‘A lot of wacky stuff goes on': Eric Bana goes wild, again, for Netflix murder mystery
Share these details with an Identikit artist, and you'll probably get something that looks like The Dry, or its sequel Force of Nature, the Australian feature films in which Bana starred as Jane Harper's detective Aaron Falk.
But that, insists the 56-year-old whose star turn on the other side of the law as Chopper Read is now, remarkably, 25 years old, would be wide of the mark.
'I just love working outdoors. It's been a pretty consistent theme, that I'm always drawn to big outdoor shows,' he says. 'But I don't think they have too much in common after that.'
In Netflix's six-part crime series Untamed, Bana plays Kyle Turner, a detective with the Investigative Services Branch. 'It's kind of like the FBI of the National Park Service,' he explains of the real-life ISB. 'There aren't that many of them [investigators], and they move around from park to park, depending on the workload.'
Kyle is based in Yosemite, where he's lived for years. His ex-wife Jill lives nearby, and though she has repartnered, they are bound – not especially healthily – by trauma. Neither of them can, or will, move on.
When a young woman drops to her death from a cliff (almost collecting a couple of climbers along the way, in one of the more spectacular opening sequences in recent memory), Kyle suspects foul play rather than an accident. Soon, he realises the dead woman is linked to a case he had investigated many years earlier, and that the sprawling wilderness he holds dear also hides a whole range of nefarious activities besides illegal campfires.
The spark for the show was lit when screenwriter Mark L. Smith read an article about a real-life crime in a park, and the ISB investigation that followed. 'And it was just like, 'We haven't seen this on film before, a murder mystery thriller investigation in a national park',' Bana says. 'That's where the idea began, and then he just started fleshing it out. 'Well, who would this person be?'
Loading
'He's not based on a real character,' he hastens to add of Kyle. 'It was just the germ of the idea.'
Bana is a producer as well as star of the series, and as it was in development, a real-life story was unfolding in the Australian wilderness – the so-called High Country Murders of Russell Hill and Carol Clay, for which former Jetstar pilot Greg Lynn was ultimately convicted.
For Bana, that duality of the remote wilderness was part of the appeal of the Untamed story.
'A lot of wacky stuff goes on, and that plays into the psyche,' he says. 'Even if you love the outdoors, there's the element that you always feel a little bit exposed.'
There's the natural aspect – which, in Australia, often means the threat of bushfire or flooding or extreme heat or cold, or simply wandering off track and becoming hopelessly lost. 'But then there's also that thing of, well, what if there's someone else out here? What about the humans, you know? So on a subconscious level, I think everyone relates to that, and we definitely were trying to tap into that.'
Bana read a script for the first episode in 2018, and was immediately onboard. But it took years to get it made. Why the delay?
Loading
'COVID, strikes, trends, quality, making sure we had everything right. Just all the normal things – and the abnormal ones. I've lived with Kyle for a long, long time, probably one of the longest gestation periods I've had for a character.'
ISB officers generally 'don't work as part of a massive team, and they are often highly skilled in their particular areas, used to working alone', Bana says. And Kyle has that lone-wolf vibe dialled up to 11. Basically, he just doesn't like people very much, himself included.
Though the park is a major character too, the series was actually shot in Canada's Whistler, which Bana had previously visited on skiing holidays with his wife and kids a couple of times, but had never seen in the warmer months. 'In the middle of summer you can't get into Yosemite because of the tourists, and the restrictions,' he says. 'We just had more freedom of movement in British Columbia.'
For Bana, much of that movement was done on the back of a horse. He first learnt to ride for Troy, more than 20 years ago. 'That was a pretty intensive training period because we were bareback, no stirrups for that film. So from there, everything's pretty easy afterwards.'
Sometimes he'd get to set in the backwoods by car, sometimes by chairlift. And on one memorable day, he and co-star Sam Neill rode their horses to location.
Loading
'They weren't in the scene, we were just using them as transpo,' he says of their trusty steeds. 'He's not even on camera today, my guy, but I'm using his saddlebag for packing some stuff. You'd just pinch yourself every day you were up on a horse on top of a mountain somewhere at the back of Whistler, and realise it was actually a job. It's just amazing.'
Untamed marks Bana's second TV series out of the States, following Dirty John (based on the true-crime podcast) in 2018. Those with long memories will recall that he got his start as part of the cast of sketch-comedy show Full Frontal in the mid-1990s, had a brief eponymous solo show, Eric, from 1996, and played Joe Sabatini in the ABC's weeknight serial Something in the Air in the early 2000s. But post- Chopper, he has almost exclusively been a movie actor.
Untamed doesn't represent a major shift, he insists.
'It doesn't feel that different. I mean, there are some days when you feel like, 'OK, we're really having to go quickly', but generally, there's not a huge difference between making a TV show and making a movie.
' On Dirty John, we had one director over the eight episodes, so that just felt like a big film. This, because I worked so closely with [creators] Mark and Elle, felt like a big film shoot, with three directors. It was amazing and incredible to work on and to put together an incredible cast for this.'
That includes Rosemarie DeWitt (Mad Men, United States of Tara, The Boys) as Kyle's ex-wife, Jill, and Lily Santiago (La Brea) as Kyle's offsider Naya Vasquez. And, of course, it includes Sam Neill, aka The Prop (see the NZ actor and winemaker's prolific social media output for further detail).
'Sam Neill's a legend,' Bana proclaims happily. But, remarkably, this was the first time the pair had ever worked together.
In fact, he adds, 'We'd never even met prior to this project, ever been in the same room.
'We have mutual friends, and the first day we met, we're both like, 'How is this possible?'
'He said, 'I feel like I've known you my whole life'. And I said, 'I feel the same'.'
Of course, they got on like a house on fire. And, of course, Neill brought out a few bottles of his Two Paddocks pinot noir at the end of long shooting days. 'Absolutely, my word. He wasn't getting away from the job without some of that,' Bana says.
But tell me, Eric – did he open the really good stuff, his top-of-the-line Fusilier, or First Paddock offerings?
'Oh,' Bana says with a laugh. 'I'm going to have to go through my picture library this afternoon and find out just how close a friend I am.'
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
The Age
15 minutes ago
- The Age
ABC comedy Austin returns with more humour, heart and Michael Theo
Austin (season two) ★★★★ There is much to rejoice about Austin, ABC's Australian and British comedy drama co-production, returning for a second series. An original show! Made (partly) here! More of actor Michael Theo in the title role! Big-hearted, intelligently humorous and laced with goof, the first series followed Austin (Theo, Love On the Spectrum), an autistic man, connecting with his biological father, Julian (Ben Miller, Professor T, Paddington), a bestselling – though recently cancelled – author. Their new relationship brought profound change for father and son (and greater family and associates) amid revealed secrets and semi-chaos. Series one ended with DNA results and a cliffhanger – is Austin actually Julian's son? The answer comes swiftly in series two's opening episode. I won't give it away, suffice to say that Austin, Julian and a raft of returning and new characters (this show bursts with singularly distinctive roles) are front and centre across eight new episodes, all set, as in series one, between Canberra and London. Austin, now living in North London with Julian, his stepmother Ingrid (Sally Phillips, Bridget Jones, Miranda) and his stepsister Florence (Ellie McKay, Miss Austen), has written a book about England's capital, and Julian, pivoting careers, is helping to publish it. Austin is given a literary agent, Greta (Claire Lovering, Gold Diggers) a posh zeitgeister with ironic knee-high socks and untrammelled confidence, whose influence on her client brings fame and a character change. Julian – cognisant of the philandering and narcissism that has driven Ingrid to reconsider her marriage – is doing his uneven best to stop acting like a total prig.
Sydney Morning Herald
15 minutes ago
- Sydney Morning Herald
The shady side of storytelling: Why we fall for literary hoaxes
Publishing has always had a taste for fakes and frauds, from forged diaries and fabricated memoirs to authors who invent entire identities to enhance the persuasiveness of their supposedly true story. Humans are the most deceptive species, and we are also the most gullible. We tend to trust what the people we believe in say about themselves until proven otherwise. In the past few weeks, millions of readers and filmgoers who were seduced by Raynor Winn's hope-affirming, life-changing journey along The Salt Path have been left wondering if they too have been led up the garden path. Set largely on the picturesque Cornish coastline, The Salt Path is the bestselling, award-winning memoir of an ordinary English couple – Raynor and Moth (the latter a contraction of Timothy) – who find redemption after financial ruin and homelessness and bear witness to the miraculous recovery from a devastating illness via communion with the natural world. Earlier this month, journalist Chloe Hadjimatheou reported in The Observer that crucial autobiographical details in the book were fabricated, throwing doubt on Moth's medical diagnosis, and on their claim about why they lost their home. Responding in a lengthy statement published on her website, Raynor Winn (revealed to be a nom-de-plume) refuted the allegations and accused the publication of pursuing a 'highly misleading narrative'. Historically, Australia is a major player in literary hoaxes – from Ern Malley to Helen Demidenko and Norma Khouri – each scandal shaking readers' faith in the memoir as a form and leaving publishers red-faced. We may remember the glory days of Australian literary hoaxes in the 1990s and early 2000s, even if many of the participants – authors, journalists and publishers alike – have moved on. Perhaps some readers likewise have chosen to forget. Sue Vice, who is professor of English literature at the University of Sheffield in Britain and author of Textual Deceptions: False Memoirs and Literary Hoaxes in the Contemporary Era, says the never-ending stream of contested memoirs tells us as much about ourselves and the culture we live in as it reveals about the mind of the hoaxers. 'The nature and source of the authors' embellishments casts valuable light on a host of issues, ranging from publishers' priorities to historical stereotypes and readers' expectations,' she says. Vice cautions against condemning out-of-hand memoirs shown to be flawed in some way. 'Writing about the past is almost certain to generate what looks like fiction or invention, given memory's unreliability,' she says. 'I feel that what is striking and inspiring people who read memoirs remains in place even if small details turn out to be inaccurate or invented.' Australia's best-known literary hoaxes show exactly what's at stake when truth and invention collide. Some of Australia's most respected literary figures no doubt came to regret their initial support of Helen Demidenko and the principle of freedom of literary expression when her 1994 novel The Hand that Signed the Paper was attacked for antisemitism and plagiarism. The book was the most decorated and biggest-selling first novel in Australian publishing history, gaining credibility with readers derived from the author's supposedly authentic background as the descendant of Ukrainian wartime collaborators with the invading Nazis. It turned out, however, that the author's real name was Helen Darville, and that her fabricated Ukrainian-Australian identity was a much bolder invention than anything featured in the Miles Franklin award-winning novel. Loading Darville's imposture threatened to bring literary culture into disrepute, though it didn't stop further hoaxes from occurring. The last big Australian memoir scandal was Forbidden Love, published by Norma Khouri in 2004. Forbidden Love reportedly sold hundreds of thousands of copies in Australia and elsewhere, purporting to tell the tragic true story of the author's close friend Dalia, with whom she worked at a unisex hair salon in Amman, Jordan. The book claims that Dalia fell in love with a Christian man and was murdered by members of her Muslim family in a so-called honour killing. Investigations by Malcolm Knox and Caroline Overington, who at the time were colleagues at the Herald, revealed that Norma wasn't who she said she was. Dalia may never have been anything other than a figment of the author's imagination. Norma's insistence that she was telling the truth inspired filmmaker Anna Broinowski to make Forbidden Lie$, a disarmingly candid feature-length documentary in which Broinowski accompanies Norma to Jordan and tries to establish that the story in the book is true, only to be left wondering if she has also been conned by this plausible yet enigmatic woman. In a historic parallel with the allegations recently made against Raynor Winn, it was revealed that Norma used a nom de plume and had a somewhat chequered past involving financial irregularities. Forbidden Love was published in the era of the War on Terror, when there was a heightened awareness of the very real and serious issue of honour killings. As with The Salt Path in a different context, Norma did not just capture the imagination of her readers – she touched our hearts. The dark secret of publishing is that the fakes and frauds we know about are only the ones that have been uncovered and publicised. According to The Salt Path, Raynor and Moth experienced the ultimate sea change after walking the South West Coast Path, a coastal hike of some 1000 kilometres that includes Cornwall. Readers were told that Moth, who was diagnosed with an incurable brain disease, went into remission after travelling the path. The remarkable recovery by Moth during the long walk is recounted by the narrator with spousal love and low-key lyricism: 'Maybe it had been the lasagne, or the red wine, or the massage, or the thought of bacon, but Moth had got out of the tent that morning without any help. He was losing weight fast, his lean frame becoming really lean. Was he moving just a little more easily or was that me hoping for a miracle?' Winn's hopes for Moth's recovery do indeed manifest in the kind of miracle that could seem just about possible in the real world. Few readers would have believed the Winns if, on their travels, they claimed to have encountered the mythical Cornish sea monster known as the Morgawr, but a quiet story about the everyday struggles of ageing does not in itself seem far-fetched. The Salt Path was adapted into a feel-good feature film starring Gillian Anderson and Jason Isaacs, giving the tale an added layer of Hollywood sheen and reaching out to a new audience of people who might not join book clubs but still go to the movies. Loading Consolation is a vital part of what we look for in entertainment. The story of the Winns was published as non-fiction, and the book captured the imagination of a legion of readers, many of whom no doubt face similarly harsh challenges in the autumn of life. The Salt Path and its sequels have sold millions in a hit-or-miss industry where most books make no real money for anyone. The dark secret of publishing is that the fakes and frauds we know about are only the ones that have been uncovered and publicised. Such is the commercial nature of publishing that if a book does not exist, then there is an imperative to fill a gap in the market. Hoax memoirists tend to disappear once they have been rumbled, with the possible exception of James Frey, who famously drew the ire of daytime TV queen Oprah Winfrey in 2003 with A Million Little Pieces, a memoir of redemption by a desperate drug addict and alcoholic who ends up in rehab. Frey is still publishing books, cheerfully holding up both of his middle fingers to the camera in author photos. As Frey told the Herald 's Thomas Mitchell earlier this month, all he claims to have done was lightly fictionalise a factual story. Frey says he is proud of his literary notoriety: 'Say what you want about A Million Little Pieces, it's still read, it's still purchased, and it's still an iconic part of culture'. British author and educator Midge Gillies says the push to publish and profit can be challenging to resist. 'For any memoirist, creating a story arc of redemption can seem very tempting as it's clearly what publishers have wanted, and the formula has proved commercially – as well as artistically – successful in books such as H Is for Hawk by Helen Macdonald and Raising Hare by Chloe Dalton,' she says. In addition to publishing writing guides and works of biography (including a forthcoming group portrait of pioneering trans-Atlantic aviatrixes), Gillies teaches memoir in creative writing courses conducted for Granta and the University of Cambridge. She says that redemption and recovery stories are not uncommon: 'Many of my students frame their accounts as 'wellness memoirs' and go to great lengths to be truthful about their illness and the extent to which they may have been cured.' Gillies says she has not encountered a student like Helen Demidenko, Norma Khouri or Raynor Winn: 'In the 25 years I've been teaching memoir I've never once come across a student who, to the best of my knowledge, lied about their true story – or tried to inflate it in any way. The best true stories are so compelling that you don't have to make anything up.' Loading Gillies says students in her courses spend a considerable amount of time discussing the relationship of trust between writer and reader: 'Memoir is all about trust. Winn's claims that her husband's rare and debilitating illness had been substantially eased by their experience of walking England's South West Coast Path has left many writers feeling queasy. If The Observer allegations are correct, Raynor Winn seems to have skipped her class on ethics.'
Sydney Morning Herald
15 minutes ago
- Sydney Morning Herald
David Williamson skewered greedy Sydney - and bought the Harbour view anyway
Sydney features large in David Williamson's earliest memories. Aged three-and-a-half, the Melbourne-born-and-bred playwright was visiting an uncle with his family, and remembers 'sitting in a backyard on a very bright, sunny day, surrounded by bougainvilleas and subtropical flowers.' 'The fact my first memory was in Sydney obviously imprinted something on me about the exotic nature of the city: the colours, the brightness, the greenness of the grass,' he says. He contrasts this with Melbourne's winter and summer brownness, while another early memory was gazing from a ferry at a harbour that 'seemed a deep translucent green, not blue'. Hence, the title of his iconic 1987 play Emerald City. Although Williamson is eternally grateful to the Melbourne theatre companies that launched his career, he was less enamoured of that city's critical response. 'When the plays were done in Sydney, it was a totally different reaction,' he explains. 'John Bell did a terrific production of The Removalists, and John Clark did a great production of Don's Party, and I have to say that the talent at their disposal was probably greater, when you consider that I was playing the removalist in Melbourne, and Chris Haywood played him in Sydney. 'The critics were terrific, and they recognised the genre. The Melbourne critics thought The Removalists was an earnest play about police violence, that didn't succeed because the characters weren't three-dimensional. Whereas Sydney immediately saw it as a darkly satirical play about appalling Australian male behaviour.' Loading Williamson also wearied of his left-wing Carlton circle dimly viewing financial success, whereas in Sydney, making money seemed 'a legitimate pursuit'. He acknowledges Sydney's shady history of 'beleaguered convicts and corrupt prison guards, but,' he insists, 'it was a vibrant and very Australian city. So I thought to myself, 'Why do I have to put up with these Melbourne dinner parties where people start abusing me that I've sold out because my plays were being done in the state theatre companies, and because I might be making roughly as much money as a suburban GP?''
