2019 Hector Crawford Memorial Lecture: Collaborate more with actors

“Literally, I am 50, and no producer has ever asked me if I had a show until I spoke with Darren (Dale) at a party,” Rachel Griffiths told the Screen Forever conference in Melbourne yesterday.

Such a conversation with producer Darren Dale led to ABC’s Total Control.

As the acclaimed actor, director, producer delivered the annual Hector Crawford Memorial Lecture, Griffiths’ message to a packed room of film & TV producers -both experienced and emerging- was to collaborate more with actors.

“I believe collaboration is at the core of creativity and it has never been more true than right now in our business,” she said.

“Now I am no expert on this. I have much to learn and I will die ignorant. But I speak as a woman with a career of unwonted opinions. Who has navigated the business for 25 years and has shared with female actors challenges in the process: wishing we had intimacy coaches to help handling confronting material we felt we had no voice in. Aching for the language that we are now woke to, to describe the otherness we feel when alienated by and imprisoned in poor representations of our human and female experience.

“I have also used lawyers, run from bad faith collaborators, had corporate coaches to help deal with sociopaths. Used Valium as an anxiety crutch in conflict-ridden meetings and I’ve gotten out of hotel rooms just in time. In the words of Helen Mirren I wish I had said ‘f*** off ‘ a lot more.”

She referenced everyone from Lucille Ball to Matchbox Pictures collaborating with Back to Back Theatre and Cate Blanchett on Stateless.

“Matchbox’s Stateless is a great example coming out of conversations with Cate Blanchett and (producer) Elise McCredie over an issue they were equally passionate about. They brought the pitch to Matchbox and both creators were in the first conversations with commissioners.”

She added, “Another reason to engage with performers is that we also have great instincts for identifying other talent. I found an Indigenous comedian Steph Tisdell in a YouTube troving, absolutely fell in love with her, I pitched her to the Writer’s room of Total Control. Set up with and Anne Churchill Brown and she secured representation last week. That happened over three days in which I just got so excited by her unique voice.

“Amy Poehler, Elizabeth Banks, Oprah, Reese Witherspoon, all speak to this passion to respond to other talent. We can also pick up the phone, call talent directly and those of us at the pointy end can call top agents internationally and get material read quickly.

“We are passionate, able to excite the money, and are often purpose-led in what we do. Most importantly, I think we actors are intrinsic collaborators.”

Griffiths also addressed a recurring theme a this year’s conference: the need for more diversity.

Commercial networks were still scared to embrace diversity across the board, she suggested.

“There is really only one choice. You die with your ageing white audience or you embrace diversity. Think of it like chemo. It feels wrong to introduce anything foreign into your blood and yes it’s a shock when you get it in your veins but after a while you feel OK. There is a small moment when you look in the mirror, freak out because you can’t recognise yourself with no hair but then bam you are cancer-free.

“If that sounds too scary, just put some diversity into your board rooms. I know there are guys in networks you would rather take the chemo option. But collaborative mindset starts upstairs.

“So it is dark times right now and I know the white guys are feeling embattled but I can assure you, you are still winning. #Thejoker #Chernobyl. Because if anything says white guys are still worth watching, it is definitely that show.”

A passionate warrior for the arts, Griffiths needed no help in selling her message to delegates. No surprise when Ride Like a Girl is topping the box office and Total Control has wide acclaim.

To her point on never being asked if she had a story idea before Total Control she noted, it was “kind of weird, because clearly I did, and I have a few more. You can hit me up for drinks later.”