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It took a beautifully written love story about a young boy and his challenging parents for Brenda Blethyn to stand up and be counted in Australia, writes STAN JAMES.
A decade has passed since Brenda Blethyn filmed in Australia. Now she's back with a new, acclaimed Australian film, Clubland. Blethyn's wonderful Aussie romp comes at a time of change in the style of Australian movies and what could be the start of a mini renaissance.
Changes in the Federal Budget to tax breaks for film funding will further push the renaissance. Clubland, which opened this year's Sundance Film Festival, had its world premiere at this year's Adelaide Film Festival to Aussie and world critical acclaim.
Blethyn plays Jeannie, once a promising stand-up comic in Britain who fell in love with an Australian rock singer and gave up her career, came to Australia and had two sons.
"It's a great role but a bit scary," she giggles from her Sydney hotel.
Twenty years down the track, Jeannie's divorced, slogging out a career on the Sydney club circuit and worrying about her two sons, particularly virgin Tim (Khan Chittenden), who's embarking on a serious relationship with Jill (Emma Booth).
"I was asked to come here by Rosemary Blight about nine or 10 years ago and she produced a film In the Winter Dark, written by Tim Winton. That was my introduction to Australia and I had such a good time working on that," Blethyn explains.
"About five years ago, she sent me Clubland and I loved it straight away and wanted to do it immediately. But it was early days and we knew it wouldn't be made for a little while."
Blethyn was first drawn to the storyline of young Tim. "It was so beautifully written by Keith Thompson, with its exploration finding new emotion for that young, good, decent boy. It's not your run-of-the-mill, boy-meets-girl story. It's complicated because both his separated parents are entertainers and he's embarrassed by them because his mother's comedy routines are a bit raunchy.
"I thought it was so honestly written and the dialogue was so real."
In the mini renaissance, another premiere, which opened the festival, Lucky Miles, by Adelaide writer-director Michael James Rowland, also received wide acclaim.It opens across Australia next month and was one of the films financed by the Adelaide Film Festival. Others since the funding inception include Look Both Ways and 10 Canoes.
Next month also sees the arrival of West, a powerful drama of young life and strife in the western suburbs of Sydney, again with Chittenden, along with Nathan Phillips and McLeod's Daughters star Gillian Alexy in her first feature film. Another film financed by the festival, director Rolf de Heer's remarkable silent, black-and-white comedy Dr Plonk, opens in August while director Greg Mclean's Rogue, the followup to his hit thriller Wolf Creek, also screens in August.
Blethyn's big breakthrough which gave her international recognition was in director Mike Leigh's 1996 Secrets and Lies, as a dysfunctional mother. It won her the first of her two Oscar nominations. The other was for an overbearing mother in Little Voice.
The 61-year-old actress hadn't been to Australia since Winter Dark until she was invited to the Sydney Film Festival where Clubland was showing. She was unaware of the Adelaide Film Festival and Clubland's premiere here. "Oh, good, congratulations on that," she says. "I came to the Sydney festival and when it was announced it was opening the Sundance Festival, I nipped back for a little celebration."
What scared Blethyn about playing Jeannie?
"I thought `Ooh, Lord, can I do this stand-up lark? I dunno'. We had the luxury of three weeks' rehearsal, which is rare for films," she says. "Obviously you get it in theatre. In films, sometimes you don't even meet the other actors before you turn up on set.
"I tried to get into the mindset of a stand-up. Each night, I'd go home and write another routine and present it. As must happen to real stand-ups, some jokes worked and some didn't. You just had to get through it."
Was stand-up comedy ever on Blethyn's agenda?
"No, I'm the youngest of nine children and we were very poor . . . you can hear the violins now," she says with another laugh.
"We didn't have TV and quite often we didn't have the radio because it got cut off because we hadn't paid the licence bill.
"So we made our own fun. Mum and Dad were great storytellers and we'd make our own entertainment. We were always cracking jokes and there was a lot of laughter." Blethyn looked elsewhere and found inspiration with Jeannie.
"There are some people you meet along the way in show business who aren't quite making it but have that dogged determination to hang on in there," she explains. "In one way, I admire them for it but if it were me I'd probably get on and do something else."
Blethyn describes her entry into acting as "by default".
"I was a secretary for 10 years with British Rail. They had an amateur dramatic group entering a competition and one of the actors was sick and dropped out," Blethyn says. "They asked me to fill in with just one line. They said 'Please. We're desperate'.
"So I went on with it. I was dreadful and we didn't win but I liked the whole ambience of working in theatre, so I joined the group."
The group did a few three-act plays a year. Blethyn improved and suddenly people were telling her she could be a professional.
"I thought `Yeah, yeah, what an irresponsible thing to say. I'm not going to give up my good job to pursue a hobby'," she laughs.
"But the more people said it, I wondered if I could because I absolutely loved it. But I had no idea or hankering to be on TV or film. It was just to work in theatre.
"I applied for drama school and, miracle of miracles, I got in. If they'd said no, I doubt I'd have tried anywhere else. I'd have just counted my losses and tried something else.
"In a way, I admire some people you meet in show business who are ever optimistic that the phone will ring with that job. But there's a sadness as well."
Blethyn is returning to Australia in September and will visit Adelaide.
"I'll be doing a national tour of Alan Bennett's Talking Heads with Sigrid Thornton," she explains.
"I try to do theatre. I think all actors should try to do it every couple of years at least."
As for another Aussie film, she's not sure.
"I'm the worst person to ask about the Australian or British film industries or what it should do. If I knew how to make the industry work, I'd be a rich woman. I just do my bit. I do what I do and all the other bits I leave to people who do it better."
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