00:04Hi, this is Mariah Gullow from The Hollywood Reporter, and I'm in studio today with Eric Banna.
00:08Hi, Eric.
00:09Morning, how are you?
00:10How are you?
00:11Very well, thanks.
00:12You just flew in from Australia.
00:13I did.
00:15My question to you, first and foremost, is what is it like to be an actor who has stayed in
00:21Australia?
00:22Like you haven't made the jump over to Hollywood, and I find that commendable.
00:28Well, it's actually just very, very practical.
00:30You know, there's like massive gaps in between movies, and I figured at some point I may as well actually
00:36be sleeping in my own bed rather than, you know, being on the other side of the world wishing I
00:40was at home.
00:41So I did think about it.
00:42Like if I really had to do it, I would have done it, but it just never really became something
00:46that was imperative.
00:48So my wife and I just decided why not to stay at home.
00:51Yeah, yeah, and it's a beautiful country.
00:54It is.
00:54It's not bad.
00:54Not a bad place to live.
00:56Yeah.
00:56Yeah.
00:57So let's talk about The Forgiven.
00:59This is a movie that was filmed a few years ago and is making its release now on March 9th.
01:05Mm-hmm.
01:06Can you tell me how you got involved in the project?
01:08Yeah, I was sent the script by Roland, the director, and knew that it had emanated from a two-hander
01:16play, and didn't know a whole lot about South African history.
01:21I knew a little bit, you know, I remember the apartheid coming to an end and all that sort of
01:24stuff, but I wasn't really au fait with a whole lot of South African history.
01:28So the script was quite confronting for me, but I was mesmerized by the two main characters and just thought
01:35that dynamic and that interplay was one of the best things I'd ever read.
01:39I spoke to Roland and realized that he wanted me to play Blomfeld, and so I just threw my hat
01:45in straight away and then went about just trying to learn as much as I could about the history, because
01:49I felt like I had no chance of speaking Blomfeld's words without really understanding the full extent of that history.
01:57Yeah, I mean, this seems like a movie where you have to do a lot of preparation because you're in
02:03prison, so you've got to physically look the part, you have to speak Afrikaans, and then you also have to
02:10have this highly dialogue-heavy, play-based role opposite of Forest Whitaker.
02:17How do you prepare for all that?
02:19Well, excitement, obviously, because it is exactly the sort of thing as actors that we, you know, beg to be
02:25able to do, and so then when it lands on your lap, you're sort of pinching yourself, and it was
02:30one of those films, you know, that I felt like, oh my God, are we going to get this made?
02:35Are we going to get there?
02:36And luckily for me, Forest was already attached and had been for quite some time, which really helped.
02:41So it was a little bit overwhelming at first, because it's probably one of the toughest characters I've ever played,
02:47to be honest, in terms of how do I put myself in the skin of this person convincingly, because to
02:53be able to speak those words, for the film to work, for Forest's character, for Desmond Tutu, for that whole
03:01interplay to work properly, you have to believe every word that comes out of Blomfeld's mouth.
03:05And so that was a massive, a massive leap to take, and something I could only do by having a
03:13director like Roland as the safety net underneath.
03:16I mean, if this was, you know, a young filmmaker looking to make a stamp and wasn't as thoughtful about
03:24the subject matter, I would have walked away for sure, but my safety net was the care that Roland had
03:31for the subject matter and the tone.
03:34Mm-hmm. Yeah, and Roland directed The Killing Fields.
03:38And what do you think is, like, the major message of this movie, The Forgiven?
03:44Well, I think there's so many.
03:47I think the thing that's interesting is that you have two people that literally could not be further apart in
03:54an ideal or in an outlook on life,
03:56and they come together and through the course of these, you know, quite confronting conversations.
04:03You know, is it possible for Blomfeld to move even one degree?
04:08Yeah.
04:08And it seems completely impossible and, you know, I don't want to give anything away,
04:12but in this day and age where we see people hold their ground and not willing to give or take,
04:18I think it's an interesting time for those sort of predicaments.
04:23But I think, you know, the notion of forgiveness, the notion of what the Truth and Reconciliation Commission,
04:30how that was established and why, and this idea that people told their stories,
04:35not only so someone could be prosecuted or so there could be retribution,
04:40but so that people could move forward with their lives and potentially be forgiven,
04:47potentially be pardoned, and in order for the whole country to heal.
04:52The task, you know, at hand is Archbishop Tutu is trying to bring the South African country together,
05:01and your character is kind of challenging him.
05:04You're at a place where you're, I mean, you're a person who is trained to break people's spirits.
05:09Yeah, and his dream, my character's dream, is civil war,
05:13and that's what he wanted during apartheid, and that's what he wants post-apartheid,
05:18and that's what he's trying to bring about, and he's trying to, I guess,
05:22infect Tutu's brain with the idea that what he's doing is fruitless
05:27and that ultimately the white man will rise up and rule and there will be another civil war.
05:35And what did you learn that kind of most surprised you about South African history that you didn't know before?
05:42Yeah, well, there was a lot.
05:43I mean, I guess just the broad strokes of, you know, the way in which things had moved over the
05:49years.
05:50I think the thing that's most fascinating is what's happened there post-apartheid,
05:54and the way that the country has been able to move on from that period.
06:00Obviously, what they're going through now, we were shot in Cape Town in the prison, obviously,
06:04and the water shortage that's there now is just, you know, it's pretty scary, actually.
06:09Tell me about that. Tell me about shooting in Cape Town.
06:12Well, we shot in Polsmore Prison, which is a real maximum security prison in Cape Town.
06:17So in terms of production values, we could never have replicated, you know,
06:21what you see on screen for that budget had we've shot in studio.
06:25Most of the cast were ex-offenders that had been trained to act,
06:31so we used real people.
06:33Wow.
06:33You know, there was only a handful of actors in the film.
06:37And so that was amazing to work so closely with them.
06:42The environment was extremely dangerous, obviously,
06:45because we were working in a working prison.
06:49So that helped, for sure.
06:53It was good to go home at the end of each day, for sure.
06:55I've been told before by other actors who have filmed in prison is that, like,
06:59there are all your senses are hit the minute you walk into a prison,
07:03and it elicits fear and adrenaline in your body.
07:07Was that your experience?
07:09Yeah, I mean, I tried not to let the fear be a factor because, you know,
07:14my character was so alpha male.
07:17That's true.
07:18And there's so many scenes where I have to walk, you know,
07:20scenes where I have to walk into a cell, you know,
07:23it's run by rival gangs and confront them.
07:26And these guys in real life, they're so good at picking up how someone else is feeling.
07:32And I knew that I had to just really tackle those scenes without holding back and without being fearful.
07:40And they were really fantastic at making me feel comfortable in that environment.
07:45So it was fine in the end.
07:48Did they give you some props?
07:49They give a lot of advice.
07:52They like to talk, and it's that delicate balancing act of listening to the advice,
07:58but also, you know, sort of protecting yourself and trying to remember what you were trying to do in the
08:03first place.
08:04Yeah, yeah, yeah.
08:05How about your accent?
08:06Were they impressed by your accent?
08:08They were.
08:08I'm sure they would have set me straight if there was anything wrong.
08:11No doubt about it.
08:13After this kind of experience, do you hope to, like, move forward with another project that maybe is a little
08:19more lighthearted?
08:21Well, I guess if you were jumping straight into another film, you'd probably seek something a bit lighter,
08:26but I had quite a bit of time off in between.
08:29So you went back to drama.
08:31Yeah, I'd be happy to.
08:32Yeah, yeah.
08:32I try not to have any sort of hard and fast rules when it comes to, you know,
08:36what you do and what you follow up with or anything like that.
08:39So I'm always, I'll just go straight back into prison if you need me to.
08:42It's fine.
08:43I mean, did this experience remind you of your, kind of, the role that put you on the map, Chopper?
08:49I thought you were going to say the castle then for a second.
08:52A little bit.
08:53I mean, not really.
08:54Not really.
08:54I mean, I didn't see this, even though my character is in prison the whole time,
08:59I never saw this really as a prison film, whereas Chopper really was more about someone who had dominated the
09:05prison system,
09:06especially the first half.
09:07So that felt more of a prison film, particularly half of the movie,
09:11whereas this I felt like, you know, I was a policeman who had been put away for atrocities who's currently
09:17serving time in jail.
09:20And that, so it didn't really feel like a prison film so much for me, even though I was in
09:24there the whole time.
09:25But obviously there's throwbacks to that.
09:27But I'd say this was probably more challenging.
09:29For anybody who maybe wants to get into Australian cinema, can you give some recommendations for, like,
09:35somebody who wants to take that deep dive into what Australia's been doing?
09:39Well, you'd have to go start in the sort of 70s, 80s, because, you know, we were very, very prolific
09:46back then.
09:46And I would go back to that period.
09:49You know, start with your Mad Max and your Gallipolis and break Marantz and work your way forwards from there.
09:56And then most recently, I think the one film that I'm most proud of as an Australian,
10:03and I know I had nothing to do with it, would be Samson and Delilah.
10:05I think that's such a beautiful film that Warwick Thornton directed a few years ago that obviously won many, many
10:11awards.
10:11I'd definitely point people towards that film if they haven't seen it.
10:15Wonderful.
10:16Well, Eric Bana, thank you so much for being here.
10:18The movie is The Forgiven.
10:20It's out on March 9th, theatrical release, and then iTunes and VOD on March 16th.
10:25Cool.
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