It's in the news today, but it was actually on TV Reload, the podcast last week they lie.
Welcome back to TV Reload. My name is Benjamin Norris and this is your podcast to get all the inside goss on the popular TV shows you may be watching from around the world. Undeniably, our TV sets are still a major part of our home entertainment, and yet very little is known about how our favorite shows get made. Each episode, I find guests that want to dive just that little bit deeper into the shows they're currently making, so you can hear all their exclusive stories and gain
access to the biggest names in Australian television. I want to thank you for downloading or subscribing to this podcast. I love hearing your feedback, so make sure you leave a review or a comment on your chosen podcast platform. On today's podcast, I have Jeffrey Walker, the director from the exciting Newstand original film The Portable Door that is
now available to stream on Stand. Jeffrey was a child actor who audiences would know from popular series like Ocean Girl and the cult classic Round the Twist, but now he is an actor winning content creator who is working with some of the best filmmakers in the world. Today we will be talking about The Portable Door, his feature film, and his delight to be directing Sam Neil and Christoph Waltz,
who will also star in the film. The story centers around a man who lands in internship at a mysterious London firm which has a bunch of unconventional employees, including a charismatic CEO who is incorporating modern corporate strategy into ancient magical practices. It has all the magic of a fantasy classic and families from around the world I'm sure are going to really enjoy this. I will talk to Jeffrey about his transition from child acting to making it
big behind the scenes. We will also talk about his mentors and his passion for Australian film. We will also talk about the importance of telling stories that young people can enjoy and why this film is so important to his career. Plus we will get plenty of exclusives from behind the scenes. Anyway, let's bring Jeffrey into the pod and I really hope you enjoy this chat. Hi mate, how are you.
Going very well? And glad to be with you.
It's interesting that you've got this amazing legacy with Australian content. You know, I can still remember going home and watching Around the Twist and Ocean Girl, very popular shows four o'clock. I would have to be home to watch them. But do you get recognized still to this day for those for all of these roles that you played as a kid.
I never get stopped in the street. But what does happen sometimes is you're meeting people or I start working with another crew and they can be you know, sort of generationally younger than I am, but have come to the project through its retro kind of you know, nineties and thiss. But what will happen is someone will bring it up and then everyone will go, oh, yeah, I used to watch that when I was at school, or I watched that on Saturday mornings or so the mornings
are after school. Like it probably is something that I'm stopped in the street for these days, But definitely there was you know, probably you know, a generation half of kids that were, for better or worse, force to watch Round the Twist. And so it's just a project that stays with me, you know, now thirty years or something since I did it, but yet it's still sort of its legacy has lived on oddly and that's a pretty special thing being a part of.
And then I have to ask you about this transition because you know, for a lot of child actors, you hear horror stories about what happens to them. But instead you've gone on to be a successful filmmaker behind the scenes because you know, quite often people say, you know, once you cross the floor from being in front of the camera to behind the camera, you kind of have to pick a team. What made you want to decide to become a content maker yourself?
Well, I don't think. I mean, I loved acting as a kid and everything, but I don't think I think even working with the fabulous actors that I work with now, I just know that I wouldn't. I'm definitely not and never was that, you know, a caliber of actor to sit alongside, from Sam Neil and Krystal Watson, the types of films that I now get to direct. So I'm very happy behind the scenes that have no interest whatsoever
in performing in front of the camera. Ever. Again, I'm quite happy that that, you know, that's something that I
enjoyed and is behind me. One thing I would say, I guess is that it started for me, you know, in regard to you know, when that desire for a transition behind the scenes began, you know, really young, probably around the time I was doing Proof and around the Twist, I was about eight or nine years old and I was on set, you know, so I guess like forty hours a week or something as a kid, and you would just spend all this time with these amazing camera people, first,
assistant directors, directors, grips, you know, all these folks who were probably away from their kids as well. And I'm away from my parents, who, you know, I had a lovely close family, and of course, you know, you sort of go to work and you miss everybody. So I think that I ended up finding all these amazing mentors behind the scenes, and they were probably the people that encouraged me, maybe even unknowingly, you know, to sort of develop this real fixation and passion and the very least
an interest, you know, in everything behind the scenes. And I started making Sure films when I was probably about fifteen or sixteen, and at that point I'm like, okay, well this is it. And shortly after, when I finished high school, I was able to train with Jonathan Schiff as a producer. I'd worked with on An Ocean Girl at Thunderstone, and he very kindly knew that I had been bitten by the bug and he trained me as an assistant for the producers and director on his projects.
And it was just it was just an amazing in ten year apprenticeship to sort of get to where I ultimately wanted to be, which was a director.
And it's a close knit industry. I guess at some point, have you found yourself becoming the boss of people who were making content for you when you were a kid?
Absolutely, you know, and like I was, I still work with people like I spoke about with Martin McGrath, who worked with him when I was seven or eight years old, and I worked with him as recently as you know, the start of last year on our I don't know, tenth twelfth project or something, you know. So first, a d's all these people we all keep coming back into our lives that I remember. It was a Grip who came up to the first crew person I remember ever
having a conversation with as a kid. I was nine years old, and he came up and said, my name's Aaron. Do you know what I do? And I said, and
he said well as a grip. I put the camera on the dolly lay all these tracks and he showed me all the year and it was like Lego and Micano, but for grown ups, and I was just like, this is amazing, and I just just attached myself to that gripping department and Aaron and I've worked with Aaron on Riot, you know, which was the sort of the Mardi gar origin story we did a couple of years ago as our kid Grip and it was just one of the sweetest things to be able to vibe this industry, working
it for so long and get to re meet these fabulous people from three decades. It's just extraordinary. I feel grateful every day for it. You know.
I can imagine, you know, growing up in the eighties and nineties, you would have seen some amazing people take flight and have phenomenal careers. Who are some of those content makers that you have looked up to?
Oh my gosh, well, I mean I remember when I watched as a fourteen or fifteen year old, when I watched Romeo and Juliet for the first time and saw what Bazz, Catherine Martin, Jill bill Kock, and Don mceuelpine were doing. I just went like, okay, you know, I just thought that was the most probably the most confident start to a film that I'd seen at that point. I just went, wow, have a look at this. It was so stylized, Leo was an absolute knockout in it,
and you know, clear dangers incredible. So I just remember that film and it being made by Australians US funded, made in Mexico, with some incredible international soundtrack of you know, every cool artist that was around at that time. Yeah, probably around that sort of time. I went okay, well there's you know, I had grown up sort of loving all of the Australians sort of quirky comedies and different strictly war Room I'd really loved and Muriel's wedding and
all that sort of thing. But I think that there was a cool about coolness about that that I really does And the most exciting part of that was that, you know, I followed Don Michael Pine's career my whole life, and you know, and John Seals and you know this handful of Greg Fraser, Mandy Walker, there's his handful of absolute doions of cinematography and lo and behold, you know,
my first feature film. Don Michael Pines shot it for me, and then he made Lambs of God with me and he shot Portable Door as well, you know, in in his eighties. I worked with him in three projects and I learned as much from him. I'm sure he has the same role as he did for his directors on you know, on Me and Juliet, as he would have been with Baz, you know, at that stage of his career and being younger coming through and you know, doing
your first films. He's just a font of knowledge, creativity and a complete gentleman and someone that you can draw a lot from. So kind of rapped with the Australian industry, and I hope it just continues to grow and grow and get all bigger exports, whether they're made here find a bigger audience overseas, or the individuals get the biggest platform they can to show off their skills.
Do we have a better work ethic or something I can't work out, you know, why we've been so successful internationally, especially in the States. I kept, you know, I don't know the reason why. Maybe there's something in the water in Australia, But what is your rationale for the success that we've been able to have around the world.
Well, I think that the hard thing is everyone sort of goes astrain and felt like there was a period of time where everyone you know was giving a strain film a really hard time because it was dark, it was brooding, it was you know, sort of tortureous stories about you know, heroin addicts, and there's no beautiful films made by incredible filmmakers. They were like, oh, where's the comedy, where's the castle again? With this? The thing is that
we make We are such a small territory. You know, we don't even equate to a second or third tier state in America in terms of size of our industry. You know, Atlanta, the industry in Atlanta worked enormous. You know, it's huge. So I think that the big thing to kind of keep in mind is that, you know, we produce an extraordinary amount of incredible stuff, but from a very small, ultimately very small if you compare it to you know, the UK, France, US, just you know, or Canada.
You know, in areas like Toronto and Vancouver, these are enormous for film hubs. So I think that you know, the quality that you know kind of exists in Australia. Within that ultimately, that sort of smaller pool is definitely a you know, it's it's rarely matched, you know, anywhere for the amount of actors that come out of Australia, you know, through television shows that you know are being watched by people all around the world, even if they
might not be on a huge platform overseas. The astute executives and casting directors from around the world are watching what we're making here in Australia, and suddenly someone will be in a fabulous Foxfel series or a you might be in an ABC theories and then they'll turn up in a big US something you know, and it's because that talent can be spotted. It just takes sometimes a
little bit of fining what we're hoping to do. A particularly the last couple of projects that I've made is you have more of the projects here you know, made here, breakthrough and be watched, you know, by larger audiences around the world, so that it's not sort of you don't have to find them, they.
Find you and you get to really live through a couple of generations here of some of these amazing shows being made and how they were made, and now we're in this new era of streaming services which allows people like yourself to probably think a little bit more out of the box. Because before, just to get something greenlit, you it seemed like there was a very structure to the narrative of stories being made and you kind of
had to tick those boxes. But how do you feel now that you've got the opportunity to be a part of you know, streaming services like stan Well.
Yes, Dan, and you know, Disney Plus made a huge splash last year and just said, look, we're just going to go out and make a whole you know, we're coming up with what our Australian brand will be. And I've been lucky enough to work on two of their of that stable of projects, one being The Clearing, which is a you know, fabulous and very dark and brooding kind of psychological thriller, and then another one The Artful Dodger, which is all sort of you know de Genzi and
Midnight teenth Century. These are bold projects to be making, and certainly on mass these were not being made ten years ago. You might get one project or two projects a year that were high concept, and you know, when they were outside of like you're saying this sort of the safety of being able to say, well, at our budget range, we can make these shows confidently. And I think that Australia you know, did that for a really
long time. But now those projects can exist alongside things that you push that conceptual limit and hopefully allow projects to come through that are able to be financed at the budget range they need to be to sit alongside their counterparts from the UK and the US.
Did you make decisions like that with this particular project as to why you filmed it here in Australia versus being able to film where the story is set.
Yeah, I mean with portable door, I mean we looked at so many parts of the world to make it and it's really written like the storyline is, you can take a portable door to anywhere in the world. So we had a budget line for the longest time that you know, we're taking our actors to this country in that country, I shoot here or do this and coming up with a you know, sort of a shooting style that would be free and maybe we could shoot it
without permits. And these are like we really were down the path and then COVID came along and you know, the film collapsed and it was you know, it was so sad and devastated. These independent film even at this scale, you know, which is a larger scale independent film, but certainly, you know, they're so precarious. The ingredients in the alchemy that goes on to bringing something like it together a
just extraordinary. It could fall over in a day. So certainly being able to have project that you know was firstly affected by COVID and then with the good health that kind of you know started to creep in in Australia and we were able to boast to talent and to people from around the world, production finances and everything that Queensland was a safe place to film that got everybody behind it, and you know stand a big part of that, and the Jim Henson company, who you know
were the champions of the film for all this time, Sky in the UK and most recently MGM, you know Plus in the US. But you know, it took all of these amazing sort of people to come together. Australia just happened to be, you know, the place that made the most sense for us. You know, I live, you know,
very close to where we filmed it. Todd Film and the wonderful producer lives right near where we filmed it, and we were able to entice you know, Christal Boltz to come and do a couple of weeks of quarantine and film with us and go home again, which I was very gratefully did so. Yeah, and then I guess in the end, you know, our locations. We came up with location solutions for all of the things that we
needed to shoot here. We had a micro micro unit of maybe one or two people in the UK helping us get all of our plate shots and different things. But it was, Yeah, it was a feat of probably thinking outside of the boxes. Most filmmakers had to do it around that sort of time. But it all came together. It was it was so much fun to make, and it taken so many years to get off the ground. It was just nice to be out there and actually doing it.
And then you've got to pinch yourself that you're working with Jim, like get the Jim Henson production Company, Like, you know, this is amazing crazy.
I mean, you know, when I was growing up, you know, and why I ended up being an actor in the shows we were talking about at the start of the interview, you know, like, you know, like those films are never ending story in the Goonies, and then from the Henson Company Labyrinth and The Dark Crystal stand by Me. These coins these kind of young adolescent adventure films that you
know that weren't for kids. You know that you felt like you were really you know, you were really being challenged, whether it was emotionally or visually, or there would be a jump scare or something that felt like, you know, I'm eleven or twelve, but I'm watching something that you
know is challenging me a little. And when I started working, you know, on this film in the Handsome Company, I was like, you know, they really Dark Crystal really scared me as a kid, and they were like, yeah, you know, but the sort of the ethos was is that, you know, we'll undercut it with a bit of humor, or we'll give you the equipment in a film like Labyrinth that you can watch it and you get a little laugh, you will get a little scared, and will take you
on that sort of journey. It's not a horror movie as such that there's moments of it and that was kind of through the lens with which you know, I tried to make The Portable Door, and you know, having now screened it a couple of times and had kids in the audience, there's definitely a couple of beautiful jump scares. They don't last very long, and then the humor comes back in and they're at ease and they've had it.
They've been exhilarated. And that's what I felt watching those those early pickies.
I love those moments being in the cinema. The first movie I ever saw at the cinema was The Never Ending Story. Still, when I'm scared in a theater watching current shows, it takes me back, you know.
Well, you know what's so funny is that that Portable Door has that it has a sort of a contemporary edge, and then you know, it kind of goes off to another place altogether. Not in the same way as the intercut work, but they're not that dissimilar when you go from the sort of the mundane of a little kid
reading a book to this fantastical world. Our version of that in The Portable Door is that it's kind of like, yeah, half the movie is The Office, you know, and it's just people in an office in London, and the other half is Harry Potter and you know, you're sort of in this world of fantastical goblins and you know, traveling through portable doors and magic, and so I don't know if the audience will necessarily feel all that. I hope
they do. You know, they feel all those sort of that connective tissue back to those films, but certainly making it that was the ethos and what we were trying to achieve with it.
It kind of also reminded me of The Wishing Chair and the Far Away Tree of those adventure books that we have been brought up with that were so popular of the eighties and nineties. And I think it's so important to take your kids along to shows like this, the stories like this to sort of say, this guy's the limit with the imagination that they can have. I think there's something really important in the DA.
Yeah, it is. And also because it's sort of like we have a little motif that runs throughout the film, which is that you know, every single background artist and there are hundreds of them. Every single extra in the film is on their phone and the leaves are never so you know, the idea is is that you know that there is so much magic in the world and
sometimes it comes through your phone. That's cool too. But there's so much magic in the world, and it's such a beautiful, wonderful place, and even with my own little boys, you know, draft it outside every now and then, just
to take it all in. And I hope that it kind of you know, I would love that, you know, young people to leave the audience and or leave the film and think about where they might take a portable door to and use their imagination in that way and hopefully even be a little scared that a goblin might be in their house or something. I think that that's kind of capture my imagination.
I think there's a real three sixties sort of journey for you to be back here in fantasy like this, in this kind of a world.
Tall Jenny is the reason that I wanted to read it as a kid, those wonderful, crazy and so slightly naughty stories. You know. Yeah, so it's you know it is. It's a wacky it's a wacky long journey that has brought us to this film.
I think, what is it about content these days that you're looking for? Is there a common theme when you're looking for a project to work on.
No, there isn't, and I think probably the work in the last year has been the most exemplary of that, because you know, the Portable Door is a Jim Hintson esque fantasy family film. There's a cult series and then a period nineteenth century medical heist, so it's like that. I think the thing that I'm desperately looking for at all times in the project is too, is to travel
somewhere new and explore something new. You know. I think that it's one of the great gifts as a storyteller filmmaker working in Tellivision series is that, you know, you've got this incredible capacity to explore worlds, and as an audience,
that's what I want to do as well. I want to find projects that take you somewhere completely new, and it's one of the great excuses I think, you know, as a filmmaker to dive into a world, yeah, is to be a direct sort of reading material that you say, when I'm fascinated by this, I'm so fascinated by it, and so I think that that's where I probably am making the choices from. The more that I can be intrigued and fascinated by a world, the more I want
to dive into it. And I think that's because you know, also just purely the volume of projects that I do, I think it's my greatest chance of having any life experience as well, is to sort of, you know, have a reason to take some time inside a world at outside of my own and surround it with you know, wonderful talented people who and we all all find it together.
I mean, like even just looking at your resume, working on things like Home and Away and Neighbors and some of those soapies that are here have been a really great opportunity for content makers like yourself to learn the craft and build the resume.
They were the strongest training grounds, you know. And then the stepping stone up from that was to do Blue Heelers and All Saints and these projects City Homicide, These projects that ran for seasons and seasons by very talented, clever people, had wonderful cast in them, and you know a lot of the cast household names, and the show
is very popular at that stage. You know, it's sort of you know, big stars in Neighbors and Home and Away when I was working on those projects at that time, because it was you know, Chris Hemsworth and you know it was Delta Gudroom was you know in neighbors and all. It was just it was an exciting way to cut your teeth and to learn. And they're and they're almost unbreakable.
You know, if you came in with a level of experience, whether it was on set as an actor or as I did, or a trainee or this or that, or you know you're a camera pers DPY, you could, if you had the right sort of approach to it, you could come in and train and learn. And I still think that probably there aren't many days that go by that somewhere in that training, you know, you're not calling
on something, you know. I think that ultimately when you work on a project like The Door, the script's fabulous, the actors and Oscar winners and everything else and so terrific. Great, you know, it's all in a line. But you know you're still when things you know are tricky, challenging, you're up against the clock to get a certain thing. You've got all of these sort of reserves to pull upon or draw upon, you know, based on the sort of
the larger volume. You know, run serious stuff that I've done overseas, and.
Well, it's good that Neighbors is coming back. I mean, I did read though the other day. I thought it was hilarious that Carli Minogue' annoyed that she was tricked into being a part of the last episode episode.
I'm sure they're all annoyed if I'd be annoyed if I was Guy, I'm annoyed by the whole thing. I haven't asked Guy about it actually since, but because we work to get on the clearing. But it's a big decision to come back, and they write in this thing and they you know, they're like, it's like a John Farnham tour that never ends. It's just you know, keeps going. So so yeah, I don't know, it's it's a really funny.
I was happy for the cast and crew, but I did think, boy, you're really you really pulled out all the stops to get all those actors to come back from all over the world and do all this, and then it's like trick got another season.
I was there on the last day that they you know, in the sound stage, and they had a long lunch for like the actors and the creators and you know, some of the some of us media were lucky enough to go along, and I kept looking at everyone that was invited by the media. I'm like, I can't believe we've been invited to this milestone event, and then the fact that it wasn't this milestone.
It still makes me laugh.
But I'm also you know, if that's the small price that a few very high profile actors had to pay to company.
Fine, they're fine. The other thing, can you imagine if you're a freemantle whoever? You know, I'm sure it's that runs runs either they said this is the final, then then they got offered another series and they're either liars or they're stupid, And they're not stupid, so they're definitely going to come back and do another one if it comes up.
We can't clarify that. I don't think anyone wants that clarified. Well, you know, the portable door is, how are you describing this particular story to people? Like, what's the hook?
So's there's two young interns that start working at a company in London. They have no idea what it does, and they go on a journey to basically find out that this company is this ancient order that curate magic and coincidence the world over and in the process of this is sort of a very complex character in the CEO takes one of these interns under his wing, and that's Christophe's character takes Patrick Gibson under his wing, and he says, I'm about to achieve something ginormous, but I
need your help. You have to help me find my portable door. It's gone missing. This thing has a personality in Paul just seems like he's lucky if he gets the mail delivery job at the office and he suddenly tasked with this enormous responsibility. Problem is that once he does find a portable door, all he wants to do is have fun that instead of handed over. So that's that's our movie.
And then you're getting Harry Potter references. And you know, the review so far has been extremely positive. I mean, this must be a pretty exciting project for you to have been working on.
It's a really exciting I mean the most nervous phase, to be honest with it at the moment, because it is weird. And I've worked on things before where I can sort of tell which way they're going to go. I've worked on things that were you know, I could have always you never know completely, but just sort of all this is being aimed to be a critical darling. Let's hope that the reviews do. Then they do that, and you go, isn't that lovely? This one. I've had
no idea. I've got, you know, the best. The best gauge is, you know, if if families can watch it together, either in the cinema or on stand or you know, sky and gym, if there around the world and they sit there and they all enjoy it. And I think about the films that do that in this contemporary space, and not a huge amount of them alive action picks. I do it, you know, with routine, but it's really, you know, it's a hard thing to sort of pull off.
Some You're meeting me at my nervous phase with it, and I just I get to hand it over now and I will take on whatever this how this film is kind of interpreted by the audience, and that's the exciting thing. I guess. My point of view is I've got all my hang ups about it, but now it's it's another person's, you know, another person's project to watch and hopefully enjoy.
I'm just looking at this in real time for you and not looking at my phone because I'm bored. I'm just going to say, I am dB giving it nine out of ten so far, so you know, there's some positive feedback that's coming in.
That's my family though, That's that's that's all I'm going I've got a large extended family that the myamdb accounts clearly.
You've got a board at home that's just automatically ten tens across the board, gas.
Everywhere, and they're going to aggregate it down now to three that like we smell a rat at the Walker household.
What it looks like now.
Man, the feedback's being really good. I think that, you know, some of the things I was reading was sort of like, yeah, we think it's pretty good. I think that sort of is like I think there's something in it. I think Sam's having fun in it, and I think it's a
fun and fantasy film. So yeah, as long as that sort of continued, I think that, yeah, it'll be really interesting once it finds its way onto the streaming platforms, because first it's going to cut through and people have to you know, know enough about it to want to watch it, and everything in standard probably the best promoters of their content in the country. So I think you know it it They've given us a huge chance, an opportunity to find an audience, and a young audience is
pretty brutal. They'll either love it and watch it fifty million times or they'll just go okay, okay. So I'm just hoping that it's one of those ones that you know, family can watch together.
You know, Sam Neil's playing against type in this, and he he looks like from the scene that I watched, he's having a lot of fun being more villainous in this. Was it really surreal to watch Sam Neil being a villain in a movie.
Like this wonderful. You know, he I've worked with him once before and I was so intimidated and nervous. I'm always pretty nervous because he's, you know, someone I respect so much. But he's dramatic is you know kind of action work. And you know, like we've spoken about it.
You know, if you're in this business at the age that I was, you know, in your Jurassic parks a life changer, you know, and then you watch in the Piano or you go back and watch my grand career or you watch everything you know that I mean, his career is kind of just extraordinary. So it's intimidating and exciting, and he genuinely, I felt on this project was having fun. He really loved his co stars on this He got to have play in that fantasy space, and I think, yeah,
I think he was having a blast. And I certainly hope that I made that a safe and fun home for him on set to be able to, you know, achieve everything that he wanted to with him well.
People don't know about him though, is that he could. This is my opinion. I probably should speak on behalf of everybody, but I think he could be a comedian. He's the funniest person I've ever interviewed. I interviewed him after I'd done two Jurassic Park movies, and you know, you have to ask him a Jurassic Park question if you're talking to him, you know, in a broader interview. It would be ridiculous to not have brought it up. And I said, you know, would you do another Jurassic
Park film? Spoiler alert? He ends up doing one, but he said absolutely not. He was like, the only thing that's left for the dinosaurs to do is to wear pajamas because they've done everything now you know what I mean. And then he like he just I was laughing, but like crying laughing, and he just was rattling off like it was a set. And I was like, to me, I always thought Samuels would be really dry, like you know, and.
I know he has got you know, but if you think about who he speaks when you hear him talk about John Clark, who's you know, one of probably the great you could say, Australian or New Zealand comedians, you know, writing and performing, and Sam's love for John. As soon as you know that, you just know how witty and funny Sam's taste is, you know, and many of you know John stuff, it's like yep, okay, now I get. But Sam definitely has you know, a big comedy crush
and he loves it. And he's a very funny person by his nature. And I think, you know, his book that's just come out as sort of you know, the stories of his life and travels through the film business and so on, and he just has a comedic take on things and he's sort of Also what's really fun when you chat to him is that his vocabulary is extremely contemporary, which is awesome, you know, so he just he says things that sound like he could be twenty
three or twenty four. It's just that he's you know, he's a progressive, young at heart, you know, super intelligent, hard working, fun person. And I think you're right. The image would be that he's a serious, historic actor's actor, and he's all of those things. But he's also got a wonderful, wicked, hilarious sense of humor and he and the choice to make this movie is a good example
of that too. For Sam, you know, I think that he's very aware that he's got to keep making fantastic choices in his projects with Don mckelpine, you know, in his eighties as a cinematographer, doesn't ever want to shoot on film again, doesn't really particularly like talking about his old movies. He drives a tesla, he wears an eye watch. You know, he's an example of what it takes to
stay relevant contemporary or opinion means something. You know, now, four or five decades into a very successful career, and you know, couldn't we all be so lucky?
Well, something that I ask everyone before they leave the podcast is what is a secret? What's the thing from behind the scenes While you're making this project something that we won't see as an audience, but you know, something we might appreciate. Could be an acto, It could be something funny, could be something that went terribly wrong.
I can tell you something from behind the scenes. Does it have to be in front of the scenes or going to be behind the scenes?
Anything about your relationships the making of this show. I was so excited for this chat today. You could literally talk to me forever. You could tell me what you brought at the supermarket and I would still be listening to everyone.
From the red carpet to the supermarket is basically my life. By the way, if you ever wanted to like figure out what I'm like behind the scenes, that I just go between those two things. So anyway, but I'll tell you this fabulous and then it really picks up on what we were just talking about. One of the sweetest memories was at the very start of the film. The two leads, Patrick Gibbson Sophie Wild fabulous actors. They were experienced to an extent, But they're twenty five years old
and only so experience. You can be a a kid actor is still coming through And think about the word Crystal Watson, Sam Ney and mirand Rotto and they're the lead this support asked his Christoph Waltz and sam Neil, like, what the heck? So they were feeling so intimidated nervous.
I was feeling condated, nervous. And Sam Neil got us and another wonderful support actor, Arkadace together in pre production and he said, just to the young cast and myself, he said, I'm organizing in an evening and like you were saying before, that might have meant something very okays with me a dinner and Sam Neil and what's going to happen? And he had us at the Gold Coast RSL watching a Queen tribute band and we had the
most fun. We sung along. Everyone kept coming up with Sam of every age you could imagine, who just wanted to have a cuddle in a photo. And he was terrific and sweet to all of them. And Paddy relaxed and I relaxed, and we all had a drink and it was very very sweet. And I remember that night too.
He gave me a wonderful piece of advice that he just said, look, this is a pretty out there movie for me, and he goes I don't need a lot of direction, but I would love you to tell me just occasionally more or less, more or less, and I'll give you a take it away, and I won't be offended with which one you say. But let's go, and let's go and tackle this thing. And it was just
such a lovely forum. And I think it totally galvanized Sophie and Sam and Patty and they just became thick a thieves and they wanted to hang out all the time, even though they're generationally so different. And I think that's sam lovely treat and I won't forget it. Who else gets to, you know, get to go to a queen tribute act with Sam? What a treat.
Well, I can tell you I've been in your audience for basically my whole life, and I think your passion for storytelling is amazing. Doing the research for this interview and watching some of your interviews, reading some of your interviews, I could feel the passion for this industry that you're a part of. And I'm so excited about this film. I hope everyone watches it on Stan and I can't wait to see what you make next.
Well, thank you so much. It's so lovely to chat to you. And yeah, I hope any of your listeners out there who have the chance to watch Bornable Door do and I really hope they enjoy it. It's really made it for the audience, so I hope it finds a big audience