With the release of "Shine" back in 1996, Scott Hicks suddenly found himself basking in the light with a Best Director nomination and a spot on Hollywood's A-list. Starring Geoffrey Rush as real-life pianist David Helfgott, the film launched the Australian actor's career, earning him an Oscar and a Golden Globe for Best Actor. He followed that with "Snow Falling on Cedars," an adaptation of the bestselling novel by David Guterson, "Hearts in Atlantis" and, more recently, "No Reservations," all of which sputtered at the box office. Now he's back with one of the most talked-about films of the season, "The Boys Are Back," starring Clive Owen as a widower trying to piece together a life for himself and his two sons. Here, Hicks talks about working with actors, his own strengths and shortcomings as a father, and the fate of character-driven drama.
"Shine" was over a decade ago. Is it getting harder to make character-driven dramas?
It is more difficult. But as long as there are directors and actors who are willing to commit themselves to doing these things, it can happen.
The problem is tere's always an opportunity with a smaller film to make a bigger profit -- it's just not on the scale that people want. It's billions they're after, not the old $100 million. When you make a film like "Shine," which was made for $4 million and grossed over a hundred, it's the equivalent of a billion-dollar movie.
So why does everything today have to be so big?
Piracy makes everything so vulnerable that the bigger scale you can make it -- the bigger 3D and the bigger theatrical movie experience you can make it -- you make it harder for the pirates to catch up. I think that's what 3D is about. I think 3D is about making it desirable to still go to the theater. Then pirates will figure out how to make 3D DVDs, and the studios will have tol find something else.
In "The Boys Are Back," you've got Clive playing a widower trying to raise two sons. How essential was it for the actor in this role to be a parent?
Though it isn't essential, it definitely informs it on another level. Clive brought things from his personal life. He'd say to me, "There's this thing that my daughter does -- would that be interesting?" So it was infused with his own experience and some of mine as well.
How did your own experience affect it?
When you're off for six months on a film, and you've got a 5-year-old at home gazing out the window saying, "I want to die cause daddy's gone away" -- that sort of thing is very hard to accommodate. Then you come back and you step in the role of parenting, it's resented a bit, you know, cause, "Where have you been? How come you can come back now and tell me what to do?" So you have to re-earn your position of authority.
