Her ambition stripped bare

At 24, Anna McGahan has tasted success in Underbelly: Razor and House Husbands, and LA is ready for her reappearance. Photo: Getty Images

Paul Kalina, The Sydney Morning Herald, reports

There's more to Anna McGahan than her star turn with the Razor gang.

Not that long ago, an actor from Down Under looking to break into TV would hop on the next flight to Los Angeles, find an agent and wait for the phone to ring.

Should their careers take off, we might be lucky to see his or her name buried deep in the credits of an undistinguished TV series playing some forgettable part as, say, the estranged sibling of a murder victim.

By contrast, Anna McGahan has been too busy establishing her career at home to do the LA drill.

Earlier this year, the co-star of Underbelly: Razor was in LA to accept a $10,000 scholarship for an up-and-coming actor, established in honour of the late Heath Ledger.

But instead of enrolling at an acting school and doing the rounds of LA casting agents, McGahan headed straight home for the filming of House Husbands.

And with a leading role in the Brisbane production of David Williamson's stage play Managing Carmen, and a second season of Channel Nine's successful ensemble drama House Husbands starting next year, her hopes of returning to LA in the immediate future have been dashed.

For now, work is the 24-year-old's priority. ''If the time is right, I have this open door to go over there and enter that system a lot more smoothly than had I done it earlier,'' McGahan says on the phone from Brisbane, her home town. ''It's just a question about the right time to do it.''

Writing rather than acting was McGahan's secret, unfulfilled passion when she swapped university psychology studies for acting school. ''I love science, but I knew when I stopped turning up to lectures to go to short-film shoots that something was eating away at me and I really needed to give it a shot. I auditioned for acting school as a test run and got in.''

This year, the first of three full-length plays she has written was produced in Brisbane.

''You could say yes,'' McGahan replies hesitatingly to the question of ambition. ''I do this ebb and flow with writing. If I'm acting I'm usually writing as well, because I'm a bit ADHD and it helps balance it. I have a lot of aspirations when it comes to combining my writing and acting; when it comes to telling important stories and representing women and young people. You're holding the flag for your generation.''

While her Logie-nominated turn as young prostitute Nellie Cameron in Underbelly: Razor was regarded as her arrival on the scene, McGahan credits Claudia Karvan and the Foxtel drama she co-created and starred in, Spirited, for breaking her into TV. It was, she says, the first job ''that really shook me up''.

''There were things we did in Spirited that you'd never do in any other show. Someone's talking in your ear and you have to ignore they're there and keep acting. It took it out of this domestic or acting-school idea of what screen acting is for me.''

It was also a chance to overcome her nervousness. ''By the time we got to Underbelly, which was only a couple of weeks after, I still felt very new. I still am,'' she says. ''But I had this confidence, I had this enthusiasm and excitement for Underbelly, which I think would have been overshadowed if I hadn't done Spirited.''

Nudity and violence are hallmarks of the Underbelly franchise, but McGahan insists her decision to appear in Razor, arguably the most graphic of the series to date, wasn't taken lightly.

''I think to have played Nellie Cameron without [appearing nude] would have been a misrepresentation,'' she says. ''I have no qualms about that role or that shoot at all.''

She hasn't been asked to strip for roles since, and says her values would be tested were she asked to.

''I question when nudity is written into a fictional story and why and how it represents women … There's an interesting line where an audience sees the actor as the character or as you. Anyone that means anything to me looks at [Underbelly: Razor] and sees Nellie Cameron. They don't see me. I feel very protected by the character and the era. People can comment [on the nudity] as they wish and, to be honest, it's none of my business.''

The appeal of House Husbands is its complete departure from what she has done before. She plays grounded, practical and sweet-natured Lucy, in her 20s, one of several daughters of serial dad Lewis (Gary Sweet) and the girlfriend of reformed bad-boy sports star Justin (Firass Dirani).

Unlike many up-and-coming actors who would prefer to keep their options open than commit to a multiple-season show, McGahan finds the prospect of playing a recurring character appealing.

''What happens to your character affects other characters, and they affect you. There's an organic quality to it; it lives and breathes.

''I'm not sure what it will be like to go back to a second season of anything, but I've a feeling it's this completely new creation, like the idea that the cells in the body replace themselves every few years.''

Before then, McGahan appears, albeit briefly, in the feature-length The Mystery of a Hansom Cab, a period murder-mystery with a biting perspective on Victorian-era values. She had been in line for one of two big young female roles in the production. Having signed up for a job overseas, she let it pass. By the time that job fell over, the other roles on Hansom Cab were cast, but a smaller one was available. It required hours of burlesque training, as well as prosthetics.

Oddly, given her string of recent roles, McGahan professes to have no radar for successful shows.

''I take those jobs day by day. I love my job, I go in with a good attitude, but I react entirely to that day's shooting, to my character's progression in the scene. Later I think, 'How did everyone else go?''' Anyway, McGahan says, it's not about predicting how well a show will do.

''It's about what you're giving out to an audience and what that creative process does to help you grow. If you get a lot out of what you do, you can't really fail.''

De Niro 'inspirational', says Aussie star

He's acted alongside Robert de Niro, but Firass Dirani is resisting Hollywood's allure despite concerns over limited openings here for non-white actors.

The Age reports

When Australian Firass Dirani was cast in big-budget action movie Killer Elite, he had no idea he would be acting alongside "the godfather of cinema" Robert De Niro.

Sydneysider Dirani, who made a name for himself playing Kings Cross nightclub owner John Ibrahim in TV's Underbelly: The Golden Mile, said it was a complete surprise to find out De Niro was in the line-up.

"We knew Jason (Statham) was involved in the picture and Clive Owen, but we never knew the godfather of cinema was going to join us," he said.

He said De Niro joined the cast just a few weeks before shooting began in Melbourne.

In Killer Elite, De Niro plays Hunter, the mentor of Danny (Statham) who is kidnapped by a renegade sheikh.

To save Hunter, the sheikh demands Danny kill the three ex-SAS soldiers who murdered his sons, so his remaining son Bakhait (Dirani) can return to Oman.

Dirani said De Niro is "inspirational to every actor on Australian TV" so to be in a scene one-on-one with him was incredible.

"For me to be sitting opposite him in a dungeon in Melbourne, threatening him and trying to manipulate him in this scene and for him to turn around and threaten me back," he said.

"I'm sitting there in this situation, dressed in a three-piece suit, thinking is this actually happening?"

He said he spent a lot of time just watching how De Niro works.

"Observing his technique, his craft and the way he approaches the character and a scene, it's like 'what have I been doing for 10 years?"' he said.

But Dirani said working with Owen and Statham was also a huge learning experience.

"Watching Jason be so meticulous with his fight choreography was kind of eye-opening," he said.

"He's a real perfectionist."

Dirani plays the sheikh's spoilt son in Killer Elite, so didn't get to do any fight scenes himself, but he said he's itching to get a role like that.

"I wasn't part of it this time around but like c'mon, bring on that physical role, gimme that martial arts," he said.

"That's my forte. I grew up, did martial arts for five years and gymnastics for I don't know how long, but that's my speciality and hopefully I can get given a chance to show off those skills."

It may not have been very physical, but Dirani's role was still challenging - he had to have an accent coach and take on a role, "so far from how I grew up as a teenager in Sydney".

While it was mainly shot in Melbourne, Dirani also flew to London, then to Wales and after 25 hours of travelling, was on set to film his big scene with Jason Statham. No pressure.

"It was five o'clock in the afternoon and we worked until four o'clock in the morning on the one scene," he said.

But he loved it, saying "it's all training".

"It's an action film, $70 million (budget), and you want to be part of it, you want to be on the world stage and what an ensemble to be part of."

Killer Elite releases nationally on February 23.

AAP

Firass Dirani aims to make killing in Hollywood

Firass Dirani. Picture: Mens Health

The Herald Sun reports

Underbelly’s Firass Dirani is the next actor tossing up a move to Tinseltown.

A stint in Hollywood last year proved fruitless, but the award-winner, 28, hopes to cash in on his role in soon-to-be-released Melbourne-made blockbuster The Killer Elite alongside Robert De Niro.

At home, he is making waves on ABC "dramedy" The Straits. He will next play a Palestinian terrorist in Last Dance, which wrapped filming last year and will have a world premiere at the Melbourne International Film Festival.

Dirani told Men's Health, out today, he was not worried about being typecast playing violent Middle Eastern roles.

"You've got to outperform the stereotype, and maybe they'll give you a chance to spread your wings," he said. "If I keep choosing roles that scare the s--- out of me and I keep challenging myself . . . I'm going to keep growing and learning."

Furious producer blasts union over foreign actors

American actress Gena Rowlands.

Karl Quinn, The Age, reports

THE bitter dispute over the importation of foreign actors has flared again, with outspoken Australian film producer Antony Ginnane telling an audience of his peers that actors union Equity was "frightened, heading for the hills, and it's our job to get out there and shoot them down".

Ginnane was expressing his frustration with opposition from "a bunch of union hooligans" at a session at the Screen Producers Association of Australia conference in Sydney, where he revealed Equity had derailed his plan to import American actor Gena Rowlands for his latest film.

Ginnane's three-year term as president of SPAA ended in September, and its latter stages coincided with the emergence of a dispute over the federal government's plans to change the conditions under which foreign actors could be engaged on Australian productions.

Under the government's proposed guidelines, which were first floated almost two years ago but only offered to Equity for comment in May, the budgets and percentages of foreign investment under which foreign actors could be granted a temporary work visa would be lowered, and an "exceptional circumstances" trigger introduced.

Equity vigorously opposes the changes, arguing they would result in a significant loss of opportunities for Australian actors to develop their craft.

The government has not yet announced whether or not it will endorse the proposed changes.

Ginnane cast US screen legend Gena Rowlands in his psychological drama Last Dance, a $3 million feature now shooting in St Kilda, in February. The film is a two-hander, in which a young Palestinian man holds hostage an elderly Holocaust survivor after a failed attempt to blow up a synagogue. Rowlands was cast opposite Firass Dirani, who starred as John Ibrahim in Underbelly.

Because he knew the federal government was planning to change the conditions under which foreign actors could be engaged on Australian productions he held off applying for a visa for Rowlands until the new guidelines were enacted, planning to rely on the "exceptional circumstances" element.

But with the changes still in limbo and the start of production looming, Ginnane finally had no choice but to submit an application for Ms Rowlands' work visa under the existing guidelines. Fourteen days before cameras rolled last Monday, it was refused.

Rowlands was replaced by Julia Blake, a well-regarded performer – who is, incidentally, married to Terry Norris, an active supporter of the Equity campaign – but one lacking the international appeal of Gena Rowlands.

"Julia is a wonderful actor, no question, but there's a very real chance that outside of Australia this will be a telemovie now," said Mr Ginnane.

UK sales agent Carey Fitzgerald supported that view. "There was a real buzz around this film in overseas territories because of Gena Rowlands' involvement," she said. "It was the one factor that gave the film a point of difference in the very crowded arthouse segment, and now that's gone."

Simon Whipp, director of Equity, insisted Ginnane could not expect to take government money on one hand – his film is part financed by Screen Australia – and flout the guidelines on the other. "If he wants it all his own way, he should go and get private money and then he can import anyone he likes," he said.

"The government decided it wasn't appropriate for him to bring in Gena Rowlands, and what that shows is they don't like it when anyone tells them what to do, whether that be producers or the union."

The case is the second in recent weeks in which a production has run into trouble over its casting of a foreign lead.

On November 5, blog TV Tonight reported that the ABC had pulled out of the Australia-New Zealand co-production Top of the Lake, from producer Emile Sherman (The King's Speech) and director Jane Campion (The Piano), over the decision to cast American actor Elisabeth Moss (Peggy Olsen in Mad Men) in the lead.

The Age understands that decision was made on the basis of the ABC's internal policy rather than as a response to pressure from Equity.

However, Equity members voted last month in favour of taking industrial action against the proposed changes, with 98 per cent of those who voted supporting a campaign.

According to the union, any industrial action would likely involve actors being urged "not to work, or accept contracts, on productions that fail to reach an agreement with the union about the use of foreign actors".