Not just one of the boys
By Rosemarie Milsom
Sun Herald
He's an unlikely pin-up who prefers watching the Swans to
strolling down red carpets. So why is David Wenham such a bankable talent?
Earlier this year, David Wenham was sitting by himself in a
Only the week before, the actor had been on stage at
We're seated in Morgans, a low-key
Darlinghurst cafe, on an overcast
Monday afternoon when Wenham describes the "missed opportunity". And
it's not at all what I expected. Having watched him dominate the screen with
his tightly coiled portrayal of suburban killer Brett Sprague in the
controversial film The Boys, and then as the uninhibited Josh, a laid-back
photographer who is naked throughout most of Jonathan Teplitzky's
upbeat comedy Better than Sex, it's hard to imagine Wenham lacking in
confidence. And, of course, there's Diver Dan, the laconic fisherman who captured
the affection of Laura (Sigrid Thornton) and the hearts of two million viewers
with his salty charm in the ABC drama SeaChange.
"I can be very shy," Wenham admits, sipping a
glass of mineral water. "Throw me in a group of people I don't know and I'm
the person quivering in the corner or wanting to. I really wish I could
approach people but I have a constant fear that I'll have nothing to say, that
I'm not interesting enough. It's one of my character flaws."
Self-deprecating, quietly spoken and intensely private,
Wenham eschews red-carpet parades, preferring to stroll around the parks near
his inner-city apartment with his long-time girlfriend Kate Agnew, an actor and
yoga instructor. "I was amused to read twice this year that I'm apparently
an A-list person, but I've only been to two opening nights this year and they
happened to be for films I was in!" he says with mock amazement.
He is far more reserved than flamboyant and there's a
distinct absence of actorly affectation. There are
moments during the two-hour interview when he pauses more than he speaks. And
while he seems self-conscious, he manages to draw you in with a kind of
understated charm. He's an unlikely pin-up whose unconventional looks - closely
trimmed ginger beard, smallish frame, toothy grin - and transformative ability
set him apart from the pack.
When we first meet earlier in the day at the office of
publicist Maria Farmer, Wenham is scanning the sport pages for the weekend AFL
match reports. He's in good spirits because his beloved Swans (he's been a club
member for a decade) clawed their way to a 21-point victory against Hawthorn in
His is dressed in an elegant black Gucci suit on loan from
the fashion house for the recent Melbourne International Film Festival at which
his soon to be released thriller, The Bank, had its world premiere. He doesn't
intend to prance around town in the expensive suit - it's just for the photo
shoot - and has brought a change of clothes.
The women in the office fuss over his stylishly dishevelled shock of strawberry blonde hair, calling him by
his childhood nickname, "Daisy". There's something slightly camp
about the scene played out in the narrow corridor. "We've had another
request for you to do an interview with FHM, what do you think?" asks
Farmer, seated in front of her computer. "Ummm,
I'm not sure if it's my thing," offers Wenham. "I don't have silicone
breasts."
He's eager to get the photos out of the way so he can relax,
though it's clear he isn't an enormous fan of interviews. In fact, Wenham has
been noticeably absent from press reports for some time. But all that is about
to change in light of the gruelling schedule he
subjected himself to in the past couple of years. In rapid succession, he has
worked on Better than Sex, Russian Doll, Moulin Rouge,
Dust, The Bank and the final two episodes of the Lord of the Rings trilogy, to
be released in 2002 and 2003. He is cast as the heroic Faramir.
Dust, a "Balkan western about revenge and
redemption" was filmed last year in heatwave
conditions in
And then there will be the long-awaited release later this
year/early next year of Paul Cox's Molokai - an epic about the legendary leper
priest Father Damien played by Wenham in which he appears alongside Peter
O'Toole, Derek Jacobi, Leo McKern,
Sam Neill and Kris Kristofferson.
It's little wonder that since completing the Lord of the
Rings shoot in the south island of
The 35-year-old is happiest when he is working, though each
time he accepts a role, he endures bouts of self- doubt. "I don't think I
can do it. I think I'm not up to it. It's a good thing in a way because it
forces you to think of a solution. It forces you to find a way into the
role." When he "gets it right", he enjoys a "very long
exhalation of breath . . . aahhh . . . with a smile
at the end."
Friends and colleagues talk of his professionalism and
integrity. "He doesn't let work consume him," says Robert Connolly, a
long-time friend who produced The Boys and directed The Bank. "He is
protective of his private life and is selective about the roles he takes on. He
works hard to create a balance. When you look at the range of roles he has
accepted, you get a sense of what interests him and it isn't fame and
fortune."
There's also a sense that behind his calm, straightforward
exterior is an intensity, an intellectual energy. It's
there in his piercing, pale blue eyes and his economic, yet compelling screen
and stage presence. "I do have the potential to be extremely intense, it depends on where I am. I can get very worked up,
particularly when it comes to what I do, but, you know, I'm not like that all
the time. I have mellowed quite a bit, but I still have the potential for the
odd explosion," he says, grinning.
Blue Mountains-based artist Adam Cullen, whose bold portrait
of Wenham won last year's coveted Archibald Prize,
says his friend "can really dig into the darkest areas of his head".
"There's a kind of tension between his straightforwardness and something
more complex that holds your attention. So much of his appeal on the screen is
the way he occupies a lot of emotional space without excess. He doesn't even
need to speak."
Wenham was born in 1965, the youngest of seven children, and
grew up in the inner west. He first started acting as a teenager at
His mother wasn't impressed and urged him to stay in his job
as an insurance clerk but Wenham enrolled in the first intake at Theatre Nepean
at the
One of those "little plays" was Gordon Graham's
The Boys, in which Wenham was cast as Brett Sprague in 1991. It was a role that
stayed with him until the late '90s when he helped form a production company to
transform the fringe play into the critically acclaimed film. By then, he had a
long list of theatre credits to his name, including Hamlet and The Tempest for
Company B at
"I consider myself really lucky that I've been able to
make a career out of something I absolutely love and that I've been able to
sustain an existence. I'm always aware that the nature of this business is
always precarious and it could all go away tomorrow." What would he be
doing if he hadn't found acting? "I don't spend much time thinking about
that," he says, eyes lowered in the direction of his calamari. "It
could be a depressing inner monologue, I think, because God only knows where I
would have ended up. I have no skills."
Certainly, he struggles with a life that many would envy.
He's a public figure who would rather let his work speak for itself. There's the stylish suits he can't wait to get out of and
invitations to openings he selectively attends. His only public displays of
success are a silver Alfa Romeo and a well-worn
passport. "I don't earn an enormous amount of money," he says,
without even a hint of defensiveness. "I live a very modest life in a
simple apartment. I have no desire to own more than one place of abode, I don't
need a holiday house, I don't need a boat. I have one
car, I don't need two. In fact, I don't really need much at all. My greatest
extravagance is eating out, which I do all the time and if I can continue doing
that, I'll be a very happy person."
He doesn't yearn for the kind of
"I've been to some pretty whoop-de-do parties overseas
but to spend your whole life like that is a bit of a worry. I feel for people
in those situations because I can understand how hard it must be to hold on to
some sense of normality."
It would be fair to say that until Wenham took to the screen
as Diver Dan, he didn't need to worry about the challenges of widespread fame.
Suddenly, he was the romantic lead in a much-loved weekly drama that sent ABC
ratings skyrocketing. "Initially, I was frightened by the idea of a
regular gig on TV and was reticent to do it but I'm so glad I did," he
says now. "It was a gift of a character. You're more than halfway there
when you're working with scripts that are so wonderfully constructed."
How has he coped with the sex symbol label? ". . . (long pause) . . . I don't see myself as anything
extraordinary. I see myself as relatively average and I think Mr and Mrs Joe Public recognise that as well."
If Mr and Mrs
Joe Public appreciated his easygoing charm in SeaChange,
they're going to cheer in response to his new film, The Bank, though not
necessarily in support of Wenham's character. Conceived three years ago, the
film is about ethics and greed. "I remember when we talked about making it, people said it would be dated by the time it made it to
the screen. It was believed that the banks would have cleaned up their act.
But, of course, that's not the case," says Wenham.
Will it be a hard sell, I ask, between mouthfuls of
sticky-date pudding. "All you've got to do is appeal to anybody who has
stood in a queue for too long or has been affected by bank closures and
increased fees. I think these sorts of people will be interested in seeing The
Bank. I think there's a mood around the world at the moment reflecting people's
frustration and dissatisfaction. It's a kind of mini-revolution."
Sounds like an opportunity too good to miss.