A Guy Thing
Film star Guy Pearce rankles at the phrase ‘film star’. That’s what you label matinee idols who deliver the same cleft-jawed performance project after project. Pearce is a different animal – in many respects a character actor trapped inside a matinee idol’s body.
Just look at the guy’s run of roles in the last ten years – a vitriolic drag queen, a puritan cop, Andy Warhol, Harry Houdini, a spun-out amnesiac and frontier cowboy – and you’ll start to see a pattern: there is none. And that’s the way Pearce likes it. He’d rather you see one of his films and become swept up in who he’s playing rather than who he is, beneath the prophylactic lips.
On a rare wet day in Melbourne – the photo shoot had to be moved from parkland to bowls club – I met the man of many hats, and asked him to talk us through his varied resume. The feature on your right is the outcome. Enjoy the read, and the oncoming onslaught of Pearce projects at a silver screen near you: Death Defying Acts, The Hurt Locker, Winged Creatures, How To Change in 9 Weeks and maybe, just maybe, a traipse through Cormac McCarthy’s stark ashlands in The Road next year…..