Interviews.

Andrew Dominik on 20 years of Chopper: ‘Ethics have nothing to do with it’
The director says his film was sympathetic to Mark Brandon Read and ‘on his side’. It had to be – to understand his violence. \

Nicolas Cage’s son Weston talks to me about playing a wicked Russian and his dad’s explosive style
Weston Cage Coppola – son of Nicolas Cage, and great-nephew of Francis Ford Coppola – politely tolerated me obsessing over his father.

‘Let us all stop living in silos’: how one woman is transforming lives in Australia’s migrant communities
One of the irrepressible stars of The Baulkham Hills African Ladies Troupe is back as the vivacious subject of a new documentary.

Warwick Thornton for The Beach
“It’s Mills and Boon for blokes! With bull catchers, vintage Green River knives and a bunch of chickens to spill your guts to.”

Justin Kurzel, Essie Davis, George MacKay and Shaun Grant for True History of the Kelly Gang
Searching for an original way to tell the Ned Kelly story steered its director away from realism and into the realm of mythical reinvention.

Sandy Harbutt
“Stone was trying to send the audience out a better audience than the audience that came in. The idea that I was after their money so they could see some blood and tits – that was never the point.”

Damon Herriman
Actor: Once Up a Time in Hollywood, The Nightingale, Mindhunter
“I think that role in The Nightingale is the most brutal character I’ve ever played.”

Jacki Weaver
Actor: Bloom, Animal Kingdom
“I’m 71, I still get offered roles for women in their 50s.”

Peter Jackson
Director: They Shall Not Grow Old, The Hobbit, The Lord of the Rings
“I’ve been lucky enough see 100 hours of first world war footage and God, the faces are unbelievable.”

Moritz Riesewieck
Co-director: The Cleaners
“What platforms like Facebook, Twitter and YouTube do – what they promote – is the most extreme and the most affection-based posts.”

Aaron Pedersen
Actor: Mystery Road, Jack Irish, Spear
“I’ve always believed, when I walk into a room or do my work, that I’ve got all the men, all those ancestors past, standing right behind me.”

Cian O’Clery and Cain
Director and subject, Employable Me
“We can be among the hardest working people that any employer has ever seen. All it takes is just for us to be given a chance.”

Armando Iannucci
Director: The Death of Stalin, In the Loop, The Thick of It, Veep
“When I’m doing these political shows, what I’m trying to show is that it’s actually human beings behind this, not machines. It’s just human beings trying to get through the day.”

Warwick Thornton
Director: Sweet Country
“The film is completely about Australia. It’s completely about who we are and where we come from.”

Kylie Minogue
Musician/co-star of Swinging Safari
“Oh boy. So much of what we were doing was so non-PC.”

Armond White
Film critic
“I seriously think people don’t know what criticism is anymore, because there are so few examples of it.”

Jill Bilcock
Editor
“When you talk about frame fucking, it’s actually about music. Everything is about rhythm.”

Sarah Barton and Gerorge Taleporos
Director and subject: Defiant Lives
“People don’t like talking about, hearing or watching disability. It’s not as sexy as gay rights or climate change. It’s just not.”

Bong Joon Ho
Director: Okja, Snowpiercer, The Host
“George Miller, Mr Miller, is my hero. A master of movement. I feel the masters of movement are three-fold: Akira Kurosawa, George Miller, Hayao Miyazaki.”

Pete Gleeson and Lina
Director/subject of Hotel Coolgardie
“Racism got a whole new meaning for me in Coolgardie.”

Ronny Chieng
Star/writer: Ronny Chieng International Student
“The Daily Show forced me out of my comfort zone. Granted, I have the easiest job in the world, playing myself.”

Warwick Thornton
Director: We Don’t Need a Map, Samson and Delilah
“Someone throws rocks at me, fuck, I’ll go find a hand grenade and throw it back.”

George Lazenby
Star: On Her Majesty’s Secret Service
Lazenby says he “didn’t even know what acid was, until I saw my breath going across the room, watched the curtains moving and started to taste colours.”

Wendy Whiteley
A visually splashy documentary on two-time Archibald winner Brett Whiteley works, says his wife, because it lets Brett speak for himself.

Steven McGregor and Valerie Linow
Director/subject: Servant or Slave
Heartbreaking tales of institutionalised racism are brought to light in this powerful NITV documentary.

Ros Horin and Yordanos Haile-Michael
Director/subject: The Baulkham Hills African Ladies Troupe
A behind-the-scenes account of a stage show starring four African-raised women who turned their harrowing lives into a cathartic experience.

Hugo Weaving and Rachel Griffiths
In Hacksaw Ridge, Mel Gibson comes out firing through the fog, smoke and stink of war in the ‘extraordinary true story’ about war hero Desmond T Doss.
October 2016

John Silvester
Narrator: Conviction
“There was certainly debate at the highest level about whether [the police] would cooperate with us.
September 2006

Abe Forsythe
Writer/director: Down Under
“I want it either to really speak to people or for people to get angry that you would even attempt to make a film like this.”
August 2016

Cris Jones
Writer/director: The Death and Life of Otto Bloom
“I do think about time a lot. It feels like the ocean we swim in, yet we can’t see the ocean for the water.”
July 2016

Ivan Sen
Writer/director/cinematographer/editor/composer: Goldstone, Mystery Road
“Action shouldn’t be thought of as trash. Action has as much right to have weight given to it as anything else, like dialogue.”
June 2016

Anthony LaPaglia
Actor: A Month of Sundays
“Why do we ask actors who are sometimes dumb as a brick important questions in our society, and we listen to that?
April 2016

Jennifer Peedom and Norbu Tenzing
Director and subject: Sherpa
“I don’t think my father would want to be alive to see the circus that Everest has turned into.”
March 2016

Lynette Walworth
Director: Collisions
“In VR it’s not that you just can’t move the camera. It’s that there are some movements that are much more nauseating than others.”
March 2016

Shalini Kantayya
“Solar energy isn’t just good for the polar bears, it’s good for the middle class and the working class.”
February 2016

Quentin Tarantino
“Australian genre films were a lot of fun because they were legitimate genre movies.”
January 2016

Stephen Page
Director, Spear
“I was lucky I was able to go, hey, let’s just take that spirit that we have in live theatre – this crossover of old and new – and somehow put it into the medium of film.”
January 2016

Thomas Schlamme
Producer/director: The West Wing, Friends, The Wonder Years
“The financial limitations – and look, I’m not asking for them – have somehow caused an explosion of creativity.”
November 2015

Sam Klemke
Subject: Sam Klemke’s Time Machine
“In my case posterity was a very old friend. Posterity will always listen.”
November 2015

Paul Cox
Writer/director Force of Destiny, Lonely Hearts, Father Molokai
“I wrote another script in a hurry because I was supposed to be dead quite a few times now.”
September 2015

Kevin Smith
Writer/director Clerks, Mallrats, Chasing Amy, Tusk, Red State
“For 20 years I tried to figure out how to win over the people who didn’t like my stuff. As an adult you realise that’s never going to happen.”
September 2015

Sean Baker
Writer/director, Tangerine
“If there are trans actors out there, why not give them roles? As we know, trans people have a very hard time finding employment.”
August 2015

David Michôd
Writer/director, Animal Kingdom and The Rover
“When I was cutting the movie, I had no idea what it was and I was chronically depressed. I had a pretty open fear that maybe I was making a gigantic mess.”
July 2015

Colin Gibson
Production designer, Mad Max: Fury Road
“The film’s helter skelter pace from go-to-woe meant it was only in the details, the textures, the colouration – the fetish – that we decided what in this future we would keep and what we would jettison.”
June 2015

Shane Abbess
“All I wanted to do, for the fans and for myself, was shoot his version of the film. But nobody gave a shit about what Jim Henson wanted.”
May 2015

Juliano Ribeiro Salgado
Writer/director The Salt of the Earth
“That’s where the power comes from. Not from the black and white, or even the composition. It’s his intimacy with his subjects.”
April 2015

Amy Browne 
Co-director, A Will For the Woods
“Now I think of death as something I have come to terms with and accept. I feel freer to live life and go with the flow.”
March 2015

Dayne Pratzky and Richard Todd
Subject/director, Frackman
“I’m like a shark and there’s blood in the water and I’m circling and they’re in the middle.”

Damon Gameau
Director, That Sugar Film
“If I’d gone and consumed Mars bars and Cokes the whole time I think we all would know I’d have had ill effects. We get that.”

Kiah and Tristan Roache-Turner
Writer/director/producers: Wyrmwood
“We looked at each other and said: Yep, fuck it. Let’s do it.”

Laura Poitras
Director: Citizenfour
“I think it’s more of a Kafkaesque machine that if you get caught in you can’t get out of. That’s what happened in my case.”

Tommy Edison
Film critic
“No spoilers. I don’t even know what happened.”
December 2014

Paul Fenech
Writer/actor/director/producer: Fat Pizza, Houso vs. Authority
“For many years I was that stooge on the side that was the least loved, working the hardest, looking at these clowns above and seeing the humour in all the stupid things they were doing.”

Eduardo Sanchez
Director: The Blair Witch Project, Exists
“The Blair Witch Project was almost like a snuff film.”
November 2014

James Cameron
Director: Titanic, Avatar, Deepsea Challenge
“This is not just about some rich guy writing a cheque”
August 2014

Steven Knight
Writer/director: Locke
“People primarily look into the eyes of actors, no matter what the film includes.”
August 2014

Jonathan Teplitzky
Director: The Railway Man, Burning Man
“There are a million different types of producers but only one type of director.”
December 2013

John Landis
Director: The Blues Brothers, The Three Amigos!
“In the United States critically I was always a bit of a shmuck. They hated me.”
October 2013

Michael Winslow
Actor: Police Academy
“It’s sound, man. It’s amazing what a human being can do when you want to play with noises.”
August 2013

Simon Pegg and Nick Frost
Actors: The World’s End, Shaun of the Dead
“What you’re basically saying is which country is the greater F up.”
July 2013

Edgar Wright
Director: The World’s End, Shaun of the Dead
“No, I’m not jealous of Sharknado.”
July 2013

James Cromwell
Actor: Babe, L.A. Confidential
“Have I made a difference in the world? Is every moment of it now as sweet as it was?”
June 2013

Alex Gibney
Director: We Steal Secrets
“This is not the first time somebody called me a dick.”
June 2013

Marlon Waynes
Actor/director: A Haunted House
“You guys have got a thumb up your ass.”
May 2013

Derek Cianfrance
Director: The Place Beyond the Pines, Blue Valentine
“I’m so sick of my own ideas. I’m so sick of my own words.”
May 2013

Danny Trejo
Actor: Machete Kills
“I am a mean looking Mexican with tattoos! They’re not typecasting me.”
February 2013

John Polson
Festival director: Tropfest
“I’ve never said we’re going to discriminate against big budgets.”
February 2013

Tom Hooper
Director: Les Misérables, The King’s Speech
“The great gift of doing this musical on film is the close-up.”
December 2012

Lee Unkrich
Director: Finding Nemo, Toy Story 3
“We don’t make movies as toy commercials.”
November 2012

Paul Thomas Anderson
(Director: The Master, There Will be Blood)
“I’ve been nothing but forthcoming and forthright.”
November 2012

Benicio del Toro
Actor: Savages, Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas
“As an actor you don’t pick your movies. The movies pick you.”
October 2012

Chopper Read
Author/criminal
“What part of liver cancer don’t you understand?”
October 2012

David Stratton
Film Critic
“I never set out to become a film reviewer.”
September 2012

Mark Duplass
Actor: Your Sister’s Sister, Zero Dark Thirty
“There was no script. All the dialogue from every scene was improvised.”
September 2012

Timo Vuorensola
Director: Iron Sky
“I wanted to offend fascists, Nazis, right wing people.”
Mary 2012

David Cronenberg
Director: A Dangerous Method, The Fly, Existenz
“I don’t think there is any difference between the mind and the body.”
March 2012

Jim Sharman
Director: The Rocky Horror Picture Show, Andy X
“It was always a political song. It’s a jump to the left and a step to the right.”
March 2012

Margaret Pomeranz
Film critic
“I do not want to be aware of anyone else between me and the cinema screen.”
January 2012

Evan Williams
Film critic
“I suppose working with politicians has made me more cynical.”
March 2012

Justin Kurzel
Director: Snowtown
“For me it wasn’t about four freaks going crazy.”
May 2011

Stephen Frears
Director: Tamara Drewe, High Fidelity, Dangerous Liaisons
“You may not have noticed this, but sex is rather nice.”
February 2011

Stuart Beattie
Director: Tomorrow, When the War Began
“I wanted to make the equivalent of a page turning movie.”
September 2010

Brendan Cowell
Actor: Beneath Hill 60, Noise
“I’ve never had that much mud flung on me since I played Rugby league.”
April 2010

Tommy Wiseau
Actor/writer/director/producer: The Room
“You can say whatever you want but again the assumption is incorrect.”
February 2010

Michael and Peter Spierig
Writer/directors: Daybreakers, Undead
“While the door did open in Hollywood, it didn’t open very wide.”
February 2010

Ana Kokkinos
Director: Blessed, The Book of Revelation, Head On
“The truth is my films have not been made for the big multiplexes.”
September 2009

Jonathan auf der Heide
Director: Van Diemen’s Land
“I was nearly beaten to death during making the film.”
October 2009

Robert Connolly
Writer/director: Balibo, The Bank
“I wanted it to be brutal, honest and in your face.”
August 2009

Bert Deling
Director: Pure Shit
“They’ll disappear, leaving the Australian film industry in a smoking ruin.”
June 2009

Adam Elliot
Director: Mary and Max
“Why am I as poor as I was 12 years ago when I started all this?”
April 2009

Warwick Thornton
Director: Samson & Delilah
“I set out just to make a really important film to my mob.”
March 2009