Chapter 1: What insights does Joel Edgerton share about his career in Hollywood?
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You're a nice looking guy. I'm down the middle. No, but I'm actually not. You just caught me at a low intelligence point. I was like... Oh, that was a joke. Joel, you here? I'm here. Oh, none of that Australian accent here. At least you can do a speak American when you're in our country. Oh, my God. I don't mean to call ice on you. No. I was watching your thing about Australians.
I'm like, oh, come on. You're right, though. I was just skiing in Japan. And I didn't actually feel like I was in Niseko. I didn't feel like I was in Niseko. There were Australians everywhere, working in the hotel. All the ski instructors, New Zealanders or Australians. I met a bunch of them last night. I was out at a Golden Globe party. Oh, yeah.
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Chapter 2: How does Joel Edgerton describe his experience working on Train Dreams?
And boy, they liked me in Australia. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, I mean, that whole bit was so, that was 10 years ago. It was when Trump was first talking about immigration. And, you know, we did, this is the, you know, classic mode of satire. I went off on a rant how it's really the Australians who are coming in. But there is that little bit of truth in it, is that they have done so well with acting jobs.
The best line was, we used to think oceans could protect us but there are too many Hemsworths and not enough sharks. Yeah, yeah. Oh, man. And then follow the Barrier Reef. I mean, it's, you know, what's interesting is that everyone tells me they're like, oh, you know, what is it about Australians and acting and... Yeah, what is it? Well, you know, one of the things is accents.
Australians doing an American accent. I asked Chris Hemsworth about that. He said it's because we all watch the TV. That's exactly what it is. You watch American TV when you're a kid and it's just second. Yeah. You don't even have to try that hard, right?
There was this policy in Australia which actually inadvertently helped all of us, which was there was no real barrier for how much local content there needed to be. There was no mandate how much local content had to be on TV. So I would wake up in the morning. Canada has that. They do? Yes. France has it at the cinema. Definitely Canada.
There used to be a great show, SCTV, Second City TV, that was done in Canada. Martin Short was on it. A lot of great people were on it. Eugene Levy. Yeah. And they used to make fun of, they had, because there was, the law was that, the Canadian law was certain amount of content has to be about Canada. Yeah.
So they were spoofing that with the, they had these Canadian brothers with their A, you know, it was all just. We had like Skippy. Do you ever say Skippy the bush kangaroo? What? No. Obviously, we were inundated with American TV, but you never really got much of Australian TV. Was that a cartoon or what? No, it was about this kid and his dad, and his dad flew a chopper.
Oh, this is Flipper with a kangaroo.
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Chapter 3: What challenges did Joel face early in his career?
It's Flipper with a kangaroo. Yeah, it's exactly that. It's exactly that. Yeah, they probably saw Flipper. And Skippy the bush kangaroo was actually also a bit like last year's. And if any of the kids were in trouble in the bush, Skippy would come back and literally be like... And the guy would be like, what's that, Skip? And he'd be like, you know what, the kids are in trouble.
The guy could understand kangaroo. That's Lassie, you're right. But when I come home from school, I would sit in front of the TV and I would watch Happy Days, Gilligan's Island, Brady Bunch, what else, Eight Is Enough. And then as I got a bit older, actually my first celebrity sighting was Kirk Cameron from Growing Pains. That's my boy Alan Thicke. Alan Thicke, the father.
Yeah, Alan Thicke, yeah. He's a great, great friend of mine. Oh, really? One of the greatest guys. Well, I spotted Kirk Cameron at first family vacation we went on. Yeah, he went nuts. Yes. I mean, not nuts, but he's a super, super hardcore Christian. Speaking of New Zealanders, have you seen his counterpart who does the... He explains creationism through the banana video. Have you seen that? No.
Anyone watch the banana video. He explains why the banana was obviously created for the human hand and how it's perfectly encased in things. And then as he starts to eat it, he doesn't realize how phallic the whole thing is. The banana was plainly created for girls to practice blowjobs on.
plainly that is that is my interpretation of the Bible and it's not any stupider than what anyone else would find in the Bible so I'm just gonna go with that but I think all of them for this you know my niece is 10 and she can do a flawless American accent and her and like you listen to young Australian kids playing with each other and they sound like valley girls
Just naturally, not even trying to do it? No, they just like effortlessly fall into this sort of play accent that they do, all from television. Yeah. Yeah. Well, I mean, again, I could see how American actors could be pissed at this. I mean, when you go down the list, of people who have just succeeded. I mean, even more than the British, really. I would say in this century, certainly.
I mean, starting before that, but like, I don't wanna like go down the list of names or leave somebody out, but it is an extraordinary success rate. And, you know, I mean, you're obviously having a moment right now, which is great because, you know, I've been watching you for years, always was a fan. You know, big ones like Black Mass and The Stranger. Just lots of shit.
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Chapter 4: What unique perspectives do Australians bring to Hollywood?
And you're always in something. You're always good. But it is funny the way careers work because I just feel like you never know what's the thing that's gonna like, oh, you know, just hit like on a certain different level. And for some reason, You know, Train Dreams, that's the one you're, I mean, we're both up for an award, you know. Yeah, well, that's the Golden Globes.
Thank God we're not in the same category so we can have a civil conversation. How do you feel, let me ask you, how do you feel going into, to me, and maybe it's because I've always set my ceiling quite low in life, like being nominated to me is a win. Sweetheart, I've been nominated for 33 Emmys and they would never give it to me. Right. That's not a gag number, it's a real number. It's crazy.
For Politically Incorrect, for Real Time, for my standup specials, for producing, for writing, for performance, obviously it's something I said. Well, it's everything I said. Well, you said enough to get the nomination, but then there's something you've said. Because I speak freely, and this woke town fucking hates that. And that's okay. I made my peace with that. But so I know how this goes.
This is not something I would ever – I have good standing. If I win this by some miracle to go, what people always say, I can't believe I'm shocked. I really should be shocked. If I win this. From my seat, the admiration I have for guys like you that actually get up and say what you feel. There are no other guys like me, Joel. No. There are no other guys like me. Yeah. But go ahead.
You know, like I'm a guy that gets a job, gets a script, goes to work. My success is based on other people's ideas and hopefully along the way their wisdom to put me in something or not and hopefully the right things. Actually, one of the other things I have to say I really admire is your whole thing about the casting culture. Oh, you mean the quotas?
No, the one that, you know, actors appropriating. Oh, that too, yeah. Who's appropriate for what. Well, again, the epicenter of Woke Stupid is this town. It really is. And things like that. I mean, like... Appropriation, we used to love that. You know, it was called culturally sharing.
We thought it was a great idea when we, you know, now obviously if you steal something, I mean, you know, Elvis, did he steal from black culture? He sang the way he sang. He grew up in the South.
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Chapter 5: How does Joel Edgerton view the impact of awards on an actor's career?
I mean, the culture's mixed. You know, it's just pointless to hate him for it. And, you know, America was more racist, obviously, by far at the time. So it was like, oh, we got a white guy who sounds black. We like black music, but, ooh, we don't want to put that on the radio. It'll corrupt the kids, whatever they were thinking in the 1950s. I mean, this is the 1950s.
But, you know, yes, to say that... You know, I mean, they were mad at... Who did the movie about Leonard Bernstein with the Junos? They called it... Bradley Cooper. Bradley Cooper, yes. I mean, Junos. Do they even know how stupid they sound? I mean, what could be... They actually used that word. They made up this horrible word, and then were like, oh, but we're the good people.
We're saying, whoa, no Junos. You know, it's just so silly. They got mad at somebody for playing... Castro, who wasn't Cuban, Sean Penn had the great line. He said, you know, at some point, they're only going to let Danish princes play Hamlet. Yeah. Well, this is what I was thinking, but it solved your other problem about Australians coming to America.
I started wondering if I would ever have gone to drama school now. Because, you know, I went in there with this optimism, optimistic point of view that being an actor was... you know, I could try and be anything I wanted to be.
Obviously I would draw the line somewhere and more now than ever, but like, am I gonna be in a position where you won't have to bother with the Australians here because like, we'll only get to play, I'll only get to play like mid-level intelligence Australian dudes. Right. I mean, that is where it was heading, but I think they put the brakes on it a little.
I mean, we have had a little bit of a, oh, come on. But I mean, there is a quota system. And I understand why they would have this. Everything that is unjust and certainly lots of stuff that went on with representation of minorities was unjust in this town for the longest of times. I mean, there was a time when Oscars so white had meaning. It did not anymore.
And they refused to give that up because they love being the people who are the social justice warriors. OK. But I understand where this is coming from. But ultimately, you do not want to tell artists how to make art. This is what they did in the Soviet Union. This is what they did in communist countries.
The last place you want people making a lot of rules about how you can make your art, who you can hire to do your art, That is not what art is about. And no artist, no matter how liberal, is going to like that. People want, auteurs want to auteur. Yeah.
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Chapter 6: What is the significance of storytelling in Joel's work?
I think, you know, there's certain examples of it where I totally get it. Like, you know, you see a movie called Coda. Coda was, I think it was going back two years. Troy won Best Supporting Actor. A film about a girl who's a coder, who's essentially like a person of hearing who grows up in a family of hearing impaired people.
And the entire cast who are playing deaf characters are played by people who really are, you know, have hearing. And that to me was like, yes, that's exactly the thing that should be done. Because like watching someone like me kind of go, I'm going to pretend that I'm that. It makes sense for that.
And it's about the cutting off of opportunities for people who are deaf actors who are going, well, where was my audition? Where was I even going to get a look into that thing? The way the arts have progressed is that we have And I think for the better of enjoying movies, just as a fan, made movies more realistic.
I mean, if you look at movies from the 30s, 40s, 50s, I mean, there's Spencer Tracy playing a Mexican, you know? He's just, they just kind of darken his face and he talks like this. It's like, that's just where they were. That's where everything was in movies. If I shot you, there was no gore. You just went down. You didn't see what we see. Okay, now we're at a realistic phase.
If I was the director of this movie, as an artistic decision, I would cast the deaf people. because it's going to make the movie better. I'm working in, yes, we're in the realistic age now. It's gonna make the movie better. Yeah, so it's a case by case. Yes, the truth on screen is always better than anything you can make up. It's always much better.
Yeah, I mean, people don't always like the truth, but... Yes, I think movies, when they're done well, movies that are about something, that are substantive, they get at a truth in a way that doesn't put people off. Yeah. Train Dreams was a good example for me of, I guess as I get older, I'm like, all right, well, what's suitable for me to play?
Not looking at it from the perspective of conversation we just had, but what do I connect with? You know, and the director of the film didn't realize that I had read the novella like five years earlier. I tried to get my hands on the rights to it. And of course the film deals with one of the worst possible losses you could ever go through. Trees. Lots of trees. Yeah, yeah. Mostly trees.
But then there's the thing with the wife and the kid. And I'd become a dad since the director reached out to me. And so even though I'm playing the logger, I'm like trudging around pretending I'm a tougher guy than I really am, on an emotional level, it's wrapped up in my greatest fear. And I was like, well, I realized how much as an actor
I've always tried to hide behind funny walks and costumes as in like really really like not show any side of who I really am because I feel like that's a little bit dull and just like be like Black Mass is a good example you know playing a crazy like you know FBI
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Chapter 7: How does Joel Edgerton reflect on the nature of fame and public perception?
agent or playing buchanan in in uh gatsby and and they're not they're like energetically you know like because i love character actors i've always loved character actors train dreams was just a far more personal thing again it's not my field i love being entertained And if it's entertaining, I don't care if it's from the method acting or, you know, I love Black Mass. I love the character.
I love the whole movie. So I didn't really care. But then I like Train Dreams, too. And that's obviously, I mean, you... are obviously on a deeper emotional level, because it's an emotional movie.
It's a hard movie to, if somebody says, and you know, whenever you're out to dinner with people, and hey, you've seen any good movies, and if somebody says, yeah, I saw blah, blah, blah, and I go, oh, my first question is always, what's that about? Just tell me what it's about. Yeah, the train pitch, kind of like the being on the bus pitch, the quick pitch. It's not an easy one.
It's not an easy one. No, no. I mean, what would you say? Like a guy 100 years ago has a rough life. Yeah. And, you know, he's born nothing special and dies nothing special in this world. And in between... I'm a studio exec writing the check right now. In between, he gets glimpses of happiness, which... What? Which then disappear.
But the reason why it hits such a nerve is that, and here's a deep question, it shows that there's a lot of grief. at least in America, and I'm sure in a lot of places in the world, I mean, that's what people connect to.
It's like this, it's a movie about grief, and people are, you know, why are so many people in this modern world hurting so bad that they relate to this guy who's got a really rough life from 100 years ago? That's the question. The question. Well, the answer for me. A lot of sadness out there. Yeah.
And, you know, here's the one thing that I think sets Train Dreams apart is we go to the movies and we watch stories about extraordinary people, generals or, you know. Superheroes. And talking about Australian movies, interestingly enough, someone pointed out Australian movies, which are quite small in their scope quite often, unless you're talking about George Miller or Baz Luhrmann,
They say American movies are about people who are going to save the world or save the universe. And Australian movies are about the person who's going to save the local cricket club. And it's true. But you can root for them just the same. And it's a little bit more kind of a smaller bubble. Much more relatable.
But Train Dreams puts at the center of the movie 99.9% of who the audience is, which is the ordinary human being. He's not going to have a plaque, not going to have a monument built about him. and celebrates the majesty of that. Now, what I have noticed, too, is that young people who haven't experienced... It's not about age. I mean, young people can experience devastating loss.
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Chapter 8: What closing thoughts does Joel have about resilience and personal growth?
People who have experienced loss or some kind of grief see the film as quite hopeful because what it does is also show you the power of rebirth and regrowth. And it's Clint, the director. Like a forest. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, and the analogy is very clear. Well, it's plain that that's what he was going for, I think.
And the idea of just having to get up some days and put one foot in front of the other because there is an alternative, which is you tap out of life or you just find a way to absorb yourself back into the world. And I believe that the world moves and turns and swallows events up and each day makes it a little bit easier, you know.
This is a little bit grim, but there's something beautiful about the resilience of human beings. Yeah, which we all need. I mean, no one wins the game of life 11 to nothing, if you win it at all. Yeah, and there's so much suffering right now. And it's so relative. I have days where I'm like, I'm gonna crumble about this and that.
And then the perspective of life, obviously, I think we all, I don't know about you, but I often find at my own fault and sometimes my own savior compare myself to other people. I think it's a natural human thing. It's like, I'm okay because if you compare yourself to people below you in their suffering or whatever,
In other words, you're saying to yourself, I don't deserve to feel bad because this guy has it worse than me. Why am I playing a violin for myself? That's stupid. Yeah, exactly. Pain is pain. Yes, we can acknowledge rationally in our rational mind there are, of course, people doing worse than you. And whoever that guy is, there's somebody doing worse than them. Yeah.
You know, there's a lot of shit out there. And the cruelty of kind of having the Schautenfreuser, like looking at people above you, like you want to dismantle them or something because they're, for some reason, even though they're disconnected to you, they're the reason for your pain or your suffering.
No, you shouldn't feel guilty about if you have legitimately something to feel bad about, and we all do in this game of life. There's also, I feel, among each succeeding generation, which actually has it easier in most ways, there is a complete lack of perspective about what actually is hurting you and what is actually painful. I guess what I'm saying is these kids are such pussies.
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