"I'm the most envied woman in Sydney. My best friend calls me a bitch. My neighbour crosses the road when she sees me. Even my mother has turned against me. And all I told them was that I was interviewing David Wenham".
♦ Lynden Barber ("DRAMATIC ENTRANCE"):
"See him as Brett Sprague in The Boys - the ringleader of three brothers who commit an extreme act of violence against an anonymous woman -and you could be forgiven for rubbing your eyes in disbelief and declaring this a different actor altogether. While Dan's light blue eyes sparkled with wellintentioned mischief, those of exconvict Brett were cold and full of hate.
Yet the performances did have something in common: through those eyes one could sense a rare artfulness -a mind always working two steps ahead of the dialogue. The roles earned him two nominations in this year's Australian Film Institute Awards. Many insiders were surprised when he failed to walk away with either of them, particularly for The Boys, widely seen as one of the most memorable performances the Australian film industry has produced in the past decade".
♦ Gina Leros ("Just a suburban boy"):
"He may try to shrug the label, and remind fans that he's just a down-to-earth block from suburban roots, but it's the young actor's chameleon talent to blame for luring such a huge female following. The 33-year-old`s romantic role as Diver Dan in the popular ABC television series SeaChange has probably earned him the heart-throb tag. A retired shark wrangler who's also great with a skillet: who wouldn't swoon at a good-looking rugged but sensitive, gourmet-cooking male?"
***
"Some critics claimed the laughing blue eyes of Diver Dan and cold, piercing ones of Brett Sprague couldn't possibly belong to the some face. But it's David every time and we'll be seeing a lot more of him - whoever he chooses to be".
♦ Rosemarie Milsom ("Wenham not just one of The Boys")
"He is far more reserved than fIamboyant and there's a distinct absence of actorly affectation. There are moments during the two-hour interview when he pauses more than he speaks. And while he seems self-conscious, he manages to draw you in with a kind of understated charm. He's an unlikely pin-up whose unconventional looks － closely trimmed ginger beard, smallish frame, toothy grin－and transformative abiIity set him apart from the pack.
When we first meet earlier in the day at the office of publicist Maria Farmer, Wenham is scanning the sport pages for the Weekend AFL match reports. He's in good spirits because his beloved Swans((he's been a club member for a decade) clawed their way to a 21-point victory against Hawthorn in Melbourne the day before.
His is dressed in an elegant black Gucci suit on loan from the fashion house for the recent Melbourn International Film Festival at which his soon to be released thriller, The Bank, had its world premiere. He doesn't intend to prance around town in the expensive suit－it's just for the photo shoot－and has brought a change of clothes.
The women in the office fuss over his stylishly dishevelled shock of strawberry blonde hair, calling him by his childhood nickname, "Daisy". There's something slightIy camp about the scene played out in the narrow corridor. "We've had another request for you to do an interview with HM, what do you think？" asks Farmer, seated in front of her computer. "ummm, I'm not sure if it's my thing. " offers Wenham. "I don't have silicone breasts".
♦ Greg Callaghan ("SCENE CHANGE") :
"Some actors have it, others don't. Judging from some recent notices, Wenham has it in spades. He pours himself into a character, like jelly into a mould, whether it's a brute or a wimp, a nerd or a ladykiller, a rake or a cuckold" (...)
***
"Wenham, who has spent the past decade quietly chalking up awards for his stage and movie performances, has been crowned a sex symbol by a small army of women journalists. "It's so bizarre; the skinny kid from Marrickville being described in newspaper and magazine stories as a sex symbol," marvels Wenham. "I just don't get it."
Nor do I. In the flesh he's shortish and skinny, with an agreeable enough face that is slightly pockmarked from adolescent acne. Wenham doesn't come across as your standard smouldering hunk: for our photo shoot in a pool later in the day, he obligingly strips down to his boardies but sensibly demands that only his head and shoulders be photographed. After an advance screening of Better than Sex - which tracks a three-day affair from lust to love - a male reviewer warmly praised Wenham's performance, but quipped that he shouldn't have taken his clothes off. No problems, Wenham cheerfully rejoins: he was never comfortable with the tag of babe magnet anyway ("I've had a steady girlfriend for seven years, thank you very much").
But ask the actor's peers about his talents and the responses verge on the rapturous"(...)
Such glowing testimonials would normally drive a jaded journalist to hunt down naysayers and critics, but apart from some unverifiable backstage gossip, Wenham does not seem to have earned himself any real enemies".
♦ Alex Craig ("The Quiet Achiever"):
"Still there's something about the man, even when sick and washed-out, that's remarkably true. He wins me over with a simple "hello" because of the way it springs out. It's like he's just been startled awake by life, his blue eyes widening. Wcnham looks you in the eye, shakes your hand and then steps back. Left trailing in his wake is a kind of bemused graciousness that just hangs about like a cloud."
***
"...He's normal, and that's what makes him so likeable. He helps the photographer carry his equipment down to the lobby, even though he's running a fever. He endures endless photo set-ups in varying states of undress with easy-going cooperation. He is polite to the last, and answers every question put to him.
Yet, yet... I've spent three hours with the man and I have absolutely no idea who he is."
***
"Wenham is like atmosphere. He communicates complex emotions onscreen without emoting. In everyday life, there's a powerful stillness about him. But it's as opaque as the ocean on the calmest, sunniest day. There's no struggle against silence. He doesn't fidget or look away or ignore you. He sits with you, equal and self-contained, companionable. It's admirable because it's so rare to be able to hold it".
***
There's a Pythonesquc side to Wenham. Throughout the afternoon he displays a highly developed antenna for the faintly ridiculous veering into the downright hilarious. His recollections and anecdotes have a daffy loopiness. He sends himself up, and then tosses it off with a shake of the head, before spluttering with laughter. Life is a ludicrous thing. Let's call these moments Wenhamisms"...
♦ Charles Wooley ("David Wenham: The Mask"):
"Wenham is an actor, famously reluctant to perform except when he's in character. Then the words flow and a kind of, well, a kind of "seachange" comes over David. Sometimes, yeah, I do have a confidence problem".
***
"This television profile has been a somewhat uneasy voyage for David Wenham; a creative and talented actor, an award-winner known for his ability to play a wide range of characters. But a man strangely tortured by an endearing shyness that seems to make it so hard to play the most elusive role of all himself".
♦ Robert Fidgeon ("The What, Where, Why of WENHAM"):
"It's the questions about David Wenham that most trouble David Wenham. It's as if he's surprised the who-he-is-and-what-makes-him-tick questions would be of interest to anybody.
"I don't even find it all that easy talking about the work," he says, the familiar Wenham half-smile of bemusement flicking at his mouth. "And as for me ..." The words trail off. He shrugs. Smiles again. Fiercely Aussie, Wenham is a hell of lot more comfortable talking about this equally intense Australian flick".
***
"But this time around he's keener than ever to get home to Kate, now midway through her pregnancy with their first child.
He is keen to see how the bump that represents the start of his own family has grown on his fit and stunning girlfriend.
Of course he is also keen to return to all that quintessential Sydney stuff; a short black at his favourite Darlinghurst cafe, scrambled eggs at Bills, even the sight of a Sydney bus.
Wenham's name is now synonymous with Sydney's inner-west".
♦ Ted Murphy ("On the Verge ..."):
♦ Meeting in the lobby of his Manhattan hotel, the ruggedly handsome, light-haired actor projected a quiet calm and somewhat shy demeanor. While admitting that interviews "aren't my favorite thing," he proved delightful company, answering questions with a directness and a down-to-earth quality that many celebrities simply don't have".
♦ Catherine Keenan
:("Heist society")
"I am waiting by the trailers and trucks laden with film equipment, on one of those too-bright Gold Coast days, when a junkie comes up, thrusts his hand at me and says "Hi, I'm David."
He looks revolting - greasy mullet, yellow teeth, cold sores. I am about to turn away when I notice something familiar about the eyes.
My God: this scrawny guy in the too-tight stone-washed jeans is David Wenham".
("Watch this face")
"With the tape recorder off, Wenham is a wry, entertaining lunch companion; with it on, he is much less loquacious. "I don't offer very much, I know that. It's dreadful."
On the subject of fame, he becomes positively tongue-tied. He already has a modicum of it but leads a resolutely normal, A-list-shunning lifestyle with long-term partner Kate Agnew, an actor and yoga teacher. He doesn't even want to consider how that may change when millions of Tolkien geeks see him on the big screen. "I have no idea. I have no idea and don't spend any time thinking about it. I have no idea. I don't know." The wind blows our salad around and one of my potato chips hits Wenham in the arm. He laughs, lazily throwing one of his own in the air to make me feel better. I am reminded of director David Caesar's observation: "I imagine him leaning on a door with his arms folded and an eyebrow arched, listening." Insouciant is the word, Caesar says. It seems to sum Wenham up".
♦ Angela Bennie ("Blue-eyed boy"):
(on portrait of David Wenham by Adam Cullen)
"He is wearing a black, V-necked pullover, his sharp face a slightly pockmarked, pasty creamy-yellow above it. His scraggly red beard is clipped unevenly and carelessly to the jaw-line; his unkempt, spiky hair is the colour of chopped straw. There is a strange stillness in his body, but the eyes, they are what hold you, pools of innocent sky blue, gazing almost blankly out at the world around him. It is very difficult to look away from these pools of blue. Meet David Wenham, actor".
***
"It is one thing for an Archibald prize-winning portrait to cause controversy this is par for the course for the Archibald. But it is not the debate about the execution of the work that is interesting here. Something else takes precedence and that something might be called the "Wenham factor".
This is public's and the viewer's constant attempts to "read" Wenham, his character and personality, the need to seek out and grasp some essence perceived to be there in this portrait of him. This is what is intriguing".
***
"There is something modest, ordinary, unpretentious about Wenham. It is as though he is signaling, with his soft voice and slightly withdrawn manner: "Hey, I'm no star!" When asked if he has ambitions to join "the Oscar club" alongside his mates Geoffrey Rush, Cate Blanchett and co. he gives an emphatic "O gosh, no!" That is the last thing on his mind, he says: "I have no other goal than to do what I do well. Winning Oscars is not part of my thinking".
♦ Michael Shmith("Spit Image"):
"It would be a mistake, though, to say that Wenham is the sort of actor who vanishes into himself with nothing to show but a mask and a few muted responses. On the contrary, he is lively, loves a good laugh, and is most articulate about his work, although a portcullis descends if one approaches too closely the ramparts of his private life".
♦ Margaret Pomeranz ("Seeking words of wisdom"):
"Wenham's name on a film's poster almost always ensures success, partly because of his gregariousness. In America, to make it in film acting, it helps to have an aura of elite glamour about you. Wenham's popularity here is based on the opposite. His spiky, sandy hair, freckles and lanky gait are the start of it. His laconic air and shy smile make us fell we could be standing next to him in a pub, swapping yarns".
***
"He's sooo cute and masculine. And he doesn't seem to alienate the blokes: he has this laconic, slightly weatherbeaten style they can relate to".
♦ Graeme Blundell ("Trouble in Timor") :
"Wenham is the kind of actor who collaborates with the character he plays in order to create an inseparable fusion of fact and fiction.
It's increasingly difficult to detect where his characters begin and where Wenham evanesces. And he is terrific in this series (Answered by Fire), gravely intelligent and, out of respect for his fellow actors one suspects, decently self-effacing for someone so charismatic".
***
"Asked how closely he had followed events in East Timor, the answer is emphatic: ''Very. Full stop. Or exclamation mark,'' he says in a phone interview. ''I saw a documentary, John Pilger's Death of a Nation: The Timor Conspiracy, and it affected me and angered me, so I joined the Australia-East Timor Association to get information on what was happening there.''
Hobbs says that initially the Timorese were hesitant around the blue-eyed film star. But Wenham told her he felt as though each scene brought him down to earth. ''Don't be apprehensive,'' he told his Timorese colleagues. ''I have to get to where you already are.''
♦ Debi Enker (" Stars answer worthy call"):
"Then, in a wrecked United Nations compound, surrounded by armed Australian Army officers, there is the peculiar figure of David Wenham - Diver Dan from SeaChange, Johnny Spiteri in Gettin' Square, Faramir in The Lord of the Rings arched over touching his toes with his fingers. He springs back up and stretches his arms. He takes three deep breaths and shakes himself loose like a boxer preparing for a title fight. He's now ready for Scene 98A of Answered By Fire, listed in his call sheet as: "Mark watches as Jose makes a phone call." East Timor-born extra Julia Magno giggles at Wenham's odd stretching ritual. "Quiet on set," calls first assistant director, Ian Kenny. Magno covers her mouth with her hand. Wenham throws her a cheeky grin. Kenny looks across at director Jessica Hobbs. Hobbs views the scene through the camera frame. The landscape is a destroyed East Timor, circa September 1999".
***
"When Samuels heard Wenham was on board to play the lead, she immediately sent a group email out to her friends. In the subject box she typed a message in capital letters: "WE'VE GOT WENHAM!"
On the 35th day of the shoot, Wenham's value is palpable. It shows on screen as well as off, where he's always boosting morale with a joke or a well-placed compliment.
While the physical-effects crew and a team of set decorators transform the village soccer field into a helicopter landing pad, Wenham plays a game of soccer with a group of younger East Timorese extras.
"He's not like Tom Cruise," says Magno, watching Wenham from the sidelines of the soccer field. "He's not: 'Ooohh look, I'm sooo famous.' He talks to everybody. He has lunch and dinner with us every night."
♦ Gerard Wright ("The Invisible man"):
"He says very little but every story written about David Wenham refers both to his capacity to transform himself and become Anyman be it Faramir in two instalments of The Lord Of The Rings trilogy, or the psychopathic Brett Sprague in The Boys, the reissued snag Diver Dan in SeaChange or the whining, hilarious junkie Johnny Spitieri in Gettin` Square and the crisis of self-belief that accompanies every new role".
***
"There are plenty of actors who don't like talking about their personal lives. What's intriguing about Wenham's insistence on privacy is that it's motivated by professional reasons... The ability to watch unobserved is not something Wenham will give away easily".
***
"In the face of fame, Wenham has maintained at least some of his private rituals. One is walking to whichever theatre he's performing in. Another is watching the Sydney Swans with whom he has been smitten since the Aussie rules team were South Melbourne and he learnt the rules from his local butcher in Marrickville. Sunday games at the Sydney Cricket Ground are best, a downhill walk from his home in Potts Point.
But there is a door into the life of David Wenham that remains firmly shut. It is the door that hides home and family and personal history. Occasionally, Wenham will nudge it ajar. We know that as a child he was noted for his impressions - he did a memorable Gough Whitlam - and his parents Bill and Kath, were not only relaxed about the stray theatrical gene that had appeared in the family, they actively nurtured it, with his father buying him theatre subscriptions for his birthdays. He didn't make it through the auditions at the National Institute of Dramatic Art but was accepted at Nepean College in Western Sydney. His partner of 12 years, Kate Agnew, is a yoga teacher and actor; their daughter, Eliza, was born in 2003. He's quiet but assertive, and he'd rather not talk about all that".
***
"The turtle makes a brief appearance between costume changes in the photographic studio in Los Angeles where Wenham is trying on clothes. At one point, he stands alone by a window, wearing a brown leather jacket while trying on expressions to match. There is an instant when he glances back from the window giving a look of pure malevolence; it's like a diamond reflecting darkness.
That is what Wenham's reputation rests upon: the capacity to absorb and then remake a character"...
♦ Melissa Field ("The star of David"):
"Despite his genuine embarrassment and modesty regarding the heartthrob label, there's no denying that, in the flesh, the 41-year-old doesn't disappoint.
The guy is gorgeous and exudes star quality. Clad in a pair of loose, distressed jeans and a fitted black shirt, his appearance is casual but one that would almost certainly elicit a second appreciative glance on the street.
The blue eyes are piercing and the strawberry blond hair messed just so leaves you with little doubt that you're hanging out with a real-life moviestar.
Thankfully, despite the charisma overload, Wenham is approachable and unassuming. Arriving at Sunday Magazine's shoot on foot from his nearby home in Sydney's inner west, devoid of an entourage, he's happy to sip a latte from a polystyrene cup, put up his feet and talk freely. His attention is undivided and his answers considered and thoughtful. Good looking and good company.
Could David Wenham be too good to be true? "
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