STATE OF THE ART
Returning to the small screen for Stateless was a challenge that Jai Courtney happily embraced, writes Lisa Woolford
BLOCKBUSTERS have become almost the norm for Jai Courtney, but ABC’s Stateless is a homecoming to the small screen.
While he’s currently reprising his role as the outlandish pink unicorn- obsessed supervillain Captain Boomerang in The
Suicide Squad, he says it’s smaller screen productions like Stateless that challenge him the most.
“Stateless and Suicide Squad are on the opposite ends of the spectrum as to how a production operates,” Courtney says from
Los Angeles, where fi lming is underway on the sequel to the 2016 DC movie.
“I’ve always maintained this – one isn’t necessarily better than the other,” he says, adding with a laugh; “certainly things can be a little more comfortable on some of the bigger jobs, but that doesn’t always mean a more gratifying artistic experience.
“I’ve been lucky enough to jump in and out of different productions and different sizes and different types of genre. I hope to always be able to do that, always coming from a different angle, inspired by different elements. To me, working with those factors are exciting and keep it fresh.”
Stateless is a powerful political drama with star power – including Cate Blanchett, Yvonne Strahovski, Dominic West,
Asher Keddie, Marta Dusseldorp and Fayssal Bazzi – examining Australia’s immigration policies and their impact.
There are four story threads: Courtney’s father of three, struggling to support his family; an airline hostess escaping a cult; an Afghan refugee chasing a new life with his wife and children; and an ambitious bureaucrat desperately trying to avoid a national scandal.
The idea for the drama began where many great creative ideas start – the kitchen table.
But this was no average kitchen, it belonged to co- creator and executive producer Cate Blanchett, who was catching up with her high school friend – and eventual Stateless co- creator, executive producer and writer – Elise McCredie.
Both were feeling passionate about the global displacement crisis, ruminating on how the current state of affairs ( particularly in Australia) had developed. Remembering the unlikely true story of an Australian – Cornelia Rau – who erroneously ended up detained at South
Australia’s Baxter
Detention Centre.
“It started us talking more broadly about the systems that we’re all labouring under and the madness of them,” Blanchett explains.
Courtney admits he didn’t know much about that true story before starting work on the drama.
“[Stateless] is certainly inspired by some true events on some levels, but it’s also pulled from the stories of lots of different people whose paths cross in this world,” he says.
“My perspective on it was limited and I was really interested to get in there and pick it apart. I think that’s where the series succeeds, in that it doesn’t have a hard-line point of view. It really engages people in multiple different perspectives.”
Courtney plays young father Cam Sandford, who accepts work as a guard at Barton Detention Centre. It’s an opportunity for the father- of-three to make a better life for his family.
“He wasn’t anticipating things to have a negative impact – he gets into it innocently, and it’s quite heartbreaking to see where the journey takes him,” Courtney says.
“I really enjoying having a character with such a journey to go on. It’s an enormous arc and you’re not always afforded that opportunity. I loved the pace of working on a show of that size and having the time and budget we had, which was somewhat restrictive.”
Courtney relished returning home to Australia and fi lming around Adelaide. He’s familiar with the SA capital, not just from working on Storm Boy in 2017.
His partner, fi lm publicist Mecki Dent, is an Adelaide girl, but it was the isolation of the Port Augusta set that resonated most.
“You really get to delve into work and stay focused on that,” he says. “I really love that kind of shooting. It’s hard when you’re dealing with heavy drama to drop in and out of it.
I fi nd it really beneficial when approaching that sort of project and characters, when you can just stay immersed in your environment.”
Researching his role, sitting down and chatting with real-life people who’ve worked in these centres, Courtney learnt how destructive the experiences were for some individuals.
“There are certainly scenes that affected me particularly, that were seriously exhausting and hard core, but that’s nothing in comparison to what you learn these people are dealing with on a daily basis,” he says. “It’s important to share these stories.” STATELESS 8.30PM, SUNDAY, ABC