Ciao Magazine: Lights, camera, action. Inner Westies are making their mark behind the scenes in the movie world
Posted by evdomada on April 12, 2010
By Carla Caruso
When Alex Lykos couldn’t find his dream acting role, he created it for himself. “Coming from an ethnic background, it makes it that much more difficult to get a break because those stories aren’t told as often,” says the Greek- Australian actor-writer.
Lykos, who founded Marrickville’s Bulldog Theatre Company, drew inspiration for his film script from a relationship breakdown. “I went out with a girl who was Lebanese-Muslim. It was a brief dalliance. We broke up and, for therapy, I just wrote my thoughts on a piece of paper and then thought, ‘Whoa, hold on a second, there’s a story here’. That’s what kind of led to the germ of this piece of comedy drama. It’s basically a male version of Bridget Jones, who happens to be a good Greek boy and falls in love with a good Lebanese woman.”
Lykos almost got the screenplay up as a film, but that fell through, so he decided instead to adapt it into a theatre show, dubbed Alex & Eve. After several successful seasons performed over the last four years, with Lykos as the leading man playing opposite ever-changing Eves (including Packed to the Rafters’ Zoe Ventoura and The Apprentice finalist Sabrina Houssami), Lykos finally got the news he’d been waiting for. A production company had signed for a film version. What’s more, Peter Andrikidis, who just directed the big-budget Wog Boy 2: Kings of Mykonos, committed to coming onboard to direct it. There are plans to start filming next January.
Lykos is not the only success story from the film world in the Inner West. Even if you don’t know their names or have never seen their faces on the big screen, they are plenty of locals making their marks in the world of Australian film. Dan Krige initially wanted to be an actor but discovered his true talents lay elsewhere. The filmmaker, who has lived in Newtown and Five Dock but now resides in Bondi, began working as a screenwriter in his teens. “I had a fortuitous thing happen. I grew up in the Blue Mountains, up the road from a guy called Tony Morphett. He worked on shows like The Sullivans, The Flying Doctors and Blue Heelers. He was very gracious and gave me his time. He was good enough to read my first horrible script and became my mentor.” That initial script – with a bit of editing – ended up being commissioned by Screen Australia and, not long after, Krige was hired as a screenwriter by Grundy Television (now part of FremantleMedia) at the tender age of 16.
Krige has been beavering away in the industry ever since, including writing and directing the feature film, West, set in Sydney’s western suburbs, three years ago. Currently, he’s working on five feature scripts – including an action thriller, The Quiet War. He has also made a short film for the St Kilda Film Festival, featuring Transformers star Rachael Taylor.
A graduate of the Australian Film Television and Radio School, Krige was working 18-hour days when he squeezed in time for a chat with Ciao. On the industry, he says: “You have to have a large degree of persistence and patience. You have to be like a dog with a bone. It’s not for those who want to get rich quick.”
David O’Brien runs a Film Club at Sydney Community College’s Rozelle site, where movie lovers can engage in stimulating discussions about various flicks. But, he makes his living as a screenwriter.
A former TV journalist, O’Brien wrote the $4.2 million feature film, Shotgun Wedding, and produced, wrote and directed an environmental special for Ten, Down To Earth, which included an on-camera piece from Sting. Currently, he’s got three screenplays in development.
O’Brien says screenwriting is not just about having great story ideas, because writers “come up with good ideas all the time. It’s being committed to an idea and following it through. There are eight months where you’re going to get bored and lose faith with a screenplay and abandon it and then you’ll come back to it. It’s all a journey in itself.”
But it’s well worth it in the end, according to O’Brien. “It’s been said that movies are the closest we come to dreaming while being awake. Watching really good quality movies that are about something and are beautifully acted and well-made can just change your whole perception of the world. I’m not necessarily sure that you can change the world through movies, but you can make people feel better or think deeper or appreciate life more by giving them good movies.”
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