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The Sunday Telegraph
Magazine (October 15, 2000)
Colin Friels - A rare insight to the
passion and pain of a private man - The private pain of a reluctant player
Colin Friels sees himself as
small fry, an average bloke. He's nobody's hero, just a man whose greatest
performances are his private achievements as father, husband, cancer survivor. Liz
Van Den Nieuwenhof reports.
If our eyes truly mirror internal journeys then Colin Friels has survived a
savage voyage. A voyage that swept him to perilous shores and back, but not
before extracting every scrap of his endurance. You would never expect him to
admit as much, given that Friels is renowned for his almost maniacal aversion to
publicity. He had already cancelled one interview at short notice, citing some
snafu over diary dates, and it took weeks to re-schedule this meeting.
So we proceed cautiously and delicately in a faux-English pub within bowshot of
the Sydney harborside home he shares with his wife, the stellar actress Judy
Davis, and their two children.
The publicist had found us a quiet corner where, on this flawless spring
morning, we're assailed by the stale smell of beer and smoke. It doesn't seem to
bother Friels, who orders us English breakfast tea and, apart from those pained
and telling cobalt-blue eyes, makes every attempt at appearing relaxed and
co-operative.
For all the charm and silken smiles, though, there's no doubt Friels has changed
since his Water Rats days when he entranced millions of television viewers with
his portrayal of the maverick detective Frank Holloway. Gone is the rugged
intensity he'd engaged so winningly as the hard-bitten harbor copper, and his
once-dark mop of hair is now liberally peppered with grey.
In his black jeans and snug-fitting grey T-shirt it's also apparent that Friels
has lost a considerable amount of weight. Despite the physical transformation,
the 47-year-old actor carries a newfound ease that is quite unexpected. It is,
he confides, something he has tried hard to master since his agonising battle
with pancreatic cancer just over two years ago. Surprisingly, he is the first to
broach the subject and does so rather blithely. "I do this thing qigong
which is basically a healing art," he says between sips of tepid, milky
tea. "I work with some wonderful Chinese people and it has been absolutely
terrific. They have a great saying, the Chinese, that what is raised high will
be brought low. It is all about balance."
He has achieved it, he says, with some effort after years of having done
everything to excess. He smoked heavily, drank too much on occasion and worked
with impassioned zeal, most notably on Water Rats. He says it was the latter
which had the greatest impact on his health. "I loved working in
television, but God it was a hard slog. It just about killed me. I only did it
for 18 months, but then I got sick and had to leave. And I must say, in the end
I couldn't get out fast enough."
The first six months, he says, were enjoyable, for he had developed a wonderful
rapport with the cast, especially his co-star, Catherine McClements, who played
the part of his feisty off-sider Goldie. But after that it was like treading
water. "I realised then that what was needed was a good deal more control.
It sounds enormously egotistical but we needed the whole production supporting
the leads so that (the show) was constantly changing. Instead it all kind of
just tapered off." He could have walked away the instant he got sick but Friels said he felt
duty-bound to "round it all off". In retrospect he now admits it was a
foolhardy, if not reckless decision.
"It took just too much out of me. I'd get the chemo on Fridays and then get
back to work on Tuesdays and finish all the shooting by Thursday evening. I'd be
just fit enough and vaguely remember what it was like to be human again when it
was time for yet another chemo session."
He underwent seven gruelling months of chemotherapy but decided against making
it common knowledge on the Water Rats set. "I did it mainly because of the
kids; so that Jack wouldn't get it at school. People used to say I looked very
thin and I'd jokingly tell them that's what happens when you're training for a
triathlon. I never made much of it and I didn't want anyone to know."
Indeed, his cancer treatment would have remained under wraps had Friels not had
to appear in a Balmain court in 1998 on a charge of offensive behavior following
a traffic incident with a bus driver. The magistrate dismissed the charge after
Friels told the court he had undergone surgery only days before the incident and
was receiving chemotherapy.
(...)
Although theatre remains his first love, Friels shot to prominence with his film
work, most notably his lead role as Javo, the drug addict in the Australian film
Monkey Grip based on Helen Garner's novel. Then came the lead as Rufus Dawes in
the compelling television series For The Term of His Natural Life, followed by
much speculation as to whether he would join his NIDA classmate Mel Gibson as
Australia's new leading international star. As it panned out his wife beat him
to it, first with her widely acclaimed part in My Brilliant Career, followed by
David Lean's A Passage To India and then in a swag of Woody Allen films.
Not that Friels has ever been short of work. He co-starred with his wife in High
Tide as well as Kangaroo and played the part of a stuffy diplomat in Bruce
Beresford's A Good Man in Africa. But it was Friels' engaging portrayal of an
idiot savant with a talent for devising unusual gadgets in Nadia Tass's
critically acclaimed film Malcolm that won him an Australian Film Institute
award for best actor. To date it remains his most commercially successful
performance.
Friels says he has never had much ambition and has no reservations about
accepting parts turned down by other actors. "That's how I stayed in work.
I've never set out to be somewhere. Never had goals. Actually, I'm really small
fry. I'm your local, working actor and I never wanted to be anything else."
Part of it may lie in Friels' hellbent determination to skirt fame. He continues
to go out of his way to avoid attention unless he's specifically called upon to
promote a film or play. In this case it's for Marriage Acts, his first return to
television after Water Rats.
"To deliberately set out to seek fame can be very, very dangerous," he
observes gingerly. "It's insanity. It comes down to a whole philosophical
question of self-worth. I'm sure it would lead to certain disorders for there
would be something seriously the matter with you if you needed fame. "To be
honest I wouldn't mind some of the roles other actors get, but they can keep the
glitz and glamor. Frankly, I don't know how people like Robert De Niro survive.
I'm sure they can't walk out on the street and that must be terrible."
He has always cherished anonymity and loves the fact that he is mostly able to
wander along Sydney's streets without being recognised. He even makes light of
once suffering the ignominy of not being recognised by a theatre director.
"That was when I had just joined the South Australian Theatre Company and
the director was introducing everybody. I wasn't introduced and he turned to me
and asked `What can we do for you?' I told him I was Colin Friels and he
replied, `Sorry, I thought you were the carpenter.' How's that for getting
things off to a good start?" he guffaws.
For all his self-deprecating banter Friels remains one of the country's most
highly regarded actors. Certainly, Robert Marchand, the director of Marriage
Acts, can't praise him enough. It was the first time they had worked together
and Marchand was blown away by the performance. "He's quite inspirational
in a way because clearly he has been through something quite major and pulled
himself by his own sheer willpower out the other side. I thought he was
extremely clever in the way he approached Marriage Acts in terms of now being on
the recovery road. He paced himself extremely well. There was certainly no
question of making allowances for someone who was sick. On the contrary, he was
a delight to work with and we got down to a kind of shorthand of working
together very quickly."
Friels, he feels, is almost the antithesis of method. There is little agonising
over character and he's breathtakingly instinctive. "It's very much hit the
moment and I guess it comes from years of doing it. But also, he's a guy who can
fairly rapidly sort out what matters in a script. He saves himself for when it
matters."
According to Marchand, Marriage Acts was an ideal vehicle for Friels. "On
face value it appears to be another genre thriller about a family court judge
having a bomb left in his letter box. But what I love about it, and I think it's
what Colin sees about it too, is that really the bomb is a metaphor. A kind of
catalyst to the judge's own life exploding ... his marriage, his relationships
with his children. Here's a man who spends his life tinkering with other
people's lives in court who has absolutely no idea of the state of his
own."
On a more personal level, Marriage Acts marks an important step in Friels'
journey to restored health. It has been long and tortuous and even Friels admits
he misjudged the rate of his recovery by appearing in Ian Judge's Sydney Theatre
Company production of Macbeth not long after his cancer treatment.
"It was way too soon, but I was very keen to know if I had the strength to
do it," he says, his voice controlled and steady. "I remember when I
first came out of hospital I felt so weak I couldn't even walk to our veranda.
My surgeon, this brilliant man, warned me that I wouldn't be strong for a long,
long time but by the time Macbeth came along I had to find out whether I could
do it ... get through it.
"So I threw myself into it and realised that, in fact, I didn't have the
strength to do what I should have. I probably have more strength now but I
realise that it'll take me a while. I'm still recovering and I think it takes
you a good two years for sure. I'm now going to take much greater care. I've
come to respect life a lot more."
In addition to his qigong sessions, Friels regularly consults a Chinese
herbalist and acupuncturist. He has also quit smoking and drinking coffee, but
occasionally allows himself a good drop of red.
Asked if he ever felt defeated by his illness, Friels takes a moment to reflect,
his eyes deepening with emotion: "At one stage, when I was undergoing
chemotherapy, I told my doctor that I was feeling very down. He assured me it
was natural because when I was diagnosed with cancer I was 45, which is middish-life.
I mean on top of that you get a totally life-threatening cancer and you're told
you're going to die. Well, you end up reflecting quite a lot. It just totally
sapped me."
Now he seems almost driven by a desire to create and pursue things he considers
uplifting and beautiful. "I feel almost as if I'm starting anew. I don't
want to go back a day. I just want to keep acting ... to refine and make it
beautiful. I can't paint, I can't write and I can't direct. All my creativity
finds expression in my acting.
"And you know, you get to my age and you realise you're not going to set
any rivers on fire. But it doesn't matter. I never had those sorts of ambitions.
I guess I was a bit too anal to be good. I always wanted to be a good actor but
then you sort of just let go. You no longer care what you look like ... your
self-consciousness just goes."
Next year he will appear in The Farm, a drama series for the ABC, opposite Greta
Scacchi, as well as a tele-movie for Channel 10, My Husband My Killer, based on
the case of self-made millionaire Andrew Kalajzich who was sentenced to life
imprisonment for the murder of his wife. But Friels is adamant he'll continue to
pace himself and to spend as much time as possible with his family. Apart from
work he seldom socialises and can't remember when he last went to a movie. But
thanks to daughter Charlotte, Friels has become acquainted with the Hooley
Dooleys. "I've come to know all the songs in my ripe old age," he
laughs.
Los Angeles may be where it's at for a lot of successful young Australian
actors, but it is not for Friels. He tried it once, when his wife had a stint
working in the US, and is in no hurry to return. "I ended up doing a couple
of little things while I was there. I did Class Action with Gene Hackman but it
all got cut to bits. On top of that I had to speak with this American accent. I
felt and sounded like a complete dork," he says.
For now he is quite content to pick and choose his roles, to accompany his wife
on her ventures and to enjoy the life he came so close to losing.
"Fortunately I don't have a mortgage so I can say 'no' more often."
With that we're done and once the photographs are taken a relieved Friels just
about bolts out the pub door, clearly anxious to return home to his young
daughter and those dreaded Hooley Dooleys.
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