Rachel Griffiths says the original Patrick
was "probably the scariest movie I've ever seen".
Neala Johnson, The Daily Telegraph, reports
Rachel Griffiths doesn't reckon too much has
changed for Aussie actors in the 20 years since she jetted off to the US.
"I mean, I grew up when Judy was nailing it, and Bryan, Jack and
Mel ... The fundamental difference," says the 44-year-old Melburnian,
"is that I went over on Muriel's Wedding, on a movie that had grossed
millions worldwide. That opened doors and it gave me a confidence.
"These younger actors - Sharni Vinson's a good example, or a Poppy
Montgomery - that go over with a dream and a hope and a lot of f---king balls
... I really love them for that."
With Six Feet Under then Brothers & Sisters wrapping Griffiths up in
American TV land for a decade, she has made the last couple of years
"about doing everything different".
"I did Broadway, I played Dulcie Boling (in ABC TV's Magazine Wars)
which is really out of my repertoire, I did Rob Connolly's Assange movie
(Underground) ..."
One offer Griffiths received during this time during this time was so
out of her repertoire, her agent almost didn't tell her. It was a part in a
remake of cult 1978 Aussie horror film Patrick, about a coma patient with
telekinetic powers and a dangerous crush.
"My agent said, 'Oh you don't really want to do that do
you?'," Griffiths recalls. "I grew up watching this movie - my
cousins and I would watch it when at my Aunt Mary's house and we'd always
scream." It's probably the scariest movie I've ever seen because after
Patrick I couldn't watch scary movies."
In the new Patrick, the nurse is played by Vinson and the creepy doctor
by Charles Dance. As the matron, Griffiths was thrilled to meet a
"gruesome end".
Different again for Griffiths last year was shooting a role in Saving Mr
Banks, about Walt Disney's attempts to convince Australian author P.L. Travers
to let him turn Mary Poppins into a movie. Starring Tom Hanks and Emma
Thompson, and with an Oscar-friendly January release date, it's a big deal
movie.
But for Griffiths it was just "a small, drop-in role".
"I'm playing a fragment of a memory of an idea of a notion of a
child's view of the past. So it was nice to be part of it, but it wasn't a big
deal for me."
Between acting gigs, she's also been developing two TV ideas she hopes
will find a home on the US cable networks: "They're very American, quite
paranoid, convoluted propositions."
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