Andrew Dominik, director
I spent seven years thinking about Mark “Chopper” Read. A violent criminal, Mark was notorious in Australia in a minor way – until he published a series of autobiographies, which is how I heard about him. I believe the first one is the most stolen book in Australian publishing history.
I see it this way: if violence is a problem, you need to understand the violent person, not the victim. The thing about Mark was his stance of regretting nothing, but then he would describe dreams where he saw his victims. Clearly, there was a disconnect between what he claimed and who he really was. I’m interested in that personal mythology, the way some people don’t see the wider world, just themselves – because I think that’s my own problem.
It wasn’t until I actually met Mark that the script took shape. I got a sense of what he was like. He was all feeling. He had a few rules: he didn’t want to be portrayed taking any drugs, committing violence towards women, and nor could any of his poetry be included. All of those things are in the movie. I tried to give him the script while he was still in prison, so he could blow his top and then calm down. But he refused to read it.
Every actor in Australia, including Russell Crowe and Ben Mendelsohn, had a go at reading for the role. All the boys want to play psycho killers. Eric Bana didn’t seem like a good idea initially. He was a TV comedian, on a show called Full Frontal, but his audition was amazing. Afterwards, I spent a day working with him. By the end, it was obvious it was going to be him.
We never could have made the film for A$2m (£1.1m) if Pentridge Prison, where Mark had been held, hadn’t been decommissioned around that time. We shot it all there, in the places where it actually happened. You can sit with all the accoutrements of film-making, but if you remind actors that this is the room where the stabbing happened, you get a chill you can take advantage of.
As a first-time director, I found it pretty scary. The first week, we shot the worst and also the best shit. By the weekend, I had one film that looked like a Jean-Pierre Melville film and another that looked like a Carry On movie. I got rid of the Carry On stuff, then resisted the temptation to be a “good” director – one who meets his daily schedule. I just shot until I thought it was good.
Mark said watching the movie made him realise he did crazy things. When he was in the moment, he felt his behaviour was normal. But looking at it from the outside, watching some guy do what he did, he realised he was wrong. I think it’s interesting that he didn’t go back to jail after he became a writer. He was starting to face himself.
Australian audiences loved Chopper. There was a cartoon around the time of the Afghanistan invasion, with the prime minister saying: “No, I’m not sending choppers – I’m sending Chopper.” The film made him the most notorious criminal in Australia. I don’t think it turned him into a hero, but charm goes a long way.
Eric Bana, actor
I grew up in Melbourne, so I knew about Mark and what he’d done. Chopper was a really unusual script – very funny, very dark. I was confident I could portray him. Spending time with Mark was priceless, but I knew there could be real ramifications if things didn’t go well. We just listened to him talk about prison and his theories about life and people. I got that sense of an alpha presence and soaked it up like a sponge.
Filming the first half felt like riding a bike up a hill, while the second half was like skateboarding back down it. A lot of the criminals and screws were played by people who had served time in that jail. Being there in the middle of winter had a real dark energy.
I always joked with Andrew that there was never a scene when I just asked: “Can I have a pie, please?” Everything was loaded and had deep meaning. During difficult scenes, I fell back on two things: what was truthful and my complete trust in Andrew, that he wasn’t whoring out the subject for some kind of violence porn.
It took two to three hours to get ready every day. I would shave my head myself to make the prosthetics for my hacked-off ears easier to glue down. Applying the tattoos took many hours of painstaking hand-drawn artwork and they would only last about two days. So we only did them when I had to have my shirt off.
I was probably more worried for Andrew than I was for myself regarding Mark’s reaction. Obviously, I hope he enjoyed my performance, that it didn’t make him cringe and it felt truthful. But I never talked to him directly about it, maybe out of respect. I never pretended Mark and I were going to end up best mates.
Chopper is out now in cinemas and on digital platforms to mark the 20th anniversary of its release.
