Interview - Brendan Cowell

Interview with Brendan Cowell : Star of Beneath Hill 60

By Sean Lynch

By 1916, the Great War in Europe had reached a stalemate, with two massive armies fighting themselves into a standstill. Enter Oliver Woodward, an Australian soldier who joins the secret Australian Mining Company who is tasked with taking down the enemy from below.

Brendan Cowell (star and writer of the award winning Australian drama Love My Way, Film Festival favourite Noise, and Peter Helliar's I Love You Too) takes on the role of the real-life WWI hero in Beneath Hill 60.

Web Wombat Movies' Sean Lynch sat down Cowell over a pot of Earl Grey to talk claustrophobic freak-outs, cricket commentating, secret love affairs and his latest DVD release...

Do you get worried that something like Beneath Hill 60 will be unfairly compared against both classic Australian war films like Gallipoli or even the likes of Band Of Brothers and The Pacific?

I actually think that they will help each other out, you know, with people [already in the process of] just thinking about that period of history and what war means.

But I also think that people who are going to see a film about Australian Miners in WWI are maybe a different audience to The Pacific as well. The Pacific seems to have a slicker youth bent to it, as opposed to Band Of Brothers.

One episode of The Pacific costs about three times as much as our movie, they're a different beast.

At $9.5 Million, Beneath Hill 60 is actually quite expensive - when it comes to Australian films that is...

It's one of the biggest budgets any Australian director has had to deal with.

But I think that some of our war sequences kind of match the best of theirs, it's pretty realistic stuff that [director] Jeremy [Sims] has created.

Does that put any extra pressure on you, as an actor, knowing there is a bigger budget at stake?

Oh yeah, there is a little bit of that. The thing about Jeremy is that even though he's got this enormous movie to deal with, he always priorities the actors. 

He's from the theatre, I worked with him initially in the theatre - which is probably why I ended up working with him in this film.

He'd always make sure the first half hour - of any scene - was just with the actors on set. Not even the DOP or First AD were invited in. He'd construct a little play with us, and when he was happy with they way the words sounded and he was happy with our intentions, then he'd bring people in to have a look at it.

Sometimes when we'd have big sequences with a lot of explosions in it, he would have a word in my ear and say "Look, I can't afford to do this shot again so don't f**k it up"... [Laughs].

"It's a $40,000 shot... so can you run through all the right spots, say the line to the right guy".

So there is some pressure in that regard. I guess that's the difference between Beneath Hill 60 and a Matt Damon movie - he could probably trip over six or seven times [Laughs].

You're one of the most naturalistic Australian actors out there (especially in Love My Way), was it tough to tone that back in order to take on the stiff-upper lip of Australia circa 1916?

The hardest thing, for me, was working on the voice and posture.

From my research of the time, and my research of [my character] Oliver Woodward, he was a different guy around his troops than he was around positions of authority or his lovers - when he needed to show his education and status.

We really had to modulate it quite intensely, and Jeremy was watching it the whole time to make sure we got it spot on.

Is it true that in order to get the voice down, you listened back to old 1920s cricket radio coverage?

I couldn't go too hard with it, because they have that [Puts on 1920s commentator voice] "It's 1 for 187" [Laughs].

If I went like that, it'd be too toffy nosed and British and you wouldn't be able to get it into the character.

I wanted to do a voice, but I still wanted people to get into this character and feel this guy and relate to him - I didn't want to make any division between character and audience.

Beneath Hill 60 portrays that scary sense of claustrophobia quite well - are you a claustrophobic guy at all?

Well, the tunnels were tunnels!

We used each part of the tunnels only once, and there were a lot of sequences where you had to climb through and stay down there for five or six hours at a time - and it's a very small space and very scary.

But, I know I'm on a movie set and that I can scream out for someone to come and get me [Laughs].

Were there any freak outs in the tunnels during the shoot, from you or any of the other boys?

I learned very early not to be hung over at all [Laughs], because that sort of added to the fragility - and that was f**kin' freaky -  because you already think you can't breath and you're gonna die anyway [Laughs].

So I decided not to do that...

The other thing is - these guys [the real soldiers] were very comfortable under ground. When they were at the war they couldn't wait to get back to the tunnel, they were hungry for the work, they wanted to dig trenches to keep their minds alive.

And they were miners. So while these tunnels may have been horrific, and probably worse than any mine they'd been in back in Queensland, at the same time being underground was sweet relief...

Because it was almost safer down there...

Exactly. Because up above the ground, you're watching young kids heads being blown off, or you might even have to hold a gun yourself - and that was horrible.

Was it a polar opposite experience on the set of Peter Helliar's I Love You Too?

What's great about Peter Helliar's film is that it's very obedient to the rom-com formula, it is just a great, sweet comedy about a guy who's gotta get his s**t together to get that girl back.

The movie kicks off and you think "This is going to be Brendan Cowell and Peter Helliar getting smashed and trying to root chicks on their futon, eating pizza and playing Nintendo" - and a lot of guys will go "Oh yeah, sounds alright, I'd go watch that" and that's the first five minutes. 

But then he falls in love, and they have to break up [the mates], and then you meet this grieving dwarf whose car he steals and then the movie starts to become about more things than you might have initially thought.

One final question before we go. We ask everyone this : If you could start your own "Richard Gere Gerbil" myth or rumour to spread about yourself in the press... what would it be?

Holy S**t [Laughs], great question!

I can't really think of anything... maybe just that me and Peter Helliar are lovers - and have been for quite a while [Laughs]... but I want to think of something better though.

[Laughs] I think a secret love affair with Peter Helliar's pretty solid... he's a family man... you'll destroy his entire life in one foul swoop!

[Laughs] Melbourne's Sweetheart!

BENEATH HILL 60 is OUT NOW on BLU RAY & DVD