First published on 11 Nov 2011. Updated on 24 Jan 2012.
In A Few Best Men, a young Englishman, David (Xavier Samuel), comes to Sydney to marry an Australian girl (Laura Brent), bringing with him three klutzy groomsmen (Kris Marshall, Kevin Bishop and Tim Draxl), whose hard-partying ways cause disaster. Set in the Blue Mountains, this rambunctious farce is directed by Sydney-born Stephan Elliott (The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert), whose career is enjoying an upswing.
Stephan, are you Australian-based now?
Yes. I have been in the UK for 17 years but I came back to do the film, flipped the telly on and I thought I saw my house being burnt down. I said, you know what? I’m not going back. About two years ago a bike courier knocked me down on a pedestrian street. His bike went over and he got up and started swinging at me. A little part of me said, “this city is going to explode.”
And in A Few Best Men, the yobs are the English – we’re more used to seeing the Australians portrayed as the yobs.
Yeah, that was fun doing that twist. I said, “Why don’t we make a film about tasteful, good-looking Australian people who have money and manners?” Everyone said, “how outrageous!” Dean [Craig, Death at a Funeral] had originally written the script for England so at the point I took over it became an interesting war between the UK and Australia.
But then Aussie actor Xavier Samuel plays the English lead character.
Xav was doing the Twilight thing at the time. He sent the tape in, and he was the only person in 200 people that underplayed it. It was a really tough job for Xav because everyone around him was turned up to 11, showing off, and he had to pull back the whole time because he’s the [straight man].
UK comedic actor Kris Marshall plays the ‘worst best man’ and steals the movie …
Kris plays a version of me, basically. All my life I’ve been mistaken for Kris Marshall. People always ask for autographs at film festivals. I used to write down serial killers’ names because I’d realise they had no idea of who I was. I got a lot of “I loved you in Love Actually.” I put the pieces together and realised people thought I was Kris Marshall.
On Easy Virtue [2008], I wrote the part for the butler for myself. Just as we were getting closer to the shoot, I was writing, directing, producing and struggling, and realised that I couldn’t play the butler too. So I rang Kris and said, “You don’t know me but you look like me, would you mind playing me in a film?” So he did it. We are a strange version of each other.
Olivia Newton-John plays the mother of the bride, a character who’s – well, surprising.
I’ve known Olivia for a few years and she’s got a really naughty side to her that she never lets out. When the script came in I said “this is perfect for Olivia if she wants to let her hair down,” and I think I got her at the right moment in time. She said, “You know what? Fuck it!” There were days during shooting where she was very nervous. She looked at me once and said, “Am I ever going to work again?” and I looked at her and I said, “Nuh.” But she had a whale of a time. I think she is going to get a lot more work out of it.
Your life story would make a good film – starring Kris Marshall, perhaps.
The ups and downs have been terrifying. After Eye of the Beholder [1999] I pretty much lost everything. I didn’t have a cent to my name. One day I will write it all down, because some stuff happened in there that’s just beyond the pale. You stick your neck out and you get hurt...
And then there was that major ski accident [in the French Alps in 2004]. I was told that I was going to die. Being told, “you have to say goodbye to people” was a life-changing moment. I’ve come out the other side with, “you know what? We are going to die and I’m not frightened anymore.” I’m actually not frightened of anything anymore. I’m trying to buy a house at the moment and I don’t have the money, but I’ll work it out! I’m just not going to lie in bed fretting all night.
Are you back on the ski fields?
Oh god yeah. I was skiing when I was still in a body brace!
Priscilla was a bit like a lightning strike, one of those perfect ideas. Has it been tough to live up to?
I’ll never live up to it. It’s as simple as that. It was made with no money at a perfect time. It was right for the gay rights movement, it was right for the world. I was bitching once to Richard O’Brien, who wrote the Rocky Horror Show, and he slapped me across the face and said, “what are you bitching about? How many people even have one of these? Even big directors don’t have a film where people will go to their graves saying ‘I remember that one.’”
And of course it’s not going to stop now. The musical opens in Italy in eight weeks and then we open in Brazil in four months and it just goes on. So I’m realising now that it will probably outlive me.
A Few Best Men is full circle for you in a way, since you started out making wedding videos. What did that teach you?
Well I learned to hate weddings, which is the big one. People still ask me to shoot their weddings! It astounds me. In those early years people were so stunned by the idea they would not look at each other, they would look at the camera. “Guys guys guys, you can’t look at the camera, walk back up the aisle and do it again.” That’s how I learned to direct.
A Few Best Men opens 26 Jan
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