Photo: Supplied.
BY JAN NARY
Bryan Brown has achieved a worldwide reputation as one of Australia’s finest actors, but his talent isn’t confined to the stage. Rapidly becoming established as a writer, he sees the two skills as being closely related.
“I don’t think I’m an author, I’m a storyteller and I’ve been doing that for 50 years – it’s just a different platform, I think.
“I was writing the pitch for an idea I had for a series, but I started to enjoy the writing of it, and I wanted to see where it went – so I just kept going. I ended up with a seventeen-and a-half-thousand word story; different people who read it loved it, so I scribbled a few more stories down, Allen and Unwin said they’d like to publish them, and that was how it all started.”
Is it a quantum leap from being a character in someone else’s story to creating your own?
“Someone lays down a story and a character and as an actor, I interpret that character – that’s the creative part of being an actor. Here, I sit down with a blank screen and think – where do we want to go here? I come up with a character or two that interest me and I follow them to see where they’re going to take me. Within a couple of hours I might have written a thousand words and wonder: where did that come from? It comes from imagination and experience, drawing on the things you’ve known and done and things other people have done – you’re drawing on life.”
Despite decades of having his name up on the screen, Bryan is still coming to terms with having his books proudly displayed in bookshops.
“I do find it a little bit surprising to walk in and see Sweet Jimmy and The Drowning, and now The Hidden by Bryan Brown – I haven’t quite come to terms with that part of it. I’ve got used to my name on a TV show or a movie, but I can still walk into a bookshop, look at a title and think: I wonder what that’s like? – oh, that’s me!”
Bryan is no stranger to the Redlands, having filmed scenes of the popular Darby and Joan series on Minjerribah in recent years. Locals are in for a rare treat at the Cleveland Library on Saturday, November 8 when Bryan will talk about his latest crime novel The Hidden. Bookings are essential and can be made via www.redland.qld.gov.au/Libraries/Whats-on-at-your-library.
