Currently starring in Melbourne Theatre Company’s production of Simon Stephen’s Birdland, Mark Leonard Winter plays a spoilt rock star on the verge of a breakdown. One of the original members of acclaimed independent theatre company Black Lung, Winter won acclaim for his role in Thyestes and more recently, was seen in Sydney Theatre Company’s Suddenly Last Summer. On screen he has starred in Healing, Blame, Balibo, and the recently released One Eyed Girl.
Here he discusses the public’s obsession with celebrities, the difference between Australian and American movies and hanging out with Kate Winslet and Ronnie Wood.
Why Birdland?
It’s always interesting when a central character is not inherently likeable – it’s tricky to navigate and to keep an audience interested. The character I play is the lead singer of a Oasis / Rolling Stones-esque band. He’s one of the most famous people on the planet but as the audience, your relationship to him is very different so it’s a very intriguing proposition.
Do you think talented people can get away with bad behaviour more often than others?
Absolutely. I’ve been reading about Keith Richards, who talks a lot about how people wanted him to live the life that they couldn’t live, to do what they weren’t allowed to do and they could live it vicariously through him. He was happy to do that, it didn’t bother him. This work is about our obsession with celebrities, what we want from them, and how fascinated we are watching their demise in many ways. We hold them up as idols and gods, and then we want to crucify them.
Why do you think they fascinate us?
You look at Oasis playing to a stadium and the songs means something to every single person in that crowd. People have such a personal relationship to their artistic output and it becomes the soundtrack to their lives. It becomes how they experience their highs and lows. We feel like we own these people, and somehow if you are famous, you have different rights to the regular folk. There’s also a fascinating aspect to do with money: this character equates his worth with money. He’s marking the victory of his career [saying] “A few years ago I was playing to 20,000 people, now I’m playing to 100,000 people and they are paying this much. [It] means my work is getting better.” He has a very capitalist mentality to his output, which is fascinating.
Being famous can be a double edged sword for actors: if you’re well known, you get better parts, but also there’s a sacrifice. Is that something you think about?
Certainly I look at people with bigger profiles and their access to material: you just want to get your hands on the best stuff available. Of course it’s a business [and] they need a “star” who people want to see.
Who do you think does it best?
People who do it well are always uncompromising. I’m a big fan of 70s actors like Robert De Niro, but someone contemporary who is doing it really well is Daniel Day Lewis. He pops out of nowhere and does a completely commited piece of work, then disappears into his life. He seemingly doesn’t have any interest in that aspect. It’s tricky when people get seduced by that, as opposed to the work. More and more that has value. Twitter followers actually matter. It’s something I’d never been conscious of, but it’s true because people feel like they have a relationship to you.
Would you make that sacrifice?
I can’t see it in those terms, because it’s so random. Ben Mendelsohn had been working here for many years, doing these terrific performances time and time again. Then he does Animal Kingdom and suddenly America says yes. He’s a beyond brilliant actor but I’m sure that he had his frustrations along the way. You take every opportunity that you get and do something that means something to you.
What drew you to your recent movie One Eyed Girl?
You’re meeting this psychiatrist on the brink of a nervous breakdown. He had a relationship with a patient, which went wrong. Now he’s having a crisis about how to move forward and create a worthwhile life and he ends up joining this cult. I was drawn to the thematics: how do we live a fulfilled life and can we let go of the baggage that forms us in so many ways yet also holds us back. [It’s] quite an un-Australian film in many ways, with talk about feelings and healing, and it had a lot of visible pain. [In] most Australian films, our natural tendency is not to discuss that. America really got behind the film, and I think it’s because [they] have more of a self improvement culture: I am going to fix myself, my life starts today. all that sort of business. I was really interested in how the two countries responded to it.
What is your abiding memory of working on upcoming film The Dressmaker, directed by Jocelyn Moorhouse?
That experience was terrific. There are four central characters, played by Kate Winslet, Judy Davis, Liam Hemsworth and Hugo Weaving, and then there’s a town of batshit bananas folk in 1950s Australia, of which I was one. It was brilliant to see how those actors carry themselves on set, how they operate, and how they craft their performance. It was funny too, because the Stones were playing when we were shooting and Ronnie Wood came on set. It was like “OK, this is the big time”.
Did you work with Hugo?
Hugo and I shot the film Healing together. That was a important moment in my career, and we’ve remained really close friends. On the question of how to navigate a career: you look at Hugo and he’s been in two of the biggest franchise films with The Matrix and Lord of the Rings, but he’s just kicking around doing his thing. For me, it was really important to meet him because there can be a bit of machoism in this industry. You think, Do you have to be super egotistical or think you are better than someone else to get ahead? Then you meet someone like him and you think, you don’t have to do any of that. You can do your thing and you don’t need to be a dick about it.
You’ve been involved in certain landmark theatre productions including Black Lung’s Thyestes. What is it that makes a production like that stand out?
There’s a tenacity to them, and a take-no-prisoners approach. Thyestes was like that, and similarly in this, where you are trying to catch something alive and electric. It’s a direct exchange between the audience and the production, and that’s when things get dangerous, when they mean something. With Black Lung, we always looked at music gigs and said people have a good time, they are excited and energised. That’s what theatre is always having to combat. The lights go down and people are quiet. Productions that stand out have a certain electricity where the ideas are jumping out at you and you’re taking people along for the journey.
Is there a temptation to chase that electricity?
You’re always chasing that but you never know how things are going to be received. It means you’re constantly asking: Why are we doing this, why does this matter now/ [But] it’s not something that can be manufactured, because people can smell it. I often think about the Bob Dylan quote: “An artist must be careful to never think he has arrived somewhere, he must always be in a constant state of becoming.” You keep moving forward and trying to find new ideas. Sometimes that means it’s outrageous and sometimes it’s simple.
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Birdland is on at Melbourne Theatre Company until 11 July
