MOVING ON FROM MY DARK PAST Aaron Jeffery on his traumatic childhood.
Set to star as killer Chopper Read in the new ‘Underbelly Files,’ the fiercely private Aaron Jeffery opens up about his shocking childhood and how good life is now
There’s a secret to understanding the mayhem, mega-violence and manic humour of fabled Aussie gangster Mark “Chopper” Read. According to award-winning actor Aaron Jeffery— who plays the ear-less, tattooed standover man in new miniseries Underbelly Files: Chopper— Read was scarred by dark events in his childhood. “A huge percentage of people in jail have been abused,” says Auckland-born Jeffery, 48, who says he was passed around a paedophile ring “for a couple of years” in his own tormented youth. Dropping out of school at 15, he escaped to Australia at 17 and later studied acting at NIDA after working as a used-car salesman and as a bouncer in then-seedy Kings Cross. But the past caught up with him, and Jeffery suffered a nervous breakdown in his twenties as he tried to come to terms with the sexual abuse meted out to him. Retreating to the country, he was lured back to acting with the role of Alex Ryan in blockbuster bush-based series Mcleod’s Daughters, followed by star turns in Underbelly Files: Badness and Wentworth. Today the fiercely private father-of-three shares a Blue Mountains, NSW, retreat with his former Mcleod’s co-star Zoe Naylor, 40, and their two children, Sophia, 5, and Beau, 20 months. Chatting to WHO’S Jenny Brown, he muses on criminal psychology, performing in drag, fame, family life and following in Eric Bana’s acclaimed footsteps to play the failed career criminal, wild man, best- selling author and stand-up performer in the two-parter, to air on the Nine Network.
Was it daunting to play an icon like Chopper?
I’m a Kiwi so I’ve not grown up with any understanding of [him], although I did audition for the movie about 20 years ago. How did that go?
It was probably the worst audition of my life. I was going for the role of Chopper, but I knew I was really, really wasting my time. I remember telling the casting people: “You’ve got to look at Eric Bana, he’s a shoo-in for this role!” Is it more difficult to play a real-life character?
Well, it’s a portrayal of a character, not a documentary. For me, it always comes from
the premise that all behaviour has meaning, and you get curious about that. What did you discover about Chopper?
He definitely had two personalities. There’s a beautiful letter his wife Margaret wrote about how kind and gentle he was. And then at the same time he used to say, “I would smash a walnut with a sledgehammer.” He said it [his violence] was like an out-of-body experience. Anything else?
Chopper walked like a penguin! That was one of
the key things, finding how he moved. But that’s how I hurt myself ... How did that happen?
I live in the mountains and split tons of firewood every Wednesday, so I thought I’d be pretty right doing a scene like that. But I did a couple of strokes with the axe and, “Oh no! My back’s gone!” The chiropractor said it was an injury that a lot of pregnant women get, and all because I was walking like a penguin.
Why is Australia so fascinated by crooks? Is it because they approach life in ways we would sometimes like to, although we never would? Do these stories defuse and release our demons? Is it actually a social service to tell them? Does it concern you that the miniseries might glamorise crime? It’s a complex issue, but the beautiful thing about this story is that love wins. Before Chopper dies he finds a kind of peace. As a father, did you worry what Chopper’s two sons would make of the show? That’s a really good question! I thought a lot about his kids, but the Chopper character is already part of the national psyche. There will be many more films and books about him, just like Ned Kelly. In some ways, Chopper is the modern Ned Kelly. How much of the Chopper legend is true and how much of it is myth? [ Laughs] That’s all part of the mystique, isn’t it? He wrote 17 books, he was an artist, highly intelligent, supposed to be a very good fighter, very funny … He was never diagnosed as a sociopath, only as slightly anti-social. It sounds like a fast, taxing shoot at just 22 days? I was working 17 hour days, in makeup, on set, just being able to learn all those lines and have a family at the same time. I was seeing an acupuncturist every week and she said she could hardly feel my pulse because I was so exhausted. But I would do it all again. You really bulked up for the role. I’m 48! All I had to do was look at a couple of Mars bars, drink some Coke, eat some carbs—all the stuff you do in your twenties—and hey presto, I’m a big boy! I have an old belt that I use to measure myself, from five notches to zero. If it’s zero, I know I’ve put on a pretty substantial amount. How long did you spend in hair and makeup every day? Sometimes it was three-and-a-half to four hours, if I had to do a scene with full body tatts. Then there were the prosthetic ears. You celebrated your birthday on set. I turned 48 on Aug. 25, while we were filming a nightclub scene. They baked me a beautiful cake and there were about 100 extras who all sang me “Happy Birthday”. It was fabulous. Talking about Chopper’s dark childhood, you were abused, too? In my mid-twenties I had a nervous breakdown. I had a hard part of my childhood that came back to me—i was in a paedophile ring for a couple of years— and I had to deal with that. How did you recover from that? I left the industry and started studying theology. To me, it was all about being of service. I went to work on a farm—although I’m a city boy and grew up in Auckland, I love the country—where they called me “the human tractor.” I was pretty useful whenever they needed someone with grunt to shift some heavy stuff. Your role in Mcleod’s Daughters was the turning point? I used to pray: “I’m here until I find a story to tell,” and then it all happened. I got an agent
on Monday, auditioned for Mcleod’s on Thursday, got the job on Friday and was in Adelaide ready to start filming two weeks later. A decade later, the show is still adored by fans. It’s still playing around the world. It’s a beautiful, beautiful thing that the fans’ love for this show has created an energy where they are talking about making another series. Is it because Mcleod’s Daughters played into the outback Aussie myth? I call it the white man’s dreaming—get hold of some land, go off-grid, escape the stress of city life. That’s the ideal for Zoe and me and it’s part of our little dream to try to create that. Did you and Zoe meet on Mcleod’s? We only had two scenes together and never really had anything to do with each other. I had less to do with Zoe than anyone on the show. It wasn’t until years later that we reconnected and became friends. That’s how it evolved, we were good friends first. What do you think of celebrity culture? There’s a generation of people who see the path to fame through reality TV, that’s the culture now. A huge amount have had traumatic events in childhood that led to them just wanting to be seen and heard. That’s their journey. But there are always going to be people who act because they want to tell stories, not for fame. Is that why you became an actor? I was never interested in acting, I was interested in sports, but I was deeply, deeply shy. My biggest fear in the world was getting up in front of a group of people and speaking. Then I saw an ad in the paper for self-awareness courses. Every weekend a group of frustrated, shy professionals—and me—would meet at a little church in [Sydney’s] Paddington for role play. That was my first acting experience. What With a was six-foot your first [1.82m] performance? drag queen called Sky Brooks. I wore his stilettos, which fitted me, and played Jane Russell. He was Marilyn Monroe. We did “Two Little Girls from Little Rock” [from the film Gentlemen Prefer Blondes]. How did you get into NIDA? I auditioned when I was 21. I didn’t know what it was, had never seen a play. I was selling used cars at the time. Basically, I sold them a used car—me!—and I got in. What’s next on the work front? There’s nothing on the horizon at the moment, except voiceover work and wood chopping! I’m a part-time actor. Chopper once wrote, “I regret nothing.” How about you? To be human is to be fallible. That’s part of the human condition, everyone has regrets. You can only grow in life through making mistakes. Growth of the soul doesn’t happen skipping down the road with an ice-cream in your hand. ■