Three minutes with John Jarratt

John Jarratt as he appears in Django Unchained.Source: National Features

Neala Johnson, The Daily Telegraph, reports

AFTER shooting Django Unchained with Tarantino, John Jarratt is back in the bush for Wolf Creek 2.

1. HE'D KILL TO GO OUTBACK AGAIN

John Jarratt is in the Flinders Ranges revisiting everybody's favourite pig-shooting serial killer Mick Taylor for Wolf Creek 2. The day before he flew to set, he looked the part: "I'm covered in tattoos, got the hairy face and the 'chops, badly dyed hair - I look ridiculous," he says.

2. BUT BEFORE WOLF CREEK 2 ...

Jarratt also features in Django Unchained. Writer-director Quentin Tarantino "owed" Jarratt after ditching a part earmarked for him in 2007's Grindhouse. "I'm glad I'm in this one rather than the other one," he says, "because it took a dive and this one's going through the roof."

3. AN AVID FAN OF OZ CINEMA ...

Tarantino took the chance to play an Aussie alongside Jarratt in Django. Jarratt reckons the director "made a fair fist of" the accent. "If Meryl 'A dingo stole my boiboi!' Streep can't do it, no one can do it."

SEE Django Unchained is now showing

Legends lend valuable muscle to Aussie awards

Robert DeNiro and Russell Crowe attend the Australian Academy Of Cinema And Television Arts' 2nd AACTA International Awards at Soho House. Picture: Getty Images Source: The Daily Telegraph

The Daily Telegraph reports

Living legend Robert DeNiro and director du jour Quentin Tarantino last night lent some valuable Hollywood muscle to the first round of the 2013 "Aussie Oscars", the second annual AACTA awards.

While the Sydney festivities will start at a luncheon today and culminate with a red carpet ball on Wednesday night, it was LA's turn to kick off the proceedings at the weekend, hosting a gala at Soho House that recognised international films and their cast and crew.

Hosted by Russell Crowe, the gongs were well-attended, with Natalie Imbruglia, Jacki Weaver and Grant Bowler and his girlfriend Kate Buckwald all frocking up for the event.

Hugh Sheridan was also a surprise show-up, after supposedly pulling out of hosting the Sydney awards, for which Rusty then miraculously put his hand up.

Weaver, who stars alongside DeNiro playing Bradley Cooper's parents in drama The Silver Linings Playbook, accepted the best actress accolade on behalf of her co-star Jennifer Lawrence, who has pneumonia.

"Poor Jen is really sick. She really is sick," Weaver said at the podium.

Both Weaver and DeNiro won in the best supporting actress/actor categories.

Tarantino too, of course, walked away with a statuette for Django Unchained.

Crowe is due to head home to join Nicole Kidman, Geoffrey Rush and Cate Blanchett at Wednesday's extravaganza at The Star casino.

Autumn keeps wolf from Jarratt's door

John Jarrett on stage in TV program, The People Speak. Photo: Nick Wilson Source: The Daily Telegraph

The Daily Telegraph reports

Los Angeles is not only bracing for another Aussie invasion - the charge is being led by our most senior actors.

As Jacki Weaver, 65, adjusts to news she is nominated for a Best Supporting Actress Oscar, John Jarratt, 60, is preparing to walk the red carpet at Sydney's State Theatre on January 21 with director Quentin Tarantino at the Australian premiere of Django Unchained.

Jarratt has hit the big time late in life since his success with Wolf Creek in 2005, though he had already met Tarantino.

"He was a fan of Wolf Creek but also liked my previous work - I've been around a while," Jarratt said.

"I first had a drink with him at Circular Quay in 2003. It's been fantastic working with him. I've hit a couple of huge goals in my 50s. Wolf Creek has opened a lot of doors and sent a lot of things my way. I've hit my mark much later than Mel (Gibson) did."

He struggles to explain his success at this time in life.

"With Mel it was luck and talent - he shone in vehicles that did well as opposed to John Hargreaves who shone in vehicles that didn't do well. Hopefully talent wins out."

His role in Django, up for five Oscars including Best Picture, is at the end of the film in what he describes as the "penultimate scene before the climax".

"It's definitely great for my career," he said.

Jarratt joins a long list of Australians making an impact on Hollywood this year including Hugh Jackman, nominated for Best Actor, and Naomi Watts, up for the Best Actress for her role in The Impossible.

Quentin's Aussie film set

Quentin Tarantino. Pic: AFP Source: AFP

The Daily Telegraph reports

He has long championed his love for Australian film. Now cult director Quentin Tarantino is eyeing an all-Aussie project to be shot here and starring only Australians.

Famed Australian actor John Jarratt let it slip during a chat with Confidential this week having just wrapped a role in Tarantino's upcoming splatter-fest Django Unchained starring Leonardo DiCaprio and Jamie Foxx.

Jarratt plays a brutal slave trader in the anticipated Western, having brokered a friendship with the director a decade ago while Tarantino was Down Under promoting Kill Bill Vol.1.

"He wants to make this Australian film and I'll keep kicking him until he does," said Jarratt, who said the Oscar-winner had an almost encyclopedic knowledge of Australian film history."He has literally seen every Australian film ever made . ... he knows every Australian director.

"If you want to know anything about Aussie films, you ask him.

"He's told me he likes tough grittiness ... the kicking and scratching kind of movies we make that I think helped inspire movies like Reservoir Dogs and Inglourious Basterds.

"He likes the way we make movies and likes the way we make low-budget movies that look a trillion dollars and stand up next to the Bruce Willis movie next door." Indeed, Tarantino helped finance the documentary Not Quite Hollywood: The Wild, Untold Story of Ozploitation about low-budget Aussie cinema of the '70s and '80s.

Jarratt, meanwhile, is set to reprise one of his best-known Aussie film characters - psycho serial killer Mick Taylor - with cameras to start rolling on Wolf Creek 2 in January.

LaPaglia dumps Tarantino for Assange

Anthony LaPaglia has pulled out of Quentin Tarantino's new film after it conflicted with shooting for the Julian Assange biopic Underground. Source: AdelaideNow

Neala Johnson, News Limited Network, reports

Aussie actor Anthony LaPaglia has dumped heavyweight director Quentin Tarantino for an Australian TV movie.

LA-based LaPaglia, home to launch his new Australian film Mental, was to play a small part in Tarantino's upcoming film Django Unchained, which stars Jamie Foxx as a freed slave-turned-bounty hunter.

But when his one day of shooting with Tarantino was continually pushed back, threatening his commitment to local production Underground, about Wikileaks founder Julian Assange, LaPaglia faced a "tough decision''.

"For me to pull out of Underground would have hurt it,'' LaPaglia said in Melbourne yesterday. "They'd raised the money partially on me and Rachel Griffiths (being involved). They were about to start shooting and it would have created mayhem and may have shut the film down.

"The people at Django, their attitude more or less was, 'Just dump the other film', but I couldn't do it out of respect to (director) Rob Connolly, out of respect to the material, out of respect to the commitment I'd made.''

Following speculation in Hollywood that Tarantino may not complete Django Unchained in time for its Christmas Day release in the US, LaPaglia, 53, wondered if he could have had the best of both worlds.

"The (Django) production was just out of control, over-budget it was everywhere. I had to formally withdraw. They recast it and they still haven't shot anything. I could have said nothing and just hung out I could be there shooting it now.''

A producer on Django posted online that the film finished shooting on July 26.

"I'm just happy I got it,'' said LaPaglia, who had rehearsed his part with Tarantino and Foxx. "I had as much fun being a part of the film, probably more fun, than even shooting it. Quentin is brilliant and I love him. That's just the way it goes.''

Underground will screen on Channel 10 later this year. Django is scheduled to open in Australia on January 24.

Anthony LaPaglia joins Quentin Tarantino’s Django Unchained

Moviehole.net reports

Aussie actor Anthony LaPaglia, who many, many moons ago made a big splash in Hollywood when he played a Jersey Shore-type in Alan Alda comedy “Betsy’s Wedding” (a part I remember him saying he won due to listening to and perfecting Robert De Niro’s voice) and of course went on to star in magnificent fare like “The Client” and “Murder One”, has snagged a plum role in Quentin Tarantino’s starry spaghetti-westerrn “Django Unchained”.

Deadline says LaPaglia, who for the past seven years has been putting in an hour-a-week on TV’s “Without a Trace”, will play ”the leader of a group of greedy Australians who encounter slave-turned-bounty hunter Django (Jamie Foxx) as they are escorting a group of slaves recently purchased as fighters” in the pic.

The site reports :

LaPaglia said he and Joseph Gordon-Levitt will play mean brothers, and LaPaglia said he was bowled over by the script. “It’s wildly ambitious and imaginative, deals with that subject matter in a way it hasn’t been dealt with before,” LaPaglia told me. “The way the cast has shaped up, it’s exciting to be involved.”

Isn’t that funny!? LaPaglia couldn’t get a job back-in-the-day with his Aussie accent, so had to fake an American one, but is now wanted for a movie because of it (well, in addition to his skills).