RACHEL GRIFFITHS (Lorri Morris)
What was it like working in Texas? Had you been there before?
No, I hadn't. Texas was great. I guess there're many Texas'. As an Australian, I found a very comparable sense of the people. [We had] much more in common naturally, just in the kind of way that Australians interact and Texans interact. There's a real kind of enabling-ness and a lack of guile, I think. We don't expect anyone is going to [screw] us over. We're very open until punched in the stomach and then we're like fisticuffs. There's a good sense of fun and lack of sarcasm in the Texans, maybe a little earnestness which is kind of why I found it quite Australian. It's one of those places that if you broke down, someone might actually stop and help you change a tire. It's not LA or New York. I felt really at home. It's great the whole “music town” of it, in Austin.
Were you surprised by your experience there?
No, a lot of people had told me and a lot of bands I know in Australian had done Austin.
Were you surprised by Texas in general?
No, I had a feeling - just from conversations I had had with John Lee and some other Texans I had met - Texans love Australians and Australians love Texans. While the rest of the world is laughing at them, Australians kind of get them, you know? We think they do go on a bit about how great Texas is but… I think, deep down, I knew. I was excited to go.
What attracted you to this baseball movie?
I didn't see it as a baseball movie any more than I saw “Hilary and Jackie” as a movie about classical music. I think when you make [a movie about] somebody's life - it's always because there's a kind of journey in there that somehow illuminates something about the human condition. I think baseball - the baseball genre - is this mitt, to use a double pun there, to catch a whole bunch of themes. Usually they're kind of coming-of-age stories; this one is carrying a lot of father/son themes, and fathering, neglect/crisis themes - and themes in marriage.
I talked to John Lee Hancock [the director] before I even read the script about the kind of movie he wanted to make, and he took the marriage and the family really seriously as what the center of this movie was for him. I found it an interesting portrait of a marriage in exploring notions of how one partner supports the other, whilst not jeopardizing the greater good - which is the family.
He [Hancock] wanted to make a really true “blue collar” feel movie. I think family movies have gotten so rich in this country. Everybody is so loaded up, their houses have gotten bigger, they've got more cars, and the kids are never really worried that dad might lose the house. Nothing is really ever on the line in that way, it's all so Hollywood comfortable. I grew up watching movies where that wasn't necessarily true and the family dramas, which I think Hollywood used to make - movies like “The Yearling” and those movies that we grew up watching - where the kids would struggle with things. Movies like “To Kill a Mockingbird.” That's a pretty intense movie to watch when you are 9 or 10 but we did. It introduced us to all sorts of injustices and deep notions about unfairness and how adults can behave and how they can get it wrong, and how they can be afraid. Somehow we've decided that we want to protect kids from the drama of life and I think this movie isn't afraid to make a child witness to the drama of life and the struggle of their parents trying to follow their dreams but in an environment - you know, a contemporary economic rural environment where things are really tough. That's much more the norm in this country, that families don't have a lot of savings in the bank. If dad loses his job, things are going to be really, really hard. I was excited about the truth of that. I think it's what makes this movie seem really, really true and returns to kind of an Americana that's not a copy of a copy of a copy. The Americana of the American dream played out in the American family, in a pretty poor, rural community. That all seems real. I remember the first costume fitting I had, I had these great pants and stuff, and we loved it. Then we got the message back from John Lee Hancock, “Oh, it's too rich.” I'm like, “Oh, wow, okay. He just wants her in jeans.” And they've got to be this kind of jeans, Wrangler. They don't wear Levis in Texas, just Wrangler.
Did you head over to WalMart to pick them out?
Exactly, pretty much (laughing). He wanted that authenticity. People drive beat up cars, because they do. There's not a lot of money in those towns. We were going to towns where half the town is shut up. For every shop that was boarded up, that's a family that no longer has its business working. You know Texas is - even more now that Enron has bit the dust - it's held up on the back of small businesses. I found that really interesting.
Was the little town you shot in that kind of a depressed town?
Yeah, it was depressed in that I don't even know if it still had a car dealership actually. It's a pretty common story, even out in Australia. People going into the cities for the opportunities and the towns are getting older, no young people. It's like, what's that area? Is it Oklahoma or one of those big, big grassy states where it's just almost all going to go back to grassland? It's like the Dust Bowl and maybe it was never meant to be farmed in the first place if it was so hard. Just let the buffalo have it back or something. There's heartbreaking stories behind every shop that is boarded up. Someone had to make a decision that they're not going to run their daddy or their grandpa's business anymore. It's really hard.
Do accents come easy to you?
Yeah, they do.
Most Americans don't realize you are Australian. Do you have an affinity for doing accents?
Hopefully after the Golden Globes they do (laughing) because I told a couple of billion people that I was Australian and I had a pretty thick Australian accent. In Britain, people thought I was British and for a long time, I'd do one movie or another and they wouldn't even know it was the same person. I think they are starting to realize, especially with Cate Blanchett and myself and Toni Collette and Frances O'Connor - a whole bunch of Aussie girls - we're pretty good at jumping around. And God, Russell just did something [some accent] for "A Beautiful Mind" - West Virginia - and he's been doing all sorts of different things so we kind of have it a little easier, us Australians. Our accents are very neutral; we don't have any really hard sounds to get rid of so we don't have to hide it so much as get a new one. Americans kind of have to hide it, neutralize it, and then get a new one. That's just a process that we bypass. The other thing is that we grow up with American and British television equally. So I grew up watching all the sitcoms, “Gilligan's Island,” and then “The Dukes of Hazard,” all the regional accents as well. And I grew up watching all the British ones so when you hear that from an early age, it makes it much easier than you guys who don't grow up with Australian television or British television. You're not really used to hearing different accents except your own different accents - different American accents.
Did you meet the real woman you portray?
No, I actually didn't want to. I made the same decision on “Hilary and Jackie.” I'm pretty ruthless about that; I think when you sign over your story, you sign over your story. It becomes a movie and it's no longer your story. I think that we line life with stories that we kind of regurgitate and spin and give back as fiction. We make non-fiction, fiction. I think you've got to make it your own. The filmmaker's got to make it his story and the actors have got to make it their story. You've got to connect with it. It's a little harder if you're playing someone. If you're Will Smith playing Ali you can't decide he's going to talk this way, or walk this way. Unfortunately you do have to really mimic and reach to occupy someone that exists in everybody's imagination. But just playing the partner of someone famous, I had a lot more freedom. I took it like a script and forgot it was non-fiction. I get paid to move people, and in this as a supporting actor to support Dennis - I kind of explore the part of the story that's not about baseball. It's my job to be there absolutely open to Dennis in that moment, and to just connect with the material and to just make it as real and uncliched as possible. That's my job. I don't owe her anything, but hopefully she likes what I did, but if she doesn't, I don't really care.
Baseball is growing in popularity in Australia. Do you know much about the sport?
Apparently it's growing a little bit. I grew up on cricket and I think Australian kids are getting so Americanized, you know? It probably interests them; they want to play it. It's a great game - a great family game - but I hope we don't lose our games. I think every culture's games are so important and you've got your funny football where you're all padded up - you stupid sissies (laughing). We've got our football where no one wears anything and the guys are in little shorts and they beat the crap out of each other, and they can catch it and they can kick it, and it's the only place it's played in the world. I loved the indigenousness of different games and how hilarious it is that we play these cricket matches that last five days and no one wins. Only in Australia would they have time. I mean that's not an American game.
Was winning the Golden Globes a life-altering event?
I don't think it's life altering. Life will tell me in retrospect. Right now, I've been in a good mood, that's for sure. It's mood altering. A Golden Globe is a mood-altering substance, there's no doubt about that. For me it was a great vindication for my choice to do the show. It was a lovely appreciation from the Hollywood Foreign Press for the ten times I've sat before them talking about obscure Australian or European movies that the few people who got to see really enjoyed, that they were always really generous to me about. It was a lovely opportunity for the first time in my whole career to stand up and thank people who are really responsible for me getting to realize my dreams. That was kind of life altering for me. It's so lovely to say, “Thank you. Without you, I would not be here.” It's a very rare opportunity to one's life when one gets to express gratitude on a level that really means a lot to people.
What's your next film project?
Oh, “The Hard Word.” I did that last hiatus actually with Guy Pearce. It's a small Australian, low-budget feature. It's a kind of crime-caper movie. Guy's a jail breaker and I'm a bit of a crime moll. It's fun, it was just fun. A couple of weeks of fun. I got to kiss Guy Pearce. Dennis Quaid, Guy Pearce, I'm plowing through the leading guys of the world.
Does the television series limit the time you can spend doing other projects?
I get six months a year. I did two movies and directed a show at last hiatus. This hiatus I'm doing a play. I'm going home to Melbourne to do a play. And then I've got a couple of months where I'm actually going to take a break so I'm like, “No scripts.”
Do you find time to surf anymore?
Yeah, right. When I get home that's like the first thing that I do. When I get home, I'm mad about it. I don't like surfing here, it's too cold and too dirty. There's this bodysurfing place down the coast - because that's mainly what I am, a bodysurfer - and apparently there's this wild place down past Huntington Beach where there's this one particular break and there are these amazing bodysurfers who do like 360s on their bellies. They do like all these wild tricks. I do want to go down and check out what they are doing. I'd love to learn a few more tricks.
You've done a couple shorts. Are you planning on doing a feature?
I'm developing some screenplays at the moment with my Australian producer. It's something in the short term that I do not see. I just don't see where I could possibly fit in directing a feature. In the next 3 or 4 years I'd like to get one of these things up in Australia.
What about possibly directing an episode of the series?
No, it's like I've got two different sides of my brain. My acting creature is this very volatile - it's like a boxer, I'm prepped up for the fight, just ready to react. The director in me is much calmer and it's the other side of the brain, I'm unemotional - well I'm not unemotional, but I don't react emotionally - I react kind of in a problem-solving, practical kind of way. I'm very about helping, and assisting my collaborators - [they] kind of realize our collective. I'm much more focused on the big picture. I just can't put those two things together. I think I'd turn into like James Cameron - I'd be yelling and screaming at people. I like keeping them quite separate. I'm very happy; it's enough to do what I'm doing on the show. Really, it's more than enough.
Why do you think it is that shows on cable are capturing more of the awards each year? Do you think it's because they can deal with issues you don't see on network TV or is that talent is attracted to cable networks?
I think talent goes to - I think that “The West Wing” is a pretty good example of talent going to other shows too, shows like “ER” and I'm a big fan of the American sit-com and I think they get a lot of talent, too. I've got a kind of strange theory: I think drama on commercial television is toothpaste delivery devises, you know or insurance delivery devises, and I think it's impossible for people to be as engaged in a drama when they are being constantly interrupted. I think in the end, you actually can't care enough or as much. You protect yourself because you are right in there, then you're out, then you're in and you're out. Why movies are so powerful is because you are right in there and you stay in there until they want you to come out, and then you've really gone somewhere. You haven't got up and gotten a cup of tea, or this or that. I think HBO - no one really mentions this - but I think that within the viewing experience you engage on a much deeper level if you aren't being interrupted. You feel like you've experienced something much more profound, or transportive.
