I grew up going to the movies as a kid on Saturday afternoons, but unlike many of my American contemporaries who knew that film was going to be their world, I had no idea what I was going to do.

Then, when I was 20, I went to Europe in the way many young Australians did and still do. When I went, it was more of an adventure because we went by ship, and that journey -- five weeks at sea -- set me on this path because I got involved in the ship’s revue.

There was a closed-circuit TV on the ship, which had never been used, and we asked the entertainment officer if we could use that to do a comedy show. So by the time I got off the ship at Athens, I knew that I wanted to do something in the area of acting or writing...