If you were watching television in the spring of 1983, you were very likely watching the torrid, and torrentially popular, miniseries The Thorn Birds. And no matter what your predilections, you could not have helped being impressed by the often-shirtless presence of Australian actor Bryan Brown.
Tall, athletic, and blessed with a crooked grin, Brown introduced world audiences to the "bronzed god" stereotype of Australian masculinity.
A quarter-century later, Brown has still got it, and is as bronzed as ever. In his latest film, the Australian psychological-thriller-cum-road-trip Cactus (opening next week), Brown makes the surly-muscle-boy leads look about as tough as Justin Bieber. A cross between No Country for Old Men and a Jason Statham flick, Cactus is one long pan across the scratchy Australian outback, a landscape awash in tumbleweed and testosterone.
Of course, Brown has been very busy since his half-naked-on-a-clam-shell Thorn Birds debut: starring opposite Tom Cruise in Cocktail; Sigourney Weaver in Gorillas in the Mist; Peter O'Toole in the underrated Dean Spanley; Nicole Kidman (and Brown's obvious filmic heir, Hugh Jackman) in Australia; and more than 50 Australian and international films and television shows, many of which Brown produced.
Chatting with him, I hoped to provoke him to say something Crocodile Dundee-ish, like "squiz", "troppo" or at least "Crikey!" But no luck. He's the Sean Connery of the Antipodes, a gentleman under the burlap.
The way Australia is shot in this film won't help tourism. The outback looks awfully bleak.
You mean isolated? It's a pretty big country, you know. I think isolation is a big part of what a country like Australia offers. Now, whether that's offered as a challenge, well, something's only good, bad or indifferent depending on how you make it. But a big country, you can get lost in it. You know that, you come from one too.
You are often cast as grumpy authority figures. For good reason?
I couldn't answer that. You'd have to ask people that know me. Ha! The truth of the matter, though, is if you look at my characters I don't think you can say that. They are often characters who don't like authority, who don't necessarily agree with authority. Now, whether that makes them grumpy, or just stubborn. …
But you do play cops and military men a lot.
Yeah, well. … I'm trying to think how often I've played a cop, truthfully. … I think probably you're right in thinking that, but I always wonder where it comes from, because I'm not exactly sure that my characters absolutely present that. But they are characters who get on with life.
You have kept a career in the United States and in Australia, unlike some Australian actors who, once they make it in Hollywood, never go back.
I like telling Australian stories. I get much more fun out of them. I've been around a while, and when the resurgence of the Australian film industry happened in the sixties and seventies, I was one of those people who was, luckily, involved in that. I was there before there was an industry, when we didn't tell our own stories and you never saw an Australian character on screen. The excitement to play an Australian on screen has never left me.
You're one of the executive producers of Cactus. Did you cast yourself, and what perks were in your contract?
Um, Ha! Not a lot of perks, let me tell yah. I do produce films, and have for about 30 years, and as an actor I like seeing stories that I think are good and try to make them. With this one, the director [Jasmine Yuen Carrucan] asked me to play the cop. I liked the cop, but I asked her, "How much money have you got?" She only had a few grand. I said, "Look, you've got something here. I think you'd do yourself a favour by trying to get as much money as you can."
So, no white scented candles in your trailer?
What trailer?
Your character makes a choice at the end of the film that I found puzzling, in the good way. Without spoiling anything, can you talk about that choice?
Well, my character says something at the beginning of the film: This land is his territory, and don't mess up in it. And that has a lot to do with the ending.
Here's the difficulty: Some people say, "I wanted to know who it was who did this, for these reasons." And what we say is that [those questions]are what will either not satisfy people, or make the film fresh. I think a lot of people will come up with theories.
After so many movies, is there anything you have not done in a film that you would really like to do?
Surf. But it would have to be a very good day, with a lovely wave. And they would have to give me a lot of time to get a great wave and ride it well. But they'll probably just shoot one where I absolutely mess up, and that will go in the movie.