Citysearch Interviews Animal Kingdom's Ben Mendelsohn

Editorial

Ben, there are some big names in Animal Kingdom, both established and new, but writer-director David Michod wrote the part of Pope specifically with you in mind. How far into the lengthy development of the film were you brought on board?
Ben Mendelsohn: I knew about the film really early on; David had written some stuff. A lot of it stayed thematically true, but it changed a lot over time. I had an enormous year that year. I did Australia, Prime Mover, Knowing, Beautiful Kate, $9.99, Tangle, Who Do You Think You Are?, and at the very end, maybe Animal Kingdom. So it wasn't until very late that we knew we could make it work. So, I came on very early, or very late.

Was it dependent on your availability?
There were a few factors.

So, did you get to meet the rest of the cast before you started shooting?
Not before we actually got into the rehearsal period; in fact I don't know anyone was meeting anyone with the exception of David and (producer) Liz Watts. Jackie (Weaver) and I have known each other for about 20 years; Sullivan I knew; Joel I'd known for about 15 years. So there was no one to meet. The only other person I had to meet was Luke (Ford). I didn't have to meet James (Frecheville), and in fact, I tried not to meet James. And Luke, we had a few words. It was pretty obvious to me, from where he was coming from as an actor, that we were going to be in roughly the same territory. He was saying last night that the only thing I'd said to him was, 'You know, you and me, we're kinda coming at this from the same place', and that was it. We antagonised each other - a lot, and different relationships happen with different people.

There's a tangible sense of menace throughout the film - and that has a lot to do with your character, who's a loose cannon, and struggling to retain control over the family and its criminal dealings.
It's debatable at certain times as to who's running the show. I think both he and Jackie's character do in their way, and in another way, Sully's character does, because he's the steady cashflow. So they're all doing their thing.

Is that depth of character what attracted you to the role?
Yeah, but mainly, I didn't see anyone do what he has to do. I knew that would be heartbreaking, and that was a great enough motivating thing. I'm just rapt with how well it's worked. David and I found a lot of that stuff together. David was the prime mover in the conception, and then I added stuff which I thought was pertinent, and we got some really, really effective stuff out of it. There are some really good scenes. I think, as far as David is concerned, that this film is the first volley across the bow of a great talent.

Animal Kingdom is loosely based on the Walsh Street Killings -
No it's not!
Well, that's what most people will identify it with, and will use it as a way into the film. Did you find that a help or a hindrance?
With a role like this, you want to be able to use all sorts of things to make it work on screen. Where you draw it from doesn't really matter. I looked at things in that criminal world, I took things from my own life; the people I knew and my experiences with them were the most important things I brought to the film. I learnt a long time ago that the scariest people on Earth aren't trying to be tough. It's the ones who aren't trying to prove anything that you've got to watch. But David did the work in writing the script and left the rest to me. So on set, I persecuted the brothers, because that's what my character does, and that created the atmosphere… yeah, it became a hot, brutal set.

Well, that family dynamic is very obvious in the film - as you said before, you knew most of the cast. Did that help develop that sense of kinship? And did you feel like the big brother/mentor to the younger actors James and Luke?
Jackie and I didn't have to say too much; we know each other and where we were both coming from. As I said, I didn't speak much with the others, but David and I spoke a lot; we went over every word, and I took that and just threw it out there.

What is it about this film that makes it stand out?
Australia's a funny country; it can look the same, but it's really very diverse. Especially Melbourne. The thing about Melbourne is, and what people don't see about it is it's an incredibly mixed city. On the one side, you've got this hoonish culture, then the really sophisticated part of it, and then the cosmopolitan thing going on, and the large immigrant thing going on. Then you've got this very long, entrenched, hardcore criminal world, and on the other side, an entrenched hardcore policing world, as well various other things like ruling class and whatever. So while the outsider might come to Melbourne and see a nice tram and the beautiful buildings and good restaurants and so on, what you miss out on is the long, pulsing history of this. We've extrapolated things from certain parts of that history, and we've taken them off in our own direction.

What do Australian films do best?
But the real strength of the Australian film industry is being able to give someone who has an eye, a story they want to tell, and the ability to tell it, that they will get a go. That's the actual beauty of it. So someone like David, for instance, will be able to get his film made here, if he just sticks at it, and that's exactly what he did. It was the same for Andrew Dominik with Chopper. It took him around the same amount of time, same process, and he got it made. If you want to look at the Australian film industry, you want to look at the amount of space and the amount of practitioners that we have in Western cinema, and that is greatly disproportionate to our actual size. And the most important thing about Australian cinema is that it broadcasts our culture, and exports our culture, and you can tell a lot about a society by the way they export it, and how they export it. Regardless of which, and driving all those high-falutin' ideas out the window for just a moment, we make some ball-tearingly great movies here. We're talking about your Mad Maxes, your Choppers, your Animal Kingdoms, your Strictly Ballrooms; I'm damning a lot of films by omission, but there so many, many more. And you know, we won Sundance this year, and we won it for a damn good reason!

Animal Kingdom opens nationally on June 3.

Read our interview with Sullivan Stapleton and James Frecheville and check out what we thought of the movie.

Tim Hunter, Citysearch