"I imagine him leaning on a door with his arms folded and an eyebrow arched, listening Insouciant is the word".
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Robert Connolly (the director, the script writer, "The Bank", "Three Dollars"):
"There is an extraordinary intellectual rigour there at work in David on everything he does. He will dissect everything down to the finest detail. When you work with him, he knows how to tweak a performance in microscopic ways. He is able to perform to fine degrees, like a great concert pianist knows dozens of permutations of strengths on the pedal".
***
"David's like that. It won't matter how many takes we do, he always knows how to press down or ease off, even if it is to the infinitesimal degree to get what it is we are after. Sometimes we don't have to say what it is; he just knows. He even knows what lens we are using and adjusts his performance to fit".
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"There is a reserved quality about him. It is like a choice he has made to reserve some part of himself from the world. He has worked out how he can be an actor and yet not have to reveal all of himself. There is a part of him he doesn't want the world to see".
***
"I've certainly never been in the same room as anything that comes close to the intensity and dramatic force he delivers,"
***
"For all his diffidence, the accidental actor has had a judicious, measured career. It took six years to take The Boys from play to film. In that time David was offered several Brett Sprague-style roles, but he rejected them. He knew that the role in The Boys, if and when it got made into a film, would be important for him and he didn't want to dilute it. Which showed a kind of strategic long-term view of his career".
***
"As an actor, he totally immerses himself in whatever role he's playing, without question or complaint. He's an actor's actor, but with a real sensibility of what a director wants from a character. You couldn't ask to work with a better guy".
***
"I think it's a terrific time in his career because he's an actor who could have been pigeon-holed into the great character actor. In a film like Better Than Sex and certainly in The Bank, he's taken that step where he's just a leading man. They're very different skills".
***
"A lot of character elements you can fall back on and you can use to conceal yourself. Whereas leading-man roles, especially if you look at American stars, are always playing some element in themselves and depending on that star charisma to carry a film. David has made that step. Better Than Sex is such a terrific performance, itТs star performance".
***
"It's wonderful to see a friend who you know to be incredibly talented doing so well. It's also funny to see your mate on the big screen firing arrows at dragons. But that's what's great about David, he embraces whatever you throw at him, whether it's a subtle everyman character like Eddie in Three Dollars or something fantastical like Faramir".
***
"The difference with him as an actor. He's not only intuitive like a lot of actors, but he combines his craft with a rigorous intellect. He's not dissimilar to Geoffrey Rush or Cate Blanchett in that. He's also very much into going for the interesting role rather than the starring role. His career has been built on fantastic character roles, and he's constantly defying people's expectations. I'd never be surprised by anything he does, whether it's Father Damien or one of the leads in Lord Of The Rings."
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"On set he has this incredible knack when things are malty stressful and everybody's working in a difficult situation to swing into this comic mode which is absolutely hilarious.1 saw the comic banter between him and Anthony LaPaglia. It made me think there's a fantastic comic role out them for him. He's a very very funny man".
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Rowan Woods (the director, "Tran the man", "The Boys"):
"With Brett, there's a very uncompromising attitude too use a stillness and silence. I don't think I've ever seen a performance where the audience is waiting for someone to speak. Daze uses it to great dramatic effect. He's very strategic as an actor like that. But it's also cunning in relation to the character of Brett who manipulates those characters around him and makes people nervous around him because of the way that he behaves and the way y that he manipulates situa- tions to his own end".
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"You can see it in all Dazey's work. He really goes for it. If Dazey's going to fail at anything he'll fail gloriously and I love him for that, not just as a director but as a fan of movies".
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Andrew Knight (the script writer, "SeaChange", "After the deluge"):
"We didn't have anyone in mind for the part (Dan) and when I went to Sydney to screen [test] David I thought he would be a bit too middleclass and clean cut and too young. But straight after his test, I called Deb and said, `We've found him! We've found him!' I couldn't believe it when he agreed to do the series. He's being offered every single role under the sun at the moment".
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"David's not exactly ugly. And he knows how to do humour without trampling all over it. You also get a depth and a resonance - he gives you all things".
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"Nothing he does is a caricature. You don't feel now he's playing the tough guy - he is the tough guy. He's mesmerisingly clever because he's unspectacularly so. He's a perfectionist but you don't feel the struggle; he makes sure that what goes out is absolutely plausible".
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"He forever keeps surprising you with what he uncovers within the character you've created".
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Paul Cox (the director, "Molokai: The Story of Father Damien"):
"We're all ordinary people in the end but there's something extra about him. He's observing: he's working on something. You know that there's something burning in him that needs to come out".
***
(on tattoo, which David and he had got after shootings of "Molokai"):
"Turtle is the Hawaiian symbol of peace and earth and all that, to remind us of very tricky days. It has become a companion for life. I would be the last person to get a tattoo. So is David. But when we meet, we always bring the tattoos together, let them greet one another".
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Jonathan Teplitzky (the director,the script writer,"Better Than Sex", "Gettin` Square"):
"While someone like Tom Cruise is a very physical actor, everything's about running about the place, Wenham is the exact opposite. The emotional core where the character comes from is inside him and it comes out just as violent and just as powerful but from a different place."
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"David brings that laconic character humour to everything he does and he's like that in real life.I just really like the laconic atmosphere that follows him."
***
"When I was writing the script
("Better Than Sex"), there was only one actor in Australia who immediately came to mind and that was David Wenham but it was a total pipe-dream to
even think we could get him for the role. We discussed it, but it was almost a case of 'David would be too busy,' or 'David is too big a star,' and that sort of stuff, but just for the hell of it, we finally sent the script to his agent and he read it and really liked it. Both Susie and David are incredibly intelligent and interested in doing projects that hopefully will stretch them as actors, and maybe that's why the script appealed to them both."
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"I'll go away thinking that it's easy shooting sex scenes. But I recognize that with two other people, it could have been a totally different experience".
***
"David had a lot of fun building Spitieri
("Gettin` Square"). He came back one day with the most awful pair of jeans you've ever seen. But it was the way he wore and used them to develop his costume and, at the same time, somehow adding a layer of empathy. He was happy to look completely like a pile of shit all the time. Once that hair piece and the thongs went on at the beginning of the day, David came out of the trailer and had the character."
***
"Before shooting each of his scenes, Wenham pinched the bridge of his nose with his fingers. I thought he had a headache and asked if he was OK. He was fine, but was trying to get that slightly washed-out look in his pupils."
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Chris Nyst (the script writer,"Gettin' Square"):
"When I fist sat down with director, Jonathan Teplitzky, to talk about the casting of our crime flick Getting` Square, he already had one name penciled in. Jonathan announced with absolute conviction that David Wenham would bring something special to the role of the hapless junkie Johnny Spitiery. Frankly, I had my doubts. Of course I knew of the celebrated, award-winning actor, whose handsome Diver Dan in SeaChange had female television audiences swooning, but somehow I couldn't imagine the man once dubbed "Australia's sexiest man alive" fitting into junky Johnny's leopard-skin wedgie and rubber thongs. I was soon to learn how very wrong I was.
It's not until you spend some time in the company of the affable and unassuming David Wenham that you discover the empathy and intelligence that fire his rare talent, allowing him to tap into the essence of characters as diverse as the dark and menacing tribal leader of The Boys (Rowan Woods, 1997), Molokai's (Paul Cox, 1998) pious Father Damien, and Getting's Square's (Jonathan Teplitzky, 2003) disarmingly conniving Johnny Spit".
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John Clark (the director,the script writer,"Stiff", "The Brush Off"):
"I expected to find David extremely intelligent, a very, very good actor and extremely good company - which he is because I know a lot of people who regard him in a very high way".
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"An audience is very rewarded by watching the performance of the marvelous David Wenham, who is such a great observer of little things in the way we behave. There are lots of times where the audience realizes what Murray is thinking but the character he's speaking to doesn't, and David does it to so deftly it's a ripper to watch."
***
"I think if a writer is very good during their life, when they die David Wenham plays the lead in something they'd written. If you adapt this sort of book, you need to convert the secret relationship between the writer and the reader into a secret relationship between the central character and the viewer, and thatТs what David does. He's brilliant at being looked at because he knows what to show you".
***
"David has a terrific gift for conveying what he's feeling by the expression on his face. He has a real gift for noticing and for putting this across. He has a wonderful understanding. And David does the comedy as if it isn't there. This is the sort of humour where if people didn't find it funny you'd say, 'Well, it isn't meant to be.' "
***
"He has a wonderful gift for doing things that are telling but quite little. He had a real instinct for doing very small things and seemed to really understand Murray. Murray has a job and a suit and we were organising his character's look.
David said 'I don't know that Murray would have a briefcase', and I agreed.
"He said 'I think he's the sort of bloke who would carry his stuff around in a plastic bag'." Which is anathema to directors as plastic bags make loads of noise.
"He said 'I'll make it work, don't worry'. I said 'How?' And he said 'Because I carry all my stuff around in a plastic bag'. It's a lovely touch. It wasn't in the book or script it was David."
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Shane Maloney (the writer, "Stiff", "The Brush off"):
"He's one of those actors who has the capacity to make you see the wheels turning."
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Stephen Sommers (the director,the script writer, "Van Helsing"):
"I get this tape, pop it in, and this guy comes up. First of all he has no neck, bad haircut and big floppy ears and I'm like `He looks perfect'. Then his performance was amazing. When I met him I go: `Wow, this guy is a really handsome guy, what did you do?" Wenham replied: ``Well, I gave myself a really bad haircut, slumped and put this (tape) behind my ears." ... It's a hard role because you are the comic sidekick, and yet you have to deliver the story and people have to buy it. When David Wenham is talking about vampires and werewolfs and the mythology, you're listening and you're believing it because he's believing it. He's so honest. A lot of actors couldn't pull that off because he's the comic sidekick and yet, when he's serious you're buying every moment that he's serious."
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Jessica Hobbs (the director,"Answered by fire"):
"I wonder whether we've seen everything he can do. He can just disappear into a role".
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"He has a great physical ability to not be seen. I've been out with him in public, where there's sudden recognition, after an hour. He makes a great quiet entrance if he wants to".
***
"He would keenly feel any loss of anonymity. He would be devastated if he didn't have that. He loves those little details in life, those quiet, private moments in people's life. He's a great observer".
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Zack Snyder (the director,"300"):
"I wanted him early on. The tape was just a technicality for everyone at the studio to say 'Yeah, he's great'. I had been a fan of David's for a long time and I knew he could do a good English accent from Lord of the Rings. He's just such a diverse actor. You see him in Moulin Rouge and you're like 'What? He's the same guy?'"
***
"David was confused and said to me 'What are we wearing in the movie. I'm a little scared. I've seen the graphic novel and not only do they wear little leather outfits some of the time, but in other times they're completely naked. What's your take on that?' I said 'You'll be completely naked all the time'. I told him I was joking of course. Then David said 'OK, we're going to be in those little outfits. I'll need to do a little training'."
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Mark Twight (the trainer, "300"):
"...self-effacing... his attitude in the gym go better and better as the project wore on. Other began coasting once they thought they looked good enough but David stayed on".
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Ira Sachs (the director, "Married Life"):
"I had seen David in The Boys and I needed someone who was as good an actor as the other four. I immediately thought of him. I generally like character actors who can be leading men and leading men who can be character actors. David, like Chris Cooper, can be both. He's a nimble actor. He has a charge to him, in person as well as on screen. I have to see him as Diver Dan. Everyone keeps telling me about SeaChange. I'm going to see him for dinner tonight so I'll tell him he's got to get me a copy."
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Donna Woolfolk Cross (the writer, "Pope Joan"):
"David Wenham! Oh, I'm so glad you've heard of him! I have great news for you...he's an absolute sweetheart. He is the nicest man in the world. I just adore him to pieces".
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Adam Cullen (thr artist, the author of the portrait of David, the winner of Archibald 2000):
"Wenham has the ability to absorb and take on any character and the ability to project a powerful intensity in an extremely economical way, without an excess of action. All that intensity he has goes into the empty space around him. So you are aware of an absence, something you cannot get to. This is what is fascinating about him. He is in that space."
***
"I suppose the portrait looks quite normal, straightforward, just like David does or like he presents himself to be. But it is what is not there, what is absent, what he has put aside in reserve, that is what holds you. Definitely with him, it is what you are not allowed to see$ that is what gives you the experience of intense presence with David".
***
"After the portrait was completed, I showed it to him. He sat in silence for quite a long period of time. And than he said I had caught a part of him no one has ever seen before. What that was or what he meant, no one will ever know".
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