Article: WA Today: Wednesday June 10th, 2009

William McInnes jumps back into the saddle for Equus

• Daile Pepper
• June 10, 2009

Author William McInnes will star in Equus. Photo: Lorrie Graham

He's jokey, he's Aussie blokey and about to step back onto the stage to play one of the most challenging parts in modern theatre.

William McInnes, Australian Film Institute award winning actor, loves to share a laugh and tell a tale.

Like the time he needed to ride a horse for a job and flailed about atop the animal brandishing a stockman's whip after the horse's backside was pinched and it raced off. There was no useable footage captured.

Or when he took part in a dodgy Perth play back in the day and a peacock "went off its trolley" after a coffin was dropped on its babies.

Or being scoffed at by a "wanker" bartender at The Queens years ago when he asked for a Stella Artois but failed to pronounce the second word in a suitably stuffy manner.

The actor was trained at the West Australian Academy of Performing Arts and has fond memories of the State.

"One of the funniest nights I've had in Perth, was when I lived in Bennett Street and there was a little Macedonian club in North Perth," he said.

"There was a Swiss night and they were all dressed up in lederhosen and yelling Woo Hoo! They did something with milk barrels. It was surreal, I had a great night."

Mc Innes will return to Perth this September to play the lead in one of the most well-known provocative plays of modern times, Equus.

The contemporary classic by Sir Peter Shaffer will be brought to town by the Perth Theatre Company and His Majesty's Theatre - the first time the work has been performed outside Broadway and London's West End for about 30 years.

The story, recently performed to critical acclaim by Richard Griffiths and Daniel Radcliffe on Broadway, is a provocative and challenging piece of drama.

McInnes will play psychiatrist Martin Dyrst, who works with a younger man who has an unhealthy fixation with horses following a horrific attack by the boy on a number of the animals.

"It's always good to test yourself out with a role this size, give yourself a bit of fright and get back in the saddle," McInnes said during a short trip to Perth.

"Not that I want to use the horse metaphor too much."

McInnes will star with young Austalian actor Khan Chittenden, who has most recently been seen in Packed to the Rafters, Dangerous and Clubland.

He said it was exciting to get back on stage after spending more of his time writing books and doing less challenging jobs in film and television.

"This is a play that puts big ideas out there for people to think about," he said.

"It's about what life is and how you live it, how you should live a life. What is important. It's a really fascinating play, some of it's pretty macabre and out there.

Equus will be the first time he has stepped onto the stage since performing in My Fair Lady a few years back. He makes no apologies for the confrontational themes, saying theatre was not all about songs, smiles and fart jokes. Though it was important to not get caught up in believing the work was so important it wasn't necessary to be entertaining.

"It's a big play, and it deals with big themes. It's a really good workout for an actor. A real wrestle," he said.

"It's an entertaining play but it's a drama. And it's not happening anywhere else in Australia."

Equus comes to His Majesty's Theatre on September 12. Tickets are available through BOCS. 

Interview: ABC Melbourne, Friday 8th May, 2009

Click here for an interview from ABC Melbourne radio with Red Symonds, William talks about the Museum of Australian Democracy in Canberra.

William McInnes Interviews on ForaTV

To watch the two videos, click on the links below:

On Hate Towards Politicians

Reads from his Novel "That'd Be Right"

Article: Jetstar Magazine, November 2008

10 mins with… William McInnes

He’s just authored That’d Be Right, and stars in Channel Ten’s telemovie The Informant, and feature films Prime Mover and Blessed. Meet Renaissance Man William McInnes

WORDS KYLIE MILLER

People know you as an actor, yet you’ve written three books in three years. How do you see yourself?
I guess writing is up there with acting now, it’s not my sideline anymore. With acting, I’m lucky in that I can be more selective. The last four or five jobs I’ve done have been really good.

What is That’d Be Right about?
It’s sort of a memoir but it’s not a straight memoir – it ties in major sporting events and political events like elections, because I think that sport and politics have become intertwined. It’s what was actually happening in my life when some major events were happening. It’s a very Australian story. It’s a fairly true history of modern Australia, which is the subtitle. It’s a bit like The Life and Times of a Boofhead. That’s what it should be called!

How do you choose your projects?
I like movies or stories with a point to them. I loved working on Sarah’s film Look Both Ways, I liked ABC telemovie Curtin. I liked Unfinished Sky where we had enough time to make it and it’s saying something about Australia.

Who do you play in The Informant?
It’s about this guy who works for this crime authority because he’s very skilled. He finds himself involved in high-end crime from a low-level existence. I learned how to say a line in Russian but it sounded like Martian, and I got a lot of spray tans!

Is this the life you had imagined for yourself when you were younger?
I don’t know what I expected to be doing but I didn’t think I’d be here talking about my third book! Before the first book came out I was invited to sit on a panel at the writers’ festival in Brisbane with people like the Go- Betweens singer and songwriter Grant McLennan and author John Birmingham – the cultural milieu of Brisbane. In my youth I was probably the antithesis of those sorts of people. I was part rugger and moron. It’s amusing to think where you end up.

What will you do next?
I’ll write another book. Writing is a nice adjunct to acting. As the writer you’re the architect and as the actor, you’re the builder. I tend to write about things in my life because you write about what you know. I haven’t ruled out working overseas but you’ve got to stay there and I’m not interested in that. But it’s only a plane ride away, as they say in the classics.

Article: The Courier Mail, September 20th, 2008

William McInnes Admits His Preference for Nudism

Margaret Wenham

IT'S easy to get sucked in by William McInnes.

Like when you ask the man who's a star quality staple of Australian film and television, who's also now turning out best sellers, whether he prefers acting or writing and he says - in all smiling earnestness - "I prefer nudism to anything".

And then there's the times he goes off on a tangent, reminiscing about companies that were around in the 1970s and their TV ad jingles."Pick 'n' Pay Hypermarket," he hums, before joining you in a laughter-laced, shrieking chorus of "Any old iron" from the old John Zupp commercials.

Melbourne-based McInnes is back in his old home state for the Brisbane Writers Festival. He's also here to promote his second autobiographical book That'd Be Right, released last month and already ensconced on the lists that matter.

A series of yarns forming a loose chronicle of McInnes' life growing up in Redcliffe - it's also a political and sporting history told in that wonderful vernacular of Queensland and the 1970s.

Words such as grundies and dacks and expressions like getting creamed by someone, after which you'd crack the s ... s.Australians, he tells The Courier-Mail, define themselves through sport and politics.

Certainly such things were defining for the 44-year-old McInnes, whose parents' involvement in Labor and lively commentary on the personalities of all political persuasions made their mark.

McInnes finally comes clean. Both acting and writing are personally rewarding.

"I like a bit of everything and the good thing is you don't have all your eggs in one basket," he says.

McInnes says one of the rewards of writing is the correspondence he receives from readers who relate to the times, places and events he's writing about.

He's soon to start another film, Blessed, while one he's finished, Prime Mover, should premiere early next year. But is there another book on the boil?

"A history of nudism in football and I'm going to call it Showertime," he says, his brow creased with mock sincerity.

McInnes will be speaking at the Writers Festival at the State Library of Queensland at 4.40pm today.

Podcast Interview - ABC.net.au

To hear an interview from ABC radio with William, hosted by Richard Fidler, CLICK HERE.