Play it by the book

Based on Trent Dalton’s bestseller, Boy Swallows Universe is about hope, star Bryan Brown tells Siobhan Duck

BRYAN BROWN knows a thing or two about great Australian storytelling.

In an acting career spanning almost 50 years, Brown has starred in some of Australia’s most beloved book adaptations, including iconic mini-series such as 1981’s A Town Like Alice and The Thorn Birds in 1983. He has also penned two books: Sweet Jimmy and The Drowning.

But, as Brown is quick to point out, the best yarn spinners aren’t always the ones in entertainment or publishing. “The thing is, if you get caught in a pub with a crim, you never stop laughing,” Brown says with a mischievous twinkle in his eyes. “They are funny bastards. They can also do nasty things, so don’t get on the wrong side of them. But they see life in a very funny way.”

That’s why Brown has always preferred screen villains who throw punchlines as well as punches. “If they don’t have any humour,” he says, “I know they’ve got them wrong.”

Brown has rarely gotten it wrong when playing flawed but ultimately lovable rogues in films such as Two Hands opposite the late Heath Ledger (1999) and 2002’s Dirty Deeds with Toni Collette. His new TV series, Boy Swallows Universe, brings Trent Dalton’s semi-autobiographical 2018 bestseller to the screen and sees Brown play Slim Halliday, the sort of engaging criminal who has become the actor’s hallmark. Slim, who spent years in prison for a crime he says he didn’t commit, is now a straight-shooting babysitter to Eli (Felix Cameron) and Gus (Lee Tiger Halley).

The dynamic between Slim and the two young boys reminded Brown of The Shiralee, the 1987 mini-series in which he played Macauley, a laconic swagman raising his young daughter Buster (Rebecca Smart). “When we get to see an older person and a younger person together, and they actually enjoy being together because each is learning, we really value it,” he says.

Of all his many film and TV shows, Brown says The Shiralee is the series that prompts the most people to stop him and share how much it meant to them. “To be honest, I’m surprised they haven’t [rebooted it], and I hope to Christ they don’t – because we want it to stay ours,” he says protectively.

Brown is equally proud of A Town Like Alice, the series that made him a star and was based on the 1950 novel by Nevil Shute. “It’s a wonderful love story and we didn’t screw it up,” he says. “You can screw it up by making it schmaltzy or missing the point. But people loved it.”

When he read the script for Boy Swallows Universe, Brown says he was instantly captivated. Then, upon reading Dalton’s novel, he was even more impressed.

“In the book, and this is how Trent writes, he walks around in this circle of people before it even starts to come out to where a plot develops,” Brown says. “And so, as I read it, the first thing I thought was, oh, my God, [scriptwriter] John Collee, how the hell did you go about pulling out these scripts to get this right? John found a ‘crime-line’ mystery to build the scripts around, because in the book it’s just dysfunction, dysfunction, dysfunction.”

Ultimately, Brown says, Boy Swallows Universe works in its move to the screen because of the care that has been taken in weaving together the visions of the author and the screenwriter.

“It’s about hope,” he explains. “It’s about these kids and this is their life. They’ve got to go forward like any of us, and that’s the great thing. There is no judgement in it. You can go, ‘I’m glad I’m not these characters – but I like them.’”

BOY SWALLOWS UNIVERSE

STREAMING, NETFLIX