Exclusive Interview: Mick Molloy & Garry Eck – BoyTown
Interview by Sean Lynch
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Interview with Mick Molloy & Garry Eck
Writer and the Stars of the film BoyTown. His career is one of dramatic highs and embarrassing lows. From the defining of Drive Time commercial radio on Martin/Molloy to the eight weeks of unrelenting critical panning of his TV venture The Mick Molloy Show, to a triumphant return as the saviour of the Australian film industry with 2002’s Crackerjack, Mick Molloy has pretty much done everything except choreographed dance moves. Until now. On
the first leg a whirlwind tour of the country, Sean Lynch caught up
with Mick and his cohorts Bob Franklin, Garry Eck and Wayne Hope as
they embark on single handedly bringing back the art of the boy band in
the much anticipated comedy BoyTown.
You’ve
done a bit of research for the film I understand - are there any boy
band songs you’re secretly in love with now?
MM: Well there are
some good songs…and I kind of have a begrudging respect for some of the
bands now. You go “Now, I like what Westlife have done there...The
Backstreet Boys should look at Westlife and see what they’ve done!”. Garry,
you have one of the funnier parts in the film – did Mick write the
character with you specifically in mind like he did with some of the
other characters?
GE: Well, my character is a knob in the script, and I’m a bit of a knob in real life [laughs] Pair the two together… MM:
It was written for Gary, they were all written for the guys, but at the
end of the day they run away with it and make with it what they do… GE:
I actually did watch a boyband DVD, a band called Blue…one of those
bands that could have been huge but ended up just being big in
Norway…and they had this behind the scenes documentary and there was
this one guy [starts doing wanky hand movements]
who kept doing these hand movements that don’t actually suit him. He
was just trying to be cool…and I’m like, that’s the kind of knob I want
to be. [laughs] MM: …But you were fucking very natural, you did it way too easily my friend… Besides
me and my mum, pretty much anyone that has ever lived in Australia
appears in the film, is there anyone that actually missed out on a role?
MM:
Santo Cilaro [from the Working Dog team] was originally meant to play
the director of the video clips at one stage. But he had to go to
Brazil to research his latest jetlag travel book, but that’s about all
I can think of. This is also the first time me and Judith [Lucy] have
never kissed in a film. So there will be a lot of disappointed, um,
weirdos…[laughs] Tony Martin makes an appearance [as a documentary film maker]…
MM: Well
it was good to have Tony along. He shot a shit load of footage, and
Tony has been quietly whacking away on an extra for the DVD, which is
almost a semi-doco-mockumentary… Mick, you and Bob have teamed up again [after Bad Eggs, The Mick Molloy Show, etc] are you worried that you two are becoming the Wilder/Pryor duo of the Australian film industry…
MM: [laughs]…I don’t think my eyes are bug enough I’m afraid [laughs].
That would be fun, we do tend to work together and I reckon that’s a
good thing. It’s really just an excuse to hang out with your mates. I suppose I should get down to the hard hitting 60 Minutes type question, so Mick, were Shetland Ponies always on the cards no matter what the storyline? MM: ..[laughs] Shetlands were always
on the cards. I mean I’ve been trying to get Shetlands going for
ages. I’ve always said that I’ve wanted to remake The Man From Snowy River just with dwarves on Shetlands, very faithful – shot for shot. ...[laughs] That just seems to be one of many little 'in-jokes' thrown throughout the film, i.e. Tough Love, Shetlands, [In foreign accent and pretending to knock on a hotel door] “Housekeeping, Housekeeping!”… GE:…[laughs] We’ve actually been doing that all day today! …Were there any 'in-jokes' that didn’t make it that you wish you had? MM: You can do it as long as it doesn’t interrupt the general running of business. Like, in Crackerjack, I had Richmond paraphernalia everywhere.
If you look on the fridge there will be a magnet, or on the desk there
will be a coffee mug. We’re always amusing ourselves, if no one else. GE:
Well, with my character they made me wear '80s gear throughout the
entire film. Like when they are playing the boy band now, they’re
wearing cool, contemporary gear – and I’m wearing these fucking jeans
that come up to my chin – Jean Claude Vanne Damme pants…[laughs] MM:…But when you turned up at the after party, you looked the coolest…[laughs]. While BoyTown
does play for laughs, the film often takes a few dramatic turns, with
Molloy coming from a straight out comedy background – one would have to
think that perhaps it isn’t as easy as it looks. MM: At the end of
the day you can only piss fart around for so long. We’re on
solid ground when we’re piss farting about…but the first draft of the
'Boy A, Boy B' scene was one of the most terrible pieces of fucking
writing you’ve ever heard. It was just melodrama. And we just went,
fuck that’s terrible…so we ended up just making it an analogy for the
song, and that was our way of addressing it without actually having to. Glenn
Robbins plays his character pretty seriously throughout the film and
doesn’t go for too many laughs. Was it your decision or his to get him
into the underpants late in the movie, because it got halfway through
and I’m like “He hasn’t taken his pants off yet…” MM:..[laughs] You only have to ask Glenn once… …[laughs] He just wears a rip-off Velcro suit… GE: [laughs]...Didn’t Glenn say that his arse had bought him a house? [laughs]… MM: [laughs]…Well Glenn does a lot of heavy lifting, as usually happens with a lead character… GE:
I think he’s there to keep the story real. Because if everyone’s just
jokey, jokey, jokey – it just doesn’t come across as believable. MM:
But he does a good job I reckon. I think people will be really
impressed and they’ll see parts of him they haven’t seen before – and
some that they have...[laughs] What I really liked about this film, and Crackerjack as well, was it is one of the few Australian films that doesn’t have a stereotypical “G’day Mate” tone.
MM:..[laughs] Yeah… There
was a scene where your Gran asks “Are these your undies?” and that is
possibly the most legitimate Australian moments I’ve ever seen put on
film…
GE: [laughs]…All you remember is that, Glenn Robbins arse…is everything just based around underpants?...[laughs] …[laughs] Note to self: No more underpant related questions [throws question sheet away]…
MM: [laughs]…Well
that’s another one of our in jokes. We have an underpants joke in
every-single-thing we do. The thing is, we try not to be overt about it
[the film's tone] ...it’s just about writing in your own voice. I think
when people start to hear that stereotypical voice they just start to
caricature everyone and it becomes less real. …It’s no Alvin Purple… MM:..[laughs] No, it’s no Alvin Purple – it’s no Dimboola! [laughs]…
We try to avoid it, but you know, that’s where we’re from.
Plus there’s always time for an underpants joke. BOYTOWN is in cinemas now.
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