2013
This was a pretty quiet year, work-wise. Having said that, I did do one of the most intense films I’ve ever done – David Michod’s “The Rover” (Jan – March) with Rob Pattinson. Personally, I think the film’s amazing. David’s a unique director and the film is extremely evocative. We also did our third Jack Irish TV movie – “Black Tide” (June- July) but apart from that I got to spend time at home in the studio to try and finish the songs I’ve been working on for a while. Getting there slowly.
The Rover was a fascinating project and it was unreal to work with David again after Animal Kingdom. Great to see Rob in action too. His performance is utterly brilliant and heartbreaking. During the shoot in Marree, Sam Johnson came riding into town on his unicycle on about day 23 of a 1 year ride he was doing around Australia to raise money for breast cancer. Pretty inspirational stuff. Had a fun night with Sam then watched him ride off the next day on his treacherous journey.
Before shooting The Rover however, Kate and I got to visit the Sundance Film Festival again with Drake Doremus’ film “Breathe In”. I think this was visit #4 for me. It’s a really fun festival, although the paparazzi and autograph hunters are pretty full on now, so it’s not quite as calm and intimate as it used to be. It seemed people really loved the film and Drake’s obviously popular there as he’d won Sundance 2 years before with his other Felicity Jones film “Like Crazy”.
Getting to do another Jack Irish for the ABC was a treat. It was primarily the same team as the first two we’d done in 2011 – Jeff Walker directing and Matt Cameron, Andrew Knight and Andrew Anistasias behind the script. Same camera team with a lot of the same actors – Marta Dusseldorp, Roy Billing, Aaron Pederson, Shane Jacobson as well some great guests – Tina Bursill, Deb Mailman, John Jarratt, Kimesia Hartz, Kat Stewart, Vince Colossimo, Kate Beahan, and the incomparable Barry Humphries. What a brilliant man he is! He made me laugh everyday too, as you can imagine.
After finishing that in July, I just continued on at home working on my songs and trying to finish off the record. It was interesting playing around with which songs might make it and which ones wouldn’t.
It’s also been a tough year, particularly for Kate, as her sister Rebecca passed away in March. Death, I think is the single most affecting experience of our lives. Utterly devastating and confounding. My heart just broke for Kate and her family. After a long time away in 2012, it was now time to be at home and try to be as supportive as possible.