Bryan’s happy to stick closer to the family
THIRTEEN-HOUR days on a drawn-out 18-week shoot triggered laconic Aussie actor Bryan Brown’s anxiety.
The 75-year-old was on locations peppered across Queensland filming for Acorn TV’s Darby and Joan. It was late last year and the border was firmly shut to his Sydney home base to keep Covid out of the Sunshine state. It’s not only the longest shoot the veteran actor has been part of, but the most he’s ever been separated from his close-knit family.
“Even when I’ve been overseas or when I did Australia with Baz (Luhrmann) which we shot around the country,” Brown said.
“There were lots of breaks – every two months or so Baz would call you back for more.”
It took its toll and Brown struggled to sleep. Ironically he also had to work hard to shake it off.
“I’d try and dive into the ocean as often as possible in the morning before I started work,” he shared.
“Look I think the days of playing a character are fine – it’s when you wake up in the middle of the night and the pressure’s on you and you can’t sleep.
“And then you start thinking ‘Holy Christ. I’m being picked up at 5am in the morning. I’d better get back to sleep’.”
The pandemic brought up strange emotions for the whole production.
“I wasn’t alone – there were a number of people on the cast and crew,” Brown said
“It’s kind of hard to put your finger on why it does it, it just does it.”
One thing he couldn’t have anticipated was when it was falsely claimed in February 2021 that Brown and his wife Rachel Ward had brought home a strain of the virus from the US. And that it spread through Sydney’s northern beaches after a personal training session at their home with a trainer from Anytime Fitness Avalon.
His night-time anxiety was offset by the joy of working with long-time friend Greta Scacchi on the eightepisode mystery drama about an odd couple who quite literally collide in the bush and go on a road trip together.
“She’s very easy to work with – I
trust Greta, we can just ram into a scene together and see where it goes,” Brown said. “But she’s also a bloody funny old thing. We can have a lot of cheeky stuff off set which may sometimes spill on to set.”
It was the last days on set when this journalist chatted to Brown, who was hankering to get home to see Ward and reunite with his grandkids. He’s Grandpa and Ward has settled on Mopey.
“I said ‘if you’re Mopey, am I Dopey?’,” he joked.
“The grandkids are growing at a rate of knots. One minute they’re in your arms and the next they’re belting on the bloody windows with (daughter) Matilda banging on the door to let them in.
“I’ve got to get back to them pretty fast so they know that I’m a part of their life.”
There’s potential for a second season, and while there’s great appetite from streamers for repeat series, Brown’s not so sure.
“I’m not a great one for wanting to play the same character over and over,” he said. “I don’t do sequels. You know, like I want to do new stuff all the time.”
He added with a laugh: “Even though everybody says I just play myself all the time.”