think it's an amorphous thing and I think it changes and I think it's a dangerous thing to try and get your head around and so I've never ever never tried to play with the devil of coming to grips with that because the realities that can change very quickly and so is all I knew was I just was in the moment that this is as good as it gets the actual experience shoot in the film was the greatest professional moment of my life in terms of the experience of making a film to work with Janusz Kaminski to work with Steven the cast was insane the locations were incorrect we worked really fast was a pretty quick shoot for a film of that scale that had incredible nervousness and energy all through it there was no time to stop and think about anything and it was just as it was just the time in my life so I think I just tried to just be in the moment of of what it was without over analyzing it you know too much at the time it's good advice so we come to the forgiving a very tough story about a tough moment in history what appealed to about this story despite the fact that you had to shoulder a lot of this very unpleasant prep work and just unpleasant state of mind during the course of filming and and you told me earlier that you did not rehearse with Forrest well I guess as a lot of you would know I mean if you read that script as an actor you're just going is this vaguely possible that I can do this like is this opportunity presenting itself is this person allowing me to play this character this is film going to be made and in this day and age as you all know these sort of films are harder and harder to get made so I just always saw it as a miracle I was blessed the fact that Forrest was already attached and I knew that was going to really help get the film made although it was still you know took them quite a lot of time so I was overwhelmed by the opportunity just as someone that works in the business and then came the realization of where these words are incredible I thought the script was really beautiful really powerful but I was quite intimidated obviously for many reasons so I think it was one of the probably the toughest character I've had to get my head around playing and I really had to try and understand as much as I could about South African history to have any chance at all of portraying such a vile person and and so that's what I did I just threw myself in into the reading and the walking and watching trying to just get up to speed with where his warped sense of reality had had emanated from because otherwise I didn't didn't think I stood a chance and what surprised you the most about what you learned about what happened during that time because I have to admit there was so much of the story I didn't know I didn't really fully understand what Tutu's role was in this whole thing I grew up hearing his name and I actually didn't really know what he did yes so Nelson Mandela when apartheid came to an end I came up with this idea of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission and and Desmond Tutu was was in charge of that and and the idea wasn't just about seeking retribution and and having people put away it was it that which really blew me was away was the the notion that this would be part of the healing process of the nation and I've just found that so incredible and beautiful and that people's stories would be heard and that was part of the healing process and in some cases people's crimes would be pardoned as a result of them have being politically motivated and that was on both sides there was some you know incredible crimes that were committed that people were pardoned for so I mean I was coming from so far back in terms of knowledge base of these specific things in the TRC and and all that so it was it was a very steep learning curve but I think at this time it was particularly I think more interesting and challenging and I loved the notion that you have two people who could not be further apart and they're forced to come together and can one of them be moved even a degree or two and obviously we don't even realize that Blum Felder's being moved until after his death and it's such a minut amount and even there roland was very careful for it not to be too much not to be too much and even down to the specific wording of this is not I think it's I could be wrong but I'm pretty sure my character in voiceover says this is not an apology but a reparation so he was really really careful about calibrating that so it wasn't over the top and it wasn't too much and it felt it felt real good only become theatrical and I think and I and I think it actually stayed very real what was it like working with Forrest he seems to be a dream I would imagine as an actor but that could just be me projecting I was we it was an interesting I wouldn't say dance that we were doing but I was so respectful of his process and his process was different to mine in terms of you know he had so much prosthetic makeup to deal with and I saw his character being assembled in the makeup trailer you know before he even arrived in the week and the nose and this now like wow he's it's going to be a lot of time in the chair you know I'm good I'm playing bloomfeld I'll just grow a mustache and we'll just so there was no time really for kind of mucking around that we were given the opportunity we had rehearsal time but we decided that that was just going to be conversations and Roland who he's just the most exquisite man and just just the most incredible soulful director and one day we were sitting there and he said what do you guys want to do about these massive scenes do you want to rehearse them I'm happy to rehearse them and that when you read that script that's got ad nauseum rehearsal written all over it right as an actor you go we are going to we are going to pound these scenes to death before we shoot them and there was just like 30 seconds of silence between Forrest and I and I was sort of feeling him out and he was probably feeling me out we both just went no it's okay it's okay and I'm so glad we didn't because we ran the scenes top to tail Roland gave us the option of breaking and down into sections with which we both did not want to do and so literally the first time he spoke as to to was when he sat down in front of me and the camera was rolling we didn't even do a we didn't we did a positional rehearsal for camera we didn't speak and I think a lot of that's in the film by the way and so the first time he heard me speak was on filming the first time I heard him speak was on film and I think it takes a really special director to have the confidence and the trust to do that and as I I'm trying to think if I've worked at bill Berg did that as well in terms of not rehearsing us specifically before the scenes and I do think it it takes someone with immense self belief and confidence to to do that just cast well that's the first I think I've gone a really long way around talking about forests sorry he was just incredible and was so well prepared and was so good to to to play with and act off and we were incredibly respectful of how difficult our jobs were that we you know we sort of gave each other that space and there was the odd you know nod at the end the end of takes and so forth because so much of what I was saying felt so vile and you know that at first you just like Jesus offend someone on the set you know like you literally like this is just this is just so awful particularly in the prison when I when I go into the cells and I have to say what I say to some of those gang members who were real gang members who were rehabilitated and doing acting and so forth but there was this kind of spirit amongst and was just like on it you know and and I knew that by owning it and just by like not apologizing for it and by really going for it that was actually a more respectful thing to do rather than sort of like feeling as though there was you felt awkward about it so that was just something that sort of came from the energy of the of the room after has really owned it that I believed them you could tell they were infusing some real-life experiences into their performance I would lose some of my crew on a day-to-day basis I'm not joking like you know like day three so my gang members would would would this it would disappear and I'd say where's so-and-so like he's not coming in today meet these not two coming back and patty was saying Don't Ask Don't Ask Don't Ask why why I can't say why but anyway yeah occasionally we lost we lost a couple along the way but it was it was interesting they were very forthcoming with their advice and ideas and feedback and Roland again I I can't speak more highly of him he was incredible with all those men and it was such a charged environment they're all suffering from a version of PTSD they've all been in that particular Maxim suit were filmed in Pollsmoor Prison in Cape Town in the real jail that all Mohsen had been through there were shooting in cells that they'd lived in some cases for years and you could physically see the reaction and he just gently conducted everyone beautifully and had such respect for them and and then for him I think he's someone had to come in with an iron fist and kind of alpha male and tried to really control that environment we would have been an absolute nightmare it was a perfect perfect guy to direct this movie has this story made you rethink just Redemption you know who who can be forgiven what what we can forgive it's this is obviously a time in our world where we all mitigate these questions like what am I willing to let go what you know what is so terrible that you we can't forgive someone yeah I don't think I do that well I don't think you really know until you're truly tested and I think it's different for everybody it's a hard question to answer I'm blown away by the notion of it and I'm blown away by the you know the level at which some people who are deeply religious or not can can take it on board as a concept and then and actually actually live it the whole film by the way the whole film emanated from Roland Jeff seeing an interview with a woman whose child had been murdered during the apartheid period and refused to hate the murderer as a result because she refused to wrap up the a child in that emotion and that's where the the germ of the idea for the film came from from from roland before we get to audience questions I wanted to ask one last question of my own which is do you think you'll do comedy again you worked with Jon Apatow and Ricky Gervais in the last decade which I assume you enjoyed do you see that again in this movie I don't understand why I don't get cent more comedy you know you're good at both and they don't know how they don't know what to send you my drama Paul is decide my comedy parlays decide I don't know I mean I'm always open to it I'm always open to everything other than musical my friend Hugh has got that market cornered so yeah I try and be open I would always be open to to a comedy I get sent occasionally but my thinking is I don't want to do a comedy for the sake of it I'll let you ever do it if I feel I can add something to it I feel like there are plenty people that can do that stuff but I would I would love to me if the right project came along special correspondence one I did with Ricky for Netflix was a hell of a lot of fun and you know absolutely adore Ricky and his work so that was a you know again a really wonderful opportunity but I think it's important just to you know keep the door open be open be open-minded to literally anything and everything but musicals so no musicals and ideally it would shoot in Melbourne never happened the last time I I went to bed and put my head on my pillow woke up and went to work as an actor was exactly 18 years ago haven't done it since so the notion of shooting something in in my hometown he's completely foreign last time I did a film in Australia I was playing a Hungarian migrant and we were shooting about three hours out of town so I was living in the country so I'm always pretty much away from home I don't mind I think it's a I think it's a great way of my life is just completely disconnected I don't try and maintain any of the contacts that I have in my normal life I just completely switch off I think that's a luxury and I think I fine I would find it hard if I lived in LA and I was shooting a film in LA I think it would be I think that would be that's a real acting effort to like park your life that's just around the corner whilst you're doing a film I think that would take a lot of energy you have a nice separation between work and life which is good it's like 16 hours of flying so Rob would like to know since chopper what has been your most satisfying role you may have already mentioned it it's always hard to have those on record isn't it nice satisfying look I think a lot of them have been satisfying for different reasons and I think a lot of the time the performance that you think is good might be completely different to what someone else thinks is good because you're viewing it in the context of your life and what you were going through at the time so sometimes it may not be at all a flashy thing and it may be a case of well I survived that I was not having a great time I was not collaborating well with the director we were clashing about the material somehow I managed to eke something out of it and it's kind of ok like in some instances you might feel like that's a bigger achievement than something that's more obvious so I think is a couple I think there might be a couple of them there somewhere but in terms of just pure unadulterated you know which movie am i buying a ticket for I think it would be munich yeah how does the hulk figure into that and whole scenario i did not have a great time on that film and it's been you know well-documented i think it was a big jump for me it was it was it was it was a big jump to go from total character actor kind of stuff to that which was in a lot of ways very very different different to that but it was a very unique opportunity with a very interesting director but i mean as an actor it wasn't a great experience and it's not not a piece of work that I look upon as as being you know my finest piece of work but the weird irony is that Steven Spielberg says that's why he cast me in Munich so I go really like how does that work but it just goes to show you don't know what people are taking from your performances and you don't know you don't know what little morsel someone's looking for you don't know what it is in your character whether it be two scenes one scene the whole movie you have no idea what someone potentially is gonna take away from so in some ways you know the the one of the performances that I'm in some ways least proud of not embarrassed by but you know a lot as proud of his others you know I wouldn't have one of my most proud pieces of work without it so that was a bit confusing when I heard okay no that's very cool I and actually you could argue that Hulk was a harder job to do for that reason absolutely why harder why honest on a scale of like effort required you know going on that that announcement I gave you earlier no doubt I would say five six seven eight times harder for sure AJ would like to know what has been your most challenging moment ever in this business have to one answer to two questions challenging what moment or maybe a period in your career or maybe when you were starting out and you talked a lot about navigating the business and not really knowing how to forge kind of your own look this sounds really lime and I don't mean to stand here as someone who has been lucky enough to have my career and at all complain about anything but the I think the thing that that I've always found hardest without a doubt is being a long long long way from home on your own for extended periods of time and I don't think it matters what kind of film you're on I don't think it matters what kind of role you're doing those that feeling of like walking off the set and having to go and find something to eat and go back to your hotel room and learn your lines for the next day like that drudge I think I think that's probably the thing that that I've had like really try and work out tools for and like try and find my happy place and like try and find a system and like that's always been a struggle and still and still is today like years and years and years later but I'd say that's the thing that I struggle with the most is just you know like it's a very very solitary job even though you're on set with a lot of people usually because you're the out-of-towner I'm always the out-of-towner right so everyone else is going off going home and you're the one who's like not from there so you're sort of on your own you don't invite you over for dinner ever any of these people you work with that's very nice occasionally occasionally so you're all alone at the Four Seasons if ever you're staying these always more fun to be on location where everyone's on location there's no doubt but if you're shooting on a film where you're the out-of-town it's it's can yeah it's definitely future crew members see this interview and invite you over cuz that's just not nice Victor would like to know what would you have done if you weren't an actor so when I'm not working I I have a really deep passion for cars and motorcycles and I work on them and I build them and have it since I was a kid and so I have my dad to thank who was a Croatian immigrant who came to Australia and the thought of his son holding a wrench for a living sent shivers down his spine and he rallied against it but I wanted to leave school when I was 15 to do my motor mechanic apprenticeship and he was the one who said I had to stay at school and till the end of high school so I probably would have ended up in in in that trade somewhere I'd like to think I'd be an engineer to Formula One team or something like that but I may just be at a garage and you know somewhere in Melbourne and happy by the way completely happy a lot of happy people who do those jobs yeah Laura would like to know if you have any plans to write in the near future yeah so I did a documentary some years ago called love the beast which was kind of essentially about a car but not based on an idea that I had and I've I would like to next time directed narrative feature as opposed to a documentary feature because I found as I was working on that project I thought how would be to write something down and people actually go and do it as opposed to a documentary when you're trying to assemble a story based on things that you have so I do I do write occasionally and there may be something I'm working on now but I would like to I would like to direct something and it would have to be something that would come from myself I don't read other people's scripts and think I want to direct this I don't have that sort of I by that I mean I think if I was going to go to the trouble of trying to direct a film it would have to be something of my own voice not someone else's last question from Nick when having an especially difficult time finding the right approach to a scene or moment what do you find is the most reliable thing to focus on in order to work through them I guess telling yourself that you have to afford yourself a luxury of making a mistake because I think we can freeze ourselves to thinking that there is a correct way of doing that scene when there really isn't there's just a way that the director and yet etre prefer over another one and I think it's so hard to try and reimagine the line the way that you had it in your head in the hotel last night and it's not quite coming out that way on in the moment or the scenes not working or the person you're acting opposite isn't giving you what you thought they were going to give you I think the hardest thing in that case is to try and free yourself and say that you have the luxury of making a mistake and you have the luxury of doing a bad take or two and and always communicating it to the director I would never be shy about saying I think that sucked and you know can I please I've got a I've got a night and I've rarely come across the director who doesn't want to engage you in in that next take if they can see that you're not happy with something you've just done that you may have a better a better idea sometimes it's easier said than done and I think sometimes getting frustrated can really affect us you know can really make you feel less loose and and less able to be free and in the moment but I try and be honest and I would just share how I'm feeling with with someone else and try and find a looser way into into the next take I thought I'll bang my head against the wall a few times and I have a burning question that I've always wanted the answer to which is why are Australian so good at accents why can you do every accent that you attempt and it sounds flawless bloody practice okay and don't think we're not envious I when I see actors just do their native tongue film after film year after year I just I'm so envious I am so envious so the reality is that it's for us it's just necessity if we want a career and we want to work outside of Australia and if we were all in Australia would all be starving none of us would be able to survive in the business if we were all back in Australia we'd be eating each other so we we would have we we have had to learn how to do accents and and and I think it's it's an interesting thing because really I mean for myself I mean it's really been a great thing for my career because it also means that somewhere in the UK he's not not scared to take a risk on you someone's not gonna like go like can he do South Africa and willy-willy be open to the idea like they just know just come and knock on the door and if I think I can do it I put my hand up you know so I necessity is is the is the is the answer and maybe we just grown up knowing that that's expected of us we enter the business knowing that we stand no chance of speaking in our native tongue we do I mean it's a truth dude so do Australians still you still see yourselves at the perennial underdogs because I think you I mean I think you're the best I think there isn't an Australian actor working today who I don't think is great like I see I see you as almost as just like incredible troupe of performers and artists I don't know do you guys aren't Julian's the best but ha ha and you're always fun to always always great no III on it yeah and I do get blown away by by I can't believe how many of them came from soaps and stuff and and then they get you know a great opportunity and bang you know so I'm always blown away blown away by that so yeah I don't know I don't know what what the maybe maybe just need to give more Americans a chance you know maybe we've had our run now like you know you know I I have many times so it really there isn't there isn't an American for this part I'm not gonna say it right but there is the Brit to play Henry the 8th then there isn't a German got apply that and there isn't a guy we've had enough opportunity we're good for a while yeah well thank you so much for coming we weren't learned a lot thanks for coming really yeah thank you [Applause]

Channel: SAG-AFTRA Foundation

Views: 3,732

Rating: 5 out of 5

Keywords: SAG Foundation, SAG-AFTRA Foundation, Acting, Actors, Eric Bana, Forest Whitaker, Stacy Wilson Hunt, The Forgiven, Roland Joffe, Munich, Hulk

Id: Rp5LrA7ZJ9o

Length: 41min 8sec (2468 seconds)

Published: Fri Mar 09 2018