Noah Taylor
By Renata Bialkowski
You may remember him as the rock band manager in Almost Famous, or the younger David Helfgott in Shine. Most recently, he starred in Vanilla Sky with Tom Cruise. As low key as he tries to be, Noah Taylor, well-known in Australia for years, is fast becoming an indie favorite. He easily scooped the award for Best Actor in a feature at The New York International Independent Film and Video Festival, for his role in the edgy dark comedy, He Died With A Felafel In His Hand. IFQ’s Renata Bialkowski spoke candidly with him in his London apartment about indies, Tom Cruise, and listening to AC/DC.
IFQ: Since our magazine is about independent filmmakers, can you tell me about your involvement with indie film projects?
NT: I started out doing a lot more independent stuff just in the last couple of years, and have done a lot of work on studio pictures. At the end of the day, the process is the same, but the ideas are more carefully hones when something is truly independent because the financial restraints force people to look more into making things character-based rather than sex-based. There are good and bad people in both those worlds.
IFQ: In several of your earlier works, like The Year My Voice Broke and Nostradamus Kid, you often seemed to play bohemian, eccentric youth characters. How have you grown away from that now?
NT: Well, I think that if you’re working in one geographical area, then people sorta tend to typecast you as that. Then, you get those types of scripts sent to you, because they figure they can do it again sorta thing.
IFQ: How did you make the leap from Australian films to American films?
NT: By going to England. Wickedly enough, being in England as opposed to Australia, because it seems the American film community is more comfortable that way than when someone’s based in Australia. Even though there are so many Australians doing well in Hollywood. I didn’t come to England for work reasons; it’s just sort of the way life panned out. I guess any sort of success I have had in America is in part due to some good business people. Also, Cameron Crowe has really given me two huge breaks, and the opportunity to work on interesting projects. So that’s been great.
IFQ: This is your second collaboration with Cameron Crowe. How does he work with actors? Is he more emotional, more technical?
NT: He has an incredible level of enthusiasm and obvious intelligence. He’s just a really nice person, which is more rare than it should be. He’s a very genuine person, because he comes from a music background as well. He creates incredible sets and everyone on the crew is focused and into it.
IFQ: Is he hard on the actors?
NTL: No, no. He creates an incredible atmosphere, plays music and talks during filming. That might not be for everyone, but I love working with him.
IFQ: What was the difference with him working in Almost Famous and Vanilla Sky, two totally different films?
NT: Yeah. Almost Famous was a lot freer and fun, where as Vanilla Sky was a completely different kettle of fish. It was certainly more intense because it’s such a strange story, and when you’re making something like that, it’s hard to put things in perspective. They were both incredible in different ways.
IFQ: Let’s talk about He Died With A Felafel In His Hand, and how you got involved in that. I know you’ve known the film’s director/writer/producer Richard Lowenstein for a while…
NT: Too long. (laughing)
IFQ: You were in his first film, Dogs In Space.
NT: Yeah, yeah, I get to say, “David Bowie.” That was my only line in the film!
IFQ: How did your relationship develop further from being an extra in that film?
NT: Just from growing up in Melbourne, a very small town, and we had a lot of mutual friends. I ended up living downstairs from him, and he claims that he’s collected stories from downstairs, but I don’t know how much that’s true. I rented a flat from him. In fact, he was our landlord for a while.
IFQ: How did you get involved with the film?
NT: Richard and I were friends. I don’t know when he started writing it, but mid-way through his draft, he made me aware of it. I hadn’t heard of the book, (now I’ve read it) and he just asked me if I wanted to do it, and I said “yes.” Many years later, the money came up, and then Almost Famous conflicted and started happening at the same time, so then it got put forward a bit, but we eventually did it. It was a long road between writing it and funding it, but thankfully, we met Domenico Procacci, who is an amazing person, especially with the Australian indie film scene. He’s a very successful producer in Italy as well.
IFQ: What first got you into acting?
NT: I got into it very, very young and always planned on getting out of it.
IFQ: What would you do if you weren’t acting?
NT: I don’t know. I like to make a bit of music, but it’s pretty horrible!
IFQ: Does your music influence your acting?
NT: Not really, but other peoples’ music does.
IFQ: Like what…
NT: Different music for different occasions. I read somewhere that the guy from The Sopranos listens to AC/DC. I listen to a lot of AC/DC, so it’s the same sort of thing, you know, it’s quite powerful sort of stuff, it depends what character you’re playing.
IFQ: Your role of the younger David Helfgott in Shine (directed by Scott Hicks) was very physical and mental. What sort of process did you go through to play that character?
NT: I think I might have been going a little portly myself at the same time, fortunately or unfortunately, depending on your point of view. Sometimes I pick roles because they mirror whatever’s going on in my own life. At that time I thought, “Yeah, I could play a nutty person,” since I was reasonably nutty at that time.
IFQ: Did you meet David Helfgott?
NT: I met him sort of halfway through the shoot. I didn’t want to meet him at first because I was playing a different part of his life. I didn’t feel it would have been that instructive because he was a very different guy I think – at least the part of his life which I was portraying. Also, it’s a lot of pressure playing the real person, which is also why I also wanted to do it before I met him, but he’s a very charming and interesting man.
IFQ: What kinds of films inspire you?
NT: All kinds of films, mainly older films. I like films by Kieslowski and Fellini, not necessarily straight narratives. Fellini is probably my favorite filmmaker.
IFQ: If you could produce a film, what kind of film would you produce?
NT: Actually there’s a guy in England, a great director named Ben Hopkins. He made a film called Sudden Makers, and another one called No Life To Thomas Cat. I guess you could say he’s a surrealist filmmaker, even though there is a lot more narrative in them than purely surrealist films. I like very experimental films and I don’t think there’s a great market for them, even within independent films these days.
IFQ: How do you define experimental?
NT: I think it would be very hard to get something like Eraserhead made, even through an independent producer these days. Something like that is always hard to make. Those are the films that interest me, visually based films.
IFQ: Obviously independent is a very broad term. Are there any mainstream films that you like?
NT: Well yeah, I love Dumb and Dumber (the Farrelly Brothers), as far as big Hollywood films go. I think they’re great. They’re just classic, sort of vaudeville really. I think Jim Carrey’s a genius, really. I like anything as long as it’s good. I don’t mind if it’s made by a studio. Some stuff, they do really well, some stuff, they do terribly. I think it’s when the studio tries to do films that should be best left to independents that it gets messy. They screw up the more character-based films.
IFQ: When you were working with Richard on Felafel, what kind of process did you go through in playing Danny?
NT: Well, because I have been involved with the film for such a long time and Richard and I know each other very well, it was very easy to talk in short hand about the character. Basically we agreed we just wanted to make an incredibly deadpan and natural film. There’s bits of Buster Keaton in the film, the house collapsing and things like that, it’s an old Buster Keaton gag. It’s also based on people we both knew, and based on him and me.
IFQ: You also worked with Romane Bohringer who was in Savage Nights, and a lot of big French films. How did you get a renowned French actress to fly to Australia for an Australian film?