Marie Claire Interview March 2002
Believe it or not, this former television comedian is poised to join the ranks of the Hollywood A-list. Alison Boleyn spoke to Australia's most humble star on the rise.
It happens about half-way into our conversation, around the time when a journalist might be thinking what a good bloke Eric Bana is; what a thoroughly ordinary, unmistakably Australian fellow he seems. He could be a guy shooting pool at a local pub, or the father herding kids into a Holden after soccer practice. He seems like the nice in-law whose name you can never quite remember. He's a man who might not grab your attention ... that is, until you notice his arms...
As Bana reaches out to emphasize a point, his left arm hangs midair for a moment, and you can only stare and marvel. Those arms are big, huge even, bulging like Popeye's from a Fred Perry-style shirt. I begin to wonder how I could have missed them.
That's Eric Bana for you. It's hard to believe it's taken so long to notice him. The barman who thought he'd try his hand at stand-up comedy in 1991, and who played second fiddle to Michael Veitch and Kym Gyngell on the sketch comedy show Full Frontal, is poised to join that elite Australasian band of blokes that go by first names only: Mel. Russell. Heath. Bana receives second billing in the credits for Ridley Scott's new blockbuster Black Hawk Down, ahead of Moulin Rouge star Ewan McGregor and just behind Pearl Harbor's Josh Hartnett. And this month he starts shooting The Hulk, playing both the mild-mannered scientist Dr Bruce Banner and the not-so-jolly green giant he morphs into in times of stress. It took two actors to do that in the 1970s TV series.
"You can't expect this to happen, but I never thought it was impossible," says Bana, 33, of his new-found international success. "I felt it was my right to pursue, but I didn't think it was my right to expect." To be honest, Australian audiences probably didn't expect his current fame either. He didn't exactly seem like a superstar in his short-lived Eric Bana Show Live. Despite cutting impersonations of Ray Martin and Warwick Capper, as well as his bogan creation, Poida, critics panned the series and viewers switched channels. Can anyone remember him winning Bachelor of the Year in 1996? And wasn't his performance as Con in The Castle funny and accurate, but kind of low-voltage?
Somebody didn't think so. That person was infamous killer and standover man Mark "Chopper" Read. It was Read who convinced the film-makers of his eponymous life story to cast Bana in the title role. And who was going to argue? Read has since written that the Melbourne actor "had the necessary degree of insanity to play me". Bana was flown to LA for an industry screening of the funny, blood-soaked film, and the AFI award-winner headed home, says agent John Fogelman, "with a bagful of offers".
One of the more tempting of these was for Black Hawk Down, whose director, Scott, has bagged Oscar nominations for Thelma & Louise and Gladiator and mass adulation for Blade Runner. Black Hawk Down producer Jerry Bruckheimer, of Top Gun fame, reportedly remarked that there was "no gamble" in expecting Eric the unknown to carry his $US100 million war epic. Fellow cast member Matthew Marsden told the Sydney Morning Herald: "Eric is going to steal this picture. I've told him, 'You're going to be a star, mate.'"
The actor is philosophical about the stir he is causing. "The fact of the matter is that there isn't room for 20,000 people to be successful in my chosen profession, but everyone has a right to go at it," he says. "I wasn't so naive to think Chopper would have an impact on my career. That was obvious. But that I would end up here afterwards, you could by no means expect or foresee."
In Black Hawk Down Bana plays Sergeant 1st Class Norm "Hoot" Hooten, one of the soldiers who populate the best-selling book by journalist Mark Bowden. It's the true story of a 1993 US mission to capture a Somali warlord's deputies by dropping them the cream of it soldiers into the crowded market area of Mogadishu. What should have been a simple operation went terribly wrong when thousands of heavily-armed locals failed to sit by and watch. An 18-hour battle saw 18 US soldiers and more than 500 Somalis butchered.
Even before he learnt his lines, Bana went through two grueling stages of preparation. First, there was his body. Bana had done a DeNiro for Chopper chomping chips and cheesecake to gain 13kg in a four-week break between playing a young Chopper, and an older, wider version. But when shooting stopped, and there was no acting work pencilled in, Bana didn't follow-up with a Renee Zellweger-like crash diet. He'd only lost a little weight by the time the call came for Black Hawk Down, but Bruckheimer wanted him in peak shape, as befits the best of the US army.
Hence the arms. Buff Bana shed a total of 23kg from the frame he carried in Chopper, working out with a trainer and eating by the book. "There wasn't a day that I didn't train and there wasn't a day that I broke my diet except for Christmas Day." He "clicked into a different gear" after eight to 10 weeks, once he stopped craving sugar and learnt to love the exercise. "It became very normal very quickly and there was simply no other way," he says. "It was a really important tool for me to get to grips with how disciplined these guy are."
He got even closer to the discipline at a boot-camp in Fort Bragg, the US military base in North Carolina. The cast learnt to sing, march and handle an M16 at an infantry-style camp, then Bana and two other actors went to a Special Forces unit. The object was to soak-up the world of war-weary veterans, so nine instructors shared stories over 10 days. "It was awesome, fantastic, something I'll always treasure." says Bana.
But boot camp was a holiday compared to what was to come. The Black Hawk Down shoot in Rabat, Morocco, lasted five months. "I don't know where the whole 'Morocco is fantastic' thing came from," puzzles Bana. "I'm still trying to find the person that started it. Morocco is the clearest definition of 'there is nothing to do'." He emphasizes every word: "There is nothing to do. You go to the medina, the market, and there's nothing you want to buy. So you do that once, and then you've got five more months, and the medina's the only place to go.
"We were shooting in the slums of the worst city in Morocco and despite the glamorous, romantic notion people have of it, Morocco's a third-world country and it's not an easy place to be for more than a couple of days," he admits. "It was tough for everyone working on the film and it was even more tough for my wife and son."
His wife of four and a half years is Rebecca, formerly a television publicist, who is expecting their second child in April. She and first-born son Klaus, now two and a half were the only family of the cast or crew to live in Rabat for the entire shoot. "I would not have been able to do this film had they not been able to travel with me," says Bana. "We are a travelling circus, and we'll try to keep it that way for as long as possible."
Family means everything to this migrants' son. Bana's Croatian father, Ivan, worked for an earthmoving and bulldozing company for 40 years, while his German mother, Ellen, was a hairdresser. For a short time the family lived behind a salon. Bana says he's been "coming up with characters as long as my parents can remember". His earliest recollection of winning over an audience is mimicking his late grandfather at the age of six or seven. "I remember doing his walk, his voice and his mannerisms, and getting a laugh and thinking, 'This is pretty cool - the adults are paying attention to me.'"
But it was when he attended Melbourne's Essendon Grammar, where teachers would ask him to imitate other teachers, that Bana thought, 'Wow, this is really interesting. Maybe I'm good at something.'" He felt "absolutely no interest" in going to university, learning, instead, how to pull beers. By 19, his mates were urging him to do a spot in a comedy club. Still, Bana wasn't convinced that performing was the career for him. "If someone had told me I was great at Australia Rules football maybe ... I don't know." Stand up delivered the opportunity to "dabble" in characters, but starring in movies was Bana's dream - and not just the blockbuster Hollywood kind.
Recently he shot The Nugget, an Australian film, in the NSW town of Mudgee. Directed by Kiss or Kill's Bill Bennett, the film is about a group of council workers who strike it rich. Bana committed to it, he says, for his son, his gauge when choosing which projects to pursue.
"When my son's old enough and wise enough to know better, is he going to be proud of what his dad's done or is he going to be a bit embarrassed by it?" asks Bana. "I hope he has the same sort of tastes that I do, so he can look back and go, 'Dad made some clever decisions. I can see why he chose this path.'
"If my family is at the front of my decision-making, it makes things easier. You've got a purpose. But it doesn't stop me taking risks. I'm lucky my wife's so supportive."
Bana won't divulge how he's going to transform on screen in next year's The Hulk, under the guidance of Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon's director Ang Lee. He's simply relieved that the movie will screen when Klaus is only four and not yet facing the scrutiny of his peers. "The younger the better," says Bana "I'd hate for him to be, like, 12. That'd be terrible. It's tough enough for a kid having a dad that does what I do." But won't Klaus be the coolest kid in kindergarten, having a father who can turn green, burst buttons and hurl cars? "I'm sure he's a bit confused. When Dad goes to work, it means me either being covered in tattoos, dressed as a council worker or carrying a gun."