Overview
David Wenham is as cool as a bullet and strikingly humble. Arriving with a suave velvet green jacket, hair carelessly tossed back and black brimmed glasses, the star of various blockbuster hits like the Lord of the Rings (where he played the complicated Faramir), 300 (the ripped Dilios) as well as the emmy-nominated Top of the Lake (detective Al) has earned him his acting stripes on the international stage. Not to mention he was also voted as Australia's Sexiest Man Alive.
Concrete Playground's Laetitia Laubscher sat down with one of Australia's best creative exports at this year's Big Screen Symposium where he gave an acting workshop.
You've played some interesting and iconic characters like Faramir, Dilios and Jerry Springer (on the broadway show 'Jerry Springer - The Opera') … what makes you pick up a project, has it changed over the years?
Well, it's still the same actually. It comes down to the script, the script has to be good. The character has to intrigue me in some way, challenge me in some way. And sometimes the people attached to the project are a key factor as well. First and foremost it's the script really.
So it's never really been about the fame?
No, god no. I never went into it for the fame and fortune, I went into it because I loved being a storyteller. Fame is just a by-product of working in the medium of the masses (film and TV), you know people are going to recognise you. But I'm fine about it, I don't seek it and I know how to slip under the radar easily.
What is it about storytelling that pulled you in?
It's inherent. I've always liked entertaining people even as a very little kid. It's something that in a way is unquantifiable, it's something in me that I've always had the ability to do luckily, and I love doing it.
Important question. If you were stranded on a desert island with one of your characters you've played in the past, who would it be?
One of the characters I've played.. and I'm on an island? Probably a guy from a television series I did quite a while ago called Diver Dan, cause he's smart, he's funny, he'd be able to catch fish for you, he'd be able to cook them. He'd be able to live really well on the island so you'd be able to have a pretty cool existence, and even though you're on an island he'd somehow be able to find you bottles of wine to drink, so that would be pretty good… Yeah, I'd be looked after. Yeah, we'd be all right, we'd be happy there.
Back in the day, pre-fame, you used to play competitive lawn bowls and you were also employed as a bingo caller. Just wondering what sort of activities you're planning on doing in your retirement?
I'd do things I should have probably done in my twenties. Yeah, maybe I'd go skydiving and things in my retirement. Umm, actually strange enough as I get older I'm actually becoming much more adventurous. Maybe if space travel became much more affordable, you know it's not at the moment, Richard Branson's made the tickets too expensive… but if that becomes affordable in my retirement age I would like to travel space.
Last question. How did you get those abs on 300?
I worked on it for about five months actually. It was a special kind of conditioning training, sort of like what they call crossfit, which would give your muscles short isolated shocks, and after a only a few minutes you'd want to vomit, but it worked really well. It was all about carving away to get to your abs, you know you don't 'put on' abs, your muscles are within. And TV puts on weight anyways so you look bigger than you actually are. They also highlighted them a little bit with makeup which also helped.
