Ep 12 Laurence Boxhall: Gollum Takes on Tennessee Williams wit

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This week I sit down with the insanely talented Laurence Boxhall, an actor who has genuinely done it all. From playing Gollum in Lord of the Rings: The Musical to tackling Tennessee Williams in The Glass Menagerie, Laurence has one of the most versatile and seriously impressive CVs going around.

But what really sets him apart is the way he thinks about the work. He’s sharp, curious, funny as hell and full of the kind of hard-earned insight you only get from years of actually doing the thing theatre, TV, musicals, comedy, drama, all of it.

We talk about growing up in Adelaide, studying at NIDA, carving out your identity as an actor, refusing to take yourself too seriously, and how to hold onto play, joy and perspective in an industry that can drain all three. It’s thoughtful, chaotic, honest and full of proper wisdom.

If you’re an actor or creative of any kind, this one’s going to light you up.

Like. Share. Comment. Support.

Thanks for listening. Let me know what you think.

🎵 Theme music by Nick Gun: soundcloud.com/nickgun

Chapters

• 0:00 Host Catch‑Up And Guest Intro
• 3:47 Adelaide vs Melbourne vs Sydney
• 7:27 Early Career And Relocating For Work
• 16:38 Drama School Choices And Realities
• 23:50 Growth, Perspective, And Making Mistakes
• 31:18 Finding Community And Self‑Generating Work
• 37:45 Childlike Play As An Actor’s Superpower
• 41:45 The Glass Menagerie: Role And Relevance
• 48:26 Inside The LOTR Musical And Gollum
• 58:20 Voice, Movement, And Onstage Transformation
• 1:05:06 Training On The Job And Craft Tips
• 1:12:09 Set Etiquette, Professionalism, And Crew
• 1:20:05 Comedy, Collaboration, And Giving Credit
• 1:28:14 Culture, Union Reps, And Safer Workplaces

Transcript

SPEAKER_01: 0:00

Hi, I'm Lawrence Bronxel, and you should go pluck yourself.

SPEAKER_04: 0:15

Hello, welcome to Go Pluck Yourself, The Actors Pursuit. My name is Chris Gunn. I missed last week, and that's because I was in Sydney seeing Oasis. And of course, they did not disappoint. I'm pretty sure they were there. We were pretty far back, so we could really only see them on the screens, but I mean I could hear them and they they sounded amazing, and it was a great atmosphere, and had a great time over there with Sonna and catching up with all our Sydney pals. What else? This week I did a couple of days on uh Alice Mayo McKay's new film, uh F'd Up World, which was heaps of fun. Such an honor to work with her and the rest of that amazing team. Connor Pullinger, who's been on the show, he and I played uh some real bastards. I mean, our characters were just not great people, but you know what? We found the fun in it. So thanks, Alice, for having me on You're the Coolest. Alright, today on the show I've got the ridiculously talented, uh intelligent, and well-spoken Lawrence Boxell. And aside from being a NIDA graduate and an extremely accomplished actor, he happens to be a very lovely guy. And we had a really wonderful chat uh full of fascinating stories and interesting insights and even a little preview of his golem voice from the Lord of the Rings musical, which he just toured around Australia. Man, this guy has done so much. Like he starred opposite Tony Scanlon in uh the play Switzerland in Sydney's Ensemble Theatre. He produced and starred in Milked in Melbourne's 45 Downstairs. He's done Hamlet, Who's Afraid of Virginia Wolf, uh, The Mousetrap, As You Like It, Shakespeare and Love. Uh, apparently he was in Better Man, uh, which I completely forgot to ask him about. Uh, talking about your generation with Sean McCarliff, uh, Deadline Gallipoli, neighbours. Like, holy shit, this guy's like a real actor, hey. Right now he's performing in the Glass Menagerie with State Theatre for the Adelaide Festival, which opens on the 15th of November, which is today. And that's running until the 7th of December. And I strongly suggest that you book your tickets to that right now because they are selling out really fast. I'll post a link uh in the description below. And this isn't like a paid promo or anything, maybe it should be. I don't know how that works. Uh but just go see some theater, you know what I mean? Alright, wherever you are, whatever you're doing, whether you're vacuuming the Mercury or boarding another plane interstate for a callback. I hope you enjoy this chat. I hope it fires you up creatively. If you're listening, let me know. Share this on your story, tag me at go pluck yourself pod. Send it to a friend, leave a comment, give me some love. I need it. I really need it. Um, enjoy this wonderful chat with the most excellent Lawrence Boxer. Thanks for coming, dude. Oh, thank you very much for having me. This is the first time we're meeting.

SPEAKER_01: 3:09

It is, it is. We don't know each other at all. And now I'm in your house. Yeah. Wow. And and and we're here. Total broseness. It could be poison, but it is.

SPEAKER_04: 3:18

I would have no concept. But it uh it'll get you through the podcast. It will. And then I'll take you out. That's or at least you'll be hydrated.

SPEAKER_01: 3:24

That's it. So are you from Adelaide? Yeah, yeah, yes. I tentative, yes.

SPEAKER_04: 3:29

Okay.

SPEAKER_01: 3:29

I moved around so much um as a kid, my dad was in the army. So being an army brat, we sort of moved very regularly.

SPEAKER_05: 3:37

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 3:37

But Adelaide was dad's last posting. Right. And so this is where we sort of ended up. And I um yeah, like my family's all still here. Like uh, but but then I I I left Adelaide in twenty fourteen. Oh, cool. So it's been a it's been a lot, so I come back a couple of times a year, but yeah, I haven't lived here since then.

SPEAKER_04: 3:56

Where where are you living? Melbourne.

SPEAKER_01: 3:57

Yeah, I live in Melbourne now.

SPEAKER_04: 3:59

Yeah, what's the industry like over there?

SPEAKER_01: 4:01

Melbourne's great. Melbourne's uh super cool. It cause it's because it's I mean, in the way that like Adelaide's a very artsy city, right? With the fringe and AF and like a really you know vibrant scene. Yeah. Melbourne's like that, like in in the same sense of like a lot of people generating their own work, which is really cool. Yeah, yeah. So uh there's a really great sort of community of people that make short films, and you've got of course got VCA and uh 16th Street and things like that. There's a bunch of like really great theatres, like um 45 Downstairs, which is one of my favorite spaces in Australia actually to perform in. Um, you've got like Chapel of Chapel, you've got all kinds of like really cool places that you can pitch your show to the artistic director of that theatre, and then they might schedule it in, and then you produce it yourself. But um, yeah, and it's it's it feels it's it feels like a very accessible, collaborative city to live in. And you and then you get like all kinds of big shows touring and film shooting there and everything. So it feels like it's it's not detached from the rest of the world, and it's also accessible if you want to make your own stuff, which I really like. So yeah, I I vibe with Melbourne.

SPEAKER_04: 5:08

So I went to Melbourne recently for a commercial. Oh yeah, and I went out with the producer and the director, right? Uh once we'd rapped, and we're just walking past all these different places, and it's like, oh, this is where they they um they like record this radio program and or like a few different radio programs in there, and oh, this is a really cool little arts hub. I'm like, oh yeah, yeah, okay, shit does happen here. This is so different to Adelaide. Like it's so much happening everywhere you look. Yes. I'm like, okay, yeah, I see what they mean now, you know.

SPEAKER_01: 5:37

But Adelaide's got so much going for it. I love Adelaide. I do. It's great. It's great. It's and I mean you see you see the scope of like um the work being generated with things like fringe that then go to Edinburgh, that then then go to the Melbourne fringe as well. That so much stuff like does generate here, or people, if they want to test stuff, they'll come here because they know that the audience is a savvy because they see so much. Yeah, like you're not gonna pull the wool over anyone's eyes here. No, because the exposure to really great work is so great that I think you can get your medal tested here in a really constructive way. And also, people are like whenever the big touring shows come here, people love coming here because it's like it's it's a great city to be performing in. Yeah. Like if you're shooting something here and you, you know, I talk to mates who are shooting stuff here all the time and they go, Oh, yeah, the fact you can go to like the wine region, the beaches, you can go walking in parks, the city is nice to hang out in. Like it's uh whereas you know Sydney in the middle of like winter when it's raining like every single day is pretty grim. But it's like because it's Sydney, it's you know hyped up a lot more. But it's like, oh, I'd rather be an athlete. Yeah, right.

SPEAKER_04: 6:48

And you spent uh a fair bit of time in Sydney then too.

SPEAKER_01: 6:50

Yeah, I've spent a lot of time up there for work and things like that, and then I spent three and a bit consecutive years there for uni. Which uni was that? NIDA. Oh, nice, yeah. So I did the bachelor's uh course there. Yeah. And like I I do there's many, many things that I like about Sydney. But um, yeah, like I I don't see why, in terms of like like work and creative output, why Adelaide shouldn't be held on the same sort of level as like Sydney or Melbourne? Because I think it's I think it's completely equitable that's being generated.

SPEAKER_04: 7:16

Yeah, I think it's getting there. Good on you, Adelaide. Hell yeah. Hell yeah. So have you spent a lot of time working in Sydney? Because you studied there. I studied there, yeah. But the intention to like being in Sydney, the intention was not to pursue the career there necessarily.

SPEAKER_01: 7:31

It was sort of to pursue it wherever. So so my sort of trajectory was like I started working while I was still living here in Adelaide. Yeah. When I was in year twelve, I started like when I was 16, I started like making my living as an actor. And then I had to leave Adelaide in 2014.

SPEAKER_03: 7:46

Right.

SPEAKER_01: 7:47

Because I got my main stage debut with um Melbourne Theatre Company and Sydney Theatre Company, that'd be a co-production. And they said, Well, we can put you up in one of the cities, but we can't put you up in both. Right. So they're like, you've got to relocate to either Melbourne or Sydney. Wow. And so yeah, that's and that that's pretty common, like that kind of thing. And so it's like I could I could go and stay with friends, you know, for that duration, or I could, you know, probably, you know, leave the nest. And yeah, and I had friends in Melbourne from the this TV show I'd shot before. And so I went and like lived in their house for a bit, and then eventually I got my own place.

SPEAKER_03: 8:21

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 8:22

And so I lived in Melbourne for a year and was working there, and then got into NIDA and just spent a year in Melbourne, then went did three years in Sydney, and then I got a couple of jobs pretty much back to back, back down in Melbourne after finishing.

SPEAKER_05: 8:34

Right.

SPEAKER_01: 8:34

And I thought, well, I could stay in Sydney and then fly down, or because I do like Melbourne, I have having spent that time there in that year, yeah, and I like Sydney. I mean, if nothing else, really expensive to live in. I thought, nah, I'm gonna, I'm gonna tuck and roll and dive back in. And that way I could just, you know, get back into it. And I've been there ever since. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03: 8:54

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 8:54

But I I do hop up to Sydney for work um a bit. And it's always it's nice then, because then it feels like a little vacation as opposed to having to worry about the rent.

SPEAKER_04: 9:02

Well, that's kind of what I'm hoping to rely on one day. Hell yeah. You know, I'll just keep enough money in an account for when I need to do trips interstate, unless they're gonna pay for me to be there.

SPEAKER_01: 9:11

But you know, that's the dream, isn't it? Like I've got someone, I'm sure you've got like you're the same where you've got like friends that that that will base themselves in one place. Yeah. Like I've got a friend shooting a uh big series in in the States at the moment, and even though it's Hollywood, it's like literally Hollywood, it's shooting on the Warner Brothers lot.

SPEAKER_05: 9:28

Wow.

SPEAKER_01: 9:29

He he he he does want to get suckered into that. Like he wants to live in Melbourne, yeah. And he wants to base himself there, and he will go where the work is and then he'll come back. It's like that's the dream, isn't it? It's 2025, man. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, you don't need to go and completely ridicule. We can communicate online and we can we can get there. We don't need to send pigeons with audition scripts. We can do so much more.

SPEAKER_04: 9:49

I do I miss those days. I know the analogue days. We just don't know what they've lost.

SPEAKER_01: 9:53

There's a whole world out there.

SPEAKER_04: 9:55

What am I gonna do with all these pigeons though? I know what I mean.

SPEAKER_01: 9:57

What was NIDA like? NIDA was uh NIDA was a funny old time. So when I went through NIDA, so I was there 2016, 17, 18, it was part of like a big it was the we were the first intake where NIDA was self-accredited. Right. So it used to be it was sort of like part of UNSW, which is literally over the road.

SPEAKER_04: 10:18

Okay.

SPEAKER_01: 10:18

And I'm pretty sure we were the first first years, then the first, second years, the first third years, where it was the self-accredited, independent thing. And so with that comes like a lot of restructuring of the course. And so for a you know, there was so there were some good bits to it, but a lot of it was bumpy because there were teething problems. And like any, I mean it's not just exclusive to NIDA, but like any university that does these big restructures has teething problems. Yeah. Which, having then spoken to friends and colleagues who've gone through it since, like it sounds like they're all ironed out, which is great. But like I went through with a really, really diverse group of people that have gone on to like uh astonishing things, and we did some really cool productions at NIDA. Like, I'm still uh the people I met there, I still like work with. Yeah. Um, mostly in terms of like the behind-the-scenes world. Like, I don't think I've worked with anyone from my year, but like in terms of like crew and designers and like uh voice coaches and things like that, the number of people that I've worked with since graduating that I met there has been really cool. Yeah, because then you immediately have a shorthand with each other, yes, yeah, and that's very freeing.

SPEAKER_05: 11:29

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 11:29

And it's always nice when you get like a a you know, the cast announcement or something, and you see all the creatives on the thing, and you go, Oh great, at least I know one person going into this room. Yeah. I can I've got my little buddy on the first day, and you're like, hi, I'm a sandwich.

SPEAKER_04: 11:43

Yeah, it it makes such a difference, doesn't it? It does, yeah. And and that's really what you can hope for with any experience you have, yeah. Whether it's you know going to go to like a prestigious school like night like NIDA, really what you're coming out of it with is uh community or connections, yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 12:00

Even if it's just mates, yeah, you know, and like I was taught uh for a couple of years on and off by by Philip Quest, who you know is a sensational uh actor on on stage and screen a lot of people will know him from play school, but I know him as being um Javert from Les Miz and like the the 10th anniversary and he thing he's you know very I never got past play school, man. Oh man I'm still trying to finish it. Oh you you you'll get there's a couple of episodes, yeah, working through the seasons. But he's like a fantastic classical actor, and and uh and so I did classics with him and because you can pick an elective. Yeah, and that was pretty invaluable and uh and getting to learn what i i it in it I think it's uh learning what doesn't work. Yeah people will often talk about learning what about what works, but it's like no, but if you can if you can really if you can really fuck up in and like do just bad work and know that you've done bad work and then go, why did that happen? Why was I not listening? Was I not connecting, or did I like not mine the text properly and everything? If you can do that there for you know, uh either in little script groups that you do outside of class or whatever, that's really cool. And so getting to look back at you know performances I did at NIADO that at the time I went, ha yeah, brilliant, and then yeah, oh my god. I know, I know, right? Brilliant, that's great.

SPEAKER_04: 13:23

Yeah, it is, it is good. You you'd want to be looking back and and noticing how much you've grown. You'd hope. You yeah, I'd hate to look back at something I did, you know, well I don't know, I've got stuff that I'm proud of, yeah, totally. But like everything I've done, if I look back on everything I've done and go, Yeah, man, I'm I'm great and I've always been great. Yeah. You want to look back and wow, I've come a long way. Yeah. I really thought I was doing good stuff there. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 13:49

And it was good for the time, like for me at the time, you know. Because all you can do is make the right decision at the time. Yeah. You can't, you you know, you you gotta you can't think about us now in present looking back. No, no, no. No, just do the right thing, what feels right. That was great for 21-year-old Chris. Totally. Yeah, totally. And it's funny because uh, you know, I at the moment I'm I'm playing Tom in the Glass Menagerie. And Tom is, you know, in his he's he's in his early twenties, it jumps across time a bit. But but we were chatting the other day about you know, he's making these decisions that are right for him now, and he's making these very, very big decisions. We're talking about, you know, looking back at being 21 and going, oh God, who? Oh, oh sh.

SPEAKER_04: 14:28

Yeah, yeah. And you think you know everything. I think you know everything. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 14:31

And then which hands a lot of people were like, Oh, you're still young now. It's like, yeah, in 10 years, I'll look back at me now.

SPEAKER_02: 14:36

Yeah, oh God.

SPEAKER_01: 14:39

And yeah, yeah, okay, the cycle continues. But being able to have that perspective, I think it's useful.

SPEAKER_04: 14:43

It's good, and it applies if you apply that to your your growth as an actor as well. Yeah. Yeah. Did you go to drama school?

SPEAKER_01: 14:50

No, I didn't. How do you feel about that? Like, do you is it something that you you uh go, oh, I still would like to, or I wish I had, or you'd like, I'm so fine with not going to change it.

SPEAKER_04: 15:02

I'm I'm fine with it. Yeah. But I I talk I talk about this a lot. We've talked this has come up a lot on here because I've had lots of people that, you know, some people have gone down that road and others haven't. Yeah. I'm fine with it because I think there's heaps you get out of obviously heaps that you get out of it. Yeah, like there's a lot that I don't know that I'm learning now. You know, I'm sort of um just by default picking up little little pieces as I as I meet people and work with people. Um, it might be a slower way to go about it. Yeah. Um, but I don't I don't regret or don't miss all the things that I did get to learn with the the road that I took. Yeah. Do you know what I mean? And even the time that I took off. Yeah. Um and the the mistakes that I made in my own in my personal life and you know, all that was my me growing as an actor and what I bring to my my work now, you know. And I found alternative ways of um networking and meeting people and practicing and I did study filmmaking um 15 years ago. So that was sort of I I wanted to direct when I was younger, and but I somehow fell in love with acting at some point. So I was focusing on directing when I was young, when I was like 19. Um, and then I then I played music for years. And by the time I realized that I actually really love acting, it was too late. That's how they get you. Yeah. But but too late in my own head. Like I never applied. Yeah. But I just decided, no, if I if I spend four, three or four years out of the industry now, I'm gonna that's wasted time for me. I feel like with what I've learned through my um filmmaking skills and and my music, even my music performing, and I did do acting classes when I was a kid and stuff, but I no, I don't regret, I don't regret it at all. Like I I I like who I've become now, and I I kind of I'm coming from this whole thing from a place of curiosity and not knowing what I'm doing, and that's actually very freeing for me, you know what I mean? Yeah, yeah, yeah. I don't feel like an imposter. Yes. I think I realize that most people feel like impostors. So if we're all impostors, no one is. Do you know what I mean? Yeah, I yeah, I think it's just that. Yeah, yeah. So no, I don't I don't mind at all.

SPEAKER_01: 17:11

The the thing you said about like, oh, if I take three years off, that's that's like wasted time. It's like that's I that hits me in a very special spot because I I remember feeling the exact same thing. Yeah, because like I started work when I was 16, yeah, and I worked pretty consistently through till I was 19. So like three years of like working in in in the industry um and you know, getting on onset or on stage experience, and then trying to, you know, I got into drama school and then going, but do I actually want to go? Like taking three years off when things are chugging along nicely to go and study to do the thing that I'm already doing.

SPEAKER_04: 17:45

It's a really hard decision to make. Yeah, right.

SPEAKER_01: 17:47

Yeah, and so I I I sought advice from a lot of people. There's a wonderful uh voice and dialect coach called Leith McPherson. Um, shout out to Leith, I love you. Um, who I remember sitting down in a cafe with, and we made just we just made a huge list of pros and cons. Yeah, yeah. But I remember like aggressively researching actors that I admired to see did they go to drama school? What were they doing? Like Tony Collette went to drama school but left. Ian McKellen never went to drama school, left on the job. Um Michael Fassbender, I'm pretty sure, uh went to drama school and left. Yeah. But then just uh, you know, beeps Chipotle Age 4 finished drama school. And then um, yeah, I mean, so many never went. Yeah. And I I realized like, oh, there is no way of doing there's no one way of doing it. Exactly. It doesn't actually it's not the be all and end all. And I think particularly now in in in 2025, um, if anyone is auditioning and you're just thinking about it, you know, I mean what we in my year, the youngest person in my class at the start of the course was 17, and the oldest was, I think, 31.

SPEAKER_05: 18:49

Yeah, right.

SPEAKER_01: 18:49

And that's at the first year.

SPEAKER_05: 18:50

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 18:51

And it's very rare for a 17-year-old to to get in straight away. Um, but you know, it it shows that that there there's never really a a a too late to doing it. But I think in in 2025, you you really it's it really isn't the be-all and end all. If you want to go to one of these big schools, yeah, fine. But you know, with the clarity of hindsight of having, you know, I had three years of work and then three years of study and then working again on the other side of it. Yeah, like in hindsight for me, I probably um, if I knew there was gonna be a global pandemic and everything, I would have just kept working. Yeah. Um and I wouldn't have gone and studied.

SPEAKER_04: 19:24

So what year did you go?

SPEAKER_01: 19:26

I uh I've left, I've graduated 20 a end of 2018, so 2019 and then 2020, everything. But it's like, oh, if I'd known that, I would have just kept working for three years. Yeah. But there are so many great short courses and classes and masterclasses, and you can seek private tuition really easily. It's really easy to find really good tutors. Yeah. You can audit classes, it's never been easy to make your own work, yeah. And it's never been more affordable to make your own work. Like, what short films and you can like get in contact with the directors of short films and ask, can I audition for you for your next thing and learn that way?

SPEAKER_02: 20:01

Yes.

SPEAKER_01: 20:02

Is there's so many ways to go about it, like a bachelor's degree. Yes, yeah. And also the name of these institutions, you know, back in the day, going to Rada, Lambda, Yale, NIDA, whatever, like that carried a humongous amount of weight. But there are so many actors now who are making fantastic inroads that never went to these places. Yeah. So the name, you you don't need to rely on the name of them anymore. So if that's something, if that's something that you're thinking about and it's causing you stress, don't be stressed. Yeah. I I think that's something that I wish I had more perspective on. Not that I would have made the different different choice, but it's just something that, you know, it's something that I would have liked to have heard when I was sort of deliberating on on those things. Because it's a huge, it's a huge time commitment and it's a huge financial decision as well. Going into taking out a humongous student loan to go do these things. It's it's crazy and relocating.

SPEAKER_04: 20:55

And it it is nice to know because there are so many factors that contribute to making that decision. Yeah. And some people just don't just won't ever be in the position to study. Totally. Like not even just in acting. Like, you know, going to uni, it's some some for some people it's just not a possibility because it's just it's it's a lot of time and it's a lot of money, it's just expensive.

SPEAKER_01: 21:16

And so some courses offer bursaries and some don't. And not just in acting, but like in regular in, you know, you know, actual uni. Yeah, and it there are so many things that you know, the the excitement or the the idea of pursuing this thing is so overwhelming and so all encompassing that the actual pragmatic reality of it often sort of gets set to the side until you have to make a decision.

SPEAKER_04: 21:36

Yeah. And I also think there's an idea that if you if you end up in a school like that, that by the end of it you are guaranteed a career, you know, and and success and notoriety and everything. And yeah, so it feels like, oh, once you go there, that's what you're paying for. Yeah. But obviously that's not the case. You know, you still, once you're out, you're on your own, and you you've made good connections, obviously, and you've learned a lot of amazing amazing skills and you you are qualified. But the work is really just beginning once you step out of the school, right?

SPEAKER_01: 22:08

I I I graduated uh in what November, December 2018, and in February 2019, I was back in class. Like I was doing the Larry Moss masterclass in Melbourne, which is one of the single best things I've ever done in my life. Um and that's what I mean by like you can go do these classes and learn more in two days than you can do in six months of study, um, just from exposure and like because you know, sometimes you really vibe with a teacher, sometimes you don't vibe with the teacher, and you know you you find the people that that work with you and ignite that part of your imagination that allows you to start generating creativity. It's like the w it never stops if your idea is that you're gonna graduate from one of these places, and like you said, and that's it, you've got a you've got a career and everything you are kidding yourself. You might be lucky, it does happen. It absolutely does.

SPEAKER_05: 22:56

Yeah, of course, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 22:57

But it's a humongous amount of work and and being a good person. Um there's what one of the uh wonderful actors of my year, uh Yaren, um, has been I mean, she's the leader in the new Bridgerton series, and she's just like she's killing it. But she works bloody hard. Yeah, she's a really, really good person. She was like that all the way through drama school, and um and and she's um she she's like got her eyes set on something, I'm not sure what, and she's just you know going for it. And it's amazing. Yeah, but you you'll hear about those stories, you'll hear about the Yerins, you'll hear about like the Sophie Wilds of the world coming out of drama school and going into big things. Yeah. But the in an intake of what 24 people, um, you know, the odds are you aren't the odds are you aren't gonna be that person. Yeah, you are gonna be the actor that is going from job to job and maybe having a side hustle on the side, and you might go five months without work, or you know, you might go four months without an audition. That is more likely, yeah, statistically, yeah, to be your world. Not that you shouldn't aim for that, absolutely. But um, I I think the the visions of grandeur associated with these sort of places can be can be tricky.

SPEAKER_04: 24:06

Yeah. I I know some people that went to not just night on and just just studied in general, um, that even ten years after graduating still kind of I'm I remember sitting at a pub with a bunch of a bunch of mates that are that all studied and just sort of complaining, like, oh I'm just not getting auditions and and I'm thinking like, yeah, but what are you what are you doing now? It's been 10 years, like what do you think is gonna happen? You are you putting yourself out there or are you just waiting for the phone to ring? Like you know what I mean? And and so that that that was that was years ago, a few years ago now, but that was sort of for me the a moment where I'm like, oh, so even if you go, like you're still it's still your responsibility to make it happen for yourself, you know, and keep the ball rolling and and you know, making sure that you're connecting with people and just staying active in your self. Oh, there we go. We got it, guys. We got it. We could thanks for coming. Um, exactly.

SPEAKER_01: 25:04

But totally, and and it it it can be it can be hard, like like when when you're faced with like constant rejection.

SPEAKER_04: 25:12

Yeah, yeah. And of course, like uh when I when I talk about my mates complaining, yeah, complaining is is a natural part of dealing with frustration. Oh, you know, I'm not saying don't complain. Like I complain, of course. You know, so nothing wrong with that, yeah. But it's still it's like, yeah, complain, get it out, but like, all right, what are we gonna do about it? Yeah, you know what I mean?

SPEAKER_01: 25:31

Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Like I think you you get you you just need to find, I think so much of it is is is find finding your peeps. Yes, find your peeps. Yeah, whether it is okay, it's been eight months, and I I've I've God I've had this where it's been like eight months of just nothing. Yeah, and I'm in my in my in my human job, my my workhorse job, and I'm going, is anything ever gonna happen again? And it's like, okay, cool, cool, cool, cool, cool, cool, cool. Um I'm gonna get a bunch of people around and I'm gonna read scripts.

SPEAKER_05: 26:05

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 26:05

And that's gonna do. Or we're gonna get a bunch of people around. And I used to do this with with uh a really good friend of mine, Dougie. Uh the first time I lived in Melbourne, we would show each other films we wanted the other person to see. Yeah, nice. So we'd have we we'd go out, we'd get two, we'd watch two films on a Saturday night. One that I want to show him, one he wants to show me. Yeah. We discuss them afterwards, we'd get takeaway food. And if we didn't like the other person's film, it's never like poking at it critically like like like blase. It's like why, why, what is it about it? Looking at things critically and developing a critical eye. Yeah, yeah. You know, go, you know, go and see theatre. If it's good theatre, great. If it's bad theatre, don't make fun of it. No. Why?

SPEAKER_05: 26:46

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 26:46

Why does it not work? Was it the lighting, the writing, was it people not connecting? And because even just getting yourself into that mentality, you are working a muscle that is the opposite of apathy. Yes. Because apathy is is death. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So as long as you can start to have an opinion about something, yeah, an opinion will always be more interesting than apathy. Even if you're well off the mark, and then you do an audition, even if you're well off the mark, I've done some auditions which I look back on when I see the end result, and I was like, oh wow, I was way off. Totally, I was in a different film. Yeah. But I get feedback from the casting director being like, never thought of doing it that way. Yeah. Not out of like it was bad. Yeah. But it's like, huh. And then like I've then they've got me back through other things.

SPEAKER_04: 27:30

Yeah, yeah, because it's so open to interpretation. There's not really any wrong answers, and you don't know all the all the context. Exactly. You don't get given everything. It's not your fault that you make a choice. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 27:40

And and then and then you you you can you and then you know, I I fell into when I came back from Sydney into Melbourne. I I I went to do this Larry Moss class, and then I um I met a director there who was auditing, and we had a chat afterwards, and and like I knew of him, a guy called Ian Sinclair, who's a fabulous theatre director. He invited me to come and do his one of his classes, and so I went and did that, and then I found, oh, he's one of my peeps. Yeah. And so I worked with him now. We've done a couple of shows. We did two sh two plays last year. I I I asked him to come. I had a lull in work, and so I did my workhorse job and financed a play. Yeah. And then I got him to come and direct it, which went really, really well.

SPEAKER_05: 28:24

Yeah, nice.

SPEAKER_01: 28:25

And then he invited me to come and do his Hamlet at the end of last year. I was layertes in that. And it went, oh, cool. That all happened because I went, okay, I want to go back and study, and I want to find my pig.

SPEAKER_05: 28:36

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 28:36

And it that's the thing, you will find your people.

SPEAKER_05: 28:38

Yes, yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 28:39

And then you will find your creative little nugget. Yeah. And the people that just like excite you creatively, yeah, and you can nerd out about shit with. Yeah, yeah. And when you find your nerdy group, yeah, then really cool stuff will happen. Yeah. And so when there is a lull, go hard for four months and do the overtime and everything. Yeah. And then take that overtime and all your salary, eat your ramen for four months, and then produce a play and do something really cool. Yeah. Well, when it comes to those moments of like, oh, nothing's happening, you can either like relax back into it or you can see it as a as like, cool, nothing is happening. Yeah. That means I don't have to worry about like, oh, I've got to be here at this time, I've got to be there at that time. Yes. I've got a big empty slate for me to really like do anything. You know, write a script and do it as a podcast. Yeah. Do an audio drama. Audio dramas are huge now. And it costs you what? You can borrow a microphone. Microphones are super cheap. You can do them for tuppence and just do something.

SPEAKER_04: 29:34

That's why I feel like I'm busy now. Like, I'm not that busy. I'm busy doing and as I said in the kitchen, like I'm busy doing the things that I want to be doing anyway. Yeah. And like in terms of Adelaide, like I'm getting work. Yeah. I'm getting bits and pieces, you know, like commercial TV and film. But it's so spotted, you know. The in-between times are you know, it's it's vast, you know what I mean? Which is the choice you make by living here, right? And by choosing to do Do this job, but yeah, exactly. Yeah, yeah, not just here, like just by choosing to do the job. But doing this is my version of um your movie club. Yeah, do you know what I mean? Like I feel like I'm I'm still living as an actor net doing this. Like I feel like I'm I'm I'm still so involved in the industry, and even going to the like the Adelaide Film Festival and and just hanging out with my peeps, you know. That's all part of it, you know. It's not it's not just being on set and being in character and and that you know that one day that you have or that week that you have making a movie. Yeah, you know, it's not just that, it's the the lifestyle outside of your your time on set. Do you know what I mean? It's it is when people talk about community, like it is the community.

SPEAKER_01: 30:44

Yeah, it's yeah, I mean, why why why get into this job? Like I think I think acting in particular, particularly for people that have been doing it like since as a kid, even if it's just like high school plays or anything, you start it because you love the attention. Yeah, you don't get into this gig because as a six-year-old doing the nativity being like, I want to play the sheep in the nativity because I can mine it, the truth about mankind. You get into it because you get to wear a city costume and you love having the attention on you. Yeah, hell yeah. And then you quickly learn if you actually do enjoy it. Yeah, and then you justify it to yourself later on, being like, I'm gonna reveal something about the human experience. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And and it's like you reinvent why you do this thing, right?

SPEAKER_04: 31:24

Oh man, that's so true. You justify it later. You justify it. It's the same, I say the same thing about vegetarianism. Right. Like, I just became a vegetarian to see if I could do it, right? And then I justified it by jumping on my moral high horse. I'm just I well, I'm doing it for the animals. Like, no, no, no. It was a competition. Yeah. Who can do it the longest? And just in your way. Yeah, exactly.

SPEAKER_01: 31:47

But it's that, it's exactly that. It's it's it's such a weird job. But it's it's like if you love it enough, if if you would rather do that than do a desk job in a cubicle and then do the nine till five, you know, you it's a it's a weird ragtag bunch of people, no matter how sort of cool they are or whatever, it's a ragtag bunch of people that have chosen to do this. So in terms of the also like finding people in the community, it's like it can't, you it shouldn't be, so it shouldn't be because some people do, it shouldn't be gate-kept. No way, it shouldn't be, yeah, it shouldn't be like exclusionary or anyway. No. So I think you doing this sort of thing is you know the a sort of a weird healing thing to the community. And not that there's anything to heal an Adelaide because Adelaide's great, but like this is the kind of thing that should be done. I remember watching interviews of actors talking about process or thing, you know, there's some nervous kid with a microphone at some sort of panel being like, You tell me through your process, and they go on this weird roundabout thing and they don't answer the question. Yeah, it's like, no, answer the question. Yeah, yeah. What are you hiding? Yes, yes, yes. So true. No one is gonna come for your job because you talk about this. Yeah, yes, acting appears to be this weird, glamorous, wonderful lifestyle. It isn't, it's a bunch of rat bags being nerds because we love attention, yeah. We justify it later, we like wearing costumes, that's it. Yeah, and then the justification, I I won't like poo-poo acting, being like it's only that. But like when you do find something that really means something, as you sort of mature and and you develop a critical eye and and you have your perspective and everything, yeah. When you do decide to like intellectually lock in on I am, you know this thing that I'm doing really means something. Yeah. Like I did a play last year that was uh the one that I got uh Ian uh sinclair to direct, was all about um mental health in men in rural communities, yeah. Which is particularly in Australia, a really, really important topic. Yeah, yeah. Like the suicide rate amongst uh farmers in Australia is astonishing. It is tragic. And that's really that's like one of those instances where I went, This is such an important talking point. And the the message came through through um a tragic comedy, like it was very, very dark, surreal comedy, but it also dealt with like PTSD in return to service personnel and all these sort of not hot topic issues because they're not talked about, but very pertinent things. And it's like when you find like a good justification to do that, yes, costumes, attention, all that wonderful. But yeah, once you can take that passion and then find it into something and something artistic and worthwhile, then that's that's I I think what I'm trying to get at is it's like I arrived in that place and I'd done like work that meant stuff before that, but you know, in terms of like the exclusioniness and it it's also self-serious, yeah. It's like, no, don't forget that at the end, yes, we're an artist, we're a storyteller, whatever, but we are just a bunch of kids, it's called play, yeah, it's called active play. Yeah, yeah. We are just all it's so ridiculous. Yeah, don't take it seriously. Take the material seriously, yes, and take that like as gospel and realize the importance of it. But the the actual the as a career, yeah, it's stupid. Yeah, and it's brilliant. Yeah, and it's whimsy. Why are we really doing this?

SPEAKER_04: 35:10

Why are we really doing this? We just want to we just want to have some fun. We just want to play.

SPEAKER_01: 35:14

It's uh who was I was listening to talking about recently. Oh, Walton Goggins. I watched an interview with him where like, I mean, reverting to not a childish state, the way that I was always taught was like not returning to being childish, but being childlike. Yes. Because a sense of like awe, and just like, oh, okay, we're doing this. Yeah, yeah. It's like if you tell a kid to um, you're playing a knight, cool. Yeah, all right, here's your sword. Yeah, right. They will play a knight, yeah, yeah. And they will commit so hard to that thing. Yeah. And that's what we're all trying to get back to is that stage. Yeah. So when you're, you know, like I'm about the, you know, what to do or anything, just try and get back to that state. Because once you're in that silly state and you acknowledge that this whole thing is kind of ridiculous, yeah, then the other opportunities to do stuff that's serious and heavy, you know, will be easier and more accessible to you.

SPEAKER_05: 36:02

Yes, yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 36:03

Totally resolution. You will learn this. I ramble. I'm so I'm gonna be held to add it.

SPEAKER_04: 36:08

No, no, I'm not cutting any of that.

SPEAKER_01: 36:09

I'll start something and end up on a completely different point. That's the whole point.

SPEAKER_04: 36:12

That's the whole point, man. Oh, great, okay. I talk I I talk about that with my with my because I teach one adult class a week, one I'm like drama class, and they're they're all like, you know, new to this thing, um don't have a lot of on maybe a bit of extras work and stuff, not a lot of experience, but they're they're very they're really curious about it all, and they we have so much fun in our little class. But I'm not trained, so I'm I I tell them, I'm like, look, I'm not qualified to be telling you anything. But what I will help you discover is how to how to kind of go back to that childlike mentality and play again and let go of all the inhibitions that we've developed you know through our lives, why we should be scared and why we should feel self-conscious, all those things that get in the way of just actually playing, you know, being the night and not not you know, go be the knight and not thinking about like um how am I delivering this line? A kid will just go be a knight, and then afterwards you ask them, like, do you know what you did? And they no, I don't know what I did. But that you know, trying to instill that back into it into these fully grown adults. Yeah, yeah. You know, we've developed this idea that we have to be really aware of how we're doing everything, you know. Just go back and play. It's it's essential, you know. It is, yeah. Um, can we talk about the glass menagerie then? We sure can talk about the glass menagerie. I'll I'll give some some context to the audience. You're performing in the glass menagerie for State Theatre Company for this upcoming season. That's right. Yes. When's it's it all kicking off?

SPEAKER_01: 37:36

Uh we open uh I don't know when this is gonna come out, but we open November 15th, I think.

SPEAKER_04: 37:43

Try to get it out before then.

SPEAKER_02: 37:44

Hell yeah. If not, that's okay. We're running until December 7th.

SPEAKER_01: 37:47

Okay. So maybe this will come out December 6th and 19th.

SPEAKER_04: 37:51

Get in there quick, guys. It's the last night. This they've sold out. Oh, great, it's too late. Wow, get on that wait list. Um, no, no. I'll I'll get it out before then. Before the before November 15th, yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 38:01

It's a beautiful play. It's so it's it's it's part uh so Tennessee Williams wrote it largely about his actual upbringing in uh St. Louis in Missouri and about his family. Um and so it's a memory play, so it's it sort of jumps between him older looking back on his early twenties, and and then him in the in the present, sort of explaining what's going on, and and um you know, a lot of these things actually happen to him, and then he takes creative liberties with other sections of it, which works being memory because memory is unrealistic. Yeah, and it's a beautiful talk about play, like it's such a playful rehearsal room. Um Shannon, our director, is just sublime and uh really encourages, you know, don't worry about getting it right. Yeah, we're just playing. We are just playing, but she says this all the time, we are just playing. That's amazing. And I'm like, oh refreshing. So nice. Yeah, and and you know, uh the other actors in it, uh we've got Kisenia, Kitty, and John O who it's just a cast of four. Yeah. What was great, what's really useful is that we all arrived pretty much off book for day one of rehearsals. Yeah. So we're we're getting the awkward, clunky, what is my like calling for yep, cool, call for, yeah, and then doing it, we're getting that done pretty quickly.

SPEAKER_05: 39:22

Yeah, yeah, nice.

SPEAKER_01: 39:23

Um, so we're starting to really find ourselves into this groovy, playful place which Shannon is just like throwing little bits of kindling on to keep it going, and where it just resorts to you know your lines, they're in you, they'll come out of you, however they're gonna come out, as long as you're listening to the other person and they say something which makes you want to speak. Oh, that's so great, man. It's really nice. It's it's one of the loveliest rehearsal rooms I think I've ever been in. Beautiful. Um it's a beautiful story. It's it's it's poignant and funny and very real. It was first performed in like 40, I'll get it wrong, but I think it's 42, I think. So like peak, you know, Second World War's happening and everything. Um, you know, why is it or why is it relevant, you know? Well, it's A, it's very relevant if you're looking at like America right now. And there's this great part that Tom says. I turn back time, I reverse it to that quaint period, the 30s, when the huge middle class of America was matriculating in a school for the blind, their eyes had failed them, or they had failed their eyes, and so we're having their fingers pressed forcibly down on the fiery braille alphabet of a dissolving economy.

SPEAKER_04: 40:30

Wow, man.

SPEAKER_01: 40:32

Like that line itself is like that's why we do the play. Yes, yeah. But then within that, the family dynamic and the way the family sort of butts heads and rubs, like it's never gonna not be like blisteringly relevant. Yeah, yeah. Because if you've ever had, I don't know, a parent that waxes lyrical about the past and you're like, oh my god, shut up. Yeah, this play will mean something to you. Or if you have ever been so in love with someone that it makes you physically sick, yeah, this will mean something to you. And I mean, the text itself is beautiful. I've wanted to do it for for so many years. Um, it means a lot to me as a person.

SPEAKER_05: 41:08

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 41:09

Um, I was gonna do it earlier in the year at a different theatre company, which I then had to pull out of, and they were very, very gracious about letting me go so I could go and do this big touring show.

SPEAKER_05: 41:19

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 41:19

Um, and then weirdly I got cast in the same role at the you know, completely different company on the other side of the country. Yeah. So I fantastic. This is great. Like I sort of have to do this as well. Serendipity. Serendipity. Yeah, it's it's you know, set in the 30s, the costumes are beautiful, the set's brilliant. It's just a sandbox of a set to play on. Yeah. And um, yeah, I think it's gonna be I'm hoping that it'll be something quite special. Where are you playing? Uh Odeon Theatre in Norwood. Oh nice. Yeah, beautiful, yeah. Good. Uh I'm growing back my hair after many months of being bold and walking on two legs after many months of crawling around on all fours.

SPEAKER_04: 41:54

So it's very why did you have to shave your head and walk on all fours?

SPEAKER_01: 41:57

Uh, I was playing Gollum in the Lord of the Rings musical, which was touring. We toured Australia and went to Singapore and did all these things. How cool, man. Yeah, that was crazy. I've never done a big musical like that before. Do you do a lot of musicals? I've done plays with music before. So like I've done shows w like at Melbourne Theatre Company where they're like we play like instruments on stage and sing, but they're not really musicals like I did As You Like It, um which the had the music by Kate Millerhike, which was really cool. Yeah, yeah. And I played my played my ukulele in that various things and sang and and this was similar. Like we all had there was no orchestra to this musical. All of the instruments were played on stage by the cast. Well, in In Lord of the Rings. Really? Yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_04: 42:38

Oh man, how did I miss this? Where were you?

SPEAKER_01: 42:41

I don't know.

SPEAKER_02: 42:42

We were around for ages.

SPEAKER_04: 42:43

I was in here.

SPEAKER_01: 42:44

Yeah, we didn't come here. We didn't come down. You were probably having a cool podcast with someone cool. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's what I was doing. Yeah, I was just being too cool for that. No, that sounds awesome. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04: 42:54

So how did they how did what kind of instruments are you guys playing?

SPEAKER_01: 42:57

I mean, we this is the thing, they they cast act musicians. So we had like the guy that played um uh Merry, a one of Lactical Jeremy Campese, uh is just an astonishing cello player.

SPEAKER_05: 43:11

Oh, that's awesome.

SPEAKER_01: 43:12

He he's he's you know, he's being a hobbit in one scene, yeah, and then in the next scene with like Saruman that he's not in, he's ducking off to the side, picking up his cello, then he's on stage playing the cello, underscoring like while things are happening, or like in the big final battle at the end, our um our brilliant percussionist, Dr. James Whiting, who teaches in Adelaide, um he's dressed as a full orc with and because they need big percussion, they have a huge war drum that comes downstage, and he is like getting when he gets like killed, like slams into the drum and drags it off, and then he's got another drum set on a tower which he plays and underscores. Yeah, and the elves played violins and whistle. It was just awesome.

SPEAKER_04: 43:52

God, I'm so sad I didn't get to see that. Yeah, this is this is the the the contract you sign.

SPEAKER_01: 43:58

This is uh yeah, being here being here. I know I do wish we brought it here, like doing a cheeky couple of weeks in her major would have been heaven.

SPEAKER_04: 44:05

I I I will say I saw the strokes yesterday at Harvest and I I found it weird that Adelaide was the only city they came to on this. Fun. Isn't that weird?

SPEAKER_01: 44:13

I mean I do like that. But that never happens. Like I when I used to go when I when I lived here and like the Arctic monkeys would come out, yeah, I'd always go see them, but they were in that they would always be in that small uh at the entertainment centre, not the big Yeah, they they close it off. Just that little one to the side. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And it's like, but they'd be selling out like Rod Laver, they'd be selling out like the the really big ones, but here it's like they're bloody 12 feet away. Yeah. It's brilliant. Yeah, it's good. They got carried out of the mosh last time I was here with them.

SPEAKER_04: 44:41

Yeah, no.

SPEAKER_01: 44:41

Getting crushed.

SPEAKER_04: 44:42

Yeah, but you usually usually bands and and theatre shows like they usually just skip us.

SPEAKER_01: 44:49

I'm sad we missed. Oh well. That sounds amazing. And like we sort of had two ensembles that that did bleed over. You had like actor dancers and actor musicians. Yeah. And so when they go to the Lothlorean and the all the elves are there, like that's everyone is dressed as an elf, either doing the dance or dancing with an instrument.

SPEAKER_05: 45:08

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 45:09

So we had Lily, our double bass player, like dancing with a double bass, which is just crazy. And um Gianna, our uh flautist, had a quiver on her back with her flute, and then all of the whistles around it, so she could like be playing this one, like sheath that, pull out another one, and just keep playing. It was wild. It was crazy. That's amazing. It was really cool. I've never seen anything quite like it.

SPEAKER_04: 45:35

Did you have to do the did you do the voice?

SPEAKER_01: 45:37

I did a version of the voice. Okay, it's not the not the same one. Well, what I sort of did with with the Gollum voice was every i a lot of people have only ever seen the movie, and so they've got a very specific idea of what Gollum should be. Yeah. And you know, I I you know used to pretend to be Gollum when I was a kid. So I've been doing I did the Andy Circus voice that hang off like door frames when I was like tiny and like do the Gollum voice or climb on rocks and be Gollum. And I went, okay, well, I want to be able to do something that if you've only seen the movies, yeah, you will accept it when I appear as Gollum and go, cool, that's Gollum. Yeah, happy. Yeah. But if you've read the books, do some stuff in it with a voice that if you've read the books, you you'll forget what I'm doing.

SPEAKER_02: 46:16

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 46:17

And then I want to do something wholly original as well to give it my own flavour. So I I used the the the circus voice as a base. Then I found a recording of Tolkien himself actually doing the voice. He narrated, yeah. He narrated this chapter of Riddles in the Dark. Yeah. Um the chapter of Riddles in the Dark from The Hobbit, and he does the Gollum voice in it. And so I spliced in a bit of Tolkien's version, yeah, and then fuse that with like the way that it's described in the books. Yeah. And then I did something completely different, which no one's heard before for Gollum. And I sort of put that on as the last little third, and then that's what I did.

SPEAKER_04: 46:55

You're gonna do a summer what?

SPEAKER_01: 46:56

Okay, I have it warmed up for it. Um so you are gonna say, We're going to Mordor. You're gonna give me my cue line. Okay. I'm gonna say no, no. Then you're gonna say, You've been there before, haven't you? Okay. Those are your lines.

SPEAKER_04: 47:10

We're going to Mordor, you've been there before, haven't you? Yeah, okay. Alright. And am I am I Frodo? You're you're Frodo in this, yeah.

SPEAKER_05: 47:16

Okay. We're going to Mordor. No. You've been there before, haven't you?

SPEAKER_01: 47:27

No, it's a press. We won't go back. So that's Gollum. That was amazing. Thank you. Holy shit. So there are a couple of different flavours in there. I've spat all over your team. No, that's fine. So I try to like act as like a deeper growl bark thing that doesn't really appear in the films. Because because when you're when you've got like, you know, 1,200 people in a theatre, what Andy Circus and indeed the the team of animators that were individually moving his muscles in order to shift between Gollum and Smeagol, um, I have to do with my full body and voice so that the people at the back can get the same experience as the people down the front. Of course, yeah. So in order to like switch where whereas in the movie he sort of uh, you know, murderer and like uh in order to have that same sort of visceral and the danger and the unpredictability of it, yeah. The director said, I really want to see if you can like drop into this like really dark, angry thing to create a lot of like physical danger, and then the flicks between the two to be really quick. Yeah. And so, yeah, so it was like doing that full body pain. I was just in shorts. Wow. Um, like yeah, like scurrying and crawling and hanging off things and like contorting my body and sliding around and all that kind of thing, in order to s so that the you know that that there is this otherworldly pity to this thing.

SPEAKER_04: 48:58

Oh my goodness, that's unreal. Thanks for doing that. Oh, my pleasure.

SPEAKER_01: 49:02

Um did you so did you have to sing in it? Yeah, Gollum had a has a song called Gollum's Song, which is when the hobbits fall asleep and and after having had after the the the Smeagol's been tamed. In the book it's called The Taming of Smeagol. Um because I I did I tried to not use the films as a guide. I tried to do everything out of the book. Um, like any reference to how he moved or sounded at a particular time. I was I was like, I'm sure to the annoyance of many people, I'm like, no, but it's not how it is in the book. Yeah. So like when the fight crow fight director was like, Can you just like crawl up on Sam and like get in his face? I'm like, I can't. She said, Why? And I said, Well, he's wearing an elven cloak and that would burn his hands, so he'd never do it. Because anything elven would burn Smeagle. Yes. I can't. I'm sorry, I can't do it. Sorry, can't touch Sam. Um did they accept that? They did. They did. Oh, that's great. And so, like, yeah, when at one point I went to Sam and Frodo are like sleeping, and then he's learned that he that Frodo's a baggins, and so Gollum starts to like come back after being repressed. Yeah. And so that's the scene in the film where he sort of he flits between the two. The song is sort of like a speak sing-y, and then it ended up as a sing sing-y version. It will it does it's not as weird as it actually sounds, it actually makes a lot of sense. But like when I go to like I go to stab Frodo with sting, but then that burns his hand because it's Elven on the Easter egg for the real fans who were sitting there. Um, some people noticed me do that, and they were very appreciative, and I appreciated that. But yeah, so he had a little thing where he'd sing where he would sort of like mock and take the pity and like echo what the hobbits were singing because he used to be a hobbit. And um, yeah, so that was that was a cool, cool bit.

SPEAKER_02: 50:46

How long was the play?

SPEAKER_01: 50:48

Like duration? Yeah.

SPEAKER_02: 50:49

Uh like two and a half, three hours. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 50:53

Yeah. And you go through the the whole the whole story though. Yeah, we did. Yeah, yeah, we did. Um essentially, like that, I'm I'm pretty sure there's a letter with Tolkien who was asked, um, how would you turn this into a play? And he said, I would essentially do book one and book two, book three, yeah, and cut out most of book two, because book two is essentially one giant side quest. Yes, yeah. And so that's kind of what we did. Act one was The Fellowship of the Ring, by and large, and act three was Um Return of the King, by and large. And with a bit of book two in there, so like Tree Beard and stuff like that, but it was largely condensed. Um and so we did it all, it was all told from the hobbit's perspective. So it's like all the music was really folky, the set looked like it'd been carved out of wood by hobbits. Oh, beautiful. We had Sheila, which was this like humongous, like filled the entire stage spider that was operated by five puppeteers, but looked like the hobbits had made it with giant glowing eyes and everything. It was really scary. But everything was like the hobbits of in the way that we tell the nativity, yeah. There's a sort of you know a thing that humans do. The hobbits sort of tell the story of the Lord of the Rings 30 years after it's happened, 50 years after it's happened. So it's the hobbits playing Aragorn as top, they you know, and when they become Aragorn, they're Aragorn. But yeah, it's all like hobbits have sort of made it, which is a really cool way of doing it. Very, very imaginative.

SPEAKER_05: 52:11

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04: 52:12

Um how long did you have to prepare for for that, like the voice and the physicality and everything?

SPEAKER_01: 52:17

Well, the voice was cheating because I'd done that like a version of it since I was a kid. Yeah, yeah. But like the physicality, I had a couple of months to get middle-earth ready. And so I'd be like my housemate, I'd I'd be like, I got I I was getting I got really, really fit. Yeah. Um, and whenever I didn't want to do it, she'd be like, Go, you've got to go be Middle Earth ready. I'm like, oh no, no, no, yeah, yeah. But I had yeah, a couple of months to really get into like shape. Yeah. But then I had to stop working out because um the show itself is so physical that if you do anything more, you're just gonna burn out. Yeah. And so the show then allowed my fitness to sort of keep up and it it whenever there was like a month off or a couple of weeks off, that was really hard. Yeah. Because the only way that particularly for playing golem, that you can stay fit for playing golem, because you're using muscles that you don't use ever. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04: 53:05

As a as a crawling around the house and yeah, genuinely.

SPEAKER_01: 53:09

I would crawl, I would spend ages crouching, I would dangle off stuff just so my body continually is conditioned for these things. Like I saw muscles on my back that I'd never seen before, and they've since gone away. Yeah. Just from having to like be able to breathe and engage my breath support low. Yeah. But not when you're because if you imagine, like if there's the ground and I'm crawling like this, and my art, like I'm essentially crawling in a plank position, like on my fingertips. Um and then the moment you bring your neck up like that, you're gonna be straining. Yeah. If you're then trying to do the voice, so it's like, okay, well, if I curl my shoulders in this way and I allow my lungs to sort of drop that way, I can get more breath support through as opposed to if my shoulders were back. And it's it's learning an entirely different way of breathing and speaking and pacing yourself. Yeah, it was it was a real, really, really interesting.

SPEAKER_04: 54:00

So, did you figure that out yourself? Did you have a coach?

SPEAKER_01: 54:03

No, I it was all self-taught.

SPEAKER_04: 54:04

Wow, man. That's so impressive.

SPEAKER_01: 54:07

Thank you. Yeah, thank you. Yeah, it was very cool. It was very, very skills that will never serve me any good for anything else. But for Gollum, I don't know, man.

SPEAKER_04: 54:17

Brilliant you you now you know what that process is.

SPEAKER_01: 54:19

If you have to play a really physical character like that again, you know. Which is so like coming out of that, I went, I really want to do when I when I realized I will be finishing up in a couple of months after I do the Singapore, I wanted to do something really completely different. Yeah, like how before Gollum I was doing something completely different to Golem. And I really value being able to like not settle into one little comfy niche and always be challenged. So like Glass Menagerie is it's a it's a drama set in the 1930s, yeah, with a cast of four, yeah, with no instruments. Um, I don't have to shave my head and face every day. Yeah, brilliant. And it's like, oh wow, okay. So who knows? The next after Glass Menagerie, um, the next thing that I'm doing is a physical role, but it's not nearly as physical as Gollum, but it's physical for an entirely separate set of reasons. And I'm I'm touring Cludo around Australia. Oh great.

SPEAKER_04: 55:12

Yes, yeah. I saw a post about that. Oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 55:15

And um, and that'll be like physical, but it'll be physical comedy. Yes. So like that's gonna be a whole different thing. So it's been it's it's like the the stuff that I've learnt is from doing Gollum and the sort of the rigour that it takes. It that's something that I'll definitely take on into everything else.

SPEAKER_04: 55:31

Oh man, that's really inspiring, man. Oh I've got an audition for something for for musical theatre due next week. Oh and and this is great. To to it it's it just it inspires the level of of um commitment and depth that you do need to go into for every single role, you know. Whenever I get lazy. It's good, it's good having these chats because it reminds me to not get lazy.

SPEAKER_01: 55:56

Don't become complacent. Yes, yeah. Like I said this time, apathy is death. Yeah, yeah. Brian Cranston talk. Have you read Brian Cranston's book? No. Alive in his hearts? No. It's essential reading. Okay. Absolutely. Good to know. I hope it's on audible. I think it is. I'm thinking it writes it. Okay, good. That like every audition is not a job interview, it's you offering up a little three-minute performance. Yes, yeah. And you're sort of going, That's that's my performance. Here it is, there it is. Cool. So you'll either have a look at it. Take it or leave it. That's it. And it's like, okay, so that three minutes of your performance, you you you you gotta do your work. Yeah. You gotta know where you're coming from. And if it doesn't tell you, make a decision. Yes. All right, if it doesn't say where you're coming from, you've got nothing. Okay, cool. You're coming from the bakery and you're setting your bank down, and then you're having this conversation in your kitchen. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Was it rainy outside? How are you entering in? Have you been anticipating this conversation? Are you not looking forward to this conversation? Whatever. What do you know? Make up fill in the blanks of what you don't know. Yeah, and then if nothing else, cool. You've made a really fleshed out performance. Yeah, yeah. It's fantastic advice, man.

SPEAKER_04: 57:01

Oh, it's so good. Do you do you think uh all all the knowledge that you have now, yeah? How much of it do you think has come from drama school and how much has just come from the experience of doing it or life?

SPEAKER_01: 57:13

Life 70% doing it, 30% drama school. Yeah, yeah, yeah. My biggest takeaway from drama school was vocal technique, yeah, which my teacher at drama school, Katerina Moraitas, you know, all the stuff she taught us about, like warming up properly and like vocal technique and safety. Like, I never burnt out my voice doing golem.

SPEAKER_05: 57:30

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 57:31

So that like a good chunk of though, like the 30%, I think is largely due with voice from from drama school. But a lot of it I learned either from doing master classes or learning on the job. So working with with Ian Sinclair, for example, um he would always talk about maximum shift. So, particularly if you're finishing a scene and starting it the next scene, um maximum energy shift. Like what is the most interesting thing so the scenes don't bleed together? And that again comes down to deciding like what has happened in between, even if it the scene is just lights going from here to there, yes, that's all you have to work with, yeah. Um will decide like what has happened in in that scene. Yes, in that scene, in that imaginary scene, so you can just like plop into it. Yeah, things like it is always more interesting to be heard off stage and walk on stage than to like walk on stage and start speaking, because now there's an imaginary life over there, right? That then feeds into the stage.

SPEAKER_05: 58:29

Yes, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 58:30

I hadn't I didn't learn that at drama school, I learned that from in the middle of rehearsing my play with him, and he he would always go to me, Lawrence, talk, then walk. Don't walk, then talk. And oh yeah, it's alright, sorry. Oh man, that's amazing. It's brilliant. Things like when I was doing uh my my my very first TV show where I was 16, and then like in the TV show, there was like it was sort of like a Harry Ron Hermione dynamic, and I was the Ron in it. I was just chatting to the crew and I learned, you know, knowing that that that the crew are there to make you look good, they're not there to make you look stupid. They're not trying to test you out, they're not trying to test you out, they're not even watching your performance. No, they're watching how the light bounces off your face, yeah, they're watching if you hit your mark, they're watching if you're in focus, they're not looking at you. No, they're trying to do their job and make you look great. Yeah. So be friends with your crew. Yes. Don't be scared of your crew.

SPEAKER_04: 59:21

No.

SPEAKER_01: 59:21

But like I would chat to the crew, and I remember chatting to uh one of our third ADs, uh, Marika Spence, um, who this this is in 2013, so it must have been 2012, uh, I think when she shot the railmo man with Colin Firth and Nicole Kidman. I was asking her, what's Colin Firth like? And she said, um, one of the most professional people she's ever worked with, because like whenever there's uh you know, hold for plane or whatever, or they're doing a new camera setup, or they're shifting video village round so they can change around. The moment that he is needed, he's there. Yeah. Like right next to the first AD, ready to go.

SPEAKER_05: 59:57

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 59:57

And that is a level of rigour it's like. Okay, well that's how I want to be. And you learn that at age 16. Because they they don't teach you that at drama school. You can only learn that from like chatting to people or watching other actors. I don't drink coffee because of watching actors on set. This is this is wanky, but I remember being a kid watching like all the grown-ups on set not functioning until they've had coffee.

SPEAKER_05: 1:00:18

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 1:00:19

If I can not rely on coffee when I'm called for a 4 a.m. thing, I I think I'll be much more like ready to go. And I'm drinking coffee, it's fine. But that was just a thing for me that I watched, particularly the like chatting to crew about other actors they've worked with, and particularly when you're starting out, like being like, what lessons do you want to learn? What do you want to take away? And hearing that thing about Colin Firth and his just his discipline of his onset conduct, um, the way he doesn't keep the driver waiting at the end of the day, the way that he like interacts with um, you know, the the lunch stuff in the catering truck and everything. Uh, and then you see like other actors behaving on set. That stuff, that kind of rigour is a what gets you employed again.

SPEAKER_05: 1:01:04

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 1:01:05

Because people talk, never think that people aren't talking. No. Because word gets around, yeah. And uh and it's not that hard to just be a decent person. Like it's not, it's really not particularly in Australia, it's too small for decent.

SPEAKER_04: 1:01:18

It's a it's a massive part of the job though, just being good to work with and being a nice person, being friendly, and talking to people on the set and being part of the team. Yeah. Because you're only acting in the world. And then and then there's your your acting skills. Yeah, tiny.

SPEAKER_01: 1:01:31

Yeah, tiny tiny amount. But the rest of it is just be nice. Be nice. Yeah. And again, that's something that at drama school you're so focused on your lines, you're so focused on, you know, particularly 30 years, getting a show reel together, getting an agent, you know, who's been cast in what play.

SPEAKER_05: 1:01:47

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 1:01:47

That the actual industry stuff of rocking up and doing the work, how do you hold for a plane? How do you stay bryson? Yeah. You learn that only from watching. Yeah. And from doing. Yes. Um, and in the downtime, use that time to ask the camera operator, why are you using this lens? Yeah. What does this lens do? Yeah. Ask the lighting guy, it's like, what does this do? What's that light do? What are you trying to achieve here? Obviously, pick your moment because you're trying to call the thing. But if it is, if you are holding for a plane and nothing's gonna change, great time. Yeah. If at lunch, there's so much you can be doing when you're not doing the thing.

SPEAKER_05: 1:02:19

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 1:02:20

Because you're only acting for five minutes a day. That means you're working for nine, ten hours.

SPEAKER_05: 1:02:24

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 1:02:24

What's the rest of the time? Yeah. You should know your lines already, so you shouldn't be memorizing your lines. Of course. So yeah, it's it's a really that is your school. Like that downtime is your school. So like, yeah, that's 70%. The drama school will give you that 30% of technique, but it'll give you the rudimentary technique. Yeah. Because the rest of it, the refinement, it's like if you want to make a sculpture out of marble, yeah, you take away it in huge chunks first. Yeah. And then you get the rough shape, and then you go in and you do the small one, then you do the sanding, then yeah. Drama school is only taking away big chunks. Yes, yeah, right. Don't think you're doing the fine work at drama school. You're not. That comes later. Yeah. That's the rest of your life. Yeah. And it's never really finished. It's never really finished. Yeah. Yeah. Evan Peters. Yeah. Like, even in the midst of like American horror story like at its peak, we're still going to drama classes. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. Yeah. Like, and he was. Imagine getting paired up with him, you get the name, oh fuck. Oh my shit. Okay. Yeah. Um, yeah, never stops.

SPEAKER_04: 1:03:22

But I I guarantee that if you do come across like a name like that in a in a school or in a workshop or whatever, yeah, I guarantee that they're they are so there for you. There's no there's no hierarchy. It's just look, we're all here for the same reason, man. You're you're taking slightly larger chunks away still, but um we're all we're all still refined and we're saying, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 1:03:43

Like I my my very first gig on stage was this this MTC STC um thing. And it was a play called Jumpy. I had maybe six lines. Yeah. It's the one I had to relocate out of Adelaide for. And it was directed by Pamela Rabe, who was the warden in Wentworth. Jane Turner, who played Kath in Kath and Kim, was the mum. Brenner Harding, who was the lead in Puberty Blues, was the daughter. I played one of her boyfriends. Yeah. And then it had like the uh Caroline Brazier, who is just heaven to watch if you see her in anything go, because she's brilliant. I didn't know who any of these people were uh at the time. Um, I did about three weeks into rehearsals when I their bios came through and you had to look at it.

SPEAKER_05: 1:04:25

I was like, oh yeah, okay.

SPEAKER_04: 1:04:26

Um glad you didn't know before. Oh god, I would have been shitting myself.

SPEAKER_01: 1:04:30

Yeah, yeah. But I mean, as a first job, I had six lines. Marina Pryor, um, who is uh one of the greats of Australian stage, did a burlesque routine and popped a balloon in my face with her thighs. What a what a what a weird first gig. But I spent that whole thing doing my six lines, moving the furniture on stage, and just watching and like what a first gig. Yeah. It was I would I would not want my first play to be Hamlet and play Hamlet, not in a million years. I if I had my time again uh and went back to being that age, I would pick the exact same size role, doing the exact same sort of thing. Yeah, because hey, the pressure's not on you. Yeah. And you can watch and you can watch other people succeed and you can watch other people make mistakes and figure it out. Yeah. That was like the best school. Yeah. And getting to tour that to two cities and watch these greats of comedy and drama do their thing.

SPEAKER_05: 1:05:30

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 1:05:30

Wow. I remember people talking in my year of drama school about the kind of place that they want to leave and and go and do. And it was the like they wanted to play Rosencrantz and Gildenstern right out of drama school. It's like, sure, yeah, there's no reason why you can't. Yeah. But like, I don't know. I think there's so much more value to be coming out when you're a new to this biz with you know, trying to figure yourself out. You've been one person in a very concealed place, you're gonna have to reinvent yourself coming out. Yeah, that's a huge thing. And then find yourself as an actor. It's like you don't need that pressure.

SPEAKER_04: 1:06:00

Well, it's kind of I don't think it's any help to you to to come out of or begin anything with the intention of trying to prove yourself straight away. You've got nothing to prove. Exactly. You just come in come into it with curiosity and and humility and understand where you are in the process and in your career. And it doesn't mean you're not good at it, you know, but you you're already hired. Yeah, exactly. Like you've proven that you're you can do it. Yeah. Um and then but whatever happens on the day is is just sort of part of the, you know, it it you're just part of that team now, and whatever happens, happens. But yeah, you don't need to go into it trying to prove a point trying to prove that you who you are or what you what you are capable of, yeah, or that you're qualified.

SPEAKER_01: 1:06:42

It's just concentrated. Yeah, that's built in. You've got that. Yeah, you will add value and you you have something to say. Yeah. So like don't worry, that that's taken care of. Like that's that's hardwired into you. Yeah. It's just about finding the the people that can help sort of encourage it out of you. Yeah, yeah. Finding your peeps.

SPEAKER_04: 1:07:02

And speaking of um people you've worked with, you've worked with Sean McAuliffe. I have worked with Sean McCartliff. What was that like? And what was it on?

SPEAKER_01: 1:07:09

He is uh the best. He's from Adelaide too. He is an Adelaide boy, yeah, he certainly is. Um and uh yeah, he went through law school here as well. Yeah. Um I owe Sean a humongous amount. He's one of the most supportive people on the planet, as well as being one of the funniest. Yeah. He uh so I did a uh a panel show called Talking About Your Generation on Channel 9 with him, which was very, very different to anything I'd done before, very different to anything I've done since. Uh it was him, uh Andy Lee from Hey Michael, nice, and uh and Robin Butler, who is a fantastic creative uh actor, uh director, yeah, um producer. It was such a brilliant learning curve for so many reasons. It was the first time I was on camera that wasn't like a behind-the-scenes type thing. Yeah, where it they wanted me to be me, yeah, as Lawrence with a camera in front of him. Yeah. But obviously you've got to keep it light and funny and be funny. And I also have a guest teacher. I don't think you would have had a problem with that. Oh, I I don't know. Well, this is the thing of looking back at when you were sort of like 21, 22 years old. Oh, okay, yeah. There were times where because it was so different, there were definitely times where I was more like, you know, I I did improv for many years, but it's it's amazing, like the moment like you have a camera pointed at you and you suddenly feel the pressure, or maybe your guest isn't quite as responsive or they're into it as when you work with someone that's really free and loosey-goosey and it's like, oh yeah, everything's great. Yeah, yeah. Um that's heaven, but sometimes they're just a little closed door, and then, or maybe like I particularly the first season I was sort of doing on the sly from drama school because you weren't allowed to work. Uh, oh, I see. Okay, okay. So uh we won't tell NIDE. We won't tell NIDE unless they rescind my degree. I'm not telling you when I shot it. No, no. Um can't prove anything. Cheeky. Cheeky. But Sean is uh I mean, A, he's a creative genius. Like his writing is so good, yeah. His generosity is like unmatched. Yeah. He's the kind of guy that would be doing ridiculous games with a big magic mirror, like playing, you know, essentially improv games or trivia or whatever. And he had this thing where he could make a mere cat pop out of his table, or be like playing the recorder, and it's all like silly. And he'd come over to me in a break and just go, you know, Lawrence, I've read this really fascinating book on like Henry VIII, and I'll I'll bring it in for you next week. I'll go, Oh, thanks, Sean. And he goes back and he's playing the keyboard and things are popping up and really wow. This man contains multitudes. Yeah. But then in the pandemic, obviously he was still shooting Mad as Hell, his TV series at the time. He would write in tiny bit parts for me to keep me employed. Yeah. Um, just so I I could I A was doing something, and you know, it'd be like it when there was it was not much money at all, but it was something when nothing was coming in before there was JobKeeper and Job Seeker and all these things. Because he looks after people. Yeah. You know, he came and saw, I did As You Like It with Christy Willem Brown, who was part of the cast. Yeah. And he, you know, he comes and sees that. And I did a play called Shakespeare in Love with you know his old friend Francis Greenslade, also an Adelaide boy, who he did Mad as Hell with, and he he he rocks up to everything.

SPEAKER_05: 1:10:07

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 1:10:08

And he sends supportive messages. That's so nice. Andy Lee on that show as well. Like, I I told him that I was really nervous because you know, it's a funny thing to suddenly be in clothes that aren't your clothes, but they'll they look like your clothes, because they want you to feel as most like you as you can, as relaxed, as comfy, but they weren't my clothes, yeah, but they look like it. So you are wearing a bit of a costume and then having to be you but be funny. Yeah. And um and Andy would like because each week I'd fly back up to Sydney and um at the end of each taping, and he'd call me when I was at the airport and just check in. Be like, hey mate, how you doing? Like, oh yeah, man, I'm good, I'm good. And he'd talk me through the episode and be like, Yeah, this bit was really great. And you know, you're doing great work, keep it up. Um, and if I had any like problems with anything, he'd like give me some workarounds and stuff. Andy was just like this amazing, a sort of life boy, yeah, essentially, of going, Oh god, this is so dear. And he knew how stressed I was about juggling uni and and doing this thing. And and like at the start of the second season, Andy, we all had a big dinner together. Yeah, and Andy was like, Hey, um, you know, you made a joke in the first season that even though it was funny, was the wrong joke in terms of keeping it light, like it was too dark. Right. Yeah, and it wasn't that the joke was distasteful or anything, it wasn't anything like that. There was a joke where it was like us, um, we was like a schools edition, so we were all wearing like school outfits, and Sean was like a thing, it was all back to school flavour.

SPEAKER_05: 1:11:34

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 1:11:35

And and uh someone made a uh jibe about me and my mates, you know, oh your friends at school. And I was like, haha, jokes and you I didn't have any friends at school. It was something like that. Right, which I and it got a laugh and everything, yeah, yeah. But it was like it was just a little bit too, it was a bit too serious. Right, okay, yeah. It's like, oh, that's kind of depressing. Too real, yeah too real, yeah, yeah. Yeah, or like someone was, you know, taking the piss too much, and I'm like, oh, there's a bully. Yeah. Which is like being school themed, but using the word bully is like, oh, that's a bit too heavy. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And so he was like, you know, when you just just don't like be be careful, like he understands like uh because he's so experienced in this type of stuff. Yeah, he would give me that kind of pointer. Oh, right, of course. I feel a bit sheepish and everything.

SPEAKER_04: 1:12:20

Yeah, it's so hard to give that feedback though. It's important feedback when you're working in that field. Really kind of him to to offer that feedback. Because we would have said, Oh god, like this that's no good.

SPEAKER_01: 1:12:31

Yeah, and it because if if you don't have those people telling you that, then who is gonna tell you? Exactly, yeah, yeah, yeah. And um, within that show, having to work with a new person every week, yeah, having the familiar rapport of these guys uh to my to my side, um all comes back to play because you have to be so playful on that kind of show. Yeah, yeah. Because anything can happen, like it's all problem solving, and you as the host, as the the team captain, if your guest is a little nervous, a little shy, that it's not about you being funny, it's about you making them look really good. Yes, yeah, yeah. A couple of times we'll be playing a game or something, and I this isn't to be like uh to my own horn that I'm funnier than this person, but it's like this is the kind of spirit of collaboration that I'm always still trying to like carry on to the next thing. Yeah, yeah. Of like I would whisper to them something sort of funny to say. Yeah, right. And then they'd say it and get a really big laugh. Yeah, nice, and then they relax. Which then after I did that season, the second season of that, I went and did this play, Shakespeare and Love, with Francis, and and I witnessed something amazing happening there, which I'm such a which I love, and that's that's my favourite play I've ever done because it was 14 people with no ego of just joy and love, and we'd all we just adore each other very still to this day, we saw chat. Um but it was a big comedy and people were coming up with bits, and obviously comedy is a vulnerable thing because if something bombs, you don't want to be awkward, you just want to be like, okay, try something else next time. Yes, yeah, of course, yeah. And people would offer a bit, you know, they put on a hat in a funny way, yeah. They'd get it wrong.

SPEAKER_05: 1:14:06

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 1:14:06

And people come up and suggest, why don't you try this? Not that it's my idea is better than yours, it's that I think this will make I think you'll be really funny doing this thing. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And what what happened was if it worked, and you know, Adam got a really good laugh. Yeah, Adam would go, that was actually Chris's idea. Yeah. And give credit there. But if it tanked, Chris would pipe pipe and go, that was my idea, sorry. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And it's like, wow, God, if only everything could be like that. Yeah. And that was the same sort of thing on your gen. I that I learned what I learnt on your gen doing that could then carry through to then suggesting things, yeah, not out of knowing more, but out of we're all trying to make this the funniest thing we can. Yeah. So let's try. And if it bombs, take ownership of it.

SPEAKER_04: 1:14:53

Yeah. By the sounds of things, every experience you've talked about today, and I'm sure that not everything has been like this, but like you have had a big part in bringing that culture to whatever thing you work on. And and that that mentality will spread throughout the environment as well.

SPEAKER_01: 1:15:11

Yes, I I think now that I'm older and I've you know I've been doing this a while, like I definitely try and like foster that early. Yeah. But I was I was lucky enough to be early on to be included enough that I felt like I could do it by people who were older. Yeah. So when I was doing Shakespeare and Love, I was the youngest in that room by more than a decade.

SPEAKER_05: 1:15:34

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 1:15:35

And I had people to encourage that freedom and that play and that openness and that sense of offering. Yeah. And also that sense of responsibility for when things don't, you know, accountability. Um now that you know we're we're we're on from that and I've had you know a bunch of experiences since, and um uh good and bad, yeah, I feel it's my onus if to to to make sure that that is there. Yes, because sometimes in the case of Glass Menagerie, Shannon is encouraging that from the get-go. Even if I wasn't gonna do it, she's doing it. Yeah. But like on, for example, Lord of the Rings, where at least amongst the younger cast, those who who weren't, you know, sort of like 45 plus, I was one of the more experienced people. So it's like, okay, well, I'm gonna, you know, just quietly do my best to to make sure that people feel like they've got this thing happening because it's such a big machine, there's so many moving parts to it. It's like, okay, well, you know, that is something that you can do actively. Yes, exactly. To to to make everyone feel a little better, yeah, and why not?

SPEAKER_04: 1:16:36

Yeah, you set the tone or you foster that environment for those that are coming up to the next generation, or yes, just that's what I think.

SPEAKER_01: 1:16:44

People that have not been on as many sets or because I I've been lucky where I've had brilliant experiences, but I have also had, and I won't talk about them here because it's not the place, but like I've had some really terrible experiences. Yeah, of course. And it's because I've had those terrible experiences I know that I never want anyone to feel like that. Yes. So if it's within my power to make that not happen, I will make that not happen. Yeah. But it makes for good work. It makes for good work. And then if that means that the next person can have an experience like I had on Shakespeare and Love, then hopefully it'll pay forward. Exactly. Yeah. And that's how you create change. Yes. Um, at least in terms of the the the attitude and the the level of respect and and just workplace culture, I think.

SPEAKER_05: 1:17:26

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 1:17:26

And that way also you can call it out when it isn't like that. Yeah. And you know you've got a point of reference for well, it's not it might just be different, yeah, or is it bad? Yeah. Because different is fine.

SPEAKER_05: 1:17:38

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 1:17:38

But if it's bad, then you know. Because sometimes you'll you'll see people come into I've heard about it from plenty of people uh who go into their first job and it is a bad experience, and they've got no frame of reference. Yeah. And that's that's their presence. Yes. And that's really scary and damaging.

SPEAKER_04: 1:17:54

And then they might believe that that's how they're meant to behave. Yeah. And then they carry that on.

SPEAKER_01: 1:17:58

Yeah. Whether it's downward pressure from, you know, directors or or producers, or whether it's negative behaviour from caste and it's lateral. Yeah. Or is it like a caste trying to create a hierarchy and coming down? Yes. It does not have to be like that. Yes. Which again all comes back to like, you know, if you've got your little community as well, and you've fostered that early on enough, or you're finding it now, then you can use them as your sounding board. Yeah. Because these things don't exist in a vacuum and you can't exist in a vacuum. You have to exist, you know, as part of this giant sort of fibrous network where things sort of feelers are going out and everything. Yeah, and then the more in tune you are with that, uh, or or of you know, the the broader goings on, particularly if it is your first gig, you know, find your peeps within that cast and ask, is this always this? Yeah. You know, I had the thing on Shakespeare in Love going, is it always this good? Yeah. Is it always gonna be like this? Like I'd done plays before drama school. It's my first play out. I was going, God, I haven't had this before. How frequent is this? And a lot of people going, it's it's never this good. Yeah. Like this is the unicorn that we're in right now.

SPEAKER_04: 1:19:00

But the fact that you had that experience so early on, yeah, I'm sure you're chasing that all the time. Oh, it's a terrible high. It's great. It's great though, but because it does come up again, it does happen. And it does. The experiences that you're telling me about, I mean, it just sounds like you've been able to replicate those experiences again and again and cu curate a really supportive and loving environment amongst your castmates and and crew. Yeah. I remember when I first got back into acting, we did the Laramie project. Oh, brilliant. And it was so good. And I've banged on about this a lot on the on the podcast, so everyone's sick of this. But you haven't heard it, yeah. And and I've got new listeners, so here it is. But it was the first time that it was like we said before, it was more than just look at me, look at me. Yeah, it was it was connecting to a story and and an important story and an important message, and it became our story to tell and on behalf of you know Matthew and yeah, and the people of Laramie, you know. But that cast and the crew were so supportive, yeah. And there was no competition, there was no hierarchy, there was nothing to prove. It was you're a beginner, you went to NIDA, you're a it was a real melting pot of experiences. And I one of my friends, um Nadia, she went to NIDA. And Tolotti, yeah, yeah, yeah. She's great, she's fantastic. And I I just latched onto her. I'm like, all right, teach me everything you know. And she was so generous with all with all of that, you know. But there was no like, well, I went here and you're yeah, you just someone that hasn't done it for 10 years. Yeah, yeah. You know, it was all right, let's let's go. Let's we're all here together, let's keep climbing together, you know. And we had the best experience, and anyone that that was in that cast will tell you, like JJ Leach, who was on the podcast um recently, she was in it as well. But we all have this like solidarity of like, oh my god, Laramie, like it was the best experience we've had, and it and it sparked something in all of us to continue to chase that you know, that environment and and do it again, you know. And it's like a really positive plague that goes out.

SPEAKER_01: 1:21:03

Yes, yes. You want to be in fact like that, you want to spread it and you want to get other people contagious, but yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_04: 1:21:08

Yeah, and so that's um that's what I'm always sort of trying to find, and and I'm always excited when I get to work on a set or a or a um you know in a cast or a play, yeah, where I'm like, yeah, this is we're all we're all on the same team here. We're all playing and we're all open to mistakes and and failures and and successes, and yeah, and it's the best.

SPEAKER_01: 1:21:29

Oh yeah, it's so nice to hear that about you know your experience, Laramie. And I hope anyone that's listening to this, if they have an experience, like your Laramie, my my my Shakespeare and Larry, they have their oh my god, it was our hairspray or something. That's the cast just melds together.

SPEAKER_04: 1:21:45

Yeah, and then you just want to carry that on to the next thing.

SPEAKER_01: 1:21:47

And and the important thing is to remember what that feeling was like, yeah, so that you can apply it because it was a it was a weird thing eventually being not the youngest person in the cast. For a long time, I was the youngest person in the cast. Like I did a a foxtale series here in Adelaide uh many years ago called Deadline Gallipoli. Yeah, and in that I was like the youngest of sort of the principal casts.

SPEAKER_05: 1:22:06

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 1:22:07

By again, by long shot. Yeah, yeah. And I was there at the the this um dining table. We had a big cast dinner, and I'm I'm gonna have to name drop, I apologize, in order to sort of set the scene. But like Charles Dance, who is Tywin Lannister in Game of Thrones, was sitting just there. Goodness, yeah, yeah. Sam Worthington from Avatar, yeah, uh, Hugh Darncy, uh, and then like just the most astonishing group of Australian actors, Benedict Hardy, Aaron Glenane, Darren, Dan Wiley. Uh um, I think you'll pick all that up. You'll pick all that up. I'll scoop it up later. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But like I know who these guys are, yeah. And I'm 17. And in that sort of space where Tywin Lannister is eating a baguette over there, and you're like, oh my god, it's like the peak of Game of Thrones fever, and I've just watched The Red Wedding, and it's all like, ah that's crazy. Um that wasn't a uh for for me at least because I was a junior on that thing. Yeah. Um, that wasn't like the Laramie or the thing, but it was still a fantastic experience. Yeah, like it was still that utterly open, wonderfully creatively liberating. And I I didn't know it because it was only my second job. So I didn't have the I had one excellent frame of reference, had a great time on the show before that.

SPEAKER_05: 1:23:16

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 1:23:16

And this one, so I was so young and it's so impressionable, and the impressions that I got from everyone were so astonishing, yeah, and so positive that it all drip feeds. So you either have the Laramie thing where it's like a humongous tidal wave of just like positivity, and it's like yes, or you get it in the drips and drabs. Yeah. But being aware that it's even if it isn't one big thing all at once, that it is these little things that gently influence, and these are these good things happening around you, and these are all really lovely people. And even though it's not like often find in theatre it's way more like gung-ho level of like, yeah, everything's great. Yeah, but in theatre, it's a bit more sort of like slow release. Yeah. That if you're open and you you can you know put your ego aside and you can get out of your head, yeah, and you can actually look across and listen from people, then all of these things do trickle in really, really slowly. It's a self-fulfilling prophecy once you've got it in you and you just start to self-generate.

SPEAKER_04: 1:24:04

It's also I think it's important to sort of clarify that like it doesn't mean that the experience has to be perfect the whole time. Like Lar Laramie, there was like you know, there's bits of drama and there was m days where it was like you know, not so fun and and negative, and but that's just part of the process, you know. It it but doesn't mean that we weren't still supportive of of of the of like each other and getting through those things, you know. But just so people, you know, don't feel like they're they're like, oh, this isn't the one when when something doesn't go quite right on a it's like in a rehearsal or something.

SPEAKER_01: 1:24:36

It's like it it's it it it still could be you know bumps will happen on Shakespeare in Love, we I don't think we did a full run of the a full proper run of the play with costumes and everything and lights until a completely sold-out first preview at the Melbourne Arts Centre. Yeah, uh god. And it went flawlessly, like it went brilliantly. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Which bonded us even more. But it's like, yeah, we were hitting our first sold-out preview, yeah, and we had not put this thing together. Yeah, which could have been people stressed and biting each other's heads off and everything.

SPEAKER_04: 1:25:07

And taking it out on each other and projecting, and yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 1:25:09

But we'd had four weeks of a giant love fest. Yes, yeah. So the idea of taking it on each other, it was never it was never it could never have happened. No, like it was never going to be nasty, yeah, because we'd had that groundwork set up of utter respect for each other as people and as creatives.

SPEAKER_04: 1:25:26

And and you got through the hard times as well.

SPEAKER_01: 1:25:28

Exactly. So when you have that that setup, like you won't ever really fail because you you can't. When you have that support and that setup and that foundation, yeah, like failure isn't possible. No, like you know, if someone misses their entrance, it's okay because so-and-so's gonna come on and deliver some sort of improv line. Yeah. If the dog we had a dog that had to run across the stage with a script in its mouth in the middle of a fight scene, like people are getting punched, there's sword fights happening, ding, ding, ding, like people are rolling down the stage, and a dog then has to run across, we'll have to watch it. If that doesn't happen, it's fine. Adam's got a backup script and he's gonna run along like waving it crazy just because he knows what to do. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. But without that sense of like love and respect, yeah, that's when the cracks will show. Yeah. But if you've you've got that rock solid unit, yeah, the cracks will never open in the first place. So and like I've been M E double A rep on a couple of shows now because I I I I I've having been having had like some bad experiences, yeah, working with like union and things like this, yeah. It it does mean that you get more of an insight in how to deal with it and you can be like the person that people come to if they aren't feeling great.

SPEAKER_05: 1:26:36

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 1:26:37

And it's something that I take quite seriously. That's that's great. Like I said at the start, this is a business we get into because we're all silly buggers. Yeah, we're all just and so if anything is squashing that joy out of it for you, yeah, then I have a personal problem with it. Yes, yeah, yeah, it's good.

SPEAKER_04: 1:26:52

Yeah, amazing, man. Well, I think we should wrap up. Alrighty. I gotta I gotta go play ice hockey. Ah, I gotta go learn lines. Yeah, well, I'll be there. Oh, yeah. Of course. Um Glass Menagerie November 15th to December 7th. Excellent. At the Odeon. At the Odeon in Norwood. Yeah. Mate, this was it was so nice to meet you. So nice to meet you. Thanks for coming and uh I'll I'll be at Glass Menagerie and I'm excited to see everything else that you do. Oh, thank you, mate. Could you say hi? Yeah. Yeah, of course, man. Oh, where can we find you? Are you do you plug yourself on socials? Where can we find you on socials?

SPEAKER_01: 1:27:25

I only I only made an Instagram November last year, so it's very new. It's just Lawrence Boxel, Lawrence with the U. And the same on Facebook.

SPEAKER_04: 1:27:34

Cool, man. Dude, thank you so much. Thank you. This is amazing. Such a good chat. Man, wasn't that good? I hadn't even met the guy before. And to be honest, it was kind of daunting to be having someone on that I didn't know yet. But the first of many, I hope. And now I do know him, and he's great. And what I love about doing this podcast is the new friends uh that I get to make. It's a great excuse to reach out to people that I didn't know before and get to know them. I love it. Please support the show by signing up to the Patreon, patreon.com slash go pluck yourself pod. Uh, I do all of this on my own. It's uh it's a lot of work. It's completely funded by you, the listener. So if you haven't become a patron, uh please do so. All I'm asking for is the price of a coffee or a pint once a month to help support the show. Thanks everyone who's already signed up to the Patreon. Your support means the world. Make sure you give us a follow on Instagram at GoPluckYourselfpod and follow me at featuring underscore Chris underscore gun. And if you haven't subscribed to the YouTube channel, do that. Send it to a friend, tell them to subscribe. Let's get this thing to a thousand subscribers. Um, get your tickets to the Glass Menagerie if you're going to be there on the 28th. I'll see you there. Next week, I'll have my very first international guest calling all the way in from London. That's in England. Uh, so stay tuned for that. Alright, theme music by my cousin Nick Gunn. Thanks, Nikki Boy. I love you. Check out his work on SoundCloud, soundcloud.com slash Nick Gunn. Thanks for listening, guys. I'll see you next week. My name is Chris Gunn, and hey, go pluck yourself.