One of the highlights of Judd Apatow’s “Funny People” for me was Eric Bana’s supporting performance, a perfect blend of jack-assery and sincere complexity that stood out from the otherwise troubled film (along with Adam Sandler’s rather brilliant portrayal). It wasn’t until later, though, that it hit me how diverse Bana’s output has been so far this year, with featured but strikingly varied roles in Apatow’s film, “Star Trek” and “The Time Traveler’s Wife.”
I haven’t seen the latter yet, but I was pretty much on-board for Bana’s villainous turn in J.J. Abrams’s franchise reboot. The role perhaps suffered from a lack of motivation in many ways, the only botched element of the story, but that’s not Bana’s fault and he carried across a Romulan vengeance-seeker with relative ease, I thought.
Well I guess I’m not the only one impressed by Bana’s versatility this summer. Writing in the pages of the Chicago Tribune, Lisa Rosen has taken note, using the occasion to remind that “Funny People” brings Bana back to his first brush with entertainment years ago in his native Australia.
Writes Rosen:
“Funny People” marks Bana’s first foray into feature comedies, but it also returns him to his roots. Born and raised in Melbourne, he remembers seeing only American movies until “Mad Max” came out. “Suddenly, here was this movie that was shot in my own backyard, all about cars” — Bana’s first love — “and there was this lead actor who was Australian. It had a really big impact on me.”
He knew he wanted to act but had no idea how to get into it, so he wound up performing stand-up. Discovered quickly, he worked on sketch comedy television shows in Australia. After a few years he started feeling burned out, just at the time he was offered the lead role in the drama “Chopper,” a film about Mark “Chopper” Read, a legendary criminal in Australia. His intense performance resounded thousands of miles away in Hollywood.
Now, 10 years after leaving comedy behind, Bana, 40, has circled back.
Check out the rest at the Chicago Tribune.
Comments
6 responses to “Eric Bana’s summer versatility”
‘Chopper’ is a fantastic film and brilliantly portrayed by Bana. Australian films are so underrated these days. ‘Mad Max’, ‘Romper Stomper’, etc…. Great films.
Eric Bana is a superbly gifted actor & a great mimic. Bana comes across as being nice in his interviews , and he doesn’t seem to care for the media blitz . I expect Oscar nominations in his near future. He is very selective on his film projects, which is incredibly smart on his part. He hijacked scenes from Brad Pitt & Orlando Bloom in “Troy”, he was deliciously evil in “Star Trek “. And, I am still in awe of his hauntingly complex performance in “Munich”.
P.S. these Australian & New Zealand actors are truly taking over Hollywood with little difficulty.
I have to agree. I am happy for his successes this year and hope they continue. Underrated actor; not always in the very best of films.
My favorite Bana performance remains “Munich”, but I thought he was terrific in “Star Trek”. Nero wasn’t a particularly complex character, but Bana made him legitimately frightening, plus I didn’t even recognize him. Manohla Dargis at the NYTimes had a nice line about how he’s “an actor that knows how to take villainy seriously”. Indeed.
Lisa Rosen needs to do her her research (or, at least, learn to check IMDB); Bana’s made two forays into feature comedies in Australia – ‘The Castle’ and ‘The Nugget’.
i agree on his bad guy in Star Strek , usually i like this actor in movies .
I never understand why he’s not bigger(he acted in Munich and Troie after all)