It’s a chilly winter morning in July 2015, and a handful of journalists, myself included, are congregated on land traditionally owned by the Gadigal people of the Eora Nation. More specifically, we are seated on fold-out chairs around trailers, food vans and a coffee stall in a car park adjacent to Sydney’s Carriageworks arts centre.
The place has been transformed into a makeshift production lot, complete with a huge fluffy dog called Jim observing the scene from his mat (“film dog”, as he is known by cast and crew) as people scurry around carrying Styrofoam cups and a huge flock of ibis make a horrible racket from a nearby tree.
We’re meeting during Naidoc week, an annual period dedicated to the culture and history of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people. Ryan Griffen explains we’re about to be treated to a first look at the set of his upcoming TV show – one year on from our set visit, Cleverman finally premieres this week.
The idea for the program came to Griffen while he was playing dress-ups with his son, clothed in Ninja Turtles costumes. Griffen wished his child had an Aboriginal superhero story to be moved by, one that stood for more than the adventures of pizza-scoffing heroes in half shells. His idea, refined a little, was to combine genre storytelling with the mythology of Indigenous Dreamtime.
“We couldn’t have done this a decade ago,” says Sally Riley, head of the Indigenous department at the ABC. She cites an increase in funding for Indigenous Australian productions, and a fresh talent pool of Indigenous screen visionaries who have found a powerful and compelling voice on the global stage.
Cleverman has an 80% Indigenous cast, and Indigenous Australians feature prevalently in key creative roles. One of them is series director Wayne Blair, whose 2012 musical feature film The Sapphires was a smash hit at the local box office, drawing the attention of Hollywood mogul Harvey Weinstein. After Cleverman – which is also screening on Sundance TV in America and on BBC3 in the UK – Blair’s next gig will be helming a US cable TV remake of Dirty Dancing.
For the press gathered on set, explanations about the premise of the show – which is described as heralding the on-screen arrival of the first Indigenous Australian superhero – are a little vague. Things get clearer when we are escorted into one of two makeup vans. We watch a man, Jake Nash, being transformed into a “Hairy”.
Inspired by stories passed down from generation to generation by Indigenous Australians, Hairies or Hairypeople have a longer life expectancy than other humans. They live for more than 200 years and, as their name suggests, have a great deal more hair.
Nash is wearing a purple smock in the makeup chair, surrounded by countless brushes, combs, sprays, wigs and mirrors. He is the show’s production designer (Nash is also the production designer of Sydney’s Bangarra Dance Theatre), and now he is getting a taste of his own medicine.
The makeup artist passes around a wad of fake hair for us to inspect – more than I have on my entire head. “Don’t worry, we can help with that,” she says, while adding streaks of hair to Nash’s hands and the back of his neck. One half of his face is almost entirely covered; the other side has a bit to go.
To get to the set, we walk past a group of eight or so police in futuristic-looking riot gear, past signs pasted around the place, including one attached to a fence that reads “Keep them behind the wall”. There are scruffy looking people gathered around a rusty metal drum with smoke billowing out of it. The wall is two metres high and stands next to train tracks.
Cleverman, we learn, uses a near-future dystopian setting as scaffolding for a storyline infused with obvious allegories about xenophobia and racial discrimination.
We are moved behind monitors and next to Blair, who is dressed in a red hoodie and black and white baseball cap. Plastic blue partition walls, a barbwire fence and the derelict surroundings remind me of the 2009 sci-fi film District 9. When Blair calls “action”, a violent altercation takes place. One of the cops whacks an Indigenous man on the head with the butt of his rifle.
After that we explore The Zone. This is a decrepit shantytown (located in real life inside an old train depot) where the Hairies have been banished by the Australian government.
We are asked whether we want dust masks; a couple of journalists say yes. Everything looks rusty and grubby. There are broken chairs, old mattresses, dirty pillows and worn-out tools all around the place.
Back in the car park, gathered around a lunch table, we meet a few of the show’s stars. Rob Collins, who plays Waruu (brother of the protagonist, Koen, played by Hunter Page-Lochard) and Iain Glen, who portrays a powerful and morally dubious media baron.
Glen is fresh from the set of Game of Thrones. When we speak, the season five finale had only recently aired – and no, he declares, soon after taking a seat, he doesn’t have any intel about the fate of Jon Snow.
The actor is intrigued by Indigenous Australian culture. Before the shoot he “knew a little” but “did a fair amount of research”. Glen says the main reason he was drawn to the series was because “there is a degree of the unknown in Aboriginal folklore, like it has been hidden in time”.
Almost a full year later, we get to see exactly what became of that weird, run-down, Hairypeople-populated set. Audiences will shortly be able to make up their own minds, but I’m willing to bet they won’t be forgetting Cleverman any time soon.
• Cleverman premieres in America on 1 June at 10pm (EST) on Sundance TV, and in Australia on 2 June at 9.30pm (AEST) on the ABC. It screens on BBC3 later this year
