Redcliffe and Bayside Herald - October 19, 2005

Actor tells local story
EDITION: 1

"I don't know about the fame bit. I try not to take myself too seriously."

AUSTRALIAN stage and screen actor William McInnes returned home to Redcliffe last week for his first book launch. A Man's Got to Have a Hobby - Long Summers With My Dad is McInnes's amusing andentertaining collection of memories of growing up in Redcliffe and the importance of his father, mother and other members of his family. Richard Lancaster was at the launch and found an easy-going, quietly spoken bloke, comfortable with his appreciative audience and ever ready to laugh at himself.

RL: It's really quite revealing watching you relate to the people here today. It's like you were in the company of old friends.

WM: I have been. Some people here today grew up with me.

RL: You appear not to have allowed fame to get in the way of enjoying life.

WM: I don't know about the fame bit. I try not to take myself too seriously. You can't believe some of the guff that people write about you. Anyway, I'm not famous.

RL: If you had your life all over again, would you change anything?

WM: No, I really couldn't do that. If that happened, I wouldn't be the person I am today and I'm sort of quite happy with who I am.

RL: You get scripts given to you to read. What makes you look at a script and say: "This is the one for me''?

WM: If it's a good story and the people involved with it are professionals - then I'm interested.

RL: You've played a wide variety of characters in recent times. Does it take you a long time to get into the character that you're playing?

WM: It can take weeks or sometimes only days to get into the essence of a character - it all depends on how you are in yourself at the time.

RL: It appears that Aussie actors still have to go overseas to make it. When will we see you go overseas?

WM: I don't think that you have to work overseas to be a successful Aussie actor. It really does depend on how you define success. Anyway, no one has asked me yet! (laughing)

RL: How do you define success?

WM: Critically, personally. Just because someone earns a lot of money doesn't necessarily mean they are a successful actor.

RL: Which is your preference, stage or screen?

WM: I like both. You have to work a lot harder on stage. Theatre blows the cobwebs out a bit - you can't hide on stage.

RL: So every so often you go back to the stage.

WM: Yes, I try and do a play a year. It's a different kind of acting - it's like a workout.

RL: Is the old Redcliffe you know lost forever?

WM: Change has to happen - because that's part of life. Many people don't like it, because it can be scary. It's like losing a bit of your life, a bit of your certainty. I don't live in Redcliffe now, so it's not my bag to say whether it's good or bad. Redcliffe residents are the ones to decide what they want their city to be like.

RL: You've always been very strong about keeping Moreton Bay protected.

WM: It's important that everyone works to look after this bay. It's not only an important natural resource, it's an economic one, a tourist one, and an educational one as well. It's therefore very precious.

RL: What does theimmediate future hold for you?

WM: Currently, more travelling with this book. Finishing the next one, which is called Cricket Kings. I'm doing a play in Melbourne written by a mate called Steve Rogers. I've got two movies to do, one's called Stepfather of the Bride and the other Kokoda.
Enough to keep me busy for the time being, I think.

Redcliffe and Bayside Herald, October 5, 2005

Visit inspires students
EDITION: 1

HE is best known for portraying typically down-to-earth, laconic Australian men in television series such as Sea Change, Blue Heelers and the recent movie Look Both Ways. And that is what Clontarf Beach High School students got when rangy actor William McInnes made an impromptu visit to his alma mater last week. McInnes, who has now added author to his resume with his book A Man's Got to Have a Hobby, happily spent a few hours discussing his acting and writing career with senior english and drama students.

Teacher Stuart MacDonald said it was a rare treat to have the busy actor return to his roots. "He read extracts of his book which relates to him growing up on the Peninsula in the 1960s and 1970s,'' Mr MacDonald said. "The group was spellbound by him, you could hear a pin drop.

"William also encouraged students to follow their dreams whether it be in acting, filmmaking, writing or whatever.

Courier Mail - October 29, 2005

Click here for article

Townsville Bulletin, October 2005

Veterans return for new ABC telemovie

Section: News, pg. 004

VETERAN Australian actors William McInnes, Noni Hazlehurst and Garry McDonald will return to the ABC next year in a new telemovie.

The broadcaster has announced the production of Stepfather of the Bride, a story about three generations of marriage.

The announcement came in the same week a campaign was launched to get more Australian content on to the ABC.

Stepfather of the Bride revolved around a set of grandparents, parents and children from the same family.

McInnes, who was well known for his role in the popular series Seachange, will play Daniel, the stepfather of the bride.

Weekend TV -- Page 127

IF Awards

Look Both Ways has received 7 nominations for the Independant Film Awards. They are:

Best Music
Best Sound
Best Editing
Best Script
Best Direction - Sarah Watt
Best Actress - Justine Clarke
Best Feature Film

For more information, Click Here

Article - Sydney Morning Herald - October 19, 2005

Click Here for Article

AFI Awards

Look Both Ways has received 11 nominations for the 2005 Australian Film Institute Awards. They are:

Best Film
Best Lead Actor - William McInnes
Best Lead Actress - Justine Clarke
Best Direction - Sarah Watt
Best Original Screenplay
Best Supporting Actress - Daniela Farinacci
Best Supporting Actor - Anthony Hayes
Best Editing
Best Production Design
Best Costume Design
Best Sound

For more information, Click Here

Article - Sydney Morning Herald - October 21, 2005

Click Here for Article

Courier Mail - September 30, 2005

Man of many parts

Edition: 1 - First with the news
Section: Features, pg. 017

William McInnes finds success relative, writes Sandra McLean

AT A glance, Look Both Ways should have brought William McInnes a freight container full of film scripts.

He's terrific in this quirky love story about a newspaper photographer who finds romance the same weekend he learns he has testicular cancer. Nobody doubts why Justine Clarke's character finds McInnes's leading man instantly beddable.

Audiences were also seduced, with Look Both Ways a hit at the box office. Even the critics raved about it and last month the film won its first international gong at the Toronto Film Festival.

On paper, it all adds up to cigar time for McInnes. Instead he's been given the career equivalent of a cigarette stub. Not one script offer has arrived at the door of his suburban Melbourne home since Look Both Ways opened in August.

"Only three people get offered male film leads in this country,'' says McInnes. ``David Wenham, David Wenham and David Wenham.'' There's more than a touch of amused sarcasm in his voice -- anyone who has followed McInnes's career will know that he replaced Wenham as Sigrid Thornton's love interest on the ABC's SeaChange. And he will probably have to face him at the AFI Awards next year where both are sure to be nominated for best actor -- McInnes in Look
Both Ways and Wenham for Three Dollars.

"For all the talk about Australia having this great film industry it operates heavily on cliques,'' McInnes says."It's about who you know and what you have to do. I just don't do all that sort
of stuff. It's not that I am terribly honourable. Something might come my way but nothing has so far.''

Never mind, if he wanted to, McInnes could toss in his acting career and become a full-time writer.

At 41, the Redcliffe born and raised actor has become a best-selling writer. His first book, A Man's Got to Have a Hobby -- Long Summers with My Dad , a memoir about his childhood, has found a devoted audience.

McInnes, who made his mark in TV's Blue Heelers, is now a literary star. Over the past few months he has done book tours, literary lunches, signings and festivals. At this weekend's Brisbane Writers Festival he's chairing a session titled Happy Young Men and another
titled Writers Can't Be Trusted with the Truth.

All these literary love-ins could have gone to his head, but it hasn't.

Readers of A Man's Got to Have a Hobby will know that ego was frowned upon in the McInnes household where insults such as "arsepart'', "tripehound'' and "cabbagehead'' were regularly hurled at the boy who would confound his father and become, of all things, an actor. Who knows how his late father, Colin, would feel about the fact McInnes, who once rechristened himself Herod, has also become a writer.

At least McInnes's readers are around to ensure he hasn't got tickets on himself. He recalls attending Byron Bay Writers Festival when a woman approached him and asked him if he had a ghost writer. "I said I didn't really have a ghost writer,'' McInnes says. "She didn't believe me so I told her it was Helen Demidenko. She just turned and walked off.''

Maybe she didn't get his sense of humour, which veers wildly from self-effacing to sarcastic to slapstick. McInnes doesn't seem to take too much seriously. Even when his kids are beating each other up in the back yard as we talk on the telephone, his reprimands sound purposefully ridiculous.

"Will you get that bloody bucket off your head,'' he yells, presumably at his kids, Clem, 12, and Stella, 8. "Stop beating your brother with that club.'' A few minutes later he shouts: "Will you just be quiet!'' Then: "Don't play football in the house! Do you see this, -- it's a telephone -- I am doing an interview! Can you go to your room?''

It sounds like life in McInnes's childhood home. He agrees, confirming suspicions that he isn't really angry and, in fact, he's having a great time over playing the role of bad dad. McInnes is home with his two children while his wife, Sarah Watt, an award-winning animator, who directed Look Both Ways, is overseas on film business. He speaks to her every day and is happy she has found success with her first feature film, not only because she cast him in the lead role.

NEAR the end of filming, Watt was diagnosed with breast cancer. She managed to finish the film and continues to have treatment. Consequently, McInnes is only too glad to take his son fishing and his daughter to the Melbourne Show while his wife enjoys her moment of movie glory.

Watt has only started to get used to life in the spotlight but McInnes has been playing to the public for years. He admits it is all "a bit weird'' seeing people read his book even though for years he's been public property because of his roles on television (he won Logies for My Brother Jack and SeaChange ) and on stage.

"It's fun having my book read -- you'd have to be a real dog to say it wasn't,'' he says. "I am not a star -- I came back from a book tour and within 15 minutes I was picking up dog poo in the back yard. There are some people who bung it on in this business but they are in the minority. For every success you get a few rabbit punches.''

McInnes is writing a second book, about cricket. Why? "Because cricket is an erotic game.'' He pauses. "No, I shouldn't have said that. Look, it's not about cricket, its about people who play cricket, park cricket. You see them when you are driving somewhere, all these silly people standing in the sun in the middle of the day . . . I don't have a great imagination so I can't make too many things up. Cricket is just a great backdrop and I have played it for years and years. It's just about people.''

If his cricket book has the same easy mix of nostalgia and humour as A Man's Got to Have a Hobby then McInnes could well have another bestseller on his hands. If so, he could find himself at a career crossroads -- acting or writing -- but you sense that McInnes will take the ride that suits him at the time.

"Having a success with the film and the book is fantastic but you have to keep things in perspective -- everyone used to smoke 20 years ago. Any success is relative -- you shouldn't decry it but it isn't everything,'' he says.

"With acting, I've turned down a lot more than I say yes to. It's like life -- you follow your own bent. I am not a superstar or anything like that. . .''

McInnes has agreed to do a day's filming on a new movie being made at Mt Tamborine about the 39th Battalion's exploits on the Kokoda Track during World War II. He will play the part of
Lt-Col Ralph Honner, who gave a famous speech to the soldiers. After that he has a role with the Melbourne Theatre Company and will probably go ahead with a telemovie for the ABC written by Mother and Son's Geoffrey Atherden.

"You know, I've never done a play up there in Queensland -- I haven't been asked,'' says McInnes. "Isn't that bizarre? I'd probably say no anyway -- I've two kids to throttle.'' On cue, he turns away from the phone for one more odd angry shout: "I've told you before -- get that bucket off your head.'' You can imagine the McInnes kids having a good laugh -- and probably their dad, too.

William McInnes will be at the Brisbane Writers Festival today, 2.45pm, Cultural Forecourt, QPAC, talking with Kate Fitzpatrick, Sandy McCutcheon and Craig Sherborne about writing memoirs

Pusan International Film Festival - Korea

Look Both Ways has been selected to be screened at the Pusan International Film Festival. For more info go to:

http://www.if.com.au/press/2005/10/10.html#item11201

Ray's Tempest - Melbourne Theatre Company

William will be appearing in "Ray's Tempest" for the Melbourne Theatre Company in 2006. For more information go to:

http://www.mtc.com.au/whatson.aspx?eventID=74

Victorian Premier's Literary Awards - 17th October 2005

Literary awards at Zinc

THE 2005 Victorian Premier's Literary Awards will be announced at Federation Square's Zinc restaurant on October 17 by Premier Steve Bracks.

Actor and Look Both Ways star William McInnes will host the evening, which is cosy, given his wife, Sarah Watt, directed the film and is one of three scriptwriters up for the $15,000 Village Roadshow Prize for screenwriting.

Other nominees are Wain Fimeri for ABC TV's Revealing Gallipoli and Jacqueline Perske for Little Fish. Judges for the prize are Ian Pringle, Claire Dobbin and Christina Pozzan. Meanwhile, writers Raimondo Cortese and Peta Murray and dramaturge Melanie Beddie are judges of the $15,000 Louis Esson Prize for Drama and have shortlisted three works. They have nominated Anthony Crowley for The Frail Man seen at Playbox, Melissa Reeves' The Spook at Company B. Belvoir Street in Sydney, and David Pledger for his company Not Yet Its Difficult's production Blowback staged at St Kilda Memorial Hall last December. A special commendation went to Through the Wire by Ros Horin seen at Grant Street Theatre in May. Plays eligible for the award must have been produced or published in Australia between May 1, 2004 and April 30 this year.

Author Talk - Redcliffe Library 5th October

A bayside boyhood;

Redcliffe & Bayside Herald (Queensland, Australia) 09-21-2005
EDITION: 1

THE story of William McInnes is the tale of a Redcliffe boy made good.William, who has been in such diverse shows as The Shark Net, Blue Heelers, Seachange and even Kath and Kim, has now become an author. A Man's Got to Have a Hobby Long Summers With My Dad, is his memoir about his early days growing up in Redcliffe.

William will launch his book at the Redcliffe Library on Wednesday, October 5 at 6pm. As this event is already fully booked, a second session has been organised for the following morning October 6 at 10am. This is a free event and bookings are essential and can be made by phoning 3283 0249.

A tail-end baby boomer, William recalls summer holidays that seemed to go on forever, when he and his mates would walk down to fish in the bay, a time when the Aussie battler stood as the local Labor candidate and watched out for his mates, and a time when the whole family would rush into the lounge room to watch a new commercial on TV. He writes about his father, a strong character who talks to the furniture, dances with William's mother in the kitchen, and spends his free time fixing up the house and doing the best for his family. In William's writing you can hear his father speaking, listen to his mother singing, and his sisters and brothers talking in the yard. This is a book about people who aren't famous but should be. It's about cane toads and families, love and hope and fear, laughter, death and life.

The library has several copies of the book, but there is a waiting list at present. Don't forget that you can now access the library catalogue online at www.redcliffe.qld.gov.au and place your holds.

Sydney Morning Herald - September 17, 2005

A book vandal with an odd nose loses his tickets

DIARY ~~~~~~~~WILLIAM McINNES.

Despite the shape of his nose, William McInnes is a successful film and stage actor.

TRAVELLING to publicise Sarah Watt's new film and my book has taught me one thing: it doesn't pay to have tickets on yourself.

I am in Perth at the same time as the South African rugby team, and a lot of its supporters are staying at my hotel. Most of the supporters are vast men with big beards, bad jeans and checked shirts who prowl the hallways like cattle. They look at me and nod. Speak to each other in Afrikaans. I smile and nod back. They cackle. We share a lift. In broken English they ask: "Ow our yoar boyz goink to go?"

I smile back. "Well, we'll see." I try to sound friendly but end up thinking only of Breaker Morant and Edward Woodward, and wondering what on earth these men could have seen me in on South African television. The answer is nothing. They think I'm Troy Coker, a former Wallaby who went out with a girl I knew.

I find this out the next night when I cannily lock myself out of my room wearing a rainbow T-shirt and rather sad pyjamas. I go down to the reception desk, ask for a spare key and find my grazing broederbund friends of the veldt staggering about in the bar. They let me know that not only am I a hopeless dresser but I wasn't much of a rugby player and that Australia should never have won the World Cup in 1992.

I receive my new key, wave back to my bearded chums and sing out to them as the lift door closes, "Shoot straight, you bastards." IN BRISBANE at a book do things go swimmingly. I sign lots of books and people say nice things. One woman wants to talk about Look Both Ways. She loves it. She has seen it twice and she says that she will see it a third time because she finds new things in it to enjoy. I thank her. She shakes her head and tells me to pass on her thanks to Sarah Watt, my wife, for making a film Australians can be proud of. The next woman in line says she, too, has seen Look Both Ways and loves it. "Are you," she asks, "thinking of having an international career?"

Ah, it is my turn to accept some glory. Oh well, I say, we'll see.

"Well if you are, I think you should know you have an odd-shaped nose. You're almost handsome, but your nose could use some work." I look at her. "You think so?" "Yes," she says definitely. "Here is my brother's card. He's a plastic surgeon on the Gold Coast."
I take the card. It is the card of Dr Conrad, and he does indeed come from the Gold Coast. Thanks. Now who shall I sign the book to?

Later, in Brisbane Airport, I sit with my eyes closed in a lounge. I feel a tapping on my chest. I open my eyes. A person stands over me. "Don't I know you?" she demands. "I know you."
I look up from my chair and see a ridiculous apparition. She is an actor. I look at her. Then I reach for a card in my pocket and hand it to her. "I think you were a patient of mine." I give her Dr Conrad's card. It is supposed to be a joke. She takes it, looks at it and nods her head.
"Oh, that's it," and she walks off with the card.

IN DARWIN I attend a screening of Look Both Ways, and after that a question and answer session. I have just got off a flight from Cairns and the heat is unbelievable. So are the people. Darwin people are incredibly friendly and casual. That is why the question and answer session is held out on the footpath. People want to stretch their legs and also have a drink. There is a bar next door. For every question asked, a beer is bought for me. I like them asking questions. I end up answering quite a few. In the morning I wake up and decide I answered one too many.

IN SYDNEY I remember what my publisher told me: "If you ever find yourself near a bookshop, pop in and sign a few copies, introduce yourself to the owner." I find myself outside a bookshop and decide to put her advice into practice. I wander around and finally find my book, A Man's Got To Have a Hobby. I smile at a woman who is placing books back on a shelf. She smiles back. "My book." I hold my tome.

"Yes," says the woman.

"Do you think I should sign it? Would that be a good idea?"

She looked at me for a bit. "Well, if it's your book you might as well."

I nod and go to work. I look up to see her wander out of the shop, wave to a man and they walk off hand in hand. I feel something as I look after the happy couple. Before I can determine whether it is unease I am interrupted by a poke in the ribs. "Excuse me, excuse me. What do you think you are doing?"

I look down to see a man with glasses. "I am signing this book."

"Well you had better pay for it then."

"No, it's my book. I've signed a couple of them."

"Well you better pay for them, too."

I hold up the book and point to my author photo and try to strike the same pose.

"I wrote the book," I say and I point to my photo. Maybe I shouldn't have answered the last three questions in Darwin. I must have cut up a bit rough. I try my best at a William McInnes look. Something flickers across his face.

It could be anything from comprehension to suspicion to deciding whether to call security. Finally he laughs, apologises and asks if I would like a better pen.

He leads me to a desk and asks if I would like a drink.

I say yes, thank you, and we laugh again. "You just look a bit different. Loved the film, by the way. And the book is selling well."

As he walks off I think of my father. I start to laugh.

"It doesn't do too much good to get too many tickets on yourself, sunshine," my father would say.

Too right Dad, too right.

The Australian - September 21, 2005

Logie winner's painful recall - WAAPA: 25 YEARS OF CREATIVE EXCELLENCE - A SPECIAL ADVERTISING REPORT

Edition: 5 - Generic Preprints
Section: Features, pg. 001

TRYING to learn the ancient art of tai-chi on a lawn infested with bindis is one of acclaimed actor William McInnes' most enduring memories of his time at WAAPA.

"We'd been taken outside by the tai-chi teacher with the intention of getting more in touch with nature, I think, but it was a bit hard when all you could concentrate on was the prickles!'' he says.

"But I had a lot of fun at the academy, it offered so much in the way of diversity and learning through performance.''

William graduated from the academy's acting course in 1988 and has since become a household name in Australia, thanks to his enormously popular roles in the Channel Seven series Blue Heelers and the ABC's Sea Change.

He has also appeared in the mini-series the Shark Net and My Brother Jack, winning a 2002 Logie award for the latter for Most Outstanding Actor. It was his second Logie, having earlier won the same award in 2000 for Sea Change.

He is married to film director Sarah Watt, who directed his starring role in the recently released film Look Both Ways, which has already won rave reviews.

William, who came to the academy to study from Redcliffe, near Brisbane, believes WAAPA's greatest strength lies in the depth of exposure students get to a range of arts disciplines.

"The great thing about it is that you get music students, actors, designers, opera singers and people in musical theatre all under the one roof,'' he says. ``It's a real pot-pourri of people, and
it's good for students to be exposed to that.''

Courier Mail - September 22, 2005

Movie to celebrate Kokoda

Edition: 1 - First with the news
Section: News, pg. 011

THE Kokoda campaign that won Australian cameraman Damien Parer an Academy Award 62 years ago is to be the subject of a new film being made in southeast Queensland from Friday week.

Parer, a photographer and newsreel cameraman, won his Oscar in 1943
for Kokoda Front Line.

Sydney filmmaker Alister Grierson will direct a cast including Shane Bourne, William McInnes, Travis McMahon and Steve Le Marquand in the as-yet-unnamed film.

Grierson, 36, will film action sequences involving members of a 39th Battalion platoon at Mt Tamborine over five weeks.

He prepared for the film by walking the entire Kokoda Track last month, and says he wants the film to introduce a young audience to the courage, endurance, mateship and sacrifice shown by the Australians who fought there.

The actors have had 1940s haircuts and have been rigorously following special diets to make them believable as World War II Diggers.