Wednesday 27 August 2014

Remembering Heath Ledger

'The Celebrity Interview That Still Haunts Me Today'

May 30, 2014, 10:29 am

They're paid to hang out with the A-list, but what effect does spending their working day with the biggest names in Hollywood have on the journalists sent to profile them? Here, Megan Lehmann reveals why a past interview with Heath Ledger still haunts her today.

WHEN Heath Ledger, then 22, walked into a hotel suite on Manhattan's Park Avenue in early 2001, his relief at hearing an Australian accent was unmistakable. "G'day," he mumbled, gratefully.

The tousle-haired actor was young and beautiful and seemed as cocksure as I was shy. Newly arrived from Brisbane, I'd just started writing for a New York newspaper. Ledger had returned from a globetrotting dream run. In 18 months he'd shot three movies, only to find that Hollywood had anointed him its newest leading man - whether he liked it or not.
Columbia Pictures had decided that a combination of acting talent and surfer-boy looks made him the Next Big Thing and that their latest film, A Knights Tale, would be sold on the strength of his obvious physical appeal.
FULL STORY: https://au.lifestyle.yahoo.com/marie-claire/news-and-views/celebrity/a/23958599/the-celebrity-interview-that-still-haunts-me-today/

Profile: Rose Byrne

Rose Byrne is the toast of Hollywood

By: MEGAN LEHMANN

From: The Weekend Australian Magazine

October 05, 201312:00AM

Rose Byrne: "Comedy can only really come from something authentic." Source: AFP

HERE'S Rose Byrne, sitting pretty in her high-ceilinged New York apartment, looking down on the bustle and blur of the East Village and contemplating a bike ride.

The season's in that sweet spot between extremes: the honey locust and ginkgo trees on the street below wear an autumnal blush and the summer crowds have thinned. The 34-year-old Australian actress has a new boyfriend, the blockbuster comedy Bridesmaids has made her a household name, and her Hollywood career is in overdrive. There's Vegemite in the fridge and a girlfriend is winging her way from Sydney with emergency Tim Tam rations. All is right with the world.
But if you were a New York pigeon, say, and you alighted on the windowsill to peek inside, the look of melancholia etched on this young woman's fragile-looking face might break your heart. It's as if Byrne has just been struck by the beautiful impermanence of all human existence and the realisation has brought her to the brink of tears.
FULL STORY: http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/features/rose-byrne-is-the-toast-of-hollywood/story-e6frg8h6-1226732813850

Profile: Don Hany

He’s the go-to guy for ethnic diversity. So who is Don Hany?

By: MEGAN LEHMANN

From: The Weekend Australian Magazine

May 10, 201412:00AM

Majestic: Don Hany with his avian co-star in ‘The Healing’. Picture: Ben KingSource: Supplied

In profile, he's magnificent. In fact, the word could have been invented to describe the majestic thrust of his head, the gallant brow and dark, all-seeing eyes, always on the lookout, forever on the hunt.

Shaking down his feathers, the mighty wedge-tailed eagle springs to the sky and begins to climb, unfurling a wing span across two metres. He catches an updraft and is carried further, an airborne symbol of freedom and transcendence. In some religions it is believed that high-soaring eagles touch the face of God and this one, gliding far above the quiet, spiritually restorative bushland of rural Victoria, is as noble as a living thing can be. Don Hany doesn’t believe in God. He does believe in eagles.
FULL STORY: http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/features/hes-the-goto-guy-for-ethnic-diversity-so-who-is-don-hany/story-e6frg8h6-1226907853610

Profile: Rachel Perkins

The soft power of Rachel Perkins, bringing Aboriginal stories into the mainstream

By: MEGAN LEHMANN

From: The Weekend Australian Magazine

June 07, 201412:00AM

Rachel Perkins: “We’re trying to start a conversation.”. Picture: Rhett HammerstonSource: Supplied

THE little boy wriggles his toes in the devil-red dirt as a convoy of honey ants swarms up his heel.

He sweeps the central Australian landscape with his gun’s sniper scope, brushing past ghost gums, picking out rocks vivid as ignited flames and scanning the mountain ranges of his ancestors’ Caterpillar Dreaming. He locates his target and shoots. Orange foam darts scatter across the spinifex like alien fruit and his mother looks sheepish as she bends to scoop them up. “I stupidly bought him a Nerf gun,” Rachel Perkins sighs. “I know I shouldn’t have bought him a gun, but boys… What can you do?”
FULL STORY: http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/features/the-soft-power-of-rachel-perkins-bringing-aboriginal-stories-into-the-mainstream/story-e6frg8h6-1226941967768

Profile: John Frost

Meet John Frost, the man behind dozens of hit Australian musicals

By: MEGAN LEHMANN

From: The Weekend Australian Magazine

April 26, 201412:00AM

Golden touch: John Frost. Picture: Ellis Parrinder Source: Supplied

IF YOU were to look in on him now, in his corner office overlooking Sydney’s heart, you’d find a big man, a successful man; a powerful producer with Australian theatre’s biggest names at his beck and call, Tony awards on the mantelpiece and the ability to command respect on Broadway and in the West End. Suddenly John Frost, 61, interrupts himself with a delighted boyish giggle. In a blink you see a scrappy nine-year-old housing-commission kid putting on a show in his suburban Adelaide back yard, stage curtains on the washing line, his stutter-prone Aunt Mary singing The Rain in Spain from My Fair Lady like a trouper. Blink again and the kid’s 13, loitering in the foyer of Adelaide’s Her Majesty’s Theatre three Saturdays in a row just to watch the curtain come down on a musical called The Great Waltz. And then, at 15, there he is rattling across the Nullarbor with $30 in his pocket in hot pursuit of a dream.

FULL STORY: http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/features/meet-john-frost-the-man-behind-dozens-of-hit-australian-musicals/story-e6frg8h6-1226892462718

Breakfast TV Wars

Sunrise, Today and Wake Up: behind the on-air smiles, it’s war

By: MEGAN LEHMANN

From: The Weekend Australian Magazine

March 01, 201412:00AM

Today’s Lisa Wilkinson. Photo: Ellis Parrinder

Today’s Lisa Wilkinson: “There are lots of things Karl and I don’t agree on.” Picture: Ellis Parrinder Source: Supplied

BEHIND the relaxed facade of breakfast TV, tensions are high. As media maven Lisa Wilkinson attests, it’s no place for the faint-hearted...

“When we first met at the Logies, it was love at first sight, I could feel it in my gojis.”
It’s 7.44am and Karl Stefanovic is getting in early for Valentine’s Day, surprising co-host Lisa Wilkinson on air with a specially commissioned love song. An acoustic indie-pop ditty linking warm memories with dubious rhymes bounces along beneath a montage of highlights from their seven years sharing a tasteful cream couch on Nine’s breakfast show Today. A bracing hook line reminds us that Seven’s Larry Emdur famously introduced them while propping up the bar at the 2007 Logies.
“My pretty Mona Lisa, I’m glad Larry let me meet ya.”
An assistant waits in the wings with a tray of green juice. Behind the coiled nests of electrical cords and a monitor sporting a sticky-taped photo of Stefanovic with a blacked-out tooth sits a platter of fruit. (You just know they’re having coffee and muffins over at Sunrise.) On camera, Stefanovic, 39, ribs Wilkinson, 54, about her watermelon-eating technique; she grabs his hand fondly.
FULL STORY: http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/features/sunrise-today-and-wake-up-behind-the-onair-smiles-its-war/story-e6frg8h6-1226836101010

Profile: Neil Perry

Self-belief, hard yakka are the secrets of success, Rockpool's Perry says

By: MEGAN LEHMANN

From: The Weekend Australian Magazine

January 25, 201412:00AM

Neil Perry says opening Rockpool in a new venue pushed him to the edge. Source: News Limited

A PERFECT storm of stuff-ups was pushing the blood hot and fast through his veins. A wrong order. Key ingredients depleted. Dockets flying like confetti and something had spilt near the door. The new kitchen was a cauldron of chopping, sweating, stirring, smoking, 50-degree heat. A tray clattered to the floor and Neil Perry's face burned crimson. It was then that he started to holler. "He yelled at me, which he's never done before," says his daughter, Josephine, who was working front-of-house. He yelled at the prep cook, the sous chef, the dishwashers. "He was just grabbing everyone and yelling at them. It's the first time I've ever seen him really lose his Zen."

FULL STORY: http://www.theaustralian.com.au/executive-living/selfbelief-hard-yakka-are-the-secrets-of-success-rockpools-perry-says/story-e6frg9zo-1226809376977

Profile: Richard Roxburgh

Richard Roxburgh plays Cleaver Greene with conspicuous conviction

By: MEGAN LEHMANN

From: The Weekend Australian Magazine

February 01, 201412:00AM

Roxburgh: "I assumed I'd probably do acting as a hobby." Picture: Steve Baccon Source: Supplied

IF we could pinpoint the place where the morally malleable world of Cleaver Greene intersects with that of his creator, Richard Roxburgh, it would be here: on the northern edge of Sydney's Hyde Park, at the crossroads of justice, in a bar.

Important men and women sail down nearby Macquarie Street, black barrister gowns flapping like Hollywood Transylvanians, as the elegantly wasted man in a suit launches into his second midday martini. Straight up, two olives. "You've always been a sexual version of Doctors Without Borders," hisses the dark-haired beauty opposite, before raising her voice so nearby drinkers swivel in their seats. "Sex Sans Frontieres!" she shouts wildly.
FULL STORY: http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/features/richard-roxburgh-plays-cleaver-greene-with-conspicuous-conviction/story-e6frg8h6-1226814074171

Profile: Deborah Mailman

Darkside star Deborah Mailman moves amid kindred spirits

By: MEGAN LEHMANN

From: The Weekend Australian Magazine

November 09, 201312:00AM

Deborah Mailman on set of The Darkside with director Warwick Thornton and actress Marcia Langton. Source: Supplied

DEBORAH Mailman is a hugger. And hers are not rote affectations; they are genuine, mama-bear cuddles. She bestows them upon friends, colleagues and the occasional stranger. Not indiscriminately, but liberally. Coupled with the powerful currency of her smile, each hug seems a curative, soul-soothing gift. If only she could scoop up all Australians in her arms, surely there'd be no racial divide, no misunderstanding; just black and white hearts pressing together in a harmonious clinch. Hugging it out.
FULL STORY: http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/features/kindred-spirit/story-e6frg8h6-1226755777746

Profile: Rachel Ward

Rachel Ward is calling the shots

by:Megan Lehmann

From: The Weekend Australian Magazine

September 14, 201312:00AM

Rachel Ward at her Birchgrove home: "There's much more ownership if your looks aren't involved." Picture: Brendan Read Source: Supplied

A TANGLE of boho-chic silver bracelets chimes merrily as Rachel Ward stretches and pulls at the skin around her lovely eyes in a way that would make a beautician sob.

"It's not going to make any difference to my life whether my cheeks are up here or down here," she says, demonstrating the options with more cavalier scrunching. "What's it going to change? I mean, I'm not trying to lasso some 30-year-old, you know, and I'm not going to lose a job over it."
It's easy to dismiss the significance of beauty when you have it, but to hear this one-time model and big-screen sex symbol tell it, ageing - she has just turned 56 - has set her free.

FULL STORY: http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/features/rachel-ward-is-calling-the-shots/story-e6frg8h6-1226718544693

Profile: Elizabeth Debicki

Elizabeth Debicki's roaring twenties

by:Megan Lehmann
From:The Australian
May 11, 201312:00AM

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Debicki in a scene fromThe Great Gatsby.Source:Supplied

IT'S a frumpy kind of food, the pancake. Decidedly unglamorous and not at all jazzy. Flat. It belongs to another realm from the one Elizabeth Debicki has just stepped out of - the full-bore fabulosity of Baz Luhrmann's Great Gatsby set.

That's why she's here today, on a day off from filming, mixing batter in the kitchen and burying herself in the comforting ordinariness of the process. Things must be put in perspective or a young Australian actress fresh out of drama school could really lose her head.

FULL STORY: http://archive.today/lNImb