Mandy Griffiths
Best known for his star turn in Australian comedy classic “Kenny”, Shane Jacobson is back for “Oddball”, a true story about an eccentric chicken farmer who, with the help of his granddaughter, trains his mischievous dog Oddball to protect a wild penguin sanctuary from attacks in an attempt to reunite his family and save their seaside town.
Mandy sat down with Shane to talk fairy penguins, on set romance, blue M&Ms and the difference between this film and “Breaking Bad” [spoiler: quite a bit].
I actually came on set when you guys were filming this last year. We were there when the penguins were there which was adorable. It was great to see you all in action and it seemed a really nice chemistry within the cast, that you all genuinely got along. Was that all an act for us?
Shane: [laughs] No. And for some you might have to do that…No but Deb Mailman, Sarah Snook, Alan Tudyk who is just one of the funniest people on Earth, he’s so good. No we were just spoilt with good company and there were no egos on set. Richard Davies, Frank Woodley, there’s not an ego amongst them.
It was a really fantastic set of actors.
Shane: Yeah and you can’t bank on the fact that there won’t be egos. In anything – the same can be said for fashion, policing, who knows, you can’t guarantee you’ll get along with people. But we really were spoilt and blessed with good people. And also it’s a kind-hearted, nice natured family film, it’s not like we’re doing scenes where we’re about to fight each other…it’s not “Breaking Bad” [laughs]. It’s ‘making good’ not ‘breaking bad’!
That should have been the tagline! [laughs]
Shane: “Oddball: making good not breaking bad”.
Was this the first time you’d worked with these actors before?
Shane: It was the first time I’d acted with Sarah and now we’ve done two films together because she’s also in “The Dressmaker” playing my daughter again in that which is fairly amusing. Deb Mailman I’d met before and Alan Tudyk I hadn’t, and what a joy that was. Richard Davies I’d done “Beaconsfield” with, Dave Lawson I kind of knew through mutual friends and we’d met before. A lot of us had kind of been in or around the same space together but it was the first chance with me and Sarah to work that closely together, and she’s just amazing. I can’t rave about her enough and I’m sure everyone else would agree. It’s not any great effort to get people to believe when I say she is the next Cate Blanchett. She really is.
Definitely agree, when I first saw her in “Predestination” I was just blown away. And you guys had a really great chemistry as father and daughter – it was a core relationship of the film that I thought came across really nicely.
Shane: Thank you I’m glad to hear it’s received that way because the truth is in real life we’re more mates instead of it being a fatherly relationship [laughs]. But I am a father of four. And having said that as the film starts there’s parts of our relationship we have to sort out. It was easy for me to imagine what it might be like not connecting properly with your daughter and imagine how much you’d want that to be right because I’ve got children of my own. I’m able to play the part of father and grandfather, I just have to act like a parent because I think that’s what grandparents get to do, they get to be a parent all over again and just do the fun stuff and then hand them back. So that’s something that I can imagine as well – being a parent without having to change the diapers. [laughs] That’s what I’ve been told, my brother included is a grandfather now, and it’s like, just the best bits. It’s like having your own M&M dispenser where you just pick the colours you want. ‘I just want the fun colours!’
The blue ones!
Shane: Why do the blue ones always get the good wrap?
A third of people’s favourite colour is blue apparently. There’s something really calming about it.
Shane: Like the ocean and the sky…it does occupy quite a bit of the planet doesn’t it?
It does. It’s relaxing. The existentialism of blue M&Ms…who knew.
Shane: We’ve discussed it all right here! [laughs].
Coco Gillies as well we should mention as your granddaughter. She’s very young but when I was on set everyone was raving about how professional she was. How was it working on set because it can be quite difficult working with animals and…
Shane: …children! I know. Absolutely the old adage. But the thing with her is that she is professional. She’s been on sets enough now that she gets the process. She doesn’t understand what every bit of equipment does but she certainly knows the process. Which is pretty rare for someone her age but I think she’s been given so many opportunities – deservedly. She’s not being thrown in there because they want her to just give it a go. She gets the parts because she’s good at what she does. She has those big brown eyes. Realistically between the dogs, the penguins, Coco and Sarah no one will even know I’m in this film. I’ll be somewhere and be like ‘I was that guy’ and they’ll be like ‘nah, didn’t see you. Was that the scene with the chickens? Were you in the scene with the chickens? Nah I wasn’t looking at you I was looking at the chickens. Were you beside the dog? Nah didn’t see you’ [laughs].
When you cracked the egg and swallowed it whole in your opening scene though – how many takes did that take?
Shane: What’s the unlucky number?
13.
Shane: Yep. That’s how many. I wasn’t in a rush to eat too many raw eggs after that. I wasn’t in a rush to eat eggs after that…it’s not as bad as you would think but I don’t recommend you try it.
It’s probably good for you…but maybe not that many.
Shane: I reckon it’s that thing about moderation. Moderation is supposed to apply to most things. I’m sure it would apply to raw eggs [laughs].
So your character Swampy is based on a real person and there’s a lovely picture of the two of you at the end of the film.
Shane: Yes I love that picture!
Did you spend much time with him in preparation for the role?
Shane: I did. I spent a bit of time with him. He’s one of those guys – and I say this with respect – that once you’ve spent two minutes with Swampy, you know Swampy. What you see is what you get and everyone knows that. Once you’ve met him there’s a great big smile on his face that doesn’t leave. There’s a great big laugh that doesn’t stop. And he dresses the same pretty much every day. He looks like he looks now and probably will for the rest of his place and probably has since the day he was born. I mean he’s Swampy Marsh! The name says it all. So with him once you’ve spent a bit of time with him you already know this guy and he’s the person you hope – or I do at least – when you drive into a country or regional area and stop at a pub, they’re the kind of people you hope to meet and expect to meet there. And he is that bloke, he’s got a story about everything, got a yarn to tell you about any topic, and ends every sentence with a big laugh. And he laughs at your jokes, his own jokes, and everyone else’s jokes. He’s big and bubbly. So I did spend time with him and I obviously put a lot of him in the performance but I don’t mind admitting it, I added a bit of Santa Clause in there as well because there’s going to be kids watching this. Just the looking over the top of the glasses. I put a bit of Santa Clause which sounds crazy and I’m not expecting anyone to see it in the performance but just that feeling of Big Santa you know. I wanted him to be Santa Clause-esque so I did have a little bit of that in mind.
And what was it that attracted you to the story? It’s a very Australian story – overcoming the odds, it’s got the animals, the beautiful landscape, and based on a true story…
Shane: That was, I’m not going to say it was the clincher, but it was a big part of it. I mean what an amazing story. You could write this but how much more beautiful is it that it’s the truth? That an island off the coast of Warrnambool in Victoria, Australia, there were 1000 fairy penguins on an island, sounds beautiful, and somehow the cunning foxes figured out that 300m away through water that they would have to swim through – because even at low tide it’s waist deep for a human – somehow they figured out there’s penguins there, they go there and take the population from 1000 to under ten. To have a chicken farmer whose chickens are protected by a Maremma dog, and have him go to the council and say ‘you know I hear these foxes are giving these penguins a flogging, how about I bung me dog on the island. It protects chickens and at the end of the day a penguin is just a chicken in a tuxedo.’ The council thinks he’s mad, don’t think it will work and fight him on it. Eventually he does it, he’s right and revolutionises the practice of penguin conservations all over the world. What a story – it’s unbelievable. That something got so close to, not extinction, but wiped out in that area, to now Mother Nature has been allowed to do her thing, and there’s 150 of them as a result of a chicken farmer. You pitch that and go, ‘that’s the movie’, and they go ‘well it’s a bit elaborate;, but then you go, ‘well you know it actually happened.’ It’s fair dinkum. It happened just down in Warrnambool, he’s still a chicken farmer. Oddball is still alive living on the farm, all that stuff. That’s a fairy tale involving fairy penguins.
And I heard there was a bit of life reflecting art in that two of the penguins actually fell in love…
Shane: On set romance we keep saying. On set romance – not who you might think, not me and Swampy [laughs]. Some say that penguins mate for life so many think penguins do what humans struggle to which is have one partner for the rest of their life. And yes the penguin who plays the character, if you will, of the penguin, Pocket, and his mate, yes they did, they partnered up after the film. And how good is that. The film about saving fairy penguins in the act of being made actually created a fairy penguin. So we’ve added to the population of fairy penguins. I don’t have to talk about the film that much to actually describe the magic that lives in and around it. So it’s pretty darn cute.
“Oddball” is now playing in Australian cinemas everywhere.
