belinda mcclory
it’ll star belinda mcclory (hewitt won’t work with any other) and one male actor .
belinda mcclory was born in 1968 in adelaide, south australia, australia. she is an actress and writer, known for
belinda mcclory revisits ozploitation in turkey shoot remake | daily review: film, stage and music reviews, interviews and more .
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belinda mcclory (born november 1, 1968) is an australian actress who played switch in the matrix .
he saw her on the tv, cast her to star in his movie – and now he’s married her. belinda mcclory tells how the writer / director of redball, john hewitt, found her. andrew l. urban reports .
ginnane has decided to bring ozploitation back to oz, in a remake directed and written by jon hewitt with co - writer belinda mcclory. mcclory, who is best known as an actor for her work in film (t he matrix), tv and on stage, also stars in turkey shoot as meredith baxter, a tv executive desperate for ratings .
belinda’s first professional job as an actor was at the age of 14 opposite geoffrey rush and john wood in jim sharman’s production of sunrise for the sa theatre company .
belinda mcclory was born in 1968 in adelaide, south australia, australia. she is an actress and writer, known for the matrix (1999), x (2011) and mullet (2001). she has been married to jon hewitt since january 30, 1999 .
with mcclory in the limo were husband hewitt, and matrix co - star hugo weaving with his partner kirsty .
belinda has also written and script edited numerous feature films and was the recipient of the seaborn - walford - foundation award for the screen adaptation of patrick white’s “the eye of the storm” .
hewitt didn’t realise then that mcclory was the daughter of a cop and knew all about police lives being shattered by the work .
john hewitt was watching janus, the police drama series on abc, back then in 1994, and was struck by belinda mcclory’s on screen presence and her overall acting skills. effortless, natural, vulnerable, sensitive, strong…his mind ticking off the qualities. he set about writing the screenplay for his intended ‘police revenge fantasy’ redball, with belinda playing the central role of homicide detective jj wilson. she was to portray a frustrated detective – one of several – who is hamstrung in her efforts to bring a criminal – a child killer - to justice .
now, five years later, with the film releasing (finally) and being launched internationally at the 1999 cannes film festival, mcclory and hewitt are married, and have spent two of their eight married weeks in america, specifically for the premiere of the matrix, in which mcclory plays switch, a revolutionary in the company of morpheus (laurence fishburne) .
we are sitting in one of the smallest cafes in east sydney, a new place with about eight small tables shuffled into a wedge shape space adjacent to a tiny kitchen. mcclory is still jet lagged and tired from the los angeles trip, which included a side - trip to las vegas so they could reenact their wedding in the ‘elvis’ chapel. for fun. mcclory orders chicken done in green tea and i go for the cold rare roast beef salad .
it was a bit scary ,
says mcclory of the west hollywood premiere .
i hadn’t been warned how vocal the american audiences can get…when we got out of the limo there were a couple of thousand people and they just screamed !
and that’s why mcclory is concerned that the film is upsetting some police (particularly the victorian police) with its brutal honesty about police procedures, the temptations and the ugly side of law enforcement .
i did it for other motives – and john wrote it as a revenge fantasy for cops; he loves the police .
the contrast between these two films in which mcclory appears could not be greater. redball is a low budget thriller shot over a few weekends in melbourne; the actors had to turn up in their own clothes and they got paid late. the matrix is a big budget sci fi action drama with hundreds of special effects, shot over five months in sydney .
mcclory thrived on working with hewitt (but she hastens to add that it was not an on - set affair .
i was very irish about it – i didn’t sleep with him until a year later…
) .
it was great – john let us do what we felt; the camera just followed us. it was very free and organic, to coin a wanky phrase .
mcclory thinks she has been naïve about this ;
i thought people would see it on a human level, perhaps with some understanding of what these people go through. they have to shut off half of themselves to do the work. i never expected the film to be seen as an indictment. and i though the police would at least privately acknowledge the struggle involved in dealing with the job… .
but that freedom clearly worked for mcclory (indeed, all the cast) because her performance is sensational .
at the time ,
she says matter of factly ,
i knew i was doing something but i didn’t know what that was. it wasn’t until i saw the finished film that i realised i was doing a good job .
she says this with no sign of self - aggrendisement, but clearly some pride .
adjusting to married life, mcclory and hewitt have also teamed up professionally – as writers. they are working on several projects, but one that stands out is called grim .
john is writing this one on his own. we’re hoping to shoot it later this year. it’s a one take movie, shot in two hours over one weekend. it’ll take a lot of co - ordination but i think it can be done .
mcclory overcomes her jet lag and talks amicably, occasionally animated by the subject; no doubt about it, she has an emotional investment in her role and in the film .
look, at 30, i am very happy to be doing this kind of role. there aren’t many scripts with big female roles like this. here is a detective doing her job – and i want people to be clear that she’s cracking up not because she’s a chick but because of the work .
hewitt gathered a lot of his material like many writers do – just living his life. he once worked in a melbourne pub where the major crime squad gathers to drink and unwind .
he heard their stories, and there is also stuff that comes from the papers. but what doesn’t come across in the papers ,
says mcclory ,
is the cops’ humanity. we both love cops – so much so ,
she says ,
i took a role in blue heelers as a good cop just to show the victorian police i was an actress – i could play good cop, too .
my father was a cop until i was 12 ,
she says .
he was in plain clothes cib…he adored the job but it changed him and he brought that home. no - one but police understand it…it made him an insomniac and an alcoholic. our home was violent…. because police carry around the horror perpetually. you can’t not be effected by what you see every day. that’s why this character of jj wilson appealed to me .
glossary of police slang redball – a high - priority case which generally places investigating officers under extreme pressure .
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since graduating from the vca she has worked extensively in theatre, film and tv opposite performers as diverse as helen morse, keanu reeves, cate blanchett, joel edgerton, rachel grifiths, guy pearce and robyn nevin .
she has worked for all the major australian theatre companies, performed on stage in paris, london, vienna and germany, and has won both a helpmann and green room award for her theatre work. she’s a 3 time afi nominee for her work in tv and film .
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set in a dystopian future where a group of people in a prison camp are forced to hunt and kill each other. produced by
we asked her a few questions about the remake, which is currently in limited theatrical release .
i first watched turkey shoot in the late ’90s. it was a great introduction to ozploitation. since meeting my husband jon hewitt, my cinema palette has become decidedly more catholic. he’s introduced me to a much more diverse range of genres, ozploitation being one of them. the original turkey shoot is a little dated now, but still a guilty pleasure !
when tony ginnane approached us to remake one of his old movies, we trawled his back - catalogue and narrowed it down to turkey shoot and thirst. we already have our own vampire project (avampyr) in development, so we chose turkey shoot .
simplistically, i think the lone person stepping up and making a difference / changing the world story is a direct response to a world constantly at war. people feel smaller and less connected in the world, our technology is running us ragged 24 / 7. people are tired and want change, that’s why the hero / survivor stories are so strong at the moment. it’s cinematic political fantasy .
this is the fourth screenplay i’ve co - written that has been produced – darklovestory, x, turkey shoot and acolytes (uncredited). since making redball in 1996, jon and i have written maybe 20 screenplays together. not all of them see the light of day !
writing is always a challenge, but collaboration helps me overcome the tyranny of the blank page. writing with jon is always fun. sure we fight sometimes, but that only pushes the work into a rigorous, more detailed place – we keep each other on our toes .
having confidence in the strength of your material in the face of the constant evaluation and intervention that is script development; whilst also being open to the good ideas that come with it .
you can’t do either on your own, film just involves a lot more people. in the theatre, a production could involve 50 people in order to tell a story. on the matrix it was over 400! at script level on turkey shoot we were lucky enough to work with hollywood script editor sheila hanahan taylor. her knowledge and insights into the action / adventure genre were invaluable to us. i feel very lucky to have worked with her – she loves genre and was tough but fair !
i’ve always believed that a film script is a blueprint for something else, and if you choose your fellow storytellers well, it’s exciting and exhilarating to see it transform in a way that is sometimes beyond your wildest dreams. you’re only as good as the people you work with. i think in theatre the emphasis is very much on the spoken word, it’s central with images or stage pictures assisting audience imagination, whereas there’s so much more in the toy box in film than the script to tell the story. don’t get me wrong – a film script has to be rich and detailed and completely water - tight, but it doesn’t have to be king .
your films as an actor have included the matrix and redball – action / violence films - but this is a long way from your more rarified theatre work. is that a conscious choice ?
i don’t think so. i’m attracted to strong, interesting female roles period. regardless of the medium, i enjoy playing women with dramatic story arcs (hopefully with a dark side) that also embrace some sort of social commentary. i have been extremely lucky in the diversity of work that has presented itself over the years. and i haven’t been afraid to say no .
i don’t. in fact i’ve never been attracted to the action / adventure genre, bond and bourne and the original mad max aside – which is why i agreed to do turkey shoot. it was a challenge to try and write in this style, to inject great female roles and a social conscience into a male - oriented genre that is usually just content to kick ass and blow shit up .
we didn’t want to do an homage to campy schlock which a straight remake would have been, but the central story trope of humans hunting humans for entertainment has a long history in the action / adventure genre – most dangerous game, running man, battle royale, etc. a major influence for me was a reality tv show i saw on us television whose subject was child cage fighting. it was like the voice, but instead of singing, these children were literally fighting each other to get into the next round. it was so disturbing and macabre. i thought, how far can this go? where are we going as a society when this is entertainment? the premise in turkey shoot is simply an extension of that – live death on tv for ratings supremacy .
i think audiences are as adventurous now as they were 30 years ago, it’s just mainstream filmmaking that has become more conservative. could last tango in paris be made today? also, the way audiences consume movies is completely different now – challenging and adventurous films (including most non - english language films) are mostly experienced outside of a traditional cinema release these days .
you’ve got to remember what your target audience wants and deliver it in a fast moving and entertaining way. but that doesn’t stop you from sneaking - in a rich and challenging sub - text. we wanted to make a serpentine thriller that had some meat on it’s bones .
the fabulous thing about my work is that one thing sort of leads into another. acting is my first love, i’ve been working professionally since i was 14 and hopefully i will always find some sort of work, especially in the theatre. but jon and i continue to work on our own film projects and i do enjoy script editing too. i have just been approached to write and direct a short film that will be part of an all - female horror anthology. if i throw enough mud, hopefully some of it will stick! i want to do it all .
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belinda mcclory ( born 1 november 1968 ) is an australian film , television and stage actress , mainly known for her role in the matrix . mcclory was born in adelaide , australia . her father was a police officer , giving her insight to the life of a cop and their family . on 30 january 1999 she married director jon hewitt . she received a helpmann award for best female actor in a supporting role in a play for her role in the 2004 australian production of frozen . 
belinda mcclory (born 1 november 1968) is an australian film, television and stage actress, mainly known for her role in the matrix. mcclory was born in adelaide, australia. her father was a police officer, giving her insight to the life of a cop and their family. on 30 january 1999 she married director jon hewitt. she received a helpmann award for best female actor in a supporting role in a play for her role in the 2004 australian production of frozen.
belinda mcclory (born 1 november 1968) is an australian film, television and stage actress, mainly known for her role in the matrix. mcclory was born in adelaide, australia. her father was a police officer, giving her insight to the life of a cop and their family. on 30 january 1999 she married director jon hewitt. she received a helpmann award for best female actor in a supporting role in a play for her role in the 2004 australian production of frozen.