DETOURS AHEAD
‘Upright’: a bumpy cross-country trek across the desert
UPRIGHT Sundance Now
T
WO people take a wild ride through the Australian desert in “Upright,” a dark comedy on Sundance Now.
The eight-episode series, which originally aired on Australia’s Fox Showcase and the UK’s Sky Atlantic, was cowritten and co-directed by star Tim Minchin. He plays Lucky Flynn, a depressed musician driving to visit his dying mother, his treasured piano attached by trailer to his car. Distracted, he smashes into a Toyota truck driven by Meg (Milly Alcock), a feisty, foulmouthed 16-year-old whose wrist is fractured in the crash. They strike up a grudging friendship and, with Lucky’s piano on the back of Meg’s truck, embark on a cross-country journey that detours into humorous and dramatic territory.
Minchin, 44, the provocative, multi-hyphenate Australian comedian, is best-known in the US as the composer/lyricist of Broadway’s “Matilda The Musical” and “Groundhog Day” and for his role as Atticus Fetch on Showtime’s “Californication.”
He spoke to The Post from Sydney, where he lives with his wife and two young children. Isthisast ory based on a
personal interaction?
It’s a great set-up, but it’s not mine. The [series] creator, Chris Taylor, who’s known in Australia as a comedy satirist who doorstops politicians, had been trying to move into narrative television ... and he sent me this one-page pitch, trying to make something that felt a bit like “Seinfeld” or “The Trip” with Steve Coogan. I thought the premise was great ... and I recognized in myself the desire to make a drama. I wasn’t in the mood for comedy and didn’t want my next project to be flippant.
Why not?
I’d moved to LA and given up my touring career for a huge project I worked on for years, an animated feature [“Larrikins”] at DreamWorks. I’d be acting, composing, directing. Then Universal bought
DreamWorks and trashed four years of my life. I’d turned 40 and then “Groundhog Day” closed early on Broadway. I was a bit battered. We’d been living away from Australia for 12 years ... and I guess I was really thinking a lot about going home and about spending so much time away from my family. So the story of a guy carrying a burden across the desert to his home, where he hasn’t been for eight years...I felt I brought a bit of emotional complexity to the role.
Tell me about Milly Alcock, who’s terrific as Meg
She’s an absolute scenestealer. We auditioned loads of people and were looking for a diamond-in-the-rough, someone bolshy and intuitive. We wanted someone maybe a bit plainer and rough-around-the-edges, but her talent was undeniable. She’s incredibly independent. She was 18 when we were shooting “Upright” and she didn’t bring a friend or a chaperone or her mum to the shoot. Every now and then we’d talk her into coming out for a beer after work, but she usually went back to her room and read books. She had a boyfriend in Sydney who never came to visit. Early on the director, Matt Saville, and I decided we shouldn’t get too much up in her grill or direct her too much. Her instincts were so strong.