News Bits 2003
Sun Herald
Author: Brett Thomas ROBERT Mammone wasn't too fussed when the delivery from the ponytailed spinner thudded benignly into his pads. It was, after all, a friendly game of cricket, and the last thing the Sydney-based actor expected was a contentious lbw decision. But he hadn't taken into account this particular bowler's determination. So when Russell Crowe and, remember, it was Crowe's cricket game turned and successfully demanded the umpire raise his finger, Mammone made his displeasure clear. "I lost my cool," he recalled. "I won the dummy-spit award of the day. I stormed off and directed quite a number of expletives at the umpire. "I'd only just gotten off the mark, I'd stayed in there for a number of overs and kept out the demon bowlers and when Crowey came on, I thought, 'Here we go. . .' I didn't believe I was out and I let the umpire know. Russell eventually said: 'That's Danielle's uncle, you better calm down.' " Mammone was a big part of the weekend festivities at Nana Glen , which marked the recent marriage of his mate to Danielle Spencer. Mammone and Crowe and, indeed, Spencer met during the 1989 filming of a tiny Australian movie called The Crossing and the pair have remained close friends ever since, drawn together by a mutual love of music and motorbikes even as their careers have diverged wildly. While Crowe has gone on to achieve international superstardom, an Academy Award and untold personal wealth, Mammone has worked away quietly in Australia. There have been guest roles on the usual local TV series and the occasional small-budget feature, but it appeared he was destined never to experience the life of a big-time actor. Until now, that is. A busy couple of years with important roles in three big-budget Hollywood films, and the securing of major agency representation in Los Angeles, has marked Mammone as the latest local actor to move onto the international stage. The upcoming movies are the much-anticipated sequels to The Matrix , with Keanu Reeves and Laurence Fishburne , as well as a World War II action adventure called The Great Raid , which co-stars Benjamin Bratt . Mammone is shooting a fourth American production, the remake of Stephen King's vampire tale Salem's Lot, alongside Rutger Hauer , Donald Sutherland and Rob Lowe , and has also completed a TV pilot called Future Tense for Matrix producer Joel Silver . All of these productions have been, or are being, shot in Australia and, as far as actors go, it's hard to imagine a bigger beneficiary of our popularity as an offshore, junior Hollywood. "You do have to accept the highs and lows and the lows are going to be there," said Mammone of his chosen profession. "There are some people [in Australia] who manage a bloody good career, but they are limited to half-a-dozen guys and girls and if you're not one of them it can be difficult, unless you work on offshore projects like The Matrix. "I didn't actively pursue the offshore stuff because one of the downsides of not working regularly is having to make the dollar stretch as far as you can and it's hard to make plans to go overseas. "But it's like what I said to my dad when I was a young bloke it doesn't really matter if I'm 25 when it starts or I'm 75, as long as I love what I'm doing. From reasonably early on, I accepted that success to me didn't have anything to do with dollars and cents, it was to do with job satisfaction and fulfilment." The roles in The Matrix Reloaded, The Matrix Revolutions (the third and final part of the series) and The Great Raid were integral in Mammone scoring representation with the giant William Morris group in the US last year. "It's not bloody easy," he said. "They want to know what you've been doing, who you are and why you should be represented when there are millions of other people out there. Having worked on those projects worked in my favour, but it's not easy to crack; it's just a matter of getting in the room. "I'm playing it by ear. The idea is to go [to the US] every three to six months or so to re-acquaint myself with everybody and meet new people. But since I've been back here I've worked on a number of US jobs and I'm working on one now so I haven't really had time." Mammone said he experienced a sense of awe when he began working on The Matrix sequels, with a month of shooting in San Francisco in 2001. His character, A. K., is briefly introduced in Reloaded, but has a much bigger part to play in Revolutions. "Aside from focusing on the work, I think everyone was grappling with just how huge this project was," he said. "Those of us new to the franchise were all going: 'Wow, how bloody good is this? This is the biggest movie in cinema history and we're part of it.' "I got to see the legendary freeway (especially built for one car chase sequence which took 64 days to shoot). That freeway scene cost something like $US60 million ($93.4 million) for 10 minutes of film and that's double the entire government-allocated film and TV budget in Australia." Despite all of that, Mammone said he enjoyed himself even more playing US Army surgeon Jimmy Fisher in The Great Raid, which was shot in Queensland and based on the true story of the daring rescue of US prisoners of war in the Philippines during World War II. "It was an even more satisfying experience," he said. "It felt like the direction, the writing and the artistry was of the type you would normally find on a low-budget film. It didn't feel so huge that you didn't have the chance to speak to the director." So with the two Matrix films and The Great Raid all due out this year, and the possibility that the pilot for Future Tense could be picked up by a US network and turned into a series, 2003 is shaping up as a watershed year for Robert Mammone. There may even have been an omen later in that cricket match with Russell Crowe that things were turning his way. "I got Russell out," he said. "The figures
said, R. Crowe, caught S. Warne, bowled R. Mammone." _______________________________________________________________________ MY FIRST HOME Mammone moved into a two-bedroom flat in Macpherson Street in the mid-1980s, aged 17. It was a time when various ethnic communities used to go to Bronte on the weekends. "It was a smorgasbord of spices," Mammone said of the picnics that used to take place. "There wasn't a sausage to be seen." Today Mammone, who appears as computer genius A. K. in The Matrix Reloaded and The Matrix Revolutions , lives with his wife Wizzy and their two-year-old son Mack in Balmain. When he first moved to Sydney from Adelaide, Mammone briefly shared a place in Bondi with his friend, actor Daniel Roberts, but couldn't afford to live in Bondi on his own. So he turned to Bronte. "It was cheap, believe it or not," he said, "I only paid $80 a week. "It looked run down, [but] I had a magnificent view over Clovelly and Coogee and you could see Wedding Cake Island." The kitchen and the living room were combined and had large glass windows and doors "It made the place feel huge". The furniture consisted of whatever Mammone picked off the street: among the pieces was a timber cable spool, which he used as a coffee table. To go against the 1980s pastel walls he painted all the furniture black. Mammone, who has had roles in TV series such as Water Rats, Stingers and Blue Heelers, acted as a teenager. Back then he worked for Not Another Theatre Company: "We worked hard but we didn't make any money. But it was a joyous time." He also played in the rock'n'roll band Coldspoon Treatment with his mates Troy Planet, Screaming Mike Russell and Ridiculous Radich. They used to rehearse in one of his bedrooms and he remembers the neighbours as very tolerant. "My neighbour Rose, a beautiful old Czechoslovakian woman, original bohemian, knocked on our door one day and said, 'I've been listening to you for one year and finally you are making music,' " Mammone laughed. "It was a worthy celebration. We bought a case of beer and got drunk." Looking back, Mammone wishes he could have bought in
the Bronte area, but he admitted: "I had the arse hanging out
of my pants. I couldn't raise a deposit, much to my eternal sadness.
I'd love to have bought
in that area." |
