In this exclusive interview, Oscar-nominated Australian actress Rachel Griffiths discusses her diverse career spanning 35 years, her unique approach to acting, and her experiences working with some of Hollywood's biggest stars, including Johnny Depp and Nicole Kidman.
Rachel Griffiths is an Oscar-nominated Australian actress with a diverse body of work spanning 35 years.
Her latest drama series is: Rachel, you can call me an embarrassing mealy-mouthed fanboy with a typewriter if you must, but to cut to chase, I’ve followed you for yonks and love your work, including: But to head back on the track winding back, I know you were knocked back from entry into NIDA, only for a very short time later to score one of the two breakout roles in the iconic, with Toni Collette. When that happened, and you turned into a “STAR, darling!” – following it up with an Oscar nomination by the age of 30 for your role in, did you allow yourself some savage retributive joy and yell, “Not good enough for NIDA, huh? Well, look at me now!” No, not really. I had taken a harder route, but probably a much better route for me, which I was grateful for. With no NIDA, I joined the Woolly Jumpers, as part of a travelling troupe around Victoria. Just going from school to school with different audiences meant that instead of NIDA lecturers, it was my audiences who taught me what a good actor is.: You learn how to deliver lines to best effect. You learn ... timing. Hold the line an instant longer, or give it quicker, or deliver it differently. Work it out. You learn how to amp your charisma up, because you’re trying to keep Year 9 students in Warrnambool schools from throwing empty Coke cans at you. I am sure they wouldn’t have but they definitely had a bullshit meter. So you’ve got to be compelling and you’ve got to be kind of percussive and exciting and surprising and you’ve got to give them a jolt every now and then to keep their attention. So I think I learnt so much more on that circuit than being in the gilded cage of NIDA – which, when I think about it, would have broken me down before building me up, and probably flattened out my quirks and jerks. I would have felt, you know, like I had to learn to speak like this and be a dramatic actress. So if anything, I went into a different kind of blender that amplified my quirks and jerks. And I just don’t think with NIDA training I could have gone to that audition fortakes Australia and the world by storm, and you’re away. I ask you gently to please park your modesty and ...: Well, you’ve obviously got something that makes us in the audience lean forward. I, for one, don’t know how to define it. For every 10,000 actors treading the boards, you’re the one right up the front, killing it in role after role. Quite seriously, I know you’ve got it, and you know you’ve got it. We all know you’ve got it. But what is it? How do you define what it is that you’ve got?: The best actors have a kind of vibrational frequency that sort of creates the eyeball energy vortex that makes you watch them. And there are great screen actors that don’t necessarily have that vibration for theatre, and great theatre actors that have the wrong frequency for cinema. I guess I have learnt how to modulate my frequency for what is required.: Well, you’re asking technical stuff, and going deep, but among actors we call it “special sauce”. The great thing about the special sauce is, it really can come in all sizes and colours and shapes, because you can have a whole bunch of pretty people, and only one of them is really kind of vibrating on the right frequency, and that person will be the movie star. And the people that vibrate at Brad Pitt’s level or Nicole Kidman’s level, or Naomi Watts’ level, they are the real stars. Somehow, they have the vibrational stardust that amplifies charisma, and makes you watch them.: Yes. She’s, like, special sauce, extra tasty. She’s amazing. She is amazing. She was the first big movie star that I worked with, and she was the real McCoy from the first. She’s just got it.: Well, Johnny is such a character actor. When he walks into a room, does he have it? Onto a set? Look, probably. But he’s also such a mimic, like he creates these characters. The Johnny Depp you meet on set then completely disappears into his role, and he’s kind of a puppet-master for the character that he’s created. You never see into Johnny’s soul. You never see into Johnny’s heart. There is a creative construction taking place before your eyes, which is why he’s so amazing.: He’s all about the creation of a character. And he’s so extraordinarily, inventive, from the make-up to the hair to everything else. Like, I’m sure he tries on 50 pairs of shoes before every role to find the shoes right that make him feel like he’s stepping into the shoes of that character. Did John Wayne need to try on 20 pairs of boots before his film roles? I suspect not.: I once asked Hugh Jackman if the magic we all see onscreen ever continues when the cameras have stopped rolling? His answer was, not often, though he did tell me a truly magical story about him and John Travolta with a film crew, recreating the famous Travolta’s: In that case, sort o
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