Career Profile: Mark Lee, actor, director

Mark Lee, perhaps most widely known for his portrayal of digger Archy Hamilton in the 1981 film Gallipoli, has been an actor, director, and many other things besides. He shows Arts Hub that being in film and theatre can sometimes lead to to such rich resources of material as the classroom, the construction site, the Lego offices or the billiards room...

What did you want to be when you grew up?
I was never really certain. I suppose like most small boys it involved something ‘heroic’ but I’m no longer quite clear on the specifics.

What did you become?
I’ve been many things, actor, teacher (briefly and not terribly successfully), labourer (a little more successful), house painter, model soldier painter, singer, band leader, film director. I even worked at for Lego for a short time and a billiards company. The disparate occupations are pretty much par for the course for many in the arts.

What's your artistic background/training - how did you end up here?
Most of my training was acquired on the run, apart from a couple of years doing weekend classes at the Independent Theatre in North Sydney when I was very young. There was also the patience and worthwhile advice of many of my more experienced colleagues over the years.

How would you describe your work to a complete stranger?
I am someone who has spent a great deal of his life working hard at being someone else.

Can you describe an "average" working day for you?
As a director it’s early morning prep., shooting all day and late night ‘rushes’ viewing. At the moment I’m working on stage so the day begins (as far as work is concerned) at about 4:00pm. Then it’s exercise, vocal warm-ups and arrival at the theatre about an hour before the show. The band life (most of which was in my twenties) was pretty much concentrated around the night.

What's the one thing/piece of equipment, song, book, security blanket – which you can’t be creative without?
Once upon a time it was always a book (whatever I was researching at the time or whatever whim had overtaken me) and my guitar. Now it’s a book and my laptop word processor.

Who or what in the arts world most inspires you?
I’ve had the opportunity to work with some great people in my career: Peter Weir, John Duigan and some truly wonderful actors – far too many to mention. One couldn’t help but be inspired by people like these. But I have to say that recently it’s been the actors, writers, directors, producers and designers who are generating their own work - theatre, film, performance - often with little or no recompense and delivering great work. It’s a difficult industry at the best of times and their efforts are something admirable. It definitely gives one heart to see this sort of determination.

What's the toughest challenge you've dealt with on the job?
Probably when I was directing The Bet, my first feature film, and learning to ‘back myself’. I’ve never really been the most confident of people and it was a quantum leap for me.

What's the best piece of advice you were ever given for your career?
Mark... don’t do that.

Can you describe a career highlight?
There have been a few but if forced to choose, it would have been performing in the one-man show The Time Machine and directing my films: three shorts (At The Edge Of The Bed, El Burro, Stranger So Familiar.) and one feature, The Bet.

What are the top three skills you need in your particular role?
Listening, perseverance and a sense of humour (slowly coming to grips with the last one).

What's the best thing about your job? The worst?
At the moment my passion is directing so the best thing about that, is how fast time moves. The days are so filled with decisions and observing some really great work - whether it’s actors or technicians or the art department - that you feel as though you could work twenty hours straight and not feel it. (Obviously there is a residual effect after a time). The worst thing about it is the distance between gigs – hence ‘perseverance’.

And if you had to sum up your working life in a word or phrase, what would it be?
"Ohhhh... so that’s how it works."

What’s next for you?
I’m just finishing up a play at the Seymour Centre – The Good German and I’m attempting to finish a script I’ve been working on with Justin Fleming (the playwright). So we’ll see how that goes.