Interview - ScreenWise.com
Willam McInnes reckons that the best performance in his latest film Unfinished Sky comes from Milo, a blue-heeler. “I was watching the rushes and I realised that Milo was just being,” says McInnes in his distinctive Aussie drawl. “The hardest thing to do as an actor is just to be, just to exist. There’s a saying – it’s a bit clichéd, but it’s right - about being in the moment, and that’s where you have to be as an actor. Seeing Milo just being a dog was fantastic and really helped me take something away from the process – something that could help me grasp what I needed to do.”
Milo plays a cattle dog called Elvis, and McInnes is his owner John Woldring. In the quiet and moody opening few minutes to Unfinished Sky, it’s only these two characters that we see, and it becomes clear that Woldring is a reclusive farmer who has opted out of life. Milo is the only company on the farm, and man and dog round up sheep together, eat dinner at the same time, and sleep in the same bed. The next morning it’s Milo who wakes Woldring with an incessant bark. Woldring’s solitary existence is interrupted dramatically as a traumatised Afghani woman (Monic Hendrickx) staggers into view and collapses. Battered, bleeding and unable to speak English, Woldring has no choice but to take her in and then help her out. The film then peels back the layers of both their lives, mixing mystery and drama with romance and a touch of comedy. It’s a high quality Australian film that premiered in the ACT at last year’s Canberra International Film Festival, and is now in general release across Australia.
McInnes – who has been acting since leaving drama school in 1989 – is best known for his work in television, playing roles like John Freeman in A Country Practice, Max Connor in Sea Change and most famously Sergeant Nick Schultz in Blue Heelers. He’s also starred in a number of feature films – Kokoda, Irresistible and Look Both Ways which was written and directed by his wife, Sarah Watt. Although he’s never been out of work as an actor, McInnes isn’t the kind of man to sit still for too long. He’s has written and published two best selling books and a third is about to be released. His first novel – a memoir called A Man’s Got to Have a Hobby - cemented his reputation as a storyteller with an irreverent - and very Australian - sense of humour.
The sharp Aussie wit that characterises his writing is never far away in the conversation. I asked what attracted him to Unfinished Sky. “The catering,” he quips, quick as a flash. “Let me give you some advice,” he continues without pause for breath, “if you’re miles away from the sea, don’t ever get curried prawns for lunch. They tend to hurry things along.”Unfinished Sky was shot in Queensland, not far from where McInnes lived as a child. “I grew up near the Sunshine coast, about an hour and a half away from the location for the film. It was a semi–rural area in my day, and I’d walk to school and see cows in people’s yards. We had dogs - like Milo - and as kids, we’d go and stay at an Auntie’s place nearby – a real farm. But it was a dying age, and the place is part of Brisbane now.”
A significant element to the film is the grand rural homestead where John Woldring lives alone, and where he can hide his mysterious visitor. It’s a cavernous house, and whilst Woldring eats out of a can and watches bad television, the house is full of books and an important past. McInnes sees the house as a reflection of Woldring’s character. “It alludes to grander times and suggests that John was part of an older family that had enjoyed a certain prestige in the community,” he says. “The house was once great and has now fallen, but there’s a mystery about it. It’s quite Gothic in a way. The bloke I play is a man who is - in a sense - at the end of the line. He functions to keep the farm ticking over, but you have to look at how he keeps this marvellous home he had – it is not so much a home now, it is almost a mausoleum of past glories and his own emotional life.”
Bringing a character like Woldring to life on the screen required McInnes to find a very quiet and subtle approach to his performance. “When you’re an actor, you always want to act – that’s your instinct. Most people are not content to just stand there and watch. You feel like you have to clench your jaw or tilt your head or do something silly, as if to prove to people that you are acting. I wasn’t supposed to do that in this role and I was worried that I would just look like a plank. But I really enjoyed what the director - Peter Duncan - wanted me to do: to be a bit subtle and layer the performance. Usually I am about as subtle as a runaway bull.”
As we talk more about approaches to acting, it becomes clear that McInnes is old school Australian, exuding the values of quietly getting on with things without having to resort to spin or self-promotion. “My approach to any role is to do enough research to not look like a dill,” he explains. “The best thing you can do is rock up on time, fit the costume and be honest.” It’s a line not unlike the one attributed to Spency Tracey about learning your lines and not bumping into the furniture. But McInnes has deeper thoughts he wants to explore. “Actors draw from the same well , which is basically themselves. You can research and you can study and you can try and inhabit another body, but in the end - because you’re who you are,- you bring mostly yourself to the role. The best way to make people believe that you are another character is to try and be truthful and honest in your interpretation.” As if the words he has just said have hit some personal nerve, McInnes laughs. “Actually, it doesn’t mean you just rock up and do it – which is what I usually say because I don’t want to sound like a twerp - it’s a strategic way of doing the job, a mixture of different methodologies. Obviously you have to know the lines, but you also have to know what you don’t want to say. You have to be on top of the character enough to ask questions and debate with the director what you’re doing in the scene.”
Once again the conversation comes back around to Milo. “He knew what he was doing in every scene,” says McInnes. One day we had a scene where I had to kick a football around with him, and I was wondering what he’d do. Guess what? He chased it.” McInnes pauses briefly and laughs again. “Of course he bloody did, he’s a flippin’ dog. What else would he do.”
Milo plays a cattle dog called Elvis, and McInnes is his owner John Woldring. In the quiet and moody opening few minutes to Unfinished Sky, it’s only these two characters that we see, and it becomes clear that Woldring is a reclusive farmer who has opted out of life. Milo is the only company on the farm, and man and dog round up sheep together, eat dinner at the same time, and sleep in the same bed. The next morning it’s Milo who wakes Woldring with an incessant bark. Woldring’s solitary existence is interrupted dramatically as a traumatised Afghani woman (Monic Hendrickx) staggers into view and collapses. Battered, bleeding and unable to speak English, Woldring has no choice but to take her in and then help her out. The film then peels back the layers of both their lives, mixing mystery and drama with romance and a touch of comedy. It’s a high quality Australian film that premiered in the ACT at last year’s Canberra International Film Festival, and is now in general release across Australia.
McInnes – who has been acting since leaving drama school in 1989 – is best known for his work in television, playing roles like John Freeman in A Country Practice, Max Connor in Sea Change and most famously Sergeant Nick Schultz in Blue Heelers. He’s also starred in a number of feature films – Kokoda, Irresistible and Look Both Ways which was written and directed by his wife, Sarah Watt. Although he’s never been out of work as an actor, McInnes isn’t the kind of man to sit still for too long. He’s has written and published two best selling books and a third is about to be released. His first novel – a memoir called A Man’s Got to Have a Hobby - cemented his reputation as a storyteller with an irreverent - and very Australian - sense of humour.
The sharp Aussie wit that characterises his writing is never far away in the conversation. I asked what attracted him to Unfinished Sky. “The catering,” he quips, quick as a flash. “Let me give you some advice,” he continues without pause for breath, “if you’re miles away from the sea, don’t ever get curried prawns for lunch. They tend to hurry things along.”Unfinished Sky was shot in Queensland, not far from where McInnes lived as a child. “I grew up near the Sunshine coast, about an hour and a half away from the location for the film. It was a semi–rural area in my day, and I’d walk to school and see cows in people’s yards. We had dogs - like Milo - and as kids, we’d go and stay at an Auntie’s place nearby – a real farm. But it was a dying age, and the place is part of Brisbane now.”
A significant element to the film is the grand rural homestead where John Woldring lives alone, and where he can hide his mysterious visitor. It’s a cavernous house, and whilst Woldring eats out of a can and watches bad television, the house is full of books and an important past. McInnes sees the house as a reflection of Woldring’s character. “It alludes to grander times and suggests that John was part of an older family that had enjoyed a certain prestige in the community,” he says. “The house was once great and has now fallen, but there’s a mystery about it. It’s quite Gothic in a way. The bloke I play is a man who is - in a sense - at the end of the line. He functions to keep the farm ticking over, but you have to look at how he keeps this marvellous home he had – it is not so much a home now, it is almost a mausoleum of past glories and his own emotional life.”
Bringing a character like Woldring to life on the screen required McInnes to find a very quiet and subtle approach to his performance. “When you’re an actor, you always want to act – that’s your instinct. Most people are not content to just stand there and watch. You feel like you have to clench your jaw or tilt your head or do something silly, as if to prove to people that you are acting. I wasn’t supposed to do that in this role and I was worried that I would just look like a plank. But I really enjoyed what the director - Peter Duncan - wanted me to do: to be a bit subtle and layer the performance. Usually I am about as subtle as a runaway bull.”
As we talk more about approaches to acting, it becomes clear that McInnes is old school Australian, exuding the values of quietly getting on with things without having to resort to spin or self-promotion. “My approach to any role is to do enough research to not look like a dill,” he explains. “The best thing you can do is rock up on time, fit the costume and be honest.” It’s a line not unlike the one attributed to Spency Tracey about learning your lines and not bumping into the furniture. But McInnes has deeper thoughts he wants to explore. “Actors draw from the same well , which is basically themselves. You can research and you can study and you can try and inhabit another body, but in the end - because you’re who you are,- you bring mostly yourself to the role. The best way to make people believe that you are another character is to try and be truthful and honest in your interpretation.” As if the words he has just said have hit some personal nerve, McInnes laughs. “Actually, it doesn’t mean you just rock up and do it – which is what I usually say because I don’t want to sound like a twerp - it’s a strategic way of doing the job, a mixture of different methodologies. Obviously you have to know the lines, but you also have to know what you don’t want to say. You have to be on top of the character enough to ask questions and debate with the director what you’re doing in the scene.”
Once again the conversation comes back around to Milo. “He knew what he was doing in every scene,” says McInnes. One day we had a scene where I had to kick a football around with him, and I was wondering what he’d do. Guess what? He chased it.” McInnes pauses briefly and laughs again. “Of course he bloody did, he’s a flippin’ dog. What else would he do.”
posted by WilliamWatch at 8:17 PM
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