Craig Mathieson, The Sydney Morning Herald, reports
Not Suitable for Children shows
that Hollywood may call, but Ryan Kwanten won't put Australia in the back seat,
writes Craig Mathieson.
There have been so many Australian actors relocating to Hollywood
over the past 10 years that there's probably a special window at Los Angeles
airport's passport control for them. Some go into movies, following the lead of
Hugh Jackman and Naomi Watts, while others find success amid the US's bountiful
television industry. But what really divides them is their attitude to working
in Australia: some come back and some don't.
Ryan Kwanten is among the former. The one-time Home and Away star fetched
up in Los Angeles in 2002 and struggled for several years, at one point
sleeping in a motel storeroom for three months to make ends meet. But in 2008
he landed the role of Jason Stackhouse, a libidinous southerner in Alan Ball's
lusty supernatural romp True
Blood on the leading cable network HBO.
The show was a hit, and remains so as its fifth season airs. But
in his hiatus from production each year, Kwanten has tried to return to
Australia to star in an independent local film. There's been a modern western
in Patrick Hughes' Red Hill,
the idiosyncratic fantasy Griff
the Invisible and now the Gen Y romantic comedy Not Suitable for Children.
You can't fault Kwanten's dedication to local filmmaking.
''I really enjoy it,'' he says. ''There's the obvious connection I
have with Australia, but beyond that we have some of the most talented
filmmakers, technicians and actors that the world has to offer. It's not just
my duty to come back and work, I get a lot out of it. It means a lot more to me
to do something like Not
Suitable for Children than a $100 million Hollywood epic.''
It's 11.30pm in Los Angeles and Kwanten is driving home along
California's 405 freeway, having just finished a day's work on True Blood. The difference
between an American cast and an Australian one, he says, exists off-camera;
camaraderie comes quickly on a local production.
That helped in Not
Suitable for Children, the story of three twentysomething
housemates in Sydney's inner west - the coasting Jonah (Kwanten), no-nonsense
Stevie (Sarah Snook) and the eccentric Gus (Ryan Corr) - whose lives revolve
around a weekly for-profit house party. When circumstances dictate that Jonah
will only be able to procreate for another month, he is determined to find a
way to become a father.
''Everyone makes a snap judgment at the beginning of this film
that they think they know Jonah, but they don't,'' Kwanten, 35, says. ''I can
speak from personal experience - anyone who's gone through a traumatic time can
- but it's not until you go through life-defining moments that you realise who
you really are and how valuable the people around you are.''
It's a reactive role, defined by offbeat humour and an
underpinning melancholy that Kwanten enjoyed expanding with writer Michael
Lucas (television's Offspring)
and first-time feature director Peter Templeman.
As with his roles in Red
Hill and Griff
the Invisible, it's a world away from Jason Stackhouse. ''Michael's
script gave me the opportunity to do something different from what I've done
before,'' Kwanten says.
''For me, personally, there couldn't be anything more uninspiring
than playing the same character over and over again. I like to pride myself on
breaking out of the pigeonhole that I might put myself in, let alone the
industry. If you take a risk you might fall on your feet or fall on your arse,
but you have to keep trying.''
Not Suitable for Children is now screening.
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