Articles 2003 - 2005

2/1/2003

NIDA INVITES APPLICATIONS FOR 2003

by Frank McKone

 http://members.optusnet.com.au/~frankmckone/2002-08-15nida2002.htm

What better invitation could you imagine? Until, maybe, you remember the tv makeover: backstage at NIDA seemed pretty daunting. And, of course, you can't forget that your invitation has about a 1% chance of getting you into the party. Is it really possible to get into NIDA? Two Canberrans are there now, so I asked them how they did it.

Just to begin with a downer for drama teachers, neither Alex O'Lachlan or Gordon Rymer beavered away at drama through high school and college. Gordon did all the right things, like study hard across the normal range of subjects, until he started to seriously worry his parents at the beginning of Year 12. Who said he could act? What about his nice career, as an accountant or something? Help!!

Well, Gordon found indeed that he wasn't a great actor, or likely ever to become one, but he became fascinated with the way theatre production works. So even more horrors - he became stage manager for the bloodthirsty story of Sweeney Todd with a collapsible barber's chair on a truck. In Semester 2, Year 12! Oh, what will become of him?

He's actually a calm and sensible lad who now praises the drama teacher who left him to face up to solving problems like what to do when the wheels literally fell off the truck, on which most of the set was built, as it was being shouldered on for final dress rehearsal. He took a year off after that, went travelling to Europe, worked as a dishwasher in a large hotel for 10-14 hour days, and thus proved to his parents that he was able to look after himself, and proved to himself that he could work the long hours that NIDA now demands of him. Only then did he take up the invitation to apply, built a set model with lighting, sound and costume design for A Midsummer Night's Dream (which he claims was "not very good") and wrote some 3000 words about why his design was eminently workable. Phew!

Now in Second Year, Gordon recently was deputy stage manager for NIDA's Third Year production of Country Music by Nick Enright, in which Alex O'Lachlan was a leading actor. Wheels falling off trucks was nothing, says Gordon, compared with a 4 hour long play being written in the wings, with pauses for writing lighting plots extending technical rehearsals over a whole week. Both Gordon and Alex seem to have reveled in the challenge.

But how did Alex get there, via a story which could be entitled, How Not To Get to NIDA? He was the bad boy of high school and college that many teachers would recognise. Actually, they won't because his name is not in the records, not just because he often wasn't in school (and never did drama past primary). Alex needed to escape a Canberra which did nothing for him before he changed his life, and his name.

Perhaps the first solid book he read was AB Facey's A Fortunate Life, when he was 19. Here he discovered a common spirit in touch with humanity, a kind of innocence, and a person of honesty who would not deceive another. Facey was a model for a new life, and as Alex travelled, also in Europe, he watched films with an ache which he finally recognised. He wanted to perform with the same commitment and honesty he now saw in so many great actors.

Back in Australia, but in vibrant Sydney, not the cold Canberra of old, he says he literally woke up one morning and knew he must apply for NIDA. They didn't invite him: he invited himself, at the age of 23. As soon as his real life began, commitment to the work has led to an avid interest in theatre history covered in essays which would surprise his earlier teachers. He told me he is an "instinctual actor - I feel my way through it" but very soon was explaining detailed techniques of characterisation. He seems to have just the right mix of method and emotion, and control of his life, for us to sincerely hope for professional success.

Alex is the one with the photo, but Gordon will be there in the backstage gloom, making sure all the calls are spot on. He didn't mind not having a photo, he said. That's not his role.

9/15/2004

Toronto's Cup Runneth Over

by Pam Grady

Source: http://filmstew.com/showArticle.aspx?ContentID=9673

At the halfway point, the Toronto Film Festival‘s main intersection is one of heady buzz, exclusive parties, oblivious hockey fans and a rising new Australian star.

Day Six of the Toronto International Film Festival dawns and a clearly anticipated favorite among the buyers and critics emerges with the industry screening of Alejandro Amenabar's The Sea Inside. Arriving straight from the Venice Film Festival, where it won a special jury prize, the Volpi Cup Best Actor award for star Javier Bardem, and the Young Cinema Award for Best International Film, this real-life drama about a quadriplegic's epic struggle to determine his own fate comes with its own pre-ordained buzz. Sure enough, Tuesday afternoon's screening proved so popular that many are turned away, with the festival adding another screening to the evening‘s slate. The second screening of The Sea Inside ends just after 11 p.m., in time for moviegoers to emerge from the Manulife Center to witness the Vanity Fair Magazine party across the street raging in full swing. Stars, filmmakers, the highly connected and their entourages make their way down the party's hot pink carpet under the glare of popping flash bulbs, klieg lights, and the avid gaze of the star struck gathered behind the barricades of a closed Bloor Street. And it's noisy, with a lot of whooping and hollering, the blare of car horns, and the trill of air horns. All this for a glossy magazine's party? But no sooner do pedestrians hit the corner of Bloor and Yonge than a new reality emerges. Silly upscale American rag! Foolish cineastes! All of us have obviously been sitting in darkened theaters for far too long.

This is Toronto. This is Canada and the national hockey team, hosting the World Cup and just beating the Finns 3-2 to capture its first title in 13 years. A  walk down Yonge is an adventure as cars, trucks (even a fire truck), skateboarders, bicyclists, and a crowd of more pedestrians join together, honking horns and high-fiving one another in a spontaneous parade. It's an impressive example of a community coming together in a common cause, although it is one that offers an emphatic reminder that life does exist outside of the movies. Nearly 24 hours earlier, a different kind of community joined together as actors Henry Thomas, Patrick Fugit, Isaiah Washington, Michael Shannon, and Nicki Lynn Aycox joined first-time feature director Alex Turner on stage at the Ryerson for the world premiere of Turner's Civil War-era horror film, Dead Birds. This Midnight Madness selection, an atmospheric, truly frightening chiller about the terrors that strike a gang of bank robbers who seek refuge at an isolated Alabama farm arrived at Toronto without distribution. With terrific performances and a nerve-racking story that has delighted audiences and critics alike, no one expects that situation to last long. Turner's cast is certainly doing its part to push the film as far as they can take it. After staying up until the wee hours the night before so that they could take the stage along with their director for a post-screening Q&A, the actors are out and about early the next morning, promoting work they all believe in. For Fugit, who just started shooting a new movie, the campus romantic comedy Bickford Schmeckler's Cool Ideas, immediately after wrapping a role in the Jeff Bridges-starring comedy The Moguls, his commitment to Dead Birds is evident as he spends a rare day off working to promote the film. "I really want to see this movie get out there, because for one, it's very well done, for how much money we had, it looks so amazing," Fugit explains. "Everybody's performance in it is strong, which is unusual in this genre. Also, it puts me out there in a different way, something I haven't done before, playing kind of the bad ass." Washington, too, expresses enthusiasm about this latest project and its director, as he comments, "It was nice to be in the trenches with him, and I'd like to see him do it again on a different level and hopefully be there." What impresses both actors is the level of suspense they found in watching the finished film, despite the fact that they knew exactly where the story was going and how it would end. Washington laughs that the first time his agent saw a rough cut, he jumped out of his seat, but he adds of his own reaction, "I was very tense and nervous and disturbed, and I'm in it!"

Fugit insists that most horror films lack the capacity to frighten him. "There's like three movies I can think of right now that did scare me," he says, naming The Changeling and two Japanese horror movies, The Eye and Dark Water. But now he adds a fourth to his canon with Dead Birds: "I could imagine that if I wasn't in the movie, it would probably scare the sh*t out of me." Surprisingly, for an actor with such impeccable indie credentials as Washington's, this year's visit to Toronto is his first to a film festival. It is not that he's lacked for invitations, but his work schedule has never allowed it before now. It's been a fantastic experience that has him already anticipating a possible visit to Sundance with Dead Birds in January. "There's beauty in the festivals, they give the opportunity for both the new and the old to shine,. he exclaims.

“I'm happy to be here and be a part of all this." Another newcomer to Toronto and a newbie to the movies in general is young Alex O'Lachlan. Remember the name; you'll be hearing it in the future. The 2002 graduate of Australia's National Institute of Dramatic Art has appeared in television roles in his native country, and he's set to appear in the U.S. in yet another Marvel comic adaptation, this one of Man Thing. He makes his film debut in the starring role of Jack, an out-of-towner who adapts to rural ways in the crowd-pleasing Oyster Farmer. The blue-eyed O'Lachlan remembers the thrill of reading filmmaker Anna Reeves' screenplay for the first time, "I opened up the script and started reading it, and I couldn't put it down. It's fantastic, the writing is so powerful and the characters are so strong and full, and it's such a beautiful story and such an important story, I think, for us, because of the way things are in the world at the moment.” “It's about love; it's about hope; and it's about family. I just went back to [my agent's] office and said, 'I've got to do this; get me this job!'" The whole experience has been a series of firsts for O'Lachlan, including flying to Toronto to watch the film with an audience. With the film making its world premiere here, this is the very first time he's ever seen himself on the big screen. He almost didn't make the trip, as he says, "I had a bunch of stuff going on back home, and I wasn't sure if I was invited. But I spoke to the guys and they said, 'No, you've gotta come! We'll fly you over!'" Now that he's here, a ubiquitous part of the back patio scene at the Hotel Intercontinental in his Roots sweatshirt as he meets and greets a seemingly endless wave of journalists, he enthuses, "I'm so glad I came. The people at this festival and in this city have been wonderful.”

“It's so relaxed, everyone's so chilled out., but at the same time, so enthusiastic about the work,” he continues. “It's been great. And some of the films have been great. I saw The Assassination of Richard Nixon last night and I got to hang out with those guys after it, what a group of talent we have here." O'Lachlan continues modestly, "I'm really starting to feel a part of it. As a young actor, I've got so much to learn and I'm so keen to learn. At the same time, I don't want to impose or ask too many questions. It's a weird thing. It's not that it's a clique-y industry, it's just that it's a full-on industry, and I'm just learning the ropes."

He's certainly starting in the right place, appearing in one of the films alongside The Sea Inside, Greg Araki's Mysterious Skin, Lukas Moodysson's A Hole in My Heart and Pawel Pawlikowski's My Summer of Love. As Oyster Farmer prepares for its March Australian premiere and searches for US and other foreign distribution, the extra attention can't hurt. It certainly helped Moodysson's hard-to-watch drama and Pawlikowski's romance, as both picked up US distribution at the festival, with Newmarket and Focus Features respectively.

2005

Alex O'Lachlan Unspools

by Luke Buckmaster

Source: 2005 In Film Australia interview

You may not recognise his name yet but promising new talent Alex O'Lachlan is a man to keep your eye on. In the middle of a frenzied day of publicity rounds O'Lachlan takes time out to chat to In Film about two of his feature films: the eloquent Australian drama Oyster Farmer and the upcoming fetish thriller Feed. Luke Buckmaster reports.

The name Alex O'Lachlan may not yet have the ring of familiarity of a Russel Crowe or a Tom Cruise but the fresh faced star of Oyster Farmer and the upcoming thriller Feed looks like he has a bright future ahead of him. Judging by the merits of O'Lachlan's performance in Oyster Farmer -- which signifies his first leading role in a future film -- his on-screen persona is an endearing presence: charming, laidback, gently rugged and with tender twangs of talent orbiting his smooth face and features.

When I meet O'Lachlan in the foyer of Toorak's ritzy Hotel Como he immediately apologises for being late. He'd just wolfed down a late lunch, he explained, with Australian acting legend Jack Thompson in the middle of a frenzied day of media interviews and publicity rounds. O'Lachlan started promotional gabble for Oyster Farmer early in the morning and will continue throughout the afternoon until he appears, presumably bushed and sleepy-eyed, on variety television program Rove Live in the evening. "I'll cap off my day with Rove when I'm nice and fresh," O'Lachlan jokes, "in front of 1.5 million viewers." The councillor in me advises him not to worry about it: grab an arvo nap, I chime, and you'll be as fresh as daisies come the evening. I make a mental note to tune into Rove and sure enough, eight hours later, O'Lachlan pulled off the kind of spit-polish sheen actors tend to excel at -- appearing well rested and smoothly groomed in front of the small screen audience.

Before we begin official proceedings O'Lachlan spots my Hunter S. Thompson t-shirt and pays his respects to the recently deceased gonzo journalist, quickly labelling it "a cracker." He himself is dressed in the unlikely combination of a pin-striped blazer loosened by a fleecy green hoody underneath. He speaks in succinct and unhurried measure, a casual drawl peppered every now and then by the odd spot of true-blue vernacular (Beauty! Cracker! **** storm!) that remains healthily intact despite LA now being the place of his permanent residence. Like so many of our promising young actors O'Lachlan went abroad in the preliminary stages of his career, driven by the ethic that "if there isn't any work around you have to make it yourself."

Written and directed by debut feature filmmaker Anna Reeves, who spent more than four years researching the film, Oyster Farmer takes a marketable concept -- fundamentally a location and an occupation -- and turns it into something of naturalness and beauty. O'Lachlan plays protagonist Jack Flange (he lovingly describes him as "the man with the unfortunate last name") who, for various personal reasons, takes up the peculiar occupation of oyster farming and encounters a crew of quirky misfits scattered around NSW's Hawkesberry River. Despite an obvious bias O'Lachlan is spot on in his assessment of the film and Reeves' direction: "I think what Anna has been able to do is capture the characters, the actors that she chose, the cinematographer that she chose, and most importantly the rhythms of the Australian people in the Australian bush, with a real warts-and-all honesty. Anna Reeves is a very clever one. She is going to go on and do some great, great things. I just know it. I know it in my heart. She's got the X factor and she's got the balls too."

One of the film's peripheral but memorable characters is Vietnam veteran Skippy, a gruff hermit pensively played by Jack Thompson who, I remind, O'Lachlan, is one of the great faces of Australian cinema. "Jack's an incredible man," he agrees. "When you're in a scene with Jack Thompson boy oh boy you know you're in a scene with Jack Thompson, because his honesty as an actor and his power as a man are so incredible. His body, his voice, his focus, his homework...These forces combine and he's a powerhouse. He's a powerhouse of a man and a powerhouse as an actor. It's magic working with him."

"He'll muck around with you all day," O'Lachlan continues. "He'll laugh and have a great time. But when it comes down to the work, that's what it's about, the work, and then there's no mucking about."

Due to the film's obscure location the shooting of Oyster Farmer presented a number of challengers. For starters almost every location used in the film was only accessible via water. I tell Alex that I have a mental image of a few dinted motor boats crammed full with cameras, boom mikes and equipment. "Actually that's a very accurate image," he says. "It was a **** fight. We were on a river that had a king tide of 2.6 metres or something obscene like that. (It was) the most enormous king tide and it would change in an hour. We shot a lot around oyster leases that are not in very much water so that when the tide drops the boat gets stuck in the mud, which only happened once, but it did happen and we were in the mud for like seven hours one day. Then it rained and I was just going "this is fucked!" The crew's waterproof equipment must have held out, however, because the end result pays dividends -- especially for a national film scene hungry for films as smoothly produced and performed as this one.

O'Lachlan's next project is a peculiar sounding thriller helmed by The Lawnmower Man director Brett Leonard and again starring himself and Jack Thompson. Feed was inspired by a documentary about men in the US who fatten up already obese women for sexual gratification. "It's a genre piece," O'Lachlan explains. "A thriller piece based on things that are happening right now. There are a lot of theories in there, a lot of social commentaries, stuff that we all put in. We're searching for distribution at the moment -- we made it off our own back and now we're trying to sell it. It's a really ballsy film." O'Lachlan speaks fondly of Brett Leonard, stopping just shy of calling him a deranged genius. "Brett is a mate of all of ours, the mad bastard that he is. He's very good at what he does."

When I ask whether the movie is "essentially about guys who feed fat chicks buckets of KFC," O'Lachlan erupts into howls of laughter. "Yeah," he admits. "But he's a bit more complex than that. My character is based on a man in a documentary, I won't say who it is obviously. But I found his mythology very very interesting and that was the basis of my character. I'm not saying I based my character on him but that got me going. I thought this is fascinating because I don't understand but I want to."

O'Lachlan enjoyed the tonal change between his characters in Oyster Farmer and Feed and relished the opportunity to demonstrate versatility. "Because we've made a thriller my character is the antagonist and he has to be dramatically interesting to take it to the nth degree," he explains. "But he is a sociopath. He feeds these already...really very fat women, and then films them and puts it on the internet for the sexual gratification of himself and other people who pay to go onto the site and witness it. That is actually what's happening right now. But he takes it a step further."

What exactly that step is, of course, none of my business.

2005

Source: The Movie Pages of Impact Internet Services & Wallis

Full review of The Oyster Farmer at http://www.impactservices.net.au/movies/oysterfarmer.htm

Excerpt:

Two of the films leading actors, David Field and Alex O'Lachlan, spent time on the river prior to the start of production.

"We hired a boat, found a little beach somewhere up the river and rolled out our swags. We went fishing, ate fresh fish, talked about the script," says O'Lachlan. "It was great. It is so peaceful on the river, the air is clean, there‘s wildlife and trees. It has its own little sub-climate and that has an interesting effect on you."

The opportunity to work with some of the Australian film industries biggest names wasn't missed by O'Lachlan, who makes his big screen debut in this film.

"When I looked around the set at the amazing actors I was working with -- Jack Thompson, Kerry Armstrong, Jim Norton, David Field, it sometimes didn‘t feel quite real," O'Lachlan recalls. "I feel very fortunate to have had the experience, every moment I listened intently and watched what they were doing. I had so much to learn and they were all so willing to teach."

And how did he feel? "I felt blessed,. he says.

So did he find anything in his character he could identify with? "The script looks at what it is like to be a man in this society. Jack is an Aussie bloke, he‘s a little bit ostentatious, a little bit obnoxious, a little bit cheeky, but he‘s sensitive as well," he notes. "Jack is really a city kid who ends up in the scrub for the first time in his life and, unexpectedly, finds a community and love."

The film's love interest [and a sizzling sex scene] is between O'Lachlan's character Jack and Pearl, played by another newcomer to a lead role, Diana Glenn.

"She‘s a lovely character because she dares to dream to be something a little bit more," Glenn said. "She‘s been waiting for something extraordinary to happen her whole life and when Jack comes along, it is the love affair and excitement that every girl ever wishes for."

June 16, 2005

Role a Real Pearler by Jonathon Moran

Source: news.com.au

ALEX O'Lachlan is touted as one of Australia's most talented up-and-coming actors but says he's "absolutely terrified" by the thought of fame.

The 28-year-old recently moved to Los Angeles to pursue a film career and is in Australia this week to promote his latest feature film, Oyster Farmer.

O'Lachlan has the lead role in the Australian film, playing the character of Jack Flange.

"Losing my anonymity in this world I think is something that I find terrifying," O'Lachlan said in Sydney today.

"I am a very private person. I have my life and I have my family, which mean the world to me."

But unfortunately for O'Lachlan, fame is something he must consider as part of the business.

"Fame, for all intents and purposes, is not something that I aspire to," he said.

"I certainly aspire to art. That is why I am involved in this craft.

"I love doing what I'm doing and I'm so grateful to be working."

Oyster Farmer marks the directorial debut of Anna Reeves. It stars feature film newcomer Diana Glenn alongside veterans Jack Thompson, David Field and Kerry Armstrong.

In it, Flange moves from Sydney to work in a small oyster-farming community on the Hawkesbury River.

The story follows Flange's story of trying to fit into the community where he develops a relationship with Pearl (Glenn) and a strong friendship with the local oyster farmers.

"The film moves at the pace of life on the Hawkesbury River," O'Lachlan, who has seen the film four times, said.

"It is an honest to life, romantic comedy. It is a fantastic actors piece."

One of the most difficult aspects of making the film was a love scene between Jack and Pearl, O'Lachlan said.

"There is nothing intimate about a sex scene at all," O'Lachlan said.

"You have got 30 people standing around and there is a camera between your legs and there are lights and make-up girls looking at your bum to make sure you haven't got too much shine.

"If I never did another one, that would be just fine."

O'Lachlan will take time out to spend with his family in Australia before heading back to Hollywood later this month. He has been auditioning for a series of major roles, along with supporting parts.

His rugged good looks mean that he is being compared to the likes of Mel Gibson, Russell Crowe and Heath Ledger.

"I am getting sent for the leading men's roles but I am just doing my best because there are so many leading men out there," he said.

Oyster Farmer, which screened as part of the Sydney International Film Festival this week, opens nationally on June 30.

June 23, 2005

World is his Oyster by Des Partridge

Source: The Courier Mail (Queensland, Australia)

Alex O'Lachlan hopes his first feature film will launch him into the big time, writes Des Partridge.

ACTOR Alex O'Lachlan has made a new home in Los Angeles, determined he won't return to the roles of waiter or bartender he's played for real in between acting jobs in Sydney.

The rugged 28-year-old, who is expected to create a buzz with female moviegoers in his feature debut in the joint Australian/UK film, Oyster Farmer, relocated to Los Angeles from Sydney's Coogee four months ago.

He is sharing a house in the Hollywood hills suburb of Laurel Canyon with his Oyster Farmer co-star, Diana Glenn, and her boyfriend, New Zealand actor Dean O'Gorman. O'Lachlan, who graduated from the National Institute of Dramatic Art in Sydney in 2002, said in Brisbane before appearing at a preview screening of Oyster Farmer: "I don't want to be mixing drinks in Sydney bars any more.

"Los Angeles is the mecca for everyone interested in film or television. I've had a manager in Los Angeles for the past three years, and I've been going back and forth. I've recently joined a management agency there," says O'Lachlan, who had roles in Blackjack and White Collar Blue on television.

"It's been tough in Sydney. Now I've decided I have to be there (Los Angeles) to chase the work.

"I really want to pursue my craft, and all the people you want to work with, directors, and writers, and actors, they're in Los Angeles.

"I've been doing at least one audition every week since I've been there, and something might come from one of those.

"It's the right place to be to practise my craft."

One audition that O'Lachlan hopes might bear fruit was for a role in a new movie for an Oscar- winning director, but he doesn't want to prejudice his chances by talking about it yet.

"But I can tell you, that's a role I really crave," he said.

O'Lachlan needed no introduction to the Hawkesbury River region where Oyster Farmer was made two years ago by a crew led by New Zealand-born, London-based Australian Film Television and Radio School graduate Anna Reeves, who won international festival awards with her short films.

"It's a secret little slice of paradise," says O'Lachlan, who made regular fishing trips to the Hawkesbury when he was growing up in Sydney.

Much of the film was shot around the idyllic Hawkesbury riverside settlement of Brooklyn.

In Oyster Farmer, O'Lachlan plays an itinerant 23-year-old who joins an oyster farming community, developing a bond with members of a family who've grown oysters for several generations.

O'Lachlan worked alongside well-known talents such as Kerry Armstrong, David Field and Jack Thompson, but it's a frank outdoor love scene with Secret Life of Us regular Diana Glenn that has provoked most discussion about Oyster Farmer at international film festivals, rivalling interest in the film's off-beat scenery.

The actor says he's seen the film four times on the festival circuit, but always leaves his seat when the sex scene, filmed on a mangrove-lined wooden jetty, is about to play.

"As an actor, you know you just have to do the scene. We were pretty uncomfortable, but fortunately I knew Diana before, and we joked our way through the hours it took to get it down. We looked after each other," says O'Lachlan, who admitted he had minor cuts to his knees from simulating sex on the ancient jetty over several "long and painful" hours. "If we didn't laugh about it, we would have been crying. Now I've started worrying because Oyster Farmer is going out on 22 screens internationally in July, and there'll be my naked bum again," he says.

He says it was tremendous experience to work with Thompson, whose late career revival includes a supporting role in the current arthouse release, The Assassination of Richard Nixon.

He and Thompson have shared festival platforms discussing Oyster Farmer, and since making the film, O'Lachlan has appeared in another film, Feed, produced by Thompson and his son, Patrick.

"When you act with inexperienced younger actors, there's a tension you don't have when you're working with someone like Jack. He makes you feel safe because he's there," he says.

"I knew that no matter what I did in the scenes we had together, he'd been watching my back."

June 28, 2005

Alex's Pearls of Wisdom

Source: The Canberra Times Former Canberran

Alex O'Lachlan, 28, says that when he received the script for the feature film Oyster Farmer, he knew nothing about it. 

He didn't even read the script, by writer-director Anna Reeves, for some time, but when he did, "I read it twice - it was such a cracker".

"It was effortless, full of truth about what I knew Australian people to be like. They were true, full, comprehensive characters that I could care about immediately." In Oyster Farmer, which will be released on Thursday, O'Lachlan plays Jack Flange, a young Sydney man whose sister is recovering from a car accident in a private hospital near the Hawksbury River. Desperate for money to pay her bills, he robs the Sydney Fish Markets, posts the cash to himself upriver and waits for it to arrive.

Meanwhile, he works for oyster farmer Brownie (David Field) and gets to know the people, relationships and culture of the district. Among the locals are Brownie's estranged wife Trish (Kerry Armstrong), who is successfully working on a rival oysterman's lease, and Vietnam veteran Skippy (Jack Thompson), as well as Pearl (Diana Glenn), with whom Jack falls in love.

In preparing for the role, O'Lachlan and Field went to stay in the Hawksbury River district before filming began, to find out about the oyster industry.

"It's hot, smelly work ... I wanted to see what it was like to grow oysters, how long it took, what they had to go through to get the oysters to market so they end up in the penthouse suite of some fancy hotel." A particular challenge for him was a sex scene with Glenn, also in her first major film role.

"It was very exposing, in more ways than one," he says.

Fortunately, the crew was professional and he's good friends with Glenn, so it went as smoothly as could be expected.

As for Reeves, O'Lachlan is full of praise for the writer-director, describing her as "a genius" and "a very strong woman who's very clear about what she wants".

O'Lachlan says he grew up moving between his mother in Canberra and father in Sydney.

"Canberra was a strange experience for me," he says. "I never felt at home in Canberra." He says there was no possibility of anonymity and he felt more at home in Sydney: "You could disappear." He struggled at school, leaving before he was 15. He had trouble reading and later discovered he had been suffering from an undiagnosed case of ADD, or attention deficit disorder. Academia was not where he his life was at the time.

"As a young'un, I just wanted to run to the world," he says.

One sign that pointed to his future was a play he appeared in while at primary school, singing Simply Irresistible, and he remembers the audience applause and laughter as if it were yesterday, and the great feeling he had entertaining people.

"I let it go for a long time, I didn't think I was good enough," he says. When he left school, he worked in a variety of fields, from building to hospitality -"many, many, many things" -and travelled, fulfilling a need to see in three dimensions what he had only seen on television.

"I lived a life I could never see in Canberra," he says. "In Yugoslavia, I threw up my arms and danced." Back in Australia, in his early 20s, "A mate suggested to me, 'You're a show-off, think about giving [acting] a nudge'." He decided to try and found work as an extra and in a few commercials, but realised his limitations and needed training. He auditioned for the National Institute of Dramatic Art (NIDA) and entered it at the age of 23. The old problems with institutions resurfaced, and he found his first year there very challenging.

"I've always been a wild card -always have been, always will be." Particularly difficult was the constant feeling of being under a microscope and judged as a performer, and he, like every actor, was frequently rejected for roles.

"You're told, 'You shouldn't take it personally' but what you're being told as an actor when you audition and you don't get the role is specifically: 'not you, this role'." He managed to settle in, and since graduating three years ago his work has included the telemovie Blackjack and the mini-series Mary Bryant -the latter giving him practice in accent work. It was also where he met David Field.

In his first leading role, it is hard not to see something of O'Lachlan in the character of Jack Flange: a young man trying to find his way in the world, to work out where he belongs and what he wants.

O'Lachlan is certainly proactive when his career is concerned. With several others, including Jack Thompson and director Brett Leonard, he formed Honour Bright Productions, and stars in its upcoming film Feed, a very different film to Oyster Farmer, about sexual subcultures.

Four months ago he moved to Los Angeles to give Hollywood a crack and he's landed an agent. Like any actor, he's not sure what is coming up, but he's working at it, and in the meantime, he says, "I do my meditation, play my music, and keep my head".

June 30, 2005

The World is Her Oyster

Source: www.theage.com.au

In her latest role as an oyster farmer's partner, Kerry Armstrong is as bewitching as ever. She brings all her worldliness and inquisitiveness to a "discussion" with Tim Hunter.

Kerry Armstrong started out as a TV weather girl in the 1970s. Since then she's managed to fill her life with many things: TV roles here and in the US, film roles, a best-selling book, two AFI awards, a Logie and an IF award, and three sons. Her current partner was her first boyfriend, and is now back for good. She lives in St Kilda. And she's also managed to collect a reputation for being determined and outspoken, and a little odd.

There's plenty to talk about just there, as we settle down to chat, but she's much more interested in something else. "Tell me about you," she starts. "First of all I need to know about you, where you started, and why."

Armstrong is a beguiling woman; strong, confident, with a self-possession that is incredibly attractive. Fellow actor Alex O'Lachlan, who stars with Armstrong in her latest film, Oyster Farmer, calls her "bewitching".

Put simply, she has presence, and once her gaze has locked yours, there's no looking away. You can't, and the list of questions and planned notes go out the window.

This is not an interview; it's a discussion, and Armstrong wouldn't have it any other way." Kerry is an easy person to trust," says O'Lachlan.

It's surprising in some ways that her first TV gig was as a weather girl, and despite roles in subsequent TV shows, ranging from The Sullivans, Skyways and Prisoner, through to Dynasty, her views on celebrity are strong and clear. She's concerned about the cult of the celebrity, and the effect that has on the girls who idolise them, and believes that often the celebrity tag is thrown around far too easily."

No one has ever asked anyone in the public eye if the tag celebrity fits," she says. "It doesn't fit me, not even one iota. It's really creepy. It's like a vine that pervades, and you have to work out whether you cut yourself out from it, or just take heart, put roots down and stand there, waiting until it goes away, or wondering if it ever will."

Armstrong feels strongly about believing in ourselves as humans, and in each other."

Bullshitting is in fashion, feigning interest is in fashion, but believing people seems to have gone out the window. We've got no culture unless we ballast the people right next to us, and not look over their shoulder at someone else.

We've got a nation of people talking about everybody else."

Tell me your story. I want to know about you. I don't want you to tell me about these other people; it's gossip, secondhand."

Armstrong discovered that after working in the US and building up a large body of work, she came back to Australia and found herself "tested". It took five years for this to mean something here.

"I had to wait for the rumour of Kerry Armstrong to catch up, and then I was allowed in. Now that's creepy."

She also believes that the Australian film industry has been spending far too much time not telling its own stories, but looking to the US. "I think the saddest thing is that to get a film up without an American star is very difficult. On a good day, it's the world stage, and we're having a wonderful cultural exchange. On a very bad day, there are some great female film roles going to US actors. We're constantly undervaluing ourselves. We've sold out, and if we don't celebrate what we've got, we're not celebrating who we are, and so there's no growth. We're at the end of that, and we can start telling stories again that are not ideas of what we think we should do."

And that's where Oyster Farmer, comes into the picture. Written and directed by a British woman, Anna Reeves, it's about an oyster farming community on the Hawkesbury River on Sydney's outskirts.

Armstrong plays Trish, a woman reputed to have a magic touch with oysters.

"What's interesting about Anna Reeves is her enthusiasm. She was wanting to make a film about the lyricism and heart and comedy and beauty of Australia. And that's what she did."

As Armstrong talks about her experiences while filming on the Hawkesbury, about learning how to shuck oysters, and the faith the local oyster farmers had in her to be able to not only play the part, but be an oyster farmer, she sidetracks herself to talk about the plight of the Hawkesbury, recently hit by the devastating QX virus. It's typical of Armstrong to be more interested in talking about bigger issues than herself.

Reeves wrote the part of Trish with Armstrong in mind.

" I only knew Kerry by her work," she says, "and was particularly impressed by her performance in Lantana.

There had to be elements of a Mrs Robinson character to Trish, so I was looking for an actor who had enough femme fatale to her while being able to convincingly play an oyster farmer's wife who does hard physical labour. Kerry carries it off with aplomb."

Her most memorable scene is with the film's lead character, Jack, played by O'Lachlan, and is set on board a boat, where Trish cleans up some nasty scratches Jack has received. He has to undress in front of her, and there's plenty of sexual tension.

O'Lachlan, like Reeves, only knew Armstrong by reputation, and was both excited and nervous about working with her, and not in small part due to the scene on the boat.

" Kerry is such an incredible actor, and a powerful woman, and as a young man, I have a very healthy respectful fear of women, especially when they're playing a role like this. Kerry has a unique way of acting; she's got the reins and she's the boss, and I realised that was happening, and I followed her lead.

" She works at a level of excellence all the time, but there's also an unpredictability about her which I really enjoyed, and kept the scene exciting, and this was captured on celluloid."

Armstrong tells how it was just her and O'Lachlan and the camera. It was remarkably intimate.

"What kicked in was Trish's authenticity, and the deeper I got into the scene as Trish, the more frightened Jack became. What you see on screen is a moment - and it's happening to me as a woman - when you come together in a way that's either intellectual or spiritual, and it's like a harp, just one note.

" What I'm finding as a woman in my 40s is that I like that note. When you're younger, it's like Pan's flute, and in this scene, I heard this note; not a bass note, more like a Middle C, and it's to do with strength, authenticity and sexuality."

So what is it that Armstrong looks for in a script? Is it that chord?

"I just know. I knew it with Heather Jelly (SeaChange), with Sonja (Lantana) and Trish. It's about authenticity; it's instinctual. I believe their story and can't wait to tell it. You know who they are, and you know you get it right when you know when they're lying to themselves. I really like that, and knew that with Sonja."

It was the role of Sonja in Ray Lawrence's 2001 film Lantana opposite Anthony LaPaglia that earned Armstrong one of her AFI awards, and it was Armstrong who delivered the film's most poignant moment, as Sonja pauses before answering her therapist's question, "Do you still love him?".

" That bloody pause! I couldn't reply. Ray said, 'What were you doing?' And I said, `I didn't remember what my answer was. If I knew what I was going to say, that would be acting.' I truly had no idea of what the line was, and luckily it was right, but I had no idea."

There's no rest for her, though.

She begins shooting a new film Razzle Dazzle, about stage mothers, in a few weeks, and she's finishing her second book, Fool on the Hill, but her greatest passion is her children. "They're showing me every day that happiness is the beall and end-all. These boys are lit from within, so it's making sure they know they're everything they need to be, and finding out how to empower them."

Reeves' lasting impression of Armstrong is of her devotion to her children. "It's her deep love for her boys, and also Kerry's sense of humour and lust for life. If Kerry lived in France she'd be in at least three films a year."

"You never really know Kerry," says O'Lachlan. "She's very mysterious, she's quite extroverted but also introverted. It sounds paradoxical, but it's the truth. I'd work with her any day. One thing I learned from Kerry is that you're in control as the actor. You can drive the scene to where it's going to go; you need to bring your truth to it. She's bewitching."

July 27, 2005

ALEX ARRIVES AT LAST

Source: Guardian Messenger (Australia)

Alex O'Lachlan's arrival as a new face in Australian has been somewhat delayed.

The star of writer/director Anna Reeves' Oyster Farmer has been waiting quite a while for his debut lead role to be seen.

"Actually, we shot it two years ago," Alex says.

"They had it in the can for a little while so I'm glad they're bringing it out."

Alex points out that "you're only as good as your last job" in show business, so it's been a little frustrating to have been the central character in a feature film without anyone knowing.

"It has been frustrating for a number of reasons.

"I look at it now, and it's only two years ago, but my work has changed quite a lot. When I look at the film now it looks like my younger work.

"I feel like I have more weight in my work today. But there is something timeless about the piece as well."

He had already appeared in US action movie Manthing and has since filmed mini-series Mary Bryant, due to be screened on Channel 10 in August.

Oyster Farmer also stars Kerry Armstrong, Dave Field, Diana Glenn and British veteran Jim Norton, but the real honour for Alex was sharing the screen with Jack Thompson.

"What a way to kickstart your career, eh? To say it was an honour and all that stuff is obvious, of course it is, but it's more than that.

"The same goes for Dave and Kerry, but Jack, in particular, has been a hero of mine for many years and an Australia icon to all of us." Another star of the film is the location, the landscape of the Hawkesbury River, only four hours north of Sydney.

"When you have a location like that . . . half your work's done. All you have to do is be there.

"The more you spend in the surrounding the more they permeate your being. It's an environment that soaks into your bones, and you can't get it out."

August 7, 2005

Alex O'Lachlan Confirms Screentest

Australian actor Alex O'Lachlan confirms his James Bond screentest and news on the role is expected within 20 days... 

Australian actor Alex O'Lachlan has confirmed earlier reports that he has screentested for the role of James Bond and is one of the "final four" candidates.

28 year-old O'Lachlan could be following in the footsteps of fellow countryman George Lazenby and become the second 007 from down under, but only if he beats off competitors Goran Visnjic, Henry Cavill and Ewan Stewart.

Word first broke of the "final four" casting back on 24th July, when British media reports named the quadruplet of hopeful actors who had performed final screentests for the role.

"I'm spinning out of my brain about it," the 28-year-old star of Oyster Farmer told The Daily Telegraph.

"I flew to London, stayed on Piccadilly and was looked after beautifully. [I was] fitted out at Hugo Boss for a tuxedo, had my hair cut and filmed two scenes."

As MI6 reported last month, the screentests took place at Pinewood Studios under the watchful eye of the producers and director Michael Campbell. British soap opera actress Camilla Power took the place of a Bond girl during the scenes, one of which is expected to be the "From Russia With Love" seduction scene where Tatiana is waiting for Bond in his bed.

"Picture it. Picture it!" O'Lachlan laughed. "It's James Bond, need I say any more? The reality is I may not get the role, which is the conundrum for all actors, but at the end of the day, I'm incredibly grateful just to be considered. People's ears **** up and they do take me a lot more seriously here now."

O'Lachlan told the paper that he expects to hear from the producers within the next 20 days.

Croatian "ER" actor Goran Visnjic is the current fan favourite to take up the 007 mantle, but controversy has ensued over the prospect of a non-British actor playing James Bond.

August 20, 2005

The World Really is His Oyster

Source: The Cairns Post/The Cairns Sun (Australia)

It s no surprise these days to find that just when an actor makes a name for himself with the Australian public, he‘s already packed up and moved to LA.

Alex O'Lachlan, star of the new film Oyster Farmer, is no different.

"My experience is that there's f---all work here," the 28-year-old says on a brief visit home to promote the movie.

"And to pay your mortgage, or to pay just to live and to feed your kids, to support your partner and support yourself, you have to work.

"I think an actor gets to the stage where he goes: 'Well I'd really like to make a living as an actor instead of waiting on tables or cleaning toilets or whatever'.

"So if your passion is to pursue that, you sometimes have to go overseas."

O'Lachlan, who appeared in White Collar Blue and Black Jack before Oyster Farmer is hesitant to talk about the sorry state of the Australian film industry because he says he's not privy to meetings where significant issues such as funding are decided.

"Over the past few years, I've constantly heard people in the industry say it's going to be fine, and I hope it is, but it's scary what's happening and it's scary what's not happening," he says.

"And I've been questioned by younger actors about my motivation, getting this sort of, 'You should be staying here'," he says.

"I don't give a f---. I'm a human as well. I can tell human stories. I don't care if it's in an American accent, an Irish accent or a Lithuanian accent. What difference does it make?"

Though he's now busy doing the LA audition shuffle, the NIDA graduate is also doing his bit to get the ball rolling back home.

He and Oyster Farmer co-star Jack Thompson have started their own production company and have already wrapped their first feature.

"Yeah, can't get rid of him," O'Lachlan jokes of his relationship with the veteran Thompson.

"We've done three films together, the last one called Feed. The inception of that film was in my lounge room with Jack and his son, Pat, and an American director who now lives here, Brett Leonard.

"Myself and Jack have become great mates. We realised that what we want for the industry and what we think movies should be about was the same."

Feed, due out next year, is a dark story of sexual perversion.

The low-key Oyster Farmer is at the other end of the spectrum - a gentle story of a runaway city lad who takes a job on the Hawkesbury River and whose life changes as he mingles with the eccentric characters along the river's banks.

With David Field and Kerry Armstrong also in the cast, he was in experienced company.

"You feel so safe as a young actor with those people around you," he says. "They will actually pull you aside and word you up on things, so I got a lot of guidance."

November 2, 2005

A Gang of Four has Set up a Film Production Company to get away from the Hollywood System

by Sophie Tedmanson

Source: The Australian

Jack Thompson is sitting on a wooden step in the small, mustard-coloured courtyard of his home in Sydney's eastern suburbs. The veteran actor with more than 40 films to his credit, from the Australian classic Breaker Morant (1980) to last year's American drama The Assassination of Richard Nixon, sits quietly, listening intently. Every so often he thoughtfully strokes his greying beard.

Thompson may be the most famous person in the vicinity and patriarch of the small group of people who have gathered at his home, but for once he is not the centre of attention. Instead, all eyes are on burly, fast-talking American film director Brett Leonard, who is explaining the magic that happens when a film is made with the right mix of people. "The film business is a difficult business at the best of times: there is no holy alliance between art and commerce, so you're often dealing with people coming together with a lot of varying points of view," he says, leaning forward to emphasise his point.

"The great thing is, if you can bring 'honour bright' to that, then it can actually be a tremendously positive experience. It doesn't matter what film you're making, it's really about that magic, when the people making that film are all moving in the same direction and have that bond. You can't force it, you can only make it happen by bringing the right people in."

Thompson grins. "Hear, hear," he says in his deep, honeyed voice as his eldest son, Patrick, and actor Alex O'Lachlan nod in agreement. This meeting is all about honour bright, meaning honour among mates. Thompson chose it as the name for the production company he has set up with Patrick Thompson, O'Lachlan and Leonard.

"Jack named it that because it's how we feel about each other," his son explains. "It's a very old Australian phrase that we feel is representative of us as a group of friends. We feel we have honour bright."

Leonard, best known as director of 1992's sci-fi thriller The Lawnmower Man, met the Thompsons through Russell Crowe. Later, they were cast with O'Lachlan in Man-Thing, directed by Leonard and based on a Marvel Comics character.

Although Man-Thing went straight to DVD, it helped pave the way for Honour Bright Productions, formed when Patrick Thompson and O'Lachlan came up with the idea for a film.

"Russell, Jack, Brett, Alex and I have always discussed how good it would be to have a group of us making movies," says the younger Thompson. "You always want to keep making movies, but as an actor or director or producer you often have to wait until the next project comes along.

"So Alex and I came up with the idea for a film and approached Brett as a sounding board. And he said: 'Let's do it."'

Patrick Thompson, 36, has the muscular physique that his father did as a younger man, around the time of 1975's Sunday Too Far Away. They have the same big personality and guffawing laugh.

Patrick Thompson grew up in the world of films. He has worked on movies in front of the camera and behind it as a set builder (he is a carpenter by trade and has appeared as a builder on the home renovation television shows Auction Squad and Ground Force); he also has appeared in plenty of commercials.

It was at Patrick Thompson's house in the Blue Mountains, west of Sydney, earlier this year that he, O'Lachlan and Leonard workshopped the script for Feed, HBP's debut production. The three spent the weekend watching dark movies such as Se7en, The Silence of the Lambs and 8mm to find the right tone for Feed, a psycho-sexual thriller about a cyber crime investigator searching for a man with a fetish for overweight women. The depraved man feeds his victims until they die and broadcasts his crimes on the internet. (The idea came from the disturbing BBC documentary Fat Girls and Feeders).

With Leonard directing, O'Lachlan plays the "feeder", Patrick Thompson is the detective and Jack Thompson is his police superior. Friends were hired as cast and crew for the shoot in Sydney earlier this year. Gabby Millgate (best known for uttering the "You're terrible, Muriel" line in Muriel's Wedding) plays the victim, wearing a startlingly lifelike prosthetic fat suit.

Half the $1 million budget came from Becker Entertainment, the rest from private investors, including the main cast. It was Jack Thompson's first time as a producer and he says it has been one of his most memorable working experiences, especially because of working with his son.

"It's certainly one of the best things I've ever done, despite the fact that I was silly enough to invest money in it," he says, to the amusement of the others. "It was great because the film had its own real impetus, and that kind of energy is what was there for me in Sunday Too Far Away and in Breaker Morant ... If you have that element there already, that's something you can never pay for."

Feed was screened at the Fantasy Film festival in Nuremberg, Germany, in July. A German fan who posted a comment on the Internet Movie Database called it "disgusting, vulgar and fascinating". Last month it screened at Paris's L'etrange Festival, which also showcases fantasy films.

The film has been sold to Germany, Denmark, South Korea and Britain, where it will be released in cinemas this month. Becker, which is handling the sales, is in negotiations with Australian distributors.

With the film yet to open in mainstream cinemas, its creators have moved on to other projects. Leonard is in Lithuania directing Highlander 5; Jack Thompson is in Los Angeles shooting A Good German alongside Cate Blanchett and George Clooney; O'Lachlan -- who was screen- tested for the role of James Bond, but lost out to British actor Daniel Craig -- is filming The Invisible in Canada; and Patrick Thompson is in Sydney, "keeping the home fires burning".

Although Crowe is not involved in HBP, they have a new partner in Peter Sprowles, a successful advertising producer with his own production company, Sprowles Films International. The two companies now share office space in Annandale in Sydney's inner west.

HBP has several other projects in the works, including an Australian period piece co-written by Jack Thompson and Leonard, and a contemporary political thriller with the working title of Headless.

Leonard says he is enjoying creating the magic away from Hollywood, in Australia, which attracts him because of its "aggressively egalitarian" approach to film-making.

"You can't capture lightning in a bottle," he says. "But you can create an environment where you, as primary collaborators in a film-making team, can be nurtured in a way that gives you better odds at the magic happening. And that's really what Honour Bright Productions is going to be, that's what we're doing, and we're going to continue to do it."

November 3, 2005

What's in a Name

Source: Daily Telegraph (Sydney, Australia)

Yes, that was the same Alex O'Lachlan (pictured) credited as Alex O'Loughlin in the miniseries The True Story Of Mary Bryant this week on Ten. The Sydney actor and star of the slow-burn hit Oyster Farmer has his agent currently negotiating work for him under two names. After being credited in Oyster Farmer, Man-Thing and Blackjack, O'Lachlan has decided to change his name to O'Loughlin. Apparently there is a variant in his family name from a few years back and he now prefers the latter name, although it's confusing matters for visa officials in the US, where he's currently working. After making the shortlist for the role of James Bond and flying to London for extensive auditions, O'Loughlin has just begun filming Invisible for David S. Goyer, the writer of Batman Begins. He stars opposite Marcia Gay Harden and War Of The Worlds' Justin Chatwin in the thriller.