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
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
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