The petrol in his engine
Australian Catholics
Autumn 1999
David Wenham has played roles as different as Diver Dan and
Damien of
important to him.
Late last year, David Wenham was in
The Boys, a film in which he plays the
role of a prisoner on parole. He
was surprised that he was
introduced on radio and elsewhere as one of
symbol since the runaway success of
the ABC series SeaChange in which he
plays the likeable, laconic Diver
Dan. But there is a lot more to David
Wenham than meets the eye.
Wenham is also the star of a new feature film, soon to be
released in
Leo McKern,
Derek Jacobi, Sam Neil, Chris Heywood and Aidan
Young.
The film tells the story of Fr Damien of
suffering leprosy were banished to
the inhospitable and inaccessible
being sick. They were given farming
implements and left to fend for
themselves. The authorities
believed that isolation would stop the spread
of the disease. They were wrong.
As more and more people with the disease were dumped on
de Veuster,
a Belgian priest, volunteered to go to live and work with
them. He knew that once he set foot
on
segregated from the rest of the
world for the remainder of his life. He
set about improving both the morale
and the living conditions of the
outcasts. Inevitably, he caught the
disease himself and died on
April 1889, aged 49.
David Wenham says of his character, Fr Damien, that he was
‘a very simple
man who achieved extraordinary
things’ and that ‘he was a gentle man with
a ferocious temper’. Wenham spent
four months on
film. He was struck by the severe
geography of the location, which has the
tallest sea-cliffs in the world and
fierce winds. But the greatest
influence on his performance was
the friendships he developed among the
fifty or so patients who still live
in the leprosarium at Kalaupapa, on
the island. Among them was an
elderly man called Kenso. Kenso
had known
Damien’s friend and successor, Joseph
Dutton.
‘These patients had decided to stay there because they have
lived their
whole lives there’, explains
Wenham.
Wenham worked a gruelling schedule
to make the film.
‘Technically it was difficult. I was an Australian actor in
the Belgian national hero who spoke
with a Flemish accent and sang the
Mass in Latin. On an emotional
level, it was draining. It was a role for
which I really had to lay myself on
the line. I had to make myself
vulnerable to a huge extent.’
The only day off in the week for the actors was Sunday.
Wenham made a
point of getting up early each
Sunday to attend a Mass which was
celebrated at
‘All the patients would go to the church. Their singing was
just
fantastic. Kenso
was known as the “little bishop” because he had served on
the altar for years. He was in his
80s. Sadly, he died while we were
there.
‘It was a wonderful experience on a Sunday to share the Mass
with those
people. It was a great communal
event. It really was a sharing. The sign
of peace was exchanged by people
without hands and fingers. So we all
turned around and looked at each
other and waved. I think if every church
had a bit of that, they would be
jam-packed. What happens in church has
just got to be real and true and
honest.’
David went to school at Christian Brothers’ High School at Lewisham in
‘I spent a lot of time on the balcony outside a lot of
classrooms. And I
had sore hands on many occasions’,
he laughs.
Some of David’s fondest memories of school involve the style
of religious
education he received.
‘My favourite RE classes were with
one brother, Br Loth, who was also a
chaplain at
The prisoners wrote back to us.’
Ironically, in earlier days, Br John Loth
also taught the Australian
actor, Michael Caton.
In the mid-eighties, he was teaching Years 7, 8, 9,
10 and 11 during the week and did prison chaplaincy on the
weekend.
‘My approach was to try and make faith part of the boys’
life and being
rather than just intellectual
ideas’, Br John explains. ‘I tried to make
it personal and foster a personal
relationship with God. I think the boys
were very responsive.’
David would agree. His parents are actively involved in the
parish at St
Brigid’s, Marrickville,
where they help run a senior citizens group.
‘When I got the part of Damien, the first thing I did was to
ring them up
and ask if they’d heard of him.
They knew all about him and spoke so
warmly of him. Faith has an
enormous influence on them. In fact, I would
say that religion is probably the
most important thing in their lives.’
David is currently best known for his role as Diver Dan in SeaChange. He
describes
‘very spiritual place’. He explains
this is partly because the show has an
anti-materialistic theme. The main
storyline is about a family which has
given up an affluent city lifestyle
for a more gentle life on the coast.
He also believes that the spirituality of the show comes
from the fact
that the characters in it have a
genuine ‘core.’ He gives as an example,
Kev, a straightforward, even
simple, bloke, and his son Trev, who often
have a brief exchange at the end of
an episode. On one such occasion, Kev
asks Trev
if dreams come true. Kev thinks for a minute and then
says that
he’s sitting on the beach with his
son, throwing stones into the water.
Yes, he reckons dreams do come true.
Why is there no priest in
‘There definitely is a priest in
not to be present on the screen.’
David was deeply affected by the spirituality of Damien of
Molokai. ‘His
faith was the petrol in his
engine’, he says, emphatically.
‘Paul Cox, the director, told me that there were very few
shows around
that actually inspire people. We
tend to revere the Schwarzenegger and
Chuck Norris characters. But here
was a man who was a true hero. He was
altruistic. He put himself aside
totally. Totally. He was 33 when he came
to
Does his own faith make a difference to David Wenham?
‘When I go to church I need to experience reassurance,
inspiration and
enlightenment. It’s great if that
happens.
‘Belief in God makes a huge difference to how you see
yourself and the
world. It changes things totally
when you know there is a life hereafter.’