DAMON HERRIMAN

Damon Herriman has had a wide-ranging career across film, television, and theatre. The Adelaidean has been our friend as much as he's been our foe. Over multiple decades now, he has also effortlessly displayed that versatility both at home and away. Switch on your telly, and it's even money you'll catch his turn as a cult leader in a Quentin Tarantino flick as a portion of his eight-episode run on 'All Saints'. Tell me, who else can say they have that level of range? Compared with his fellow Aussies who balance their craft between the domestic industry and Hollywood, he can be unfairly overlooked. But despite not always being the name on the marquee, he has consistently made clear he is one of our truly magnetic performers.

Herriman's latest project takes him back to the stage. He is travelling the country in an adaptation of 'Art', a revered French play. I spoke with him about the production and a bevy of titles for which he is best known. This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.

Herriman plays the bespectacled chum of Ben Mendelsohn's Danny in this Australian classic.

"'The Big Steal' was a huge deal when it came along. I'd been acting since I was eight. I'd done a bunch of TV, especially between 10 and 12, but I'd never done a film. I was 19 when I auditioned. I already knew who Ben Mendelsohn and Claudia Karvan were. I saw her in 'High Tide' and him in 'The Year My Voice Broke', so I was already excited by the idea of working with them. And Malcolm was a big hit, so I was familiar with Nadia Tass and David Parker, too. So, when I found out I got the part, it was definitely up there with the greatest phone calls I've ever received. I just couldn't believe I was going to be in a movie at the cinema by these filmmakers with these stars, and I had the best time. I flew from Sydney to film in Melbourne and became great pals with everyone. Angelo D'Angelo was the other actor I worked with a lot on that. Steve Bisley, of course, who had played my dad years earlier when I was a little kid.

"I think the film turned out brilliantly. It was such a great script. Interestingly, it was a mild hit when it came out. You would assume, given the number of people over the years who have mentioned it, that it was a bigger hit, but it was a real sleeper. It wasn't like 'Strictly Ballroom' or 'Muriel's Wedding'. It didn't go crazy at the box office, but I think it did really well on home video and DVD and all that, when that was a big deal. Regardless, people still mention 'The Big Steal' to me to this day. It feels like it's now considered a classic, which is lovely. It has a very fond place in my heart."

In a recurring role, Herriman appears as dimwitted criminal, Dewey.

"That was another life-changing thing. I started going to America around 2005 after doing 'House of Wax' in Australia. It was an American horror film shot in Queensland, and I was one of the only Australians playing an American in it. So, I started going to America to see whether that would open any doors. I got representation from it and did a few guest roles here and there, but it didn't go wild for me. 'Justified' is what changed a lot.

"It made a lot more doors open. It was just an audition for a pilot. I think it was called 'Law Man' at the time, but they realised there was another show called 'Law Man', so they changed the title. And the audition I had was for a character who wasn't meant to be in the series at all. But when the show got picked up, they went, 'Oh, well, let's put that character in episode two.' Then, after that, they put me in episode eight or something, and it just kept going. I was never a series regular, but I was in the whole thing except for season four. It was just a case where they would keep saying, 'Hey, where are you going to be in these months? Do you want to come back?' And I always said yes because the role was so beautifully written and clearly defined. There was a thing that happened on that show where you could feel the writers and me showing each other who the character was as it got more and more developed.

"If you look at the first episode that Dewey's in, it doesn't feel like he's fully formed yet. And that's because I didn't know who he was, and the writers probably didn't know who he was. Then they saw me do it and went, 'Okay, let's write it a little more in this direction.' I saw them doing that, and then I went, 'I can have some fun with this.' Between us, by about season three, we came up with who the character was. It was one of the most enjoyable roles I've ever had, getting to play someone who thought they were so tough and smart but was pretty much the opposite. I also got to work with great actors like Timothy Olyphant, Walton Goggins and so forth. That show made it easier to get work in America and back home as well. It's one of my great memories, for sure."

In a reinterpretation of the centuries-old tale, Herriman inhabits the diabolical Punch.

"The bad guys are often the fun ones. I spent fifteen years or so playing nerds and nice guys from 'The Big Steal' through to 'Love My Way'. I was essentially playing a different version of the same guy. I couldn't get many auditions for anything different because I was a bit pigeonholed. When I went to America, that changed because when you're starting out there, it's often guest roles as the villains in crime shows. So, suddenly, I was able to get all the roles back home in Australia that I was never able to get before leaving.

"I loved 'Judy and Punch'. The script was brilliant. Mirrah Foulkes, who wrote and directed it, is an actor whom I've acted with before. We'd been friends. When I got an audition for it initially, other than '100 Bloody Acres', another Aussie film I'd done, I'd never really done a lead role in a film. This film already had Mia Wasikowska in it. In my head, there wasn't a hope in hell I would ever get this role. And even when I auditioned for it, I thought, 'Mirrah's doing that thing that people do sometimes where they get you to audition for a bigger role to choose you then for one of the smaller roles because the bigger role has more stuff to do in the scene.' So, when I got a callback for the role of Punch after the first audition, I was like, 'Hold on, is she actually seriously considering that I might get to do this?' Then there was a third audition. It was quite an extensive process, but I desperately wanted it. Yes, definitely, he's not a good man, but it's such a well-written character. It didn't feel like a two-dimensional cartoon cutout. He felt like a real person in a fairytale world. It was a great opportunity, and I'm thankful to Mirrah for trusting me with it."

Click here to read our full Sydney Film Festival review of 'Judy & Punch'.

Herriman portrays the infamous Charles Manson twice - in David Fincher's Netflix series and Quentin Tarantino's showbiz comedy.

"That was pretty crazy. It feels crazier the more years that have passed. It was nuts because both projects were filmed in the same month. Initially, 'Mindhunter' came along. That had about a six-month lead-up because they had this incredible makeup they were going to do, which essentially made me look exactly like Charles Manson. That also gave me five months to read, watch, and learn about him and try to get my head around how to play him convincingly. I knew I couldn't just wing it because it's pretty easy to look him up online. I wanted it to seem as close to the real guy as possible.

"Then this audition came along for 'Once Upon a Time... in Hollywood', and my initial reaction was, 'There's no way they're going to cast the same guy. They're just not going to do that. Nobody's going to want someone else's version of a character. They're going to want their own.' But I also thought, 'Well, at the very least, I can try and do my best possible audition for Quentin Tarantino. Maybe it'll lead to something else.' In a way, it was one of the easier auditions I've ever done because I'd spent five months practising Manson. But what I hadn't really done, though, was look at him in 1969. I looked at him more in the early '80s when he was in jail. So, I did spend some time looking at him during that period when he was much happier and freer. He wasn't in jail. He was living on a ranch with all these followers, having a great time, as far as he was concerned. He wasn't the gruff, angry, bitter version that we see of him in 'Mindhunter'. I wanted to inject a bit more of that into it. His voice was a little lighter. Also tonally, it is totally different. There's a deleted scene on the DVD of 'Once Upon a Time' where you see him go round to the guest house at the back, and that was the audition scene. That scene's quite funny, whereas in 'Mindhunter', it's all pretty serious.

"But essentially, I auditioned for that, then flew to America to shoot 'Mindhunter'. And the day after I landed, I got a call saying, 'You got the other one.' It just seemed like it still wouldn't happen. I said, 'You've got to remind them what I'm doing.' Obviously, I was doing 'Mindhunter'. I've done all the makeup. I was set to film it in two weeks. But I heard that Tarantino didn't mind that I was already doing it and had no plans to recast, so I ended up doing both, and they were amazing experiences."

Click here to read our full theatrical review of 'Once Upon a Time... in Hollywood'.

In Robbie Williams' unconventional biopic, Herriman gives face to Take That's manager.

"Amazing. Michael Gracey, who directed and co-wrote it, is a total genius. The way his head can take visual ideas and put them on a set and shoot them is remarkable. I don't know how his brain works, but it's incredibly impressive. Every day on that film was a joy. That was another one where I was pinching myself. The script was amazing, and all the other actors I was working with - the guys playing Take That - were beautiful guys. We felt like one big family. And even though I'd been in films that were big, here I was part of a song and dance sequence to 'Rock DJ' down Regent Street in London.

"The writing was so good. Simon Gleeson was the other main writer. Between them, they did such a great job with the script. They walked that line very well of not going into potential moustache twirling for my character. It was a tricky one because it was essentially Robbie Williams' version and experience of Nigel Martin-Smith, and he really didn't like Nigel. You can't sugarcoat that character too much because Robbie is literally telling the story, and that's how his experience of Nigel was. But in the back of my head, I wanted Nigel not to be completely offended if he saw it. I wanted there to be a way of showing that this guy might've been tough to be around sometimes, but here's why. I do believe part of the reason they did so well is that he found them and put them together, after all."

Click here to read our full Boxing Day review of 'Better Man'.

The purchase of a plain white canvas painting complicates a trio's friendship. Herriman plays the purchaser.

"I hadn't done a play in 10 years. I'd been wanting to do a play recently because it's a whole different thing as an actor. It's the fact that you rehearse the whole thing and you do it all in one night. There's no stopping. Every night's unique. There are no two shows that are exactly the same. I did a lot of plays in my twenties and some in my thirties, but it had been a while. Then 'Art' just came along. I'd seen the play when I was 29, and I remember loving it. I read it again, and I remembered why I loved it. Then I heard Richard Roxburgh was going to be in it, and I was like, 'Okay, this just gets better and better.'

"I read the character of Serge, which was the one they asked me to play, and I was like, 'That would be a lot of fun to play.' Everything felt too right about it, and it's turned out to be even better than I imagined. It's just Richard, Toby Schmitz, and me having the time of our lives. We've all said we have never experienced the volume of laughter from audiences on anything. We knew this was a comedy, but I don't think any of us realised how funny it was. The regularity and volume of laughs in this show are extraordinary. So, it's been a hell of a lot of fun."

And to close with an overall reflection...

"Overall, I feel incredibly fortunate. I feel lucky because, as a kid, I watched movies and TV shows and got excited thinking, 'I wonder if that could ever happen to me.' But I was always more of a glass-half-empty guy. I never really thought it would happen. I'm more of a realist, so I just feel very appreciative. I still pinch myself. It also happened relatively late. Most of the really successful projects I've done happened after I turned 40, which is quite unusual.

"When you're 35, you're not going, 'I bet you in five years it's all going to kick in.' You're like, 'I guess it'll probably mosey along from now on.' And that was fine, too. It wasn't like I was going, 'No! I've got to have all these other opportunities come along.' But when they started to, it was a very pleasant surprise. As a way to make a living, there aren't too many more fun jobs and fun people you get to work with than getting to be an actor. If you can make a living from it, it's a pretty cool way to do life.

'Art' is playing at The Playhouse in Brisbane until the 22nd March 2026, before moving to Melbourne and later Adelaide. For more details, visit www.arttheplay.com.au.