Latest news with #GoingDown
The Age
12-07-2025
- Entertainment
- The Age
‘Why aren't you being cancelled?': Claudia Karvan reveals her problematic past roles
When Claudia Karvan was just starting out as an actor, a lot of her colleagues paid the bills by lending their voices to dramas on the radio. 'Their bread-and-butter job was doing radio plays. That was a regular gig,' she says. Karvan herself never recorded a radio play. Her career kicked off much earlier than most - she thinks she was eight or nine when she first appeared on screen in the 1982 film Going Down, and at 10 had scored the lead role in the feature Molly. By the time she was old enough for audio dramas, their popularity had plummeted. That's partly why one of her latest projects has proven so satisfying, she says. The new audiobook Like, Follow, Die isn't exactly a radio play, but its chapters are narrated by several actors playing different roles. Karvan has recorded audiobooks before, but being part of a larger ensemble performance scratched an itch she didn't know she had. 'You just get so swept away in it. You get so immersed. It's a nice way to do a performance because it's a real pure go at the character. You remove all of the other complexities of costume and makeup and lighting and going to location, all those technicalities. You can just focus on the world of that person.' That person, in this case, is Corinne, a mother who slowly comes to realise her son has fallen down a dangerous internet rabbit-hole and into the clutches of manipulative, anonymous forces. The police officer questioning her about her child's misdoings harbours his own troubles and is forced to juggle ethical dilemmas just as thorny as Corinne's. Audio experiences have had a powerful resurgence in the last decade or so. Once upon a time a train or tram would be packed with people nose-deep in a book. Now they all sport earbuds. 'People have a voracious appetite for audio books and podcasts. It's great company when you're commuting. It does make the gardening and doing the laundry much more pleasurable, doesn't it?' says Karvan. Part of the appeal is the intimacy afforded by another person's voice in your ear. There's also the way the imagination of a listener is involved: 'It's quite creative because you're filling in the gaps. I feel like I've been in Corinne's apartment, like I could actually map it out. I can tell you the colour of the walls, the colour of the curtain. I can smell it. I can hear it. I feel like I've been in that location. It's really powerful.' You might think that an actor would find audio dramas challenging, given that they're stripped of the ability to use facial expressions, physical reactions and the other tools they deploy to convey emotion. Karvan says that's not true. 'It's just a much more intense version of what we already do as actors. It comes down to empathy and being emotionally available. Obviously, there's a little bit of technical craft with voice, stamina and articulation and muscularity,' she says. 'Otherwise it's still about humanity and compassion and curiosity. But they're so much more fun because you get to stay in your tracksuit pants.' Karvan was attracted to Like, Follow, Die because she related to the role intensely. She has two children, and her son is close to the age of Corinne's. She has a great relationship with him, she says, but she's also very conscious of the toxic environment young men are forced to navigate both online and offline right now. 'I think every parent is alive to the conversations around the 'manosphere' at the moment. I am one of those parents. It's always on my radar for sure.' Her solution involves communication, honesty and empathy. 'I think it's really important not to be fearful because yes, there is a very blatant fight to hang onto the patriarchal old world order, and we're seeing that play out. But we're in this big human experiment together, and I think it's really important for us as brothers and sisters to work together and look after each other.' Karvan's own mother was a feminist, 'a very colourful one and a fantastically inconsistent one', she laughs. In a recent Who Do You Think You Are? episode devoted to Karvan's life, she describes her mum as 'a feminist who picked the bits that she wanted from feminism and left the rest'. The world may have shifted in ways alarmingly different to the one she started out in, she says, but it's also important to keep the wins in mind. 'I just went to Australian Fashion Week, and it's very different to the '90s in a very good way. The diversity of the models, different ages, gender fluidity, different shapes, different races, less uniform, much more originality. It was so life-affirming.' You can chart those social changes in the roles Karvan herself has played over the decades. In recent times people have often raised an eyebrow at 1993's The Heartbreak Kid, in which she starred as a teacher who embarks on a clandestine romance with one of her pupils. 'People are like, 'ummm ... your character had an affair with a student. Why aren't you being cancelled?' Or, 'you played a Greek woman when you're not Greek'. Things change, definitely.' TAKE 7: THE ANSWERS ACCORDING TO CLAUDIA KARVAN Worst habit? Dental flossing in public. Pretty disgusting, isn't it? Greatest fear? Being attacked by a shark or being constipated. The line that stayed with you? Gloria Steinem: 'The truth will set you free, but first it will piss you off.' Biggest regret? Uh, come and ask me at three in the morning. Favourite book? Right now, the audiobook Clown World. Why hasn't anyone heard of this book? It's written by two Vice journalists. It's their investigation of the manosphere. I'm recommending it to everyone. The artwork/song you wish was yours? I wish I'd written the song One Day Like This by Elbow. If you could time travel, where would you choose to go? To meet any of my ancestors that I learned about in Who Do You Think You Are? More than reflecting the times in which they're made, though, a huge number of Karvan's most memorable roles also capture a particular phase of life itself. The Secret Life of Us was entirely about the highs and lows of life in your 20s. Love My Way, on the other hand, wouldn't have been the same show if its characters hadn't been in their 30s. The Claudia Karvan of today is very much echoed in Bump, the series in which she plays a mother of kids around the same age as her own. Karvan co-created Bump and is filming a feature film instalment right now. What attracts her to productions in which she goes beyond acting to get active behind the camera? 'Something that's going to surprise an audience. I feel connected to the audience because I'm an audience member and I know how I want to feel or what I want to get out of an experience, be it with an audiobook or a film or a podcast. I want to learn something. I want to feel moved. I want to come out feeling some hope.' One of Karvan's earliest roles was in Gillian Armstrong's classic High Tide, in which she plays the restless teenage daughter of a fiercely independent mother played with characteristic verve by Judy Davis. Did Davis' brave example inspire Karvan to challenge herself in the same way? 'I would have subconsciously downloaded that,' she says. 'Other things too, like you can be a smart actor. You should be well-read. You should have an opinion. You don't have to be a meat puppet.' Karvan grew up on our screens, so perhaps it's not surprising that she went on to keep growing and exploring what it means to be a certain age throughout her acting career. Does she often look back and take stock of her life? 'Of course. Yes. All the time. Every day.' Some people don't. 'No, I know they don't. I find that fascinating.' Loading She doesn't reflect on her own history in order to self-flagellate, she says, but to better know herself. It comes down to a quote she loves from the poet Pablo Neruda: 'Someday, somewhere - anywhere, unfailingly, you'll find yourself, and that, and only that, can be the happiest or bitterest hour of your life.' 'I just think it's such a beautiful thing to remember. That you never get away from yourself,' she says. 'You want to play that long game where you make sure that when that day comes, it's not a horror film.'
Sydney Morning Herald
08-07-2025
- Entertainment
- Sydney Morning Herald
‘People are like ... Why aren't you being cancelled?' Claudia Karvan on past roles
When Claudia Karvan was just starting out as an actor, a lot of her colleagues paid the bills by lending their voices to dramas on the radio. 'Their bread-and-butter job was doing radio plays. That was a regular gig,' she says. Karvan herself never recorded a radio play. Her career kicked off much earlier than most - she thinks she was eight or nine when she first appeared on screen in the 1982 film Going Down, and at 10 had scored the lead role in the feature Molly. By the time she was old enough for audio dramas, their popularity had plummeted. That's partly why one of her latest projects has proven so satisfying, she says. The new audiobook Like, Follow, Die isn't exactly a radio play, but its chapters are narrated by several actors playing different roles. Karvan has recorded audiobooks before, but being part of a larger ensemble performance scratched an itch she didn't know she had. 'You just get so swept away in it. You get so immersed. It's a nice way to do a performance because it's a real pure go at the character. You remove all of the other complexities of costume and makeup and lighting and going to location, all those technicalities. You can just focus on the world of that person.' That person, in this case, is Corinne, a mother who slowly comes to realise her son has fallen down a dangerous internet rabbit-hole and into the clutches of manipulative, anonymous forces. The police officer questioning her about her child's misdoings harbours his own troubles and is forced to juggle ethical dilemmas just as thorny as Corinne's. Audio experiences have had a powerful resurgence in the last decade or so. Once upon a time a train or tram would be packed with people nose-deep in a book. Now they all sport earbuds. 'People have a voracious appetite for audio books and podcasts. It's great company when you're commuting. It does make the gardening and doing the laundry much more pleasurable, doesn't it?' says Karvan. Part of the appeal is the intimacy afforded by another person's voice in your ear. There's also the way the imagination of a listener is involved: 'It's quite creative because you're filling in the gaps. I feel like I've been in Corinne's apartment, like I could actually map it out. I can tell you the colour of the walls, the colour of the curtain. I can smell it. I can hear it. I feel like I've been in that location. It's really powerful.' You might think that an actor would find audio dramas challenging, given that they're stripped of the ability to use facial expressions, physical reactions and the other tools they deploy to convey emotion. Karvan says that's not true. 'It's just a much more intense version of what we already do as actors. It comes down to empathy and being emotionally available. Obviously, there's a little bit of technical craft with voice, stamina and articulation and muscularity,' she says. 'Otherwise it's still about humanity and compassion and curiosity. But they're so much more fun because you get to stay in your tracksuit pants.' Karvan was attracted to Like, Follow, Die because she related to the role intensely. She has two children, and her son is close to the age of Corinne's. She has a great relationship with him, she says, but she's also very conscious of the toxic environment young men are forced to navigate both online and offline right now. 'I think every parent is alive to the conversations around the 'manosphere' at the moment. I am one of those parents. It's always on my radar for sure.' Her solution involves communication, honesty and empathy. 'I think it's really important not to be fearful because yes, there is a very blatant fight to hang onto the patriarchal old world order, and we're seeing that play out. But we're in this big human experiment together, and I think it's really important for us as brothers and sisters to work together and look after each other.' Karvan's own mother was a feminist, 'a very colourful one and a fantastically inconsistent one', she laughs. In a recent Who Do You Think You Are? episode devoted to Karvan's life, she describes her mum as 'a feminist who picked the bits that she wanted from feminism and left the rest'. The world may have shifted in ways alarmingly different to the one she started out in, she says, but it's also important to keep the wins in mind. 'I just went to Australian Fashion Week, and it's very different to the '90s in a very good way. The diversity of the models, different ages, gender fluidity, different shapes, different races, less uniform, much more originality. It was so life-affirming.' You can chart those social changes in the roles Karvan herself has played over the decades. In recent times people have often raised an eyebrow at 1993's The Heartbreak Kid, in which she starred as a teacher who embarks on a clandestine romance with one of her pupils. 'People are like, 'ummm ... your character had an affair with a student. Why aren't you being cancelled?' Or, 'you played a Greek woman when you're not Greek'. Things change, definitely.' TAKE 7: THE ANSWERS ACCORDING TO CLAUDIA KARVAN Worst habit? Dental flossing in public. Pretty disgusting, isn't it? Greatest fear? Being attacked by a shark or being constipated. The line that stayed with you? Gloria Steinem: 'The truth will set you free, but first it will piss you off.' Biggest regret? Uh, come and ask me at three in the morning. Favourite book? Right now, the audiobook Clown World. Why hasn't anyone heard of this book? It's written by two Vice journalists. It's their investigation of the manosphere. I'm recommending it to everyone. The artwork/song you wish was yours? I wish I'd written the song One Day Like This by Elbow. If you could time travel, where would you choose to go? To meet any of my ancestors that I learned about in Who Do You Think You Are? More than reflecting the times in which they're made, though, a huge number of Karvan's most memorable roles also capture a particular phase of life itself. The Secret Life of Us was entirely about the highs and lows of life in your 20s. Love My Way, on the other hand, wouldn't have been the same show if its characters hadn't been in their 30s. The Claudia Karvan of today is very much echoed in Bump, the series in which she plays a mother of kids around the same age as her own. Karvan co-created Bump and is filming a feature film instalment right now. What attracts her to productions in which she goes beyond acting to get active behind the camera? 'Something that's going to surprise an audience. I feel connected to the audience because I'm an audience member and I know how I want to feel or what I want to get out of an experience, be it with an audiobook or a film or a podcast. I want to learn something. I want to feel moved. I want to come out feeling some hope.' One of Karvan's earliest roles was in Gillian Armstrong's classic High Tide, in which she plays the restless teenage daughter of a fiercely independent mother played with characteristic verve by Judy Davis. Did Davis' brave example inspire Karvan to challenge herself in the same way? 'I would have subconsciously downloaded that,' she says. 'Other things too, like you can be a smart actor. You should be well-read. You should have an opinion. You don't have to be a meat puppet.' Karvan grew up on our screens, so perhaps it's not surprising that she went on to keep growing and exploring what it means to be a certain age throughout her acting career. Does she often look back and take stock of her life? 'Of course. Yes. All the time. Every day.' Some people don't. 'No, I know they don't. I find that fascinating.' Loading She doesn't reflect on her own history in order to self-flagellate, she says, but to better know herself. It comes down to a quote she loves from the poet Pablo Neruda: 'Someday, somewhere - anywhere, unfailingly, you'll find yourself, and that, and only that, can be the happiest or bitterest hour of your life.' 'I just think it's such a beautiful thing to remember. That you never get away from yourself,' she says. 'You want to play that long game where you make sure that when that day comes, it's not a horror film.'
The Age
08-07-2025
- Entertainment
- The Age
‘People are like ... Why aren't you being cancelled?' Claudia Karvan on past roles
When Claudia Karvan was just starting out as an actor, a lot of her colleagues paid the bills by lending their voices to dramas on the radio. 'Their bread-and-butter job was doing radio plays. That was a regular gig,' she says. Karvan herself never recorded a radio play. Her career kicked off much earlier than most - she thinks she was eight or nine when she first appeared on screen in the 1982 film Going Down, and at 10 had scored the lead role in the feature Molly. By the time she was old enough for audio dramas, their popularity had plummeted. That's partly why one of her latest projects has proven so satisfying, she says. The new audiobook Like, Follow, Die isn't exactly a radio play, but its chapters are narrated by several actors playing different roles. Karvan has recorded audiobooks before, but being part of a larger ensemble performance scratched an itch she didn't know she had. 'You just get so swept away in it. You get so immersed. It's a nice way to do a performance because it's a real pure go at the character. You remove all of the other complexities of costume and makeup and lighting and going to location, all those technicalities. You can just focus on the world of that person.' That person, in this case, is Corinne, a mother who slowly comes to realise her son has fallen down a dangerous internet rabbit-hole and into the clutches of manipulative, anonymous forces. The police officer questioning her about her child's misdoings harbours his own troubles and is forced to juggle ethical dilemmas just as thorny as Corinne's. Audio experiences have had a powerful resurgence in the last decade or so. Once upon a time a train or tram would be packed with people nose-deep in a book. Now they all sport earbuds. 'People have a voracious appetite for audio books and podcasts. It's great company when you're commuting. It does make the gardening and doing the laundry much more pleasurable, doesn't it?' says Karvan. Part of the appeal is the intimacy afforded by another person's voice in your ear. There's also the way the imagination of a listener is involved: 'It's quite creative because you're filling in the gaps. I feel like I've been in Corinne's apartment, like I could actually map it out. I can tell you the colour of the walls, the colour of the curtain. I can smell it. I can hear it. I feel like I've been in that location. It's really powerful.' You might think that an actor would find audio dramas challenging, given that they're stripped of the ability to use facial expressions, physical reactions and the other tools they deploy to convey emotion. Karvan says that's not true. 'It's just a much more intense version of what we already do as actors. It comes down to empathy and being emotionally available. Obviously, there's a little bit of technical craft with voice, stamina and articulation and muscularity,' she says. 'Otherwise it's still about humanity and compassion and curiosity. But they're so much more fun because you get to stay in your tracksuit pants.' Karvan was attracted to Like, Follow, Die because she related to the role intensely. She has two children, and her son is close to the age of Corinne's. She has a great relationship with him, she says, but she's also very conscious of the toxic environment young men are forced to navigate both online and offline right now. 'I think every parent is alive to the conversations around the 'manosphere' at the moment. I am one of those parents. It's always on my radar for sure.' Her solution involves communication, honesty and empathy. 'I think it's really important not to be fearful because yes, there is a very blatant fight to hang onto the patriarchal old world order, and we're seeing that play out. But we're in this big human experiment together, and I think it's really important for us as brothers and sisters to work together and look after each other.' Karvan's own mother was a feminist, 'a very colourful one and a fantastically inconsistent one', she laughs. In a recent Who Do You Think You Are? episode devoted to Karvan's life, she describes her mum as 'a feminist who picked the bits that she wanted from feminism and left the rest'. The world may have shifted in ways alarmingly different to the one she started out in, she says, but it's also important to keep the wins in mind. 'I just went to Australian Fashion Week, and it's very different to the '90s in a very good way. The diversity of the models, different ages, gender fluidity, different shapes, different races, less uniform, much more originality. It was so life-affirming.' You can chart those social changes in the roles Karvan herself has played over the decades. In recent times people have often raised an eyebrow at 1993's The Heartbreak Kid, in which she starred as a teacher who embarks on a clandestine romance with one of her pupils. 'People are like, 'ummm ... your character had an affair with a student. Why aren't you being cancelled?' Or, 'you played a Greek woman when you're not Greek'. Things change, definitely.' TAKE 7: THE ANSWERS ACCORDING TO CLAUDIA KARVAN Worst habit? Dental flossing in public. Pretty disgusting, isn't it? Greatest fear? Being attacked by a shark or being constipated. The line that stayed with you? Gloria Steinem: 'The truth will set you free, but first it will piss you off.' Biggest regret? Uh, come and ask me at three in the morning. Favourite book? Right now, the audiobook Clown World. Why hasn't anyone heard of this book? It's written by two Vice journalists. It's their investigation of the manosphere. I'm recommending it to everyone. The artwork/song you wish was yours? I wish I'd written the song One Day Like This by Elbow. If you could time travel, where would you choose to go? To meet any of my ancestors that I learned about in Who Do You Think You Are? More than reflecting the times in which they're made, though, a huge number of Karvan's most memorable roles also capture a particular phase of life itself. The Secret Life of Us was entirely about the highs and lows of life in your 20s. Love My Way, on the other hand, wouldn't have been the same show if its characters hadn't been in their 30s. The Claudia Karvan of today is very much echoed in Bump, the series in which she plays a mother of kids around the same age as her own. Karvan co-created Bump and is filming a feature film instalment right now. What attracts her to productions in which she goes beyond acting to get active behind the camera? 'Something that's going to surprise an audience. I feel connected to the audience because I'm an audience member and I know how I want to feel or what I want to get out of an experience, be it with an audiobook or a film or a podcast. I want to learn something. I want to feel moved. I want to come out feeling some hope.' One of Karvan's earliest roles was in Gillian Armstrong's classic High Tide, in which she plays the restless teenage daughter of a fiercely independent mother played with characteristic verve by Judy Davis. Did Davis' brave example inspire Karvan to challenge herself in the same way? 'I would have subconsciously downloaded that,' she says. 'Other things too, like you can be a smart actor. You should be well-read. You should have an opinion. You don't have to be a meat puppet.' Karvan grew up on our screens, so perhaps it's not surprising that she went on to keep growing and exploring what it means to be a certain age throughout her acting career. Does she often look back and take stock of her life? 'Of course. Yes. All the time. Every day.' Some people don't. 'No, I know they don't. I find that fascinating.' Loading She doesn't reflect on her own history in order to self-flagellate, she says, but to better know herself. It comes down to a quote she loves from the poet Pablo Neruda: 'Someday, somewhere - anywhere, unfailingly, you'll find yourself, and that, and only that, can be the happiest or bitterest hour of your life.' 'I just think it's such a beautiful thing to remember. That you never get away from yourself,' she says. 'You want to play that long game where you make sure that when that day comes, it's not a horror film.'
The Guardian
08-05-2025
- Entertainment
- The Guardian
Parties, petty crime and a U-ey on the Harbour Bridge: a 40-year-old portrait of Sydney's underbelly gets a new life
When Going Down first screened at Sundance film festival in 1986, American audiences 'were so used to kangaroos and slow pans across the wide brown land', says director Haydn Keenan. Today, the under-seen film is being redistributed by maverick movie maven Elizabeth Purchell. To this day, Purchell says, 'most American cinephiles, if they know anything about Australian cinema, it's either the art house stuff like Picnic at Hanging Rock, or it's Ozploitation, like Razorback, BMX Bandits, The Man from Hong Kong – but not films like this.' Going Down is a rich descent into life in 1980s Sydney, following Karli, Jane, Jackie and Ellen on their last night out on the town together before Karli (Tracy Mann) takes off to New York the next morning. As it opens on an all too recognisable Sydney sharehouse in shambles, it is clear things have been going down for quite some time. What follows is a well-oiled portrait of sin city, devoted to the sensuous character of the former Kings Cross. The four girlfriends – two of whom also have writing credits for Going Down – sink into the night, plundering house parties and eventually becoming embroiled in what one of them calls the 'most mundane crime of the century'. More than 40 years on, the film is a remarkable certificate of Sydney's past life. In fact, Going Down was the first on-screen appearance of Australian actor Claudia Karvan, who shows up early in the film as a child playing on the street late at night with her real-life best-friend, the late Samantha Rebillet. The two girls form an unhappy family with Michael (Esben Storm) and Jane (Vera Plevnik) who masquerade as the girls' parents, deceiving a pharmacist for six bottles of Paracodin and Mandrax. Sign up for the fun stuff with our rundown of must-reads, pop culture and tips for the weekend, every Saturday morning 'I was only like 10 years old,' Karvan recalls. 'I'd never acted before. I just looked straight down the barrel.' She isn't sure that 'Mum was particularly enamoured with me doing [the film]' due to its adult subject matter – which also 'meant that I couldn't actually go and see the movie myself, because I was too young'. The film takes many exciting turns, including one remarkable U-ey in the middle of the Sydney Harbour Bridge. 'We negotiated for three months, and they shut the bridge for 30 minutes,' Keenan remembers. 'You didn't have to pay. A cameraman just climbed over the barbed wire and up into the girders to shoot. I think Ryan [Gosling] spent $5m getting the same little stunt.' This was a Sydney where 'you could talk your way into places', Keenan says, and plenty has changed since he made his film: he recalls one audience member being astonished by the ample parking available in the city. As Karvan puts it, 'You don't really notice the shifting of time that much until you throw it into relief over 40 years and suddenly things you took for granted are extremely bizarre.' And nothing could be more bizarre than watching a pair of bickering newlyweds from Broken Hill park their Commodore in the heart of Sydney, outside the El Alamein 'dandelion' water fountain on Macleay St – a vehicle Karli claims as her own, driving off to the airport. Going Down, a fiercely independent production, is a blinding contrast to recent, sleek Hollywood films set in Sydney, such as The Fall Guy and Anyone But You. 'We started the film with enough money to pay the wages for the first week,' Keenan says. 'We didn't have enough lights to light night exteriors.' And while it may show sometimes – the director affectionately calls it a 'rough little picture' – the new 4K restoration has brought Going Down into sharp focus. Keenan's film has been salvaged by a series of crucial contributors. The Grainery, a restoration facility in Canberra, scanned negatives for the cost of electricity; Josh Pomeranz – Margaret Pomeranz's son – worked on the sound mix and colour grading after-hours at Spectrum Films. Sign up to Saved for Later Catch up on the fun stuff with Guardian Australia's culture and lifestyle rundown of pop culture, trends and tips after newsletter promotion After Going Down actor Vera Plevnik died in an accident before the shoot wrapped, her friend, Australian Crawl's James Reyne, donated his songs for use in the film. 'It gradually built up a maelstrom of cultural creativity. People started throwing things in,' Keenan says. A twist of fate also brought Keenan and Purchell together. 'When I reached out to [Keenan], he was in … the final steps of the restoration,' she says. Purchell was about to launch her cult distribution company Muscle Distribution; the pair shared a DIY spirit. 'It was just right time, right place,' she says. In the film, Jane is accused of resenting Karli for leaving her behind in provincial Sydney. When Jane argues that Karli can do 'anything she wants here', it feels like wishful thinking rather than a guarantee. 'Part of it is cultural cringe. We need validation, we need to go out,' Keenan says – which is certainly true for Australians working in the film industry. But more broadly, he senses an 'unease' that exists in non-Indigenous Australians, 'a subconscious sense that we are strangers in a strange land, that we don't quite fit'. Going Down, too, is a strange film: proudly outré and gloriously coarse. (Pay close attention to the final gag, involving an appearance from Keenan himself, some egg yolks and a bucket of sesame bars.) Much like its main character, Going Down will soon take flight to the US. Let's hope it's not a one-way trip. Going Down screens at Bam, New York from 9 to 15 May before showing around the US and Canada until June
