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Time Off (Australia)
May 2008
The Crocodile Hunted
By Baz McAlister
SPOILERS!
BEST KNOWN AS AGENT VAUGHN IN JJ ABRAMS’ SPY SERIES ALIAS, MICHAEL VARTAN JUMPED AT THE CHANCE TO COME DOWN TO AUSTRALIA TO FILM A LITTLE AUSSIE HORROR MOVIE CALLED ROGUE. BAZ McALISTER FOUND OUT WHY.
For a long time, LA-based Michael Vartan has been intrigued by the Great Southern Land.
“There’s just a lack of judgment there that’s really wonderful. People don’t care what you drive or how much money you have; if you’re nice, you’re in, if you’re not, you’re out. I saw very few velvet ropes outside nightclubs when I was there,” Vartan says with a ready laugh.
Aussie audiences will know Vartan from five series opposite Jennifer Garner in Alias, and Vartan credits that as the reason he landed the role in Rogue, director Greg McLean’s killer crocodile follow-up to the terrifying Wolf Creek.
“Greg strikes me as the kind of guy who will hire the person who’s right for the role, regardless of what they’ve been in before, or what their value is abroad - he wants to make the best movie with the best people who are right for the role,” Vartan says. “But you can’t ignore the business, and there’s that element of notoriety that some people have. And without Alias, nobody in Australia would have known who I was.”
It was Vartan’s agent who suggested he audition for Rogue, but the actor says the gig was presented to him in a most unflattering way.
“They said ‘How would you like to go to the Northern Territory full of snakes and crocs for four months and do a crocodile movie?’ ‘Is that a joke?’ ‘No’. ‘I’d rather stick needles in my eyes!’. So they said ‘Just go see this guy’s movie, Wolf Creek’. And I said, ‘Sure’.
“I had no idea what the movie was about and I was scared out of my wits for an hour and a half. I really loved the style of filmmaking. It was so raw. I love when a filmmaker has the courage to let the privacy of a moment unfold and trust that the audience can get it without using a fucking close-up. I’ve always wanted to work with a director like that. After speaking to Greg, I thought ‘Well I’m just gonna have to deal with the snakes and the crocs, dude, because that’s the guy I wanna work with’.”
McLean epitomized all that Vartan loved about Australia - ego-free, unpretentious, fun to hang with. And also, he impressed the actor with his clarity of vision.
“After we finished shooting,” Vartan recalls, “Greg showed me a drawing he’d done ten years ago, of the final scene in the movie - this complete anti-hero slaying a giant croc. Here’s this guy who, ten years ago, scribbled this thing on the corner of a piece of paper, and we’ve just finished this four-month epic shoot, and now the movie’s being released by the Weinstein Company… you know, to see the end of the idea he had ten years ago was really cool.”
As might be imagined, shooting a movie about a killer croc on location in a place where there are real killer crocs wasn’t without its dangers.
“We had to be careful,” Vartan says. “There were crewmembers passing heavy camera equipment from boat to boat and there were crocs right below! If one of them had fallen in it would have been death. We had these park rangers with guns, but these rifles were still in the big zipped holsters! I dunno how quickly a man can unzip a holster, load a gun, aim and fire but it seems to me the croc would be quicker. How about having them ready in case someone falls? “
When all’s said and done, it seems Australia has reciprocated Vartan’s adoration; the actor won Best Blow-In at last year’s Filmink Awards, beating out stalwarts like Joan Chen and Brenda Blethyn to become Australia’s best-loved foreigner.
“Yeah, when I first heard about ‘blow-in’ I wasn’t quite sure what it meant. Wait a minute, was there something on the DVD that I didn’t see? Was I that drunk?” he laughs.
“I’ve never been nominated for anything, let alone won anything, so that was really cool. It’s fitting that the first good thing that happens to me in terms of winning anything would be from my Australian experience.”
WHAT: Rogue (Universal Pictures) on DVD now
© 2008 Time Off Pty. Ltd.
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