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I know straight away, instinctively, whether I feel as though I can become that person.
If I don't get that response, I'm out. With Chopper, I, for some reason, just immediately
felt like I could become him. That's my favourite part of the job, is going away and learning
and doing the research so that then when I walk on set, I'm prepared.
Do you have an AFL team?
Me? Collingwood, sorry. I know, I know, I know, I know, but it doesn't matter. Only
because I'm made of eddies and I've been mates with eddies for years. But for you, I'm happy
Eric Banner, welcome to Straight Talk, mate.
Thanks for having me, Mark.
You're in the hot seat.
You're actually doing a lot of promo at the moment for the new, the second series
It's been received really well so far. So, yeah, we're excited and we're excited to take
it out to the public. We were meant to release the film back in August, as you know, but
because of the strike, we held onto it because we couldn't do any of this sort of stuff.
And we think it's really important because Australian films need the leg up, you know,
it's a competitive marketplace and you can't just put a film out there and hope it does
Is it unusual for the lead actor to be on the hustings, like out there, promoing and
pushing? Is that unusual or is that, or would that happen in the US? Because I wouldn't
Yeah. I mean, it is, we're kind of contractually, you know, have to do some press when we do
films, but then it depends on how involved you are with the project. I'm a producer on
these films. So, I'm obviously highly motivated to, you know, do some press when we do films,
but then it depends on how involved you are with the project. I'm a producer on these
films. So, I'm obviously highly motivated to get the best possible result for the film.
And I love the films and the people I'm working with. So, for me, especially with a film like
this, to give it its best chance, you're going the extra mile for sure.
So it's important for you, I guess, is what you're saying. Like you're putting that sort
of Aussie shoulder behind the wheel type deal, you know, stuff being a superstar, I'm going
Yeah. And I think the Australian public's different. Our media landscape's a bit different.
Like when I promote films in America, I remember the first few times that I was on the show,
I was on the show, I was on the show, I was on the show, I was on the show, I was on the
show. And I remember the first few times I went on Big Junkets, I'd say to my publicist,
where's the radio? And she's like, what do you mean? I said, where's all the radio? She's
like, are you prepared to do radio? I said, yeah, isn't radio huge? Because you know that
culture in Australia, like radio is massive. If you don't do radio in Australia, your product
would be dead pretty much if you just relied on television. So the markets are a little
bit different, but yeah, I enjoy it. I enjoy it when I get the energy up for it. I don't
do it that often. So I can, you know, put my mind to it.
Do you mind if I just quickly sort of scratch around Eric Benner a little bit?
Where were you born?
I was born in Melbourne.
In a place called Malvern. My mum was a hairdresser. So I grew up in the back of a hairdressing
salon for the first few years of my life. And then we moved to Tullamarine. I pretty
much spent my childhood in Tullar, out near the airport.
And are both your folks from Croatia?
Dad's from Croatia, mum's from Germany.
So your actual surname is not Benner?
Yeah, it's Bennerdinovich.
Yeah, still today. A lot of Aussies make it Bennerdinovich. I don't know why, but there's
an I in there. It's Bennerdinovich.
I mean, I look at it structurally, you look like someone from Croatia because like Croatians,
I think Serbians are like on average, and Croatians, similar sort of backgrounds, are
the tallest men in the world on average.
And you're a tall guy. You've got that sort of build. How often do the people who are
casting for movies?
And shows that you might go in, how often do they look at your physique and actually
cast you around your physique and your jawline, your face, the whole look?
Well, I'll never know. I never ask the question. I think I've been quite lucky that my look
can kind of go both ways. Like if you look at some of the films that I've been in, I've
been able to go sort of European and I've been able to go non-European. So I never overthought
it, to be honest, but there's a certain physicality you can't get away from.
So there's always going to be a bent in terms of the stuff that you're offered. It would
be very easy for me to have done nothing but very, very physical films, which doesn't
interest me. So you have to work consciously to not play against that, but to just kind
Yeah, because one thing that comes straight to my mind is Chopper. You put a lot of weight
on for relatively speaking in terms of how you're sitting here today, but you put a lot
of weight on for Chopper. Probably a lot younger too. Well, you were younger.
My God, you looked exactly like him though.
I'm serious. And you actually came across like him too.
Like it was amazing. How is that? I don't know anything about acting, but is that called
method acting? What is that? Did you spend time with the dude to find out how he was?
I don't know. I don't like to put the label method acting on it because then I'd find
out that it's not method acting or it is. So I just go with what works for me. And what
works for me, first of all, is having a good acting.
Having a lot of time to prep. Like you can't call me and say, we're filming next month.
I'm going to pass on that project. Like I need things to marinate up here for as long
as possible. Secondly, I have to respond immediately. Like when I read something or someone approaches
me for a job, I know straight away instinctively whether I feel as though I can become that
person. And if it's a no, it's a no. It doesn't matter what the project is, who's in it, who's
directing it, how much it is. If I don't get that, I'm not going to be able to do it. I'm
not going to be able to do it. I'm not going to be able to do it. I'm not going to be able
to do it. I'm not going to be able to do it. I'm not going to be able to do it. I'm not going
If I don't get that response, I'm out. With Chopper, I, for some reason, just immediately
felt like I could become him, even before I'd started doing any research. And there wasn't a
lot of material on him available at the time, but I'd seen a couple of interviews. So it was just a
lot of research, mate. And we were getting close to start filming. We were in early stages of
pre-production. The film got postponed because of the Al McFeast interview years ago, when Chopper
went on air slightly drunk.
Told stories. So that worked in my favor because it meant it gave me about another 12 months
to prepare. So it was a combination of things, reading everything I could, watching everything
I could, spending time with him. Andrew, the director, and I went down to Tassie and hung
out with him for a few days. And then trying to come up with a version in my head that would work
on screen because doing an impersonation is not enough. It has to be believable. It has to be
something else. So a lot of it's just up here and I can't explain everything that
goes on up there.
Impersonations, you're right, it's not enough. Otherwise, it probably doesn't come across
quite good enough in terms of excellence. Impersonations, it's quite interesting in that
when I was reading somewhere that when you're a kid, a little kid, you did impersonations,
whether or not it's true or not, I don't know. But just to get laughed, perhaps, or maybe get
an audience. Impersonations, is that something you're good at? In terms of impersonations,
like how you physically stand, how you speak?
The sound of your language, the accent in your language, the intonations and all that sort of
stuff. Is that something that you love doing? Yeah, it's something that comes naturally and
my son has it as well, which is really funny to see that being passed down. It's not something
I've taught him, it's just in him, like straight away. So I did it as a kid. I probably use it to
get out of trouble mainly, to get in trouble at school and then get out of trouble at school.
I occasionally would have teachers come up to me on the slide and say,
could you do, I heard you do a good Mr. So-and-so, could you do it for me?
Serious? Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Wow, I love that.
My grandfather was very encouraging of it. And then I grew up watching a lot of TV as a kid and
watching a lot of American shows and British shows and just trying to do the different accents and
stuff. So it was something I was doing without really being overly conscious of, without knowing
that it was kind of good training for the future. So when you, given that that's a skill you have,
it's something you grew up doing, when you've got to go and play a role like Hector, for example,
in Troy, which by the way, I'm always been upset that Hector gets nailed.
Seriously, like he's like a fucking superhero. Like, you know, like he's the best fighter for
Troy's God and he gets nailed. Unfairly, I thought anyway. But when you go to take that role on,
does, do you then sort of put yourself into the mindset of someone like that, how you would
How Hector is or was, because obviously you go to see Chopper, Chopper's alive, he's around.
Hector's been gone for a long, long time. How do you get yourself into that role? Like,
how do you start to think, how am I going to impersonate what the audience would think Hector
is like? Or are you saying, I'm going to take the audience who I think Hector's like?
Yeah, it's a combination of everything. So, you know, talk with the director,
go to the source material, look at the script. And then for Hector, it was really just,
just primarily for me about just pure leadership, like leadership, like,
a man leading an army and, and the army loving him, you know, being, being the ultimate,
you know, type A warrior who had a heart as well. He just seemed, when I read the script,
I thought there's something about him. It's not just type A, you know, rah, rah, rah.
And so I read all kinds of, like, I remember reading an Evander Holyfield book preparing
for that, like a book on Romulus, all kinds of different things just to try and get different
perspectives on, on leadership and battle. And, and then, you know, going to that place and you
had, again, I had a really good amount of time to prepare for that, for that film. Wolfgang Peterson,
our director, cast quite early. Brad was on board first and then, and then it was myself. And so
I had a good amount of time to, to prepare, which I needed. A lot of horse riding, a lot of fighting.
Are you doing that?
Yeah. Yeah. You had to learn how to, how to bear back and all that sort of stuff. So,
I mean, and it's just the best.
Best part of the job, which is going back to before, like if you said to me, the film starts
next month, are you on? One of the reasons I say no is because to me, for someone who didn't study
tertiary education, one of the highlights is that I get to go to school almost every time I get a,
I get a job, you know, and that's, that's my kind of favorite part of the job is going away and
learning and, and doing the research. So then when I walk on set, I feel like I'm prepared and I don't
want to rush that because that's, that's the gift. And if,
if you don't have that period of time, you can feel underdone or paranoid or whatever.
And that'll come across, I guess.
Yeah. Because at the end of the day, even if you don't like the film,
here's the most important thing for me. What matters is that I believe in what I'm doing,
because if I don't, I can't expect you to buy that for a second and, and you won't buy that
for a second. You'll see through that. So if I can just feel it myself and at least make what I'm doing
convincing, I can't control a lot of the other elements, but I can at least hope that whilst I'm
on screen, you at least believe what I'm doing. That's what's really important to me.
That's interesting because I have, I have actually read some reviews of other movies you've been in
and sometimes they might not have done as brilliantly as everybody expected them to
relative to costs and all that sort of stuff when you're talking financially. But a lot of
the reviewers said, but Banner did blah, blah, blah. In other words, you, Sean, in terms of your
role. And what's really interesting, you just,
talked about leadership. I'm just wondering to myself, is acting out a role, for example,
Hector or even Chopper for that matter, is acting out a role for say someone like yourself,
is it about finding that one virtue or those two virtues in the case of Hector, leadership?
How can I express, how can you express that particular virtue? Because virtue is what stick
to us. I mean, I love seeing a virtue in somebody or something like actually overextending
it nearly like glaringly. But I, and maybe when now I'm thinking about Hector and I never thought
about it at the time, but that's what stuck to me. Now you've explained it to me. Do you actually go
looking for the virtue and then try and express it really strongly? And we will talk about how
you've done it in Dry because there's virtues coming out of that as well. But just on Hector,
is that something you look for? It's got to be in the source material. It's hard to just
construct it out of thin air. Has to be there on the page. But then you're trying to add to it and
then you're trying to work out a way of tapping into what's there and amplifying it or coming up
with a different version of it. A lot of it comes from conversations with the director and you hope
you're on the same page. And then just, I think a lot of it's instinctual, but I probably don't
overthink it to be honest. And then, you know, you've got to get there on the day and have a
play and try different things and some things will work and some things won't. And you just
got to experiment. Maybe they're just natural virtues for you. I mean,
you maybe, if you don't overthink it. So if you're not specifically looking for it, perhaps
maybe, and I'm just putting this to you, perhaps these are just natural instincts for you. I mean,
maybe you saw a lot of leadership in your life. It could have been your dad. It could have been
anybody, school teacher, whatever. Do you think that virtues are important to you? You know,
all the usual like leadership, strength, character, you know, respect, blah, blah,
blah, all those sorts of things. A lot of these come out in your character, by the way,
Aaron. He has a lot of these virtues. Are they natural things for you, do you think, today?
You just talk about that for a second. I'm definitely mindful of them,
a hundred percent, you know, as a parent. And I love them and I love those virtues in my sporting
heroes as well. It's not just enough for them to be really, really good at what they do. I'm
looking for something else. Not just skilled. Not just skilled. Yeah. I'm looking for something else
that enables them to carry the team, you know, and lead by example and just have that little
X factor that's a little bit different to the guy that's just being able to do whatever they can do.
So, yeah, maybe a bit of it comes from my dad or, you know, other people that I've, you know,
noticed as I was growing up. So, I guess subconsciously there's probably a connection
between, you know, that ideal and some of the characters. I've played some really awful
characters too. Like I've played some absolute shockers who don't really have that side to them.
That comes quite easily as well, which is a bit scary. But,
so it's not always the case, but I guess there is a bit of a connection.
Because I don't want to go back to Chopper again, but Chopper's, you know,
some people would consider him to be, you know, not a nice person. But what's interesting about
the way you play him, you made him likable. He's funny.
He's not getting around that. Like you can't hide from that. It's what made the film quite
controversial at the time, you know, because people were uncomfortable with people laughing
in the cinema at moments when they just...
You know, technically shouldn't.
Yeah. If he's holding a gun at someone or he's getting stabbed or whatever, I mean...
But that was him. Like that was the easiest part to play because he was one of the funniest
people you'd ever come across. And in terms of reading a room, mate, forget it. In terms
of like distilling a character in three seconds, to this day, I've never met anyone who could
look at a bunch of people and just have their measure within seconds. You know, know exactly
what you're thinking, know how to manipulate you mentally. Like just...
Unbelievable. So, so that's there. So you just try and work out, well, how do I, God,
how do I capture that? I remember being so exhausted after I spent a couple of days with
him. And I was like, how do I capture that? How do I, how do I capture that energy sucking
persona of someone? You know, so again, it has to be on the page. You know, if you don't
have the words to do that, if you don't have the freedom to try and exude that, you're,
you're, you're limited.
What do you mean on the page? How do you mean?
So you can have all the intentions in the world, but if, if the script doesn't have
the basic elements of, of a good story, um, if there are holes in the scene, if there
are things that don't work, they don't work and you, you can't fix them on the day. Usually
I like to have a crack at it. If a scene's not working on the day to say, Hey, this is
a bit long, or this is a bit boring, or this just doesn't work. Um, and that, that comes
with, with time also comes from a standup background.
Because when you're on stage, if your material is shit, guess what? You know about it really
quickly and you better fix it before the next gig, you know? Um, so you need that rigor
sometimes in filmmaking as well. Cause I don't want to come back in six months and reshoot
Yeah. It's just more of a practical outcome.
So I, I can be a bit, a bit pragmatic in that, in that sense. Um, but yeah, it has to be,
it has to be right on the page. And so, so the script you hope is, is the best it can
possibly be before you arrive. Cause you know, there's not a whole lot of time to, to be
meddling with that stuff.
So what, what, I just want to talk about the first, uh, uh, of the series and I'm, I'm
actually giving it longevity already. Um, but we'll go back to the first dry, the very
first show. Um, and I want to ask you, and I don't know how this works, but it says you're
a producer, a co-producer. What does that actually mean? I mean, you actually telling
people how you want the scene to look or what does it mean?
So it means rather than just turn up as an actor and do the job, you're involved in,
in every element.
So you're involved in,
helping putting the financing together, having meetings about all that sort of stuff. You're
involved in making decisions on heads of production, who, who's going to be your
cinematographer, who's going to be in all those different departments. You're having
conversations with the director about that.
Casting, who, who, who are we going to cast? Location scouting, where are we going to shoot?
I mean, just everything, putting the campaign together, delivering on the campaign. I mean,
just every step of the way. And I only do it when I can really,
deliver on, on those fronts. So there are some actors who like to attach themselves to
projects and then not have the time to do all that sort of stuff. So I'll only do it usually
when I'm involved in the project as an actor as well. Because then I've, I've got, I've got more,
more say in how things are run and I can have more of an influence in that regard.
And also makes a potential success of something a lot more fun. So Robert Connolly, our director,
he's a business partner of mine. We share an office together. So when things go well, it's,
it's a lot more fun. And I think that's, I think that's, I think that's, I think that's, I think that's,
it's a lot more fun. It's a really lonely business, acting, directing, producing,
very, very lonely. You know, you're not in an office normally full of people until you go
and work on a film. Aside from that, you're on your own, usually at home or in your lounge room.
So Robert and I paired up together about 15 years ago and got an office together. And we just kind
of like lean on each other. We don't have a formal structure. We never said, hey, we're going to make
these things together. We met whilst working on a film, Romulus,
my father. And we just went, I think you're a good bloke. Let's share an office together,
you know, and just share all the good and bad, you know, and no pressure to work together,
by the way, no pressure whatsoever. You go to your thing, I'll do my thing. Let's share a sink
and see what happens, you know. And, and then we ended up, we've done four or five films together
now, still with no formal structure. He seems to me like, I've done a little
bit of research on him, but he seems to me someone who's really passionate about the Australian scene.
Extraordinarily passionate about Australian scene, nearly exclusively so, which I like.
And I saw you both interviewed together. It was like, you looked at him for an answer,
he looked at you for an answer. Like it was like, and you knew when to talk and he knew when to talk
and you knew when to add. It was like you were so close, ridiculously close in terms of what you do.
When he approached you for Dry One, Dry, the first of the Dry series, did you,
and he sit down and not only collaborate, but sort of imagine what this is going to look like,
you know, like imagine where you're going to film this. Imagine like that last scene in, in the,
in Dry, that where you're in the, in the forest, you called it a forest, he's gone into the forest
and it's, but it's a dry forest. It looked like it'd light up in a second, which actually was
sort of part of the, part of the scene, but it was like, it was unbelievably Australian to me.
And I'm, and I have a farm. I know exactly what that looks like.
When I go through a dry spell and I thought, wow, it was like, it was sort of super dramatic for me.
Do you and he just sit down and actually imagine these things and say, let's go, go find a location
Yeah, literally. Yeah. Let's jump in the car and keep, keep going till we find the right,
the right place to, to film. And yeah, I'd read the book, he'd read the book. And then
Bruno Papandreou, who's an old friend of, of Rob's was, had the, the rights to the material
and called Rob up and said, how do you feel about directing?
The film. And he got off, literally got off the phone. I was 10 meters away from him in the
office and he goes, just got off the phone from Bruno. They've, they've got the rights to the
dry. And I said, oh, I just read that book. It's a cracker. And we just both looked at each other
and just went, oh, maybe we should do it together. You know? And that was it. It was simple as that.
And then we both got on the phone to Bruno and said, let's, let's all team up together.
And then it was just like an avalanche, you know, roadshow got on board and we just, we just went
cracking. But yeah, no, it is. We, we get really, we get really, we get really, we get really, we get
excited about the practical side of filmmaking. And Rob's a really tough guy, physically tough.
In terms of what he can endure on set. Like he has amazing endurance, what he, what he goes through
when he makes a film and, and the hours that he puts in and what he can withstand physically. I
mean, on, on Force of Nature, we filmed in the middle of winter in a rainforest in the rain.
That's what we needed. And he was in a really low rent jacket the whole time. It wasn't waterproof.
And he was like a drowned bloody rat every day on set, freezing cold, wet hair, wet down jacket.
And I'm looking, I'm thinking, just get a decent waterproof jacket, would you mate?
Something, you know, but he's just so focused and, and has so much energy. And we filmed Blue
back in Western Australia out on the water. The dry out in the Mallee, the Wimmera's, you know,
stinking hot. He's just, directors can be like that.
Absolutely. They can, you can, you can end up meeting some of the physically toughest people,
the most unassuming, but one, when they get a focus, it's just like, they can withstand anything.
Yes, it is obsession. You have to be obsessed to be a director. It's a, it's a different cat.
What about as an actor though? Do you become obsessed with the character?
Yes, you have to.
Does, does, how much of Aaron, how much of you is in Aaron?
I wouldn't have a clue. I don't like to think about those things because,
it's not my job to put myself in my characters. It's my job to work out how to become,
how to become them. You, you, you won't be able to control how an audience responds to them thinking
how much of you is that person or not, you know? So you can't really think about those things. You
just really try to work out how do I become this person? And they're usually always smarter than me.
So it's always fun. And, um, try and work out how will they talk? How will they walk?
How will they walk? How will they walk? How will they walk? How will they walk?
How will they react? I think 99% of, of acting really is just pure psychology. Like it, it really
You're the psychologist, so to speak.
Yeah. And it's really about how would this person respond to what's just been said?
Now I can't write the words for them. They're usually there already on the script,
but technically anyone can say those words. Anyone. I can give that script to you and say,
Mark, action, go.
It's about understanding how, what are the five or 10 different ways that I can respond to what was
just, just said, trying to imagine who that person is. It's not how I would respond. It's how they
would respond. So it really is just about psychology. And it's why you have to spend most of
your life observing people, taking notes, you know, listening, not talking, just working out
what to put in the memory bank for, for in the future.
Yeah. Is that what you do? Do you take notes?
Yeah. Well, I don't, not, not with a-
Yeah. Just mental notes. Absolutely. Yeah. I can't, I can't switch off that observational
thing. So crowded rooms are hard work. You know, I don't do a lot of them.
You know, I like, I like observing, observing people.
It's interesting because you just said you can't try and do what the audience
thinks it is Eric Banner being part of Aaron, Aaron Falk. So,
but it's interesting when I watched the movie, I thought, I bet you, I reckon Eric's like that.
That, that's, and that's the romantic.
Have you never met me?
No, but I haven't met you correctly. And that's how audiences romanticize, perhaps. I don't know
how often you think as an audience, but if I'm just thinking as a survey one, I'm thinking to
myself, I reckon he's a bit like that anyway. And then I went on watching Hector, I reckon he's a
bit like that anyway. And, and what was the name of that series? Did you do that? You play that
weird guy in the movie?
I didn't say that.
I didn't, I didn't want to think you were like that, that dude. Like he was too out there for
me, but, but Lucky was based on a true story. And, and I thought this is proper, this is proper
acting. But, but when I watched The Dryer, I mean, I actually thought I'm hoping that some of those
personality traits are your actual personality traits. And that's probably audiences romanticizing
about a movie. And that's what, I don't know, that's what I do when I go to the movies. I sort
of, it's a, it's an escape for me and it's romanticization of, of the series.
It's a situation like, you know, whodunit, a little bit of a hero, a villain, who is the
villain? You know, as I said, the whodunit part of it, like, can this dude work all this
shit out? Is he going to work out the, the answer for me? And I mean, in the first, in
the first of the series of Dryer, you actually, you kept wrong footing me, but towards the
end, I started getting a few, started narrowing down the outcomes.
Did you get it in the end?
I did. I did. I mean, I, cause I got a bit, I'll tell you what gave me away or gave a
bit away, gave it to me was the, his wife, when she, when she got cut off by him, she
was about to tell you something, about to tell Aaron something about why she's so scared
about her home. And that, that, and he come walking in and he cut, he cut her off. And
I thought, what's that about? Like, there's something going on here between these two.
And, but you did throw me off a few times. You managed to, well, you know, the story
managed to throw me off a few times, particularly when, what was the name? Gretchen? Is it Gretchen?
Well, when you showed me the color of the bullets, my God.
I got sucked into that. I thought, hang on, what's going on here? And then when she had
their kid to, whatever his name was.
Oh, I think it was that. Yeah.
Jane Harper's great at misdirection.
Really a lot of fun when you're making the film, trying to calibrate that, right? Cause
it's all about shifting the focus onto another character.
Yeah. Not too much so.
Not too much though. And then sometimes deliberately so. So then the audience thinks, well, it
can't be that person because it's too obvious.
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Fucked me up. Like, oh, I'm sort of sitting there. Oh my God.
Like, and I, cause you know, I love to try and work out a problem. I mean, it's like
problem solving for me. I just love to know how that works though. Like when you're, you're
a producer, co-producer, when you're sitting there and this gets presented from the person
who wrote the book or you're looking at the book and you know, the storyline, do you guys
all sit down and say, this is how we're going to play that part? You know, let's make it
obvious or make it, not make it obvious. Let's, we're going to sort of not manipulate the
audience, but play with the audience a bit.
Sure. And then, you know, you've got the benefit of the edit where things really come, come
together and that's when you can really start to manipulate and calibrate even performances
to a certain degree. You know, we'll go with this take instead of that take because we
want to tone that down. We want to amplify the villainous nature of that person or whatever.
And, and watching Rob and the edits through that process, and that's very rigorous. That
takes us a long time and we end up with a lot of different versions of, of the film
and it's quite long and then it gets shorter and then you think, oh, you've cut it.
Too much out. Let's do this. Let's do that. And then comes the music. So that's, that's
an amazing, amazing, um, part of the filmmaking is the edit. And that's where a lot of the,
you know, shifting in focus can be played around with or the timelines can be exaggerated
or increased or decreased. You know, you can go linear, non-linear. Um, there's almost
too, too much choice, too much choice when you get into, into an edit suite.
The cutting room, the edit.
It's probably one of the unsung heroes of a good movie.
Big, because there's so many versions you've got to job, adopt, you know, and you've got
to cut it down to, or an hour and a half or whatever it is.
Like let's, just give me one, how much film would you actually do? Like hundreds of hours,
hundreds and hundreds of hours, or what would we be looking at?
Probably not, probably not hundreds. Um, a two hour film, there'd be at least, that'd
have to be at least 10 hours.
10 or 15 hours or maybe 20, depending on how many takes. But I can tell you this, the first
cut is never great. It's never great. If you showed people a first cut of a film, you try
Not going to the movies.
Not, not going to the movies. We're not, we're not there yet, you know? So it is, it is a,
it is a, it is an art form. And I take my hat off to editors. They do beautiful work
and they do it in a way that you just, sometimes between the third cut and the fourth cut,
there'll be tiny changes and it will feel like a completely different film and you can't
even put your finger on it. If it wasn't your note and you didn't see what the notes were
and you watch it, you're like, why don't you pass this, just change? Why don't you change?
Because it just feels different. And so until later you go, oh, okay, okay. Just little trims
here and there can make all the difference. It's like, imagine you go and see a standup
comedian and you change their timing even slightly, remove a few jokes. It's a completely
Impressions, intonations. So that's what an editor has the ability to do. And a great
editor, it's, and that's why a lot of great filmmakers form a partnership with cinematographers
or editors. They just keep working together because they have a shorthand or they just
think this guy gets my work. You know, it's, there's a workflow there.
In the collaboration with, you said, I do want to talk about cinematography. In the,
in the, in the, in the first of the series of, of the, of the Dry series, how important
was, in terms of your collaboration with Rob Connolly, how important was the cinematography
relative to showcasing Australia?
Was that an issue? Was that something in your mind? Let's get this out there.
Oh, no, we, yeah, no, we, we really, our responsibility is to, look, when someone reads a book, they're
their greatest director. They have already directed the film in their head. And in some
ways you can't beat that because it's their version of what they've read. Our job is to
take the book, interpret it.
Adapt it, and go, what's the greatest cinematic version we can possibly do of this? What's
the, and so Rob's always thinking large scale, large scale. We're trying to get people to
go to the cinema to watch our films. We don't want them to sit around and wait for them
to pop up on, you know, Free to Air, or Netflix, or wherever it's going to end up down, down
the pipeline. We want them to go to the cinema, and we're making conscious decisions in terms
of equipment and how we shoot, sound, everything. So, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's,
sound, everything, so that you go and see these films in the cinema. So yeah, your cinematographer,
your style of filming, what lenses you're using, your locale, I mean, it's hugely important.
Hugely important. And then the, the offshoot of that is people from overseas. So you go,
well, this is a bit different.
I haven't been to that place before. And for The Dry, we were really determined that
it was, it was the Australia that you and I know intimately. It's not tumbleweeds out
It's not like it's your Australia. It's the Australia that we go, yeah, that's an Australian
Yeah. It was interesting you said that because I kept looking at the silos and I kept thinking
to myself, and then, and a few of the scenes where there was fields, I was trying to work
out, was it wheat or what, what it was?
And I was trying to work out, was it so dry that the wheat was no good? And I was, you
know, you, you had a number of scenes where you could see the silos in the background,
which to me is like very much regional Australia.
They're full. And then when it's called The Dry, you know, I don't want to sound weird,
but twice I put on pause and I got up and had a drink of water. I actually felt, I felt
dryness from the whole damn thing.
I actually got that feeling.
Well, that dry riverbed that you see at the end of the film, I remember that being such
a striking image when we found that location, like people are going to think this is fake.
I mean, it looks like water has not touched this surface for, for the last 30 years. That
was real. So we filmed The Dry just before the drought broke, 2018, like pre-COVID. And
then after we filmed, we-
Went the other way.
We bought the rains.
Yeah, no, totally.
And they had a great season, but, but you could, you could feel it out there, the Mallee,
the Wimmera, like you could feel the tension when we were filming out there, that what,
what the drought had done to those areas. Some of the towns we were in had no drinking
water. A couple of times a week, a truck would come in and they would, the locals would turn
up and fill up all their containers and bottles and off they, off they go. So-
Yeah. It's, it, it's, it's just ingrained in the, in the cinematography is that dryness.
I actually found it a deep beauty, irrespective of the fact that it looked like it was drought
ridden, which it was. Late, that, during that period, I mean, the rains came about 20, but
we had the mad bushfires up in around 19. And I mean, being a farmer, I know what it
was like. I mean, my property was totally dry. Had, you know, everything was turned
brown in my joint. But I found a great beauty, especially when you're in the middle of the
desert. I mean, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's,
especially when there was one scene where you were walking in the creek, it was dry.
It's just the difference between your height and, and I kept looking how high the water
I thought, what the hell?
Where's the water gone?
And how could it be so, it gorges a big hole out of the joint. And you're, and just the
relativity. And I thought that was a great beauty. I don't know whether anyone else around
the world was going to think that either. But, and I, then I started thinking, well,
people in the city, there'd be a lot of people in the city, Eric, who've never seen a great
that today a lot of people in the city come from another country living here they might be living
out the west of sydney would never have seen that yeah i mean there's actually a lot of australians
who never see that i mean you and i a bit more lucky than that but a lot of especially younger
people would never have seen that stuff yeah absolutely and we do it as well in in force of
nature so it's a completely different landscape it's it's this incredible subtropical um a lot
of ferns just incredibly lush bush again completely different to how foreigners would
would picture australian bush it's not it's not scrubby it's not just simply eucalyptus it's
ferns and like it's just it's like rainforest rainforesty it's just stuff everywhere leeches
they're just just wet really are you got leeches in it oh god you've got to have leeches that's
australian we have in real life we had leeches we had to keep them off the bloody camera serious
yeah that's cool i think they are cool mate no no i mean i've got a lot of respect for them
heat seeking you know like drop down out of the tree inject you with something so you don't know
they're there suck your blood and then off they go but they seal it up seal you seal you off before
they go yeah that's why you can't pull them off because if you don't you'll keep bleeding you've
got to let them either you know seal you off or burn them off or i don't know some other old
australians they put solder on it yeah i mean amazing that's very australian yeah now the crew
leeched every single day every single day the leeches by the way were having the best time of
their lives well fed like we've never seen anyone in here who are all these people you know they
were just they're feeding off us like crazy so for some nature yeah the drive this the second
of the series uh just tell me exactly where that was filmed yeah so we filmed in the dan
long ranges latrobe valley the otways again like with the dry we went to three or four
different locations to stitch together the look that we were after we wanted the audience to
feel there's this basic premise that every australian will relate to five women go on a
corporate retreat bushwalking and get lost right and you that premise immediately every australian
thinks of themselves and which one of those five women would i be what sort of what how would my
personality do we're out in the bush so you have you cast the five characters as five different
types yeah so jane harper did a great job of writing five really distinct characters within
sometimes you read a book when there's a lot of characters you you you've got to go back 10 pages
because you get confused with all the names they're so distinctive and so so that was that
was a challenge find five actors that could portray five distinctly different characters in
in that scenario and we started with deborah lee finesse once once that name was suggested she's a
very old friend of mine i thought oh will she do it this would be she'd be perfect perfect as the
corporate leader city woman
polished suddenly she's dumped into the forest and she still has to be the leader amongst these
these women um so that's a the the basic premise of one of these five women is my informant
and she goes missing within the five you being still in the afp yes she's your informant she's
my informant outside of this five group a group of five or an informant just in general life for
you i'm trying to bring down the company that she's working for they're doing some dodgy things
financially she's my
she's my inner informant and the five women go missing and then one of them my informant
goes missing within that and so that's why that's why i'm involved that's why you get called in
that's why i get called in okay who's calling you in this time so she places a phone call before
they go out of phone range slightly distressing voicemail she tries to get in contact with me and
i know something's something's up and so my partner and i have to go out and join the search
party and kind of blow it up and i'm like oh my god i'm going to go out and i'm going to go out and
blow our cover a little bit and and people realize why why are the feds here what what the
hell's it got to do with them so so there's a little bit of subterfuge there but in the in the
end i aaron feels a great sense of responsibility for his informant so it's quite interesting it
goes into the morals of you know how far do you push someone and you know how much danger do you
put them in in these in these sort of situations informants obviously it's a very very interesting
subject a very interesting um line of
work for police to to have informants and how much information can they get from them and what
sort of danger are they in when they're when they're when they're doing that sort of stuff
so what's your duty of care to your informant now is your informant like undercover informant
like or is just she's an employee she's an she's a legitimate employee in the company right that
we approach and she's slightly compromised for reasons i won't go into yeah so she's motivated
to help us well i know i from the first of the series um there was a sort of a collaboration
between you and the local state police guy you know like the young fella he was relatively
speaking young not many there was no other police involved other than you and him it was fairly
collaborative in this i saw one of the trailers of of the force of nature dry too um it looks like
it's a bit more conflict between you and the local police the state police between the afp and the
state police yeah it looks like it i don't know what's going on well it's it's their it's their
turf it's their search
you know unlike in the dry you gotta remember aaron's in the town because he's going home for
a funeral yeah like he's not there to work he's it's a completely different um scenario for him
and then things happen and he gets kind of dragged into trying to work something out in this case
it's just purely professional and it goes the other way and it's that professional involvement
that makes it more personal for him in the end so it's kind of almost
reverse of of what we had in the dry in some ways so is and is aaron aaron had a lot of personal
reasons to get involved in the first of the series yeah there's a lot of personal stuff
yeah um particularly in relation to what happened when when i think it was an alley alley that's it
ellie ellie ellie well she she drowned but we when i was hanging out to find out what the hell
happened right to the end um i got a bit nervous i thought you're not going to tell me and i thought
i'm going to leave this open i'm glad you took me to the final conclusion of it all but um what i
didn't i got a bit upset you didn't go and built the old man um but uh don't matter there were
notes for that yeah oh my god it's gonna happen for sure because i remember seeing you know you
you know you were a bit roughed up and all those on but you respected that um this in force of
nature is aaron the same personality the same character i mean is that he he's fairly um
doesn't say much he's not um overly noisy loud he's not a like a funny character he's pretty
serious are you the same character yeah he's he's probably you can see a little bit of damage from
our first storyline it is standalone so we didn't we wanted to make sure that people
who hadn't seen the dry can still just enjoy this film as a standalone um but you can see that that
the work is taking its toll on him and it's interesting
like i was i was talking to um some people and by the time a fed gets to this age of like
50 mid-50s like it's that's a that's a there's a massive pension waiting for him like it's a long
time in the in in the in the force totally you know so it's quite that's considered a very very
experienced seasoned it's quite shocking for me to consider that you know i'm like oh is that old
is it like not old but like it's it's a really seen the cost it is yeah yeah yeah so um he's he's
coming to grips with with with all that for sure so uh is he looking at his own aging process and
where he sits is he starting to question anything about himself oh everything absolutely everything
yes and jacqueline mckenzie's character he's he's his co-worker and kind of like his boss
does an amazing job of kind of being this hard ass like this is what we do and we just this is
how we go about our work and he's kind of a bit more kind of morally
by it all and i think questioning a lot of the tactics and a lot of the damage that's occurred
as a result of of that kind of policing um so yeah it's it's it's good for us because it gives
us great material and jane harper's embedded a lot of that psychology otherwise it's just a cop
trying to solve a crime that's boring yeah yeah it's just you better have a really really good
crime to try and keep an audience with that you know and i don't want to underplay something
you know and forgive me if i'm um
sounding crude but who done it's it's not a thing that we see much of in australia like in
terms of australian movie scene i can't really remember too many of them um obviously clearly
it's great english drama english the poems are great at this stuff yeah um for but it's more
this i haven't seen the movie i've only said trailer but the previous movie i have seen
it's it's a lot more than just about who done it how would you best describe the genre of
force of nature for example i describe it as a as a mystery thriller really and the audience
what's great about those films is the audience has a job to do you know and they can't help but
to try and work out exactly what's going on and it's it's slightly more engaging than a traditional
drama in a way because in a drama you don't really have a job to do as an audience member
other than just watch and observe and enjoy the performances and the story but in a in a in a in
this film it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's
kind of who done it it's you you can't relax into it in the same way our ego is such that you
want to work out and solve it you want to solve it you know and and it's very engaging it's very
very engaging so i i'm hoping they'll be as engaged with this as they were with the first
one well i mean i last i mean i'd seen the drive the first drive for a long time ago and i watched
it again last night in in anticipation of today and i have to say thanks very much because uh
you're right i was engaged got too engaged and um i watched it till about 10 o'clock i watched it
to the end 10 o'clock last night and i couldn't get to sleep at bloody midnight which is the reason
i'm feeling pretty ordinary this morning i went um i had to go to jiu-jitsu this morning i go to
jiu-jitsu every Thursday morning and i went to jiu-jitsu this morning and i was crap i got beaten
up sorry and it's only because i didn't get enough fucking sleep because but it does it caught i'll
tell your competitors what to do next time recommend a great movie the night before it
was a great movie and but it but it did engage me you're right i couldn't relax i started thinking
again i started thinking more about it than i did on the first time probably because i was seeing
you today but but but also like actually i i thought deeper about the process of setting me
up i mean obviously the outcome but the setup it's interesting when you watch it a second time
isn't it because then you get to see the structure you get to see it's really it's really interesting
because that's how it is for us when we're editing a film you know so yeah it's that's
interesting perspective and all the devices i thought you were using i wouldn't know but i mean
i just thought that's a device that sucked me and that's a device that uh made me think something
not the case and you talk you know like the gretchen walking out with a bag of um
with a shotgun in the bag of um she had the blue casings um which was a sort of a really important
how good is she by the way oh great genevieve o'reilly great fantastic and i think the two of
you worked well and what was great is uh yeah your chemistry like on screen it was brilliant you know
and uh yeah but let me talk about great actors i mean like uh manny navel like how perfect was
oh mate he's so good that
dumb drunk fighter in the bar i mean he's so good at it yeah yeah yeah it was so good to work with
fantastic yeah this show it's the opposite in terms of cinematography i don't mean in quality
but in terms of what you were filming you talked about filming a subtropical sort of rainforesty
type thing but there seems to be a lot of juxtaposition between in the trailer that i saw
the city and the rainforest like i mean there's a lot of city scenes in the trailer i saw
like it looks like i don't know if it's melbourne or sydney i couldn't really tell but a lot of tall
buildings and then you flash over across to something completely the opposite yeah is there
some sort of uh some sort of play on here like you trying to create something in our minds well
i guess it's what jane harper does so well she she makes the landscape a central a central character
so i guess juxtaposing um big australian city and also that's kind of fun to just present that kind
of gritty urban image for you and i think that's a really good thing to do and i think that's a really
good thing for overseas audiences as well you know because we don't see australian cities that
much in in films no not too much you know so it is it is deliberate also establishes hey he's from
the city you know and out they go to try and solve this and now we wanted the audience to feel the
distance we wanted them to feel as though the women really were in danger because as you know
you'd have to go too far into the into a threatening australian landscape to be
honest and need to know your stuff um so we wanted to get get that sense of that are they staying are
they camping or staying at a resort what's the deal they're basing themselves at a at a nice
resort right and and they're heading off and then they've got to make certain campsites and spend
some nights out there and and make certain checkpoints sort of challenges yeah a little
challenge a little team building exercise i'm sure you would be involved in playing this well
we'll hopefully put them out of business mark with this i own a private resort i do exactly that stuff
and i'm thinking myself he stuffed it up because
we're gonna want to go up to my private resort and go on one of these camps i'm just joking it'll
work the opposite you know it will yeah it'll be good for business don't worry i'll be putting this
all over the website no i'm just joking but but yeah so i get it so they're given challenges and
you and a bit of bonding you know like how do i bond with this person how do i how do i relate
who's going to be the map reader who's in charge of directions all that sort of stuff who's going
to rise it's wonderful it's great and it's so well written in the book and we're really excited
to adapt that because it's just very this very gradual disintegration of of of
that kind of purposeful confidence of moving your way through the bush and then being slightly
less confident and then being slightly less confident again and and watching how the others
respond i don't think we're going the right way anymore i think we're in the shit you know no but
she's she's got the map we've given her we've given her the job he was a fucking best fit it's
my stupid brother adrian go my brother
so uh say it again i that was so fucking good this is now we're gonna have to get back to your
acting so that part where the women are getting uh disintegrating are breaking down the character
and starting to doubt themselves yeah that part i'm really interested in because that that's just
got me yeah well that's a bit that people can relate to this idea that you'd move through the
bush and you'd be full of confidence and then someone's leading the way they're very confident
what they're doing and then they get a bit further and they make a decision which track to go down
and they're slightly less confident but we're still going to back this person because we've we've
chosen this person as our map reading person for this team building exercise and the next junction
comes and they take the next little fork in the road and the confidence dips slightly about that
conviction in their voice yes it's left it's not right you know and then how does the group respond
to that when they know they might be going the wrong way and what are the ramifications of
turning left instead of right but we should be okay we should the map says this and just
jane harper has has has built that in so so beautifully and then how do you how do how do
we respond in that situation who speaks up first who remains silent who just observes what the
others in the group are doing and that's that's what's exciting for me when i read when i read
the book and when we talked about adapting it we thought the premise actually was kind of stronger
than the dry in a way trying to explain or sell the dry as a premise to an international audience
you know it was easy once the film became a huge hit here they all obviously when the fomo kicks in
they all have to say it becomes a hit but in some ways force of nature is an easier sell because the
basic premise of these five women going on a corporate retreat and getting lost in the bush
everyone just gets that straight away i love i actually love it particularly five women and not
five blokes yeah i mean i'm actually really curious to see how five women interact why force
of nature by the way you know where's that fit into the whole thing why is it called force of
nature is there something that they're going to hit me on the chin and i'm going to hit you on the
chin with an uppercut and i'm going to say i'll get it no i guess it's just acknowledging that
that you know nature has its is the force you know and doesn't matter what we do for for our
line of work when you're in nature you're at nature's nature's beckoning like it's it that
is the force you can't you can't really impose yourself on on nature and and what happens to
these women is a direct result of you know nature taking its course i saw an interview with you um
in talking and about australian films
and you were very passionate about australian films which is which is great for us for us as
australians in this particular film in force of nature how would you say it would have been made
by i don't know warner brothers one of the big hollywood producers relative compared to say how
how you and rob connelly produced it what would the difference have been i'm proud to say they
couldn't have made it the way we made it um there are
mechanical logistical things that come with a big production that mean that there is no possible
way they would have had access to the locations that we were in completely impossible in terms
of authorization in terms of yes so when you're going to get approval to get into some of these
areas the the size of the the unit the site the how many people you have how many trucks you have
how many trailers you have for actors how big are the trailers where's the wardrobe like how far
from the unit base are the actors contractually allowed to travel um we have to have a trailer
that's no more than the five minute walk from the set you know no no we're hiking 45 minutes into
the bush to get these shots really and we're carrying all the gear because there's no pathway
to use trolleys and so forth a large-scale production just can't do that and you're not
you're not getting the same people on board to be able to pull that off
they probably wouldn't have got permission to film where we filmed you know we have a local
reputation we we we're a stakeholder we have a track record um we're not just we're not just
choppering in with a clipboard and asking can we just dump 200 people here and don't worry we'll
clean up afterwards so um there's a trust exercise there so they just the stuff that's on camera that
would only be available to to us and and we as cast and crew have to make sacrifices to get into
those locations which we were already doing and we're not going to be able to do that so we're
all prepared to do so it was made very very clear when we assembled our crew in particular this is
where we're going it's going to be really tough there are no creature comforts it's port-a-potties
it's sandwiches on your lap um and there's there's no comforts until the end of the day when you get
back into your car you're driving in in the dark and you're driving out in the dark and you're
hiking in by torch and you're coming out by torch wow so i i've never been on a big a big film where
that where that happens um a lot of the stuff would have been done on the soundstage
there's one one one day where i turned up where we built this beautiful hut that looked like it'd
been there for 50 years in the middle of the bush and i thought we really need to get out there that
we're here because if this was an american film this would be on a soundstage and the greens
department would have built this because it looks too bloody good like it looks fake it looks like
the denseness of the ferns and the overgrown nature of everything it just
is it real you know so that works in our favor so i if i was to ask you
just off the topic of the movie topic for a moment what are your have you got an iconic
australian movie with australian actors filmed in australia so i guess there's no such thing as
australian movie in american movie or an english movie it's like but something you see as a
australian do you have one that sort of sticks in your mind because i was thinking about this
morning myself what sticks in my mind and um and i've got a couple but what i would like to mean
like my favorite australian film my favorite
some of some of there won't be one there'll be other it'd be probably two or three for
different reasons yeah but what sort of comes to you i think one of the most original the most
influential for me was the first mad max yeah without a doubt and and when you watch that film
today like every character in that film is so distinctive nuts those performances are nuts in
that film like it's so out there so out there all every one of the bikers is different in the
gang all the cops are
different everyone is completely you're talking about complexity though are you yeah well just
the the colors of them and and and the the wardrobe choices their performance choices
that they're such crazy characters the action is impeccable the cinematography and tiny budget
tiny but i mean that film's amazing absolutely and the second one i think is just a complete
work of art second mad max is just you know to go from the low you know small scale to a to a
larger budget but not
have it be worse have it be just as good if not better i mean we've got some amazing australian
australian films but that's you know in terms of the old ones that's one that jumps out for me
i was thinking about this morning myself and i thought of gallipoli yeah i thought that was and
of course the two characters in the glibby one of which never survived for some reason he didn't
he's dead now but like for some reason that sticks in my mind is i don't know whether it's because
of anzac day or not i don't know but there's something very australian about the whole
stitch up australians going to war and being sent to the front line and i just thought something
maybe i'm going to get counsel for saying this about war etc you know anzac day etc perhaps
but i thought it's very a really well-made movie break morant's another one yeah especially when
it represents the south australian film corporation where they call them so they first started getting
up and uh funding films i thought that was pretty cool yeah get australian films funded from
australian organizations and not really for profit type organizations
how important going forward is eric banner becoming like a ambassador for producing australian films
not others coming from overseas to produce film see i don't mean that that's great that is
fantastic for our whole industry but for australians to do what you're doing yeah it's a
real balance it really is i think our industry is really strong we have amazing crews but that's
not enough because there are amazing crews everywhere around the world so what's your
point of difference you know is it just a tax credit is your locations is it how people feel
when they come here that they want to come back um but for the australian industry um it's a really
tough balance because we're competing for crews against big large budget shows we're asking crews
that have offered five months secure work to come and freeze their asses off for seven weeks
as in the force nature yeah yeah yeah and and and you're appealing to their good nature or their
sense of art or their film legacy to go yeah i'll make that choice i'll come and work on that i want
to i want to have my name on that film rather than that show or that tv series or that big scale
american production where i might not even get to know the filmmakers um so it is it is a tough
balance at the same time it's important i want australian crews to to have those jobs and to
have work year round um
but it can't come at the expense of australian films not being able to get access to things
you know so i don't have the solutions there for smarter people like yourself mark um but it is it
is it is a tough a tough balance um and we just have to keep working really hard to make the best
films that we can hope that they travel it's great when they travel it's great when we get
sales overseas people see us as equal in filmmaking and they hear our own accents
see australia how it really is i think that's really important you know and i'm i'm proud to be
a part of that and and um i don't do it just for the sake of it i only want to do it when i think
something can be really really good um but it's it's exciting it's it's very satisfying when you
travel overseas and someone says i saw the dry you know it's an australian film that they're
talking about not one of one of your other films um that's a really good feeling so the the fourth
is going to be released in australia
on the 8th of february yes is that right yeah does it get released overseas as well yes yeah
we have the same day a lot of not in the same day we have a lot of overseas sales we've got a great
exhibitor in distributor in america who who launched the the dry over there i've seen they've
got force of nature as well we're in talks with them that'll be released in america this year
um so we'll we'll do our best to get get this film in front of big american audience as well
you should get uh come along to vegas when the um nrl is playing two games in vegas they're
the nrl season in las vegas in the beginning of march perfect timing eric bennett's here man i'll
get your roosters cap you can because i'm on the board i don't have an nrl team mate get the roosters
but you know because uh you know the south sydney of course i got russell crowe and uh various other
people um do you have an afl team me collingwood sorry i know i know i know no no but it doesn't
matter only because i'm made of eddies and i've been mates with eddies for years and i was a
sponsor of collingwood for many years my one of my companies but but for you i'm happy to make
changes so you're saying killed here mark i know i know but everyone hates collingwood unless they're
you know what i decided after 2010 for my mental health that i couldn't hate collingwood but it's
just too much it's just too much so i don't actually hate them anymore i have i have a um
a soft respect for them and i love our rivalry um and yeah eddie did an amazing job for the club
um we'll get there my boys will get there i'll get there i'll get there i'll get there i'll get there
i've never seen us win a flag i've been to every final since i was born um and i love my club so
much um so if you ask me what character do i want to play i want to play the the the film version
of st kill the wind i'll be ross line in 2024 2025 in the grand final premiership winning team
there's a character the problem is this in afl particularly there seems to be so many well-known
who have a team yeah you know like mick malloy for example like my god like talk about like a tiger
fanatic but there's so many big personalities have um their team sort of tatted across their forehead
that it's going to be very hard for you for me and or for me to actually go across to say someone
like uh being a friend of st killed and it's going to be very hard for you to become a friend of
collingwood but what i would extend to you is to become a friend of the sydney roosters mate
because we hate souse you know and we don't hate
russell crowe although when russell i was at the game when russell crowe when south scored a try
against us and russell crowe looked across at our chairman nick politis and he went like this and
gladiator just finished right and just come on the screen and of course they do that in the gladiator
until russell sounds like i've got to go absolutely we would absolutely welcome and and you know for
that matter we'd love to host you in las vegas to watch our game up there we actually are going to
las vegas in the beginning of march to open the season up it's going to be the first time there's
there oh wow and we're going to be playing at the stadium and the super bowl final will be played as
well wow i'm in vegas and uh and it's it's a big deal and australians is it for points or is it
exhibition exhibition so and and uh play uh australians are well represented in the states
largely through our actors largely through our actors i mean sure some businessmen sort of
kick a few goals there but generally speaking it's largely through our acting your acting community
you know australia day is coming up and i know i don't want to get into politically
sensitive areas but generally speaking australia day is a big day in in los angeles for australian
actors they get together and they have a big deal are you part of the australian contingent that
always stays in touch with each other in the u.s not really no because i've lived here my whole
life um and so yes i do have i do have a few friends who are who are actors who are based
but i've never really been part of that group because i'm always i'm always here you know and
when i'm there i'm just working my butt off for a week or two and then i'm on the plane i'm out so
yeah i'm a bit disconnected from that kind of that kind of scene or that kind of kind of group
um but that's okay yeah it's a different thing for me over here and so is who and final question to
you yeah who's eric benner when he's not on a film set in australia or wherever for that matter
what's he do during like is he father husband or brother shoe arm this is him but i've there been
all over the place as a week um unfortunately yeah but not everyone's choose for um well i mean an
ego circle so there's a lot of different妨 but i'm just rough about it yeah there's a lot of had to leering about it
father, husband, obviously, kids.
What are you doing?
Like how does your life run?
I'd almost call myself a full-time motorcyclist.
That's embarrassing.
I like my downtime, mate.
I'm probably very different to a lot of the guests that you have on.
I really like time is I feel like the biggest flex,
like just the biggest thing.
So I love playing golf, love cycling, love being on my motorbikes.
I just, yeah, love going to the footy every week,
love going to watch them train, hanging out with my friends and family,
yeah, take my parenting really seriously.
Yeah, I love my life here.
I wouldn't swap it for anything at all, anything at all.
So, yeah, the cars, the bikes are a big part of my life
and the footy and all the good things.
And will you watch the movie?
Will you watch the movie when it comes out on the screen
for everybody else to watch?
Well, it's tough because as a producer I've seen it a hundred times
in the air and so forth.
I probably won't sit down and watch it with an audience.
I always regret when I don't do that.
But also, I know this sounds really bizarre,
it's kind of not really my business how the audience responds.
You know, I've done my job.
I hope the film does well.
I hope every film does well.
I have a theory that you make a film, you watch it once,
you know, if you're not a producer, you watch it that first time
and you remember everything about making the film.
Like you remember everything.
It's like when a tennis player recounts a big match.
Yeah, I was 4-3 down against Sampras and it was, you know,
love 30 and it was my second serve and I went to the base.
How do you remember that?
Well, that's for us when you watch a film.
You just remember everything.
So, I remember when I'm making a film,
that experience is really important.
How I feel about the finished product, myself, really important.
And then I put that in a box, mate, and I close it and it's impenetrable.
And that's what keeps me going.
You can't be affected by the response to things,
whether it's big, whether it's small.
You cannot let that penetrate the creative process
and the decision-making process.
So, I kind of feel almost like that's their space.
In the cinema, that doesn't belong to me.
So, I probably won't sit down and watch it with an audience.
We do a lot of Q&A screenings and so forth.
So, I get a bit of a vibe how it's going from that.
But, yeah, it's largely out of your control and it's on to the next thing.
Well, mate, just an opportunity to talk to you
and haven't watched the first of the series
and watched a lot of your movies.
Force of Nature is well-named because I reckon
it's going to be Force of Nature.
I think this one's going to kill it.
I mean, it's going to have a lot of momentum behind it
once you finish your talks.
But my gut feeling, and I'm no movie expert,
but my gut feeling on this is the right time
for Australians to have a movie like this.
It's the right time for Australians.
Everybody I talk to, I told that I'm going to have you
on the show today.
And maybe it's just because I'm talking to people
like-minded myself.
Oh, wow, Eric Banner.
They're going to love you.
You're doing this role.
They loved you in the previous role of The Dry.
I think this is going to kill it.
And I would say to anybody who doesn't watch it,
you're going to miss out.
So believe me, FOMO is going to be a big deal.
Eric Banner, thanks very much, mate.
Great to be here.
Thanks for having me.
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