‘I HAVE NO PLANS TO RETIRE'
OUR GRAND DAME OF ACTING STILL HAS A LOT TO GIVE
There was very little doubt that Jacki Weaver would grow up to be an actress – something she has now been doing for 60 years.
“From the moment I could talk, I was pretending to be other people,” the beloved Australian star says. “I saw my first live show when I was about 3. It was Aladdin.
I thought what an excellent thing it was to do.”
With her childhood elocution teacher reportedly declaring “this child was born to act”, Jacki made her professional stage debut in 1962 at the age of 15. She portrayed Cinderella in a pantomime called A Wish is a Dream at Sydney’s Phillip Street Theatre, getting the role after she skipped school to audition. She was paid £30 a week. Six decades later, having enjoyed an extraordinary career on stage and screen, the diminutive actress, now 75, is more in-demand than ever.
Following early theatrical roles, Jacki added TV work to her résumé later in the 1960s and then moved into film in the 1970s. She won the first of four AFI/AACTA Awards for her debut performance in 1971’s Stork, before appearing in Alvin Purple, Picnic at Hanging Rock and Caddie.
POCKET ROCKET
“My career, for the first half of it, because of my physical statement – you know, the baby face and because I’m very small – I used to get the Sally Field roles,” the 151cm-tall star recalls. “You know, the nice-girl roles!”
During the 1970s and ’80s, Jacki’s career straddled TV, cinema and theatre. The versatile actress trod the boards in productions as diverse A Streetcar Named Desire, Bedroom Farce and the original Australian production of musical They’re Playing Our Song alongside John Waters.
Steady work continued
over the next two decades, but it was a role that was very much against type for Jacki that changed everything in 2010.
She was cast as Janine “Smurf ” Cody in crime drama Animal Kingdom. Director David Michôd wrote the part especially for Jacki. It’s one she describes as having “no moral compass whatsoever”. Her gritty performance earned Golden Globe and Academy Award nominations, and Hollywood soon came knocking.
“I had been in about 70 plays and done about 15 films and lots of TV in Australia, and I was perfectly content. So when, at the age of 63, Hollywood came to me, I was gobsmacked,” she says. “It’s been wonderful … I haven’t stopped working. Every day I’m filled with wonderment.”
A second Oscar nomination for Silver Linings Playbook solidified Jacki’s new status as one of the most sought-after actresses in the world. She’s now worked with everyone from Diane Keaton and Sandra Bullock to Kevin Costner and Robert De Niro.
“There’s an old adage,” she jokes. “One Oscar nomination is great, but the second one proves the first one wasn’t a fluke.”
Now based in LA, Jacki fields more job offers than she can possibly accept.
“I’m not used to the sort of enthusiasm you get in America,” she says. “It’s the sort of thing my mother
‘EVERY DAY I’M FILLED WITH WONDERMENT’
was very disdainful of. But it has its advantages. I love that gung-ho attitude; it does get things done.”
That said, after so long in the business, the mother of one has no plans on slowing down.
“I just want to keep working until I take my final sleep.”