- Hi, I'm Damon Herriman,
and I'm in studio with The Hollywood Reporter.
- I feel like you have the longest
IMDB credits I've ever seen.
You're in so much.
People probably recognize you from
a ton of different film and TV projects.
I think I personally know you most from Justified.
So can you tell me, and I think a lot of people,
it's just such a good, it was such a good show.
Did you find that people were also recognizing you
a lot from Justified, or do you still feel that
Dewey Crowe love?
- When people who saw Justified recognize me,
they definitely get excited about that show
because people who watch Justified love Justified
and definitely for me,
playing Dewey was one of the highlights of my career.
It was also the first kind of major job that I got
in America when I first started coming over here,
and I think that show opened a lot of other doors.
So I'm forever grateful.
- Yeah, he was such an interesting character because
we were talking about it earlier and it's like,
he was technically a bad guy
but you felt sorry for him though
and everyone kinda treated him bad
and you were just so, he just had such an innocence.
- Yeah, there was a childlike quality to him that,
it's one of those things when you're doing a show
over a period of years that,
in the pilot, for example, if you watched the pilot,
which Dewey is in, he's not quite
the same Dewey that he became
because no one really knew who he was at that point.
The writers didn't know and I didn't know.
We started writing, they're writing a version of him
and I'm playing a version of him.
At some point, they and I separately or together,
I don't know, tapped into that kind of hapless,
pathetic, kind of innocent thing
that they then wrote brilliantly for,
so whenever the new scripts came out,
it would just be so fun seeing what absurd situation
he got himself into this time.
- And I found out in some research,
you've been acting a really long time also,
since you were a kid, yeah?
- I have, yeah, yeah.
I started when I was eight in Australia,
and when I was 10, I was on a TV series there
called The Sullivans which was kind of like
our version of The Waltons.
And I did a lot of acting around 10, 11, 12,
and then sort of lost interest through high school,
assumed that that was a hobby I did as a kid
and I would find a normal job now.
And then, when I finished high school,
I kinda didn't really know what I wanted to do,
and I sorta fell back into acting again.
- Wow, you pretty much had the same job your entire life.
- Pretty much.
I've done some other fill-in jobs too.
If you're an actor, especially if you're an actor
in a place like Australia where there's nowhere near
as much work as here, you kinda need another job.
And I, throughout my 20s actually, for nine years,
I worked in an office in an insurance company
as well as being an actor.
Yeah, so I would go to auditions in my shirt and tie
after selling insurance or paying someone's claim,
or I'd go away for a few months to do a play
or to do a movie or something.
But it wasn't until, I kinda left that job at 27 and went,
you know what, I need to take this a bit more seriously
because if I keep doing this office job,
I might never leave.
It was still a bit of a struggle financially
until my 30s, I guess.
And things sort of changed when I came over here.
Even that took a while, but I did a film in Australia
called House of Wax, which was an American film
that Paris Hilton was in.
- [Natalie] I've seen it. (laughs)
- You've seen it, you said.
That kinda sorta changed things for me in a big way really
because I hadn't, I'd sorta dipped my toe in
coming to America a few years earlier.
I didn't have any American credits,
and it was almost impossible getting agents
or auditions, all that stuff.
So I came over for the premiere of House of Wax,
and that sort of opened some doors.
Only little kind of tiny opening,
but having an American credit,
playing an American character,
not dissimilar from Dewey Crowe actually,
that sort of started slowly leading to more work over here.
- So Once Upon a Time in Hollywood,
how did the role come to you?
Did you get a phone call, an email,
and what's your reaction when you hear what this is?
- Essentially it came about through,
I knew a couple of actors on the set
who were already cast in
Once Upon a Time in Hollywood. - It was almost
a Justified reunion.
- It was, and Timothy Olyphant from Justified
is one of the people I have to thank
and another actor called Nicholas Hammond
who lives in Australia now, who people would know
from The Sound of Music, he played Friedrich, the oldest son
and he played Spider-Man interestingly in the 70s,
the 70s versions which are a little different
from the current versions but.
Anyway, Nicholas is a friend of mine,
Timothy is a friend of mine from Justified,
and they sort of got together and both ended up
putting in a word to Quentin about getting me to audition.
And Quentin Tarantino is actually a massive Justified fan.
He has seen the whole thing, loves the whole thing.
He's worked with Timothy, Walton Goggins on Hateful Eight.
So just that alone, I think, helped get that audition,
the fact that he loved Justified.
They wouldn't email the pages because it was that secretive.
They had to FedEx the pages.
Because, was it Hateful Eight that got released?
One of them got released online
when it wasn't meant to. - I think you're right.
- The script got released.
And I think to be vigilant
and really be ultra careful about that,
they made sure there was no digital copy of the script.
I heard that I was being FedEx-ed
these pages for an audition,
and yeah, and then, I open it up and it says,
"A shaggy stranger appears."
I'm like, who might this be?
Maybe two weeks later, I got a call saying I got the role,
and yeah, it's a pretty great call
to get as an actor, for sure.
- So it didn't actually say, did it say like, Charlie?
- It ended up saying Charlie throughout the scene, yeah.
- Okay, gotcha.
And were you familiar with Manson at all?
- I'd read Helter Skelter a few years earlier,
and I'd seen documentaries before.
But certainly, when you're playing someone who's real-life,
you want to make sure that you do all the research you can
and watch everything you can,
so I went pretty deep into watching
every interview he'd done and reading books and podcasts
and all sorts of stuff.
- His personality, I can't imagine
watching all the interviews, doing all that research,
and then having to portray this person.
Did you find it hard to shake off?
Was it difficult getting into character?
- Definitely didn't find it hard to shake off, thankfully.
I'm not one of those actors who stays in character,
not even, but after Cut, I'm back to myself.
So it's, yeah, that's not a character you want to be
spending a lot of time with at the end of the day.
But look, yeah, it's a hard,
he's such a complex, he was such a complex guy.
There's not, he wasn't a one-dimensional villain.
The guy had so much going on,
and he was almost certainly suffering from
probably several mental disorders.
And at times, he sounded like a crazy person.
At times, he actually spoke some sense.
Obviously that was the rarer occasion.
At times, he seemed terrifying.
At times, he seemed completely sane.
So it's very confusing for an actor trying to
take all that stuff on.
What was interesting actually watching the interviews,
he would kinda up the crazy elements
if the interviewer was treating him like he was crazy.
There's an interviewer he does with Ron Reagan Junior,
where Ron Reagan Junior talks to him like
a completely normal person.
And it's probably the only interview where you see him
kind of close to, as close to normal as
you're likely to see him.
He kind of can't, he doesn't get an opportunity
to kinda crazy it up because
the interviewer is being, is not kind of cajoling him
and nudging him into that territory.
But yeah, it's one of the harder roles
that I've had to play, for sure,
and especially knowing that people know who he is
and know what he's like.
So there's an added pressure on getting that right.
- And then, how did you and Quentin work together on
sort of honing that character?
I think I've heard him say that
he sort of also bounces off of the actor
because some actors like a lot of direction
and some actors don't.
But how was it for you two in that dynamic
when you're on set and everything?
Is he pretty hands-on with you or?
- He's kind of the perfect amount.
He's incredibly enthusiastic.
He makes you feel really good.
When he's happy after a scene,
he lets you know, know on certain terms.
And that's a really nice feeling.
Yeah, he's like a big enthusiastic kid
who still loves making movies.
He doesn't give too many notes,
he doesn't do too many takes.
He seems to know when he's got what we wants,
and he moves on even though he has the luxury of probably
doing as many takes as he wants.
He sorta doesn't do that unnecessarily.
Sometimes, his direction would be
kinda acting out the scene in a way,
but in a way that kinda, it's sort of a,
I don't know, like a cartoony version of
what the version is that he wants,
but it's really helpful because you know,
you're watching him do it and you're like,
I know exactly what he wants that to be,
even though it's not exactly that,
it's not literally that, but he's really great at
getting that across.
And of course, his dialogue is just so amazing.
As an actor, people talk about the Tarantino dialogue
and actors talk about, there's no question,
it's the best dialogue I ever got to say.
I said to him while we were shooting,
"You write good acting into your dialogue,
"like I feel like anyone can say this
"and it'll make them seem like they're a good actor."
Because the dialogue is so well-written.
It was one of the most fun times I've had on any job.
- And speaking of the dialogue,
is it true that he is very particular about saying
every exact word the way,
like you can't really, I've heard that he doesn't like
anyone to sort of improv or go off, off-script?
- I've heard that too.
It never came up.
I think I was probably so determined to learn every word.
And by the way, you don't want to change it
because it's so perfect.
- Yeah, you shouldn't really have to.
And then, from the trailer it looks like
Brad Pitt's character is sorta like,
being ushered onto Spahn Ranch.
So what's it like working with Brad Pitt?
What's your dynamic like?
- Yeah, he's an incredibly lovely guy.
We don't have a huge amount to do in the film together,
but he was just really sweet and down to earth on set.
All the actors actually that I've got to work with
or met in the process of making that film
were really lovely and really down to earth.
I think there's a thing that happens where
the bigger and more successful a production is
or the actors are that are working on it,
you tend to notice going into those jobs,
not that I've done that many of them but
they're the most calm, the least diva-ish,
the most down to earth.
It's a really nice feeling being around that
because you could easily walk onto that set
expecting to feel the opposite.
- Again, I know I started with this,
but you just have so many projects
that you're just taking over.
The Nightingale looks pretty cool,
and that's the Jennifer Kent film.
So I know The Babadook was, has a big cult following.
What can you say about her as a writer, director?
When you got that script, what did you think,
and what was that experience like?
- It was an incredible experience.
That film is quite different from The Babadook
in that it's a drama.
It's not a horror film but it's horrific in its own way.
It tells a story.
It's not a true story, but it's certainly based on
events that, the type of events that took place
in the 1800s in Tasmania, which is a state of Australia.
And yeah look, getting to work with Jen was incredible.
She's one of those directors who is a true artist.
She is so incredibly passionate about what she does,
and she wanted to tell this story
which is basically about this convict girl
who decides to take revenge on these soldiers
who have brutalized her and her family.
And it was a hard job because it was winter in Tasmania,
which is pretty cold,
and there's some dark material in there.
And I play one of the soldiers who is in my list of
unpleasant guys that I've played.
He's right up there.
- Well, hopefully we'll get to see you maybe
shift back towards the characters from
the beginning of your career maybe a little bit more.
- Well, in Perpetual Grace, Limited,
which is the show that I just,
sort of the most recent film I did over here,
I feel like that pivot has begun.
The character in that,
he's involved in some criminal activity
but he's actually a really sweet guy.
And he's kind of more of a Robin Hood.
He's stealing from his parents
who were stealing from their church,
and he wants to use the money for good.
And he's a really interesting character
and has a kind of a similar childlike quality to Dewey
but he's actually genuinely smart whereas Dewey was not.
- Thank you so much for stopping by.
It was so great to talk to you.
- My pleasure.
- Anyone watching, if you want to see Damon in anything,
just basically turn your TV or go to the theater,
and you can catch him on something.
Well, thank you again.
So nice talking to you. - Thanks, Natalie.
- [Natalie] Thanks everybody for watching.