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Geoffrey Rush

An extract from Bruce Malloy's essay on the incredible achievements spanning Geoffrey Rush's career There is no finer exponent of film acting than this year's recipient of the Chauvel Award for a distinguished contribution to Australian film, Geoffrey Rush. While it is almost a cliché to say that winning awards for film is a little like winning the lottery, Rush's record of winning Best Actor awards for his starring role in Shine (1995) from the Australian Film Institute (AFI) and the British Academy for Film and Television Art (BAFTA), as well as a coveted Academy Award, suggests that something more than luck was involved. As Jack Nicklaus once remarked of his golf game, the harder he worked the luckier he became.

Like Charles Chauvel, Rush hails from country Queensland. Just as Chauvel headed off to Hollywood to enhance his skills in the 1920s, Rush, after graduating with a degree in English from The University of Queensland, travelled to Paris to study at the Jacques Lecoq School of Mime. On his return to Australia, he immersed himself in theatre acting, with roles in such classics as King Lear (with Warren Mitchell) and Waiting for Godot (the famous NIDA production with Mel Gibson). He also played the lead in a number of productions by Jim Sharman's Lighthouse ensemble. During his acting career, Rush worked with state theatre companies in Brisbane, Sydney, Melbourne, and Adelaide.

He commenced work as a professional actor in Brisbane in the 1970s and worked through the 1980s and into the 1990s with such directors as Neil Armfield, Michael Gow, John Gaden, Louis Nowra, George Whalley, and Jim Sharman. At this time, Rush's stage career could justly be described as stellar, with nominations and awards for his parts in The Diary of a Madman, The Government Inspector, Uncle Vanya, Oleanna (in which he co-starred with Cate Blanchett), and Hamlet. In 1994, Rush received the Sidney Myer Performing Arts Award for his contribution to theatre.

At the same time as this hectic stage schedule, Rush was accumulating a substantial list of feature film credits. Starting with the underrated Hoodwink in 1980, Rush has appeared in almost 30 films, 14 of which were produced in Australia. These include films by such significant Australian directors as Gillian Armstrong (Starstruck, 1982, and Oscar and Lucinda, 1997), Ray Lawrence (Lantana, 2001), Russell Mulcahy (Swimming Upstream, 2001), and Gregor Jordan (Ned Kelly, 2003). The Academy Award for his role in Shine complements his vocal contribution to the eponymous Harvie Krumpet in Adam Elliot's Academy-Award-winning animated film this year. Rush has also worked in films by many of his stage colleagues, such as Twelfth Night (1985), directed by Neil Armfield, and Dad and Dave: On Our Selection (1994), directed by George Whalley.

His contribution to international films ranges from his role as the Marquis de Sade in Phillip Kaufman's Quills (1999), to providing the voice of Nigel the Pelican in Finding Nemo (2002), and playing the ghostly Captain Barbossa in Gore Verbinski's Pirates of the Caribbean (2003). He has also worked with such filmmaking legends as John Boorman in The Tailor of Panama (2000), the Coen brothers in Intolerable Cruelty (2003), and Jerry Bruckheimer in Pirates of the Caribbean. In 2001, he starred opposite Goldie Hawn and Susan Sarandon in The Banger Sisters.

Again, like Chauvel, Rush has been a writer and a director (of stage plays) and has worked in both film and television. His contribution to Australian film has been twofold, comprising both the body of his work in Australian films and the significant role he has played in contributing to the high international profile of Australian film through his performances both at home and abroad. Although the Chauvel award is for a distinguished contribution to Australian film, the curtain is undoubtedly far from closed on Rush's contribution to film in general.

It seems extremely appropriate that this year's opening-night film, The Life and Death of Peter Sellers, should be in one sense an homage from one great screen actor to another.

Bruce Molloy


Filmography


1980
Hoodwink, (dir. Claude Whatham), Detective 1

1982
Starstruck, (dir. Gillian Armstrong), Floor Manager

1985
Twelfth Night, (dir. Neil Armfield), Sir Ron Aguecheek

1994
Five Easy Pizzas, (short), (dir. Jo Bell, Ray Boseley, Mark Hanlin, Clayton Jacobson, Garry Richards), Allen Newman
Dad & Dave: On Our Selection, (dir. George Whalley), Dave

Small Room Confessions, (short), (dir. Belinda Chayko), Don

1995
Children of The Revolution, (dir. Peter Duncan), Welch
Shine, (dir. Scott Hicks), David Helfgott

1997
Elizabeth, (dir. Shekhar Kapur), Walsingham
Les Miserables, (dir. Billy August), Inspector Javert
Oscar and Lucinda, (dir. Gillian Armstrong), Narrator
A Little Bit of Soul, (dir. Peter Duncan), Godfrey Usher

1998
Shakespeare In Love, (dir. John Madden), Henslowe

1999
Quills, (dir. Phillip Kaufman), The Marquis de Sade
House On Haunted Hill, (dir. William Malone), Steven B. Price
Mystery Men, (dir. Kinka Usher), Casanova Frankenstein
The Magic Pudding, (dir. Karl Zwicky), voice of Bunyip Bluegum

2000
The Tailor of Panama, (dir. John Boorman), Harry Pendel

2001
Swimming Upstream, (dir. Russell Mulcahy), Harold Fingleton
The Banger Sisters, (dir. Bob Dolman), Harry
Frida, (dir. Julie Taymor), Trotsky
Lantana, (dir. Ray Lawrence), John Knox

2002
Finding Nemo, (dir. Andrew Stanton, Lee Unkrich), voice of Nigel the Pelican
Harvie Krumpet, (short), (dir. Adam Elliot), Narrator

2003
Pirates of The Caribbean, (dir. Gore Verbinski), Barbossa
Intolerable Cruelty, (dir. Joel Coen), Donovan Donaly
Ned Kelly, (dir. Gregor Jordan ), Francis Hare

2004
The Life and Death of Peter Sellers, (dir. Stephen Hopkins), Peter Sellers