RE-MEETING BRYAN - 24 YEARS ON

Bryan Brown had always been one of those heroes you don’t grow out of— a rugged, unshakeable force of nature whose very presence in a film elevated it by at least 30 percent. Maybe 40 if he was playing a villain. Lt. Handcock in Breaker Morant? Untouchable. Pando in Two Hands? Australian cinema perfection. But it's not just the acting - there have been times he's carried the Australian film industry on his back as a producer and an industry advocate in Canberra, as well as throwing his weight behind tiny-budget projects from emerging directors. A few months ago, I got a chance to work with him on Darby and Joan. He played Jack Darby, a retired cop, and I was a grizzly mechanic who Darby thought had been up to no good. Working with him was a thrill, obviously, but the absolute joy came between takes—asking him questions, soaking up the stories he was generous enough to share. But that’s the thing with Brown—he’s always been like that. Even when I wasn’t working with him and I was just a rookie journalist, nervously sticking a tape recorder in his direction for a magazine piece in 2001. Below is that piece.

INTERVIEW WITH BRYAN BROWN - MAY 6, 2001.

Bryan Brown pauses in the doorway of Melbourne’s Young and Jackson hotel like a gunslinger sizing up a saloon. The drinkers in the public bar glance up from their form guides, eyebrows twitching reverently, and the whispering chorus starts: “Bry-brown, Bry-brown.” He’s all there—185cm of strong-jawed, Savile Row-suited Australian cinema royalty. If there were such a thing as a blue-blooded aristocracy among the nation’s leading men, Brown would be stationed at the barbie with Chips Rafferty, tongs in one hand, a cold one in the other. After taking a moment – as all heroes must – he swaggers inside. A 20-something Scandinavian woman runs up to him: "May I?" she says, waving her disposable camera. He poses. She blushes. A middle-aged Irish woman approaches with a serviette and felt-tipped pen. Behind the giggles, she has a lot of front: "My friend thinks you're gorgeous." Brown tells her that her friend has "very good taste."

I introduce myself. Brown stretches out his hand: "We met before?" We haven't. He grunts as if to say, "I'm sure we have, but I’m not going to make a big deal out of this." Bryan – I think I would’ve remembered? A beer cheers him up ("in a glass thanks"). And while the magazine’s photographer snaps away, I stand there minding his glass and passing it to him during breaks. Later, we retire to the upstairs bar to avoid attention, and Brown starts to unwind. He lounges back in his chair, stares into the middle distance and talks about the glory days of Australian cinema. Often, during moments of reflection, he'll make a statement and then repeat it as if trying it on for size before fully committing. On Graham Kennedy's early retirement: "Shame. SHAAAAME." On his own performance in Breaker Morant: "Hated myself. Haaaaaaated myself." And so it goes. Whatever his quirks, they’re his own. No one will every accuse him of having Hollywood affectations. He's an individualist – not a careerist ("Fuck career."). He hates precious Hollywood-types who need minders (he calls them "arsewipes"). And he’s appalled by colleagues who have someone sit with them during press interviews – ready to step in when the questions get difficult. Obviously, I take advantage of his good-will, and ask about his acceptance speech for best supporting actor at the 1999 AFI Awards. While picking up a gong for the role of origami-folding crime boss Pando in Two Hands, he read out a list of actors who had "not only contributed to Australian cinema but also to Australian identity." Absent from the list were Russell Crowe and Nicole Kidman. Minutes later, Crowe himself strode on stage to present an award: "Bryan, on behalf of Nicole Kidman and myself, we forgive you." Brown takes a breath and a sip of beer.

"What I said was – and no one ever seems to bring this up – is that I'd like to add to the list of actors whose names were not mentioned on the Saturday before at the opening of Fox Studios. So I didn’t mention Cate (Blanchett) or Nicole or Judy (Davis) or Geoffrey (Rush) because their names had already been mentioned. In fact, Cate came up to me afterwards and said, 'I'm so glad you said that.' Cate was smart enough to hear what I said – that I'd like to add to the names. Interesting isn't it how the soldiers run to the barricades. But that's life. If you've got a brain and you're going to be out there – you just can't keep being Mr Pose and Mr Smile. Sometimes you've got to say, 'I don't fuckin' like that and I'm going to tell people.' And, of course, you shove your head up there and half the people are going to try and knock it off."

Brown contemplates for a moment the people who made neither list. "Yahoo (Serious) – I forgot Yahoo," he says. "I rang him and said, 'Mate, I'm sorry I forgot to mention you.' I also left out John Hargreaves. I felt terrible about that. How could I do such a thing?"

There's another pause as we sip our beers. My eyes are on Brown as he stares wistfully onto Flinders Street. "When I look at the era I come from – there's not a lot of those guys doing it in a big way," says the 53-year-old. Why? "Dunno," he says. "Dunno. There are fewer parts, and a number of them have moved into other ways of making a living. Johnny Hargreaves is dead (from AIDS in 1996). Mel Gibson decided to stay in the US. And Kennedy. He was a great talent, Graham. I don't think he should have retired so early. He was absolutely sensational in Travelling North. He was about 45 when we did The Odd Angry Shot. He was funny, vulnerable, generous – bloody nice to be around. It wasn't long after that he gave everything away. He was becoming a bit of a hermit then. I guess he got scared. He didn't think he could go any further. Shame. Shaaaame."

Brown grew up in Panania in Sydney's west – not far from Paul Keating. While his mates were doing time for "nicking" radios, his piano-teacher mother would take him to the ballet. Brown says he can remember seeing Margot Fonteyn and Rudolf Nureyev in Swan Lake ("those bloody swans") – despite spending most of the show on the floor looking for empty bottles to exchange for cash. After leaving school, he sold insurance for five years – which drew him to the role of rogue insurance broker John Kreisky in the soon-to-be-released, Risk ("Every time you sell something – you're selling a bit of your soul"). Then came acting and the development of the most extensive resume in Australian film and television history. There have been all-time classics like The Chant of Jimmy Blacksmith, Breaker Morant, Newsfront, The Odd Angry Shot, Two Hands and A Town Like Alice, as well as films that came and went like Blood Oath and Dear Claudia. He also made a name for himself in Hollywood with Cocktail, Blame It On The Bellboy and Gorillas In The Mist, but found greater "satisfaction from telling Australian stories."

During his star turn in the profitable F/X franchise, he became close to its producer Dodi Al Fayed. Brown remembers going for beers with Al Fayed in New York and having a car full of bodyguards follow them down the street. The Harrods heir, he says, lived in constant fear of being assassinated or kidnapped. "He was a vulnerable man, the poor little rich boy. The whole movie thing was a bit of a whim. A lot of people took advantage of him because he could pick up the cheques. I was amazed to think he was involved with Di. Didn't think she was his type of girl at all. I was really saddened when I heard he died – in such bizarre circumstances, too. To know someone and to see them finish that way – it was just strange."

Moving onto his second beer – he asked that they arrive 30 minutes apart – Brown says he hopes the current generation of Australian "boys and girls" making it in Hollywood don't forget the industry that launched them. Hollywood, he warns, "sucks you", and young Australian actors hoping to go the Nicole Kidman route could be in for an unpleasant surprise. "I've never been one of these people who thinks the grass is greener," he says. "Because I know whatever you're looking at there's bound to be a whole lot of additional bullshit that goes with it. You wanna be Nicole and go through what she's going through right now? If you want the good things Nicole's got you've also got to put up with the bad. And let me tell you there's a whole lot of stuff going on that you know nothing about, that you might not want." Since he knows both parties, it would be remiss not to ask his opinion on the most talked-about Hollywood split since Richard Burton and Liz Taylor parted for the final time. "(Nicole's marriage with Tom Cruise) will one day seem to her like a funny dream – wherever she is, wherever her life takes her," he says. "I guess anyone can say that about any relationship they've had. But this one has been so heavily focused on, and then BOOM! Suddenly, it's gone. Suddenly, it's over. So, what did it all mean? I had a mate whose marriage broke up after 22 years and he said to me, 'What did it all mean?' And I said, 'Well, it meant the 22 years you had, they were real, they existed. Just because it ends doesn't mean it didn't exist.'"

Brown lives in Balmain overlooking Sydney Harbour with actor/director wife, Rachel Ward, and their three children. He insists he plays bad cop to the kids, who are used to seeing Dad grow moustaches for movies, go the "full Monty" for one of Mum's charities and sing Waltzing Matilda in the kitchen with Billy Thorpe and Jimmy Barnes. There seems to be a lot of passion in the Brown/Ward household – as well as a desire to make movies at all costs. Brown once did a "free" Northern Territory Water Council commercial while filming the low-budget Dead Heart just so "they'd lend me a couple of camels to finish a scene." Ward recently sat in the "spooky" cell of convicted backpacker murderer Ivan Milat for a week to make her award-winning short film, The Big House. Both have had their run-ins with critics. Ward has thrown a glass of wine into the face of the Sydney Morning Herald's Bob Evans, while Brown is often called to justify a performance or a movie choice. But few people are as harsh on Brown as he is on himself. While filming Breaker Morant he saw some unedited scenes and fell into deep depression. "I hated it. I looked at the rushes and I thought, 'I have got to get another job. Why did I grow the moustache? All I'm doing is dropping these lines and I look like such a whinger.' I just didn't like myself in it. I couldn't wait to get out the day it finished. "Then I saw the final cut and I thought I didn't look too bad. Then, other people said they really liked it and I thought – 'Really?' You don't see stuff other people see. You look at yourself and think, 'Jesus, I'm ugly.' And other people go, 'Ooooh, what a sharpy.' Or you think, 'I look like a dummy.' And other people go, 'Love that cynicism.' I felt the same way about Pando as I did about (Lt. Handcock) in Breaker. The reason being that both characters are really similar to me." It's a frank admission – but Brown doesn't seem to mind. Nor does he balk when I ask him if he remembers his famous Breaker limerick. "There was a young man from Australia/Who painted his arse like a dahlia/The colour was fine/Likewise the design/But the aroma, now that was a failure." Thanks Bryan. That was excellent. "Shit mate, you've got to keep it interesting. You just don't want to sit here trying to keep the fuckin' seat warm." And off he goes into the sunset in search of a cab – proud, upright and scowling. Bryan Brown – as iconic as a barbie and everlasting as Aerogard.