Michael Caton's role of a lifetime

Michael Caton in The Last Taxi to Darwin. Photo / Supplied

Veteran actor Michael Caton talks to Russell Baillie about his new movie which takes the road less travelled

As Darryl Kerrigan in Aussie comedy classic The Castle, Michael Caton became possibly the most quoted man in Oz.

Whether it was "This, is going straight to the pool room" or "Tell him he's dreamin'" or indeed that great existential question "How's the serenity?", Caton's laconic delivery helped make the film comedy gold.

Caton hasn't made a movie in a while. His last was back in 2004. He's been busy with other stuff. Like presenting television show Hot Property and playing the grandfather on the long-running TV drama Packed to the Rafters.

But the 72-year-old whose screen acting debut was in an episode of Skippy and who played Uncle Harry in hugely popular 70s period drama The Sullivans seems to have found himself another great Aussie gem of a feature.

In The Last Cab to Darwin, he plays Rex, a lonely cabbie in Broken Hill, who, finding he's terminally ill, decides to drive to Darwin where the Northern Territory has made euthanasia legal.

That happened for a period in the mid-90s before it was overruled by the Australian Government. The film is based on a stage play inspired by a real story.

Now the film is out, Caton has been travelling around Australia promoting it with director Jeremy Sims. But a call from TimeOut found Caton recovering from his travels at home in Bondi.

In light of the film, one has to ask, how's the health?
Not bad mate, except for this rotten cold, which I picked up in Broken Hill about two weeks ago and I have been spreading around Australia ever since.

Was it the cold nights in Broken Hill that did it?
Yeah, well, it was, mate. And then we went from Adelaide to Darwin to Cairns to Townsville and we plunged down to Tasmania and the temperature drops alarmingly. But speaking to someone from New Zealand, I can't tell you a thing.

Yeah, don't talk to me about cold. So how did you get the part?
I worked with Jeremy some time ago in the 90s. And five years ago he approached me to do a semi-rehearsed reading at the Dandenong Film Festival, and so we got some mates together and we had a reading for 200 or 300 people there and it just sort of affected everybody. The audience were in tears at the reading and, unfortunately, so was I, which isn't incredibly kosher. And from that time on, he said, "You're the one.

"On the face of it, it's not an easy sell. It's a film about an old fella driving to Darwin to die.
I think a lot of people think it's going to be this pathos all the way. But actually there are some lovely, funny scenes in it as well, like when Ningali Lawford appears as my girlfriend.

Or people might go, "It's that guy from The Castle. That will be funny".
It is funny but at the same time it's not me being funny, it's the people around me.

You're the tent pole in the circus. Everyone else is the clown.
Thank God I'm tall, mate. That's all I can say.

You haven't done that many films over the years, have you?
No mate, not as many as I would have liked to.

Are you picky?
You've got to be asked. It's not like a painter where you can go out and paint. You've got to be asked. And then I was tied up with Packed to the Rafters. But mind you, that's only six months of the year, and there was time to do other things. Such is life, I guess.

In this film there are a lot of scenes of you driving or you are sitting in bed hooked up to machines. Acting wise, what was the challenge?
Just to have all of that emotion on tap when you needed it. Occasionally it wasn't and you have to really act it. It's good to put as much realism and emotion into it as you can. For the shoot itself we actually drove from Broken Hill over the Oodnadatta track track up the guts to Darwin and the landscape becomes part of the character in the film. That was pretty heavy going. Long days. And when you did finish you might have a drive of 400 to 500km to the next location. That was pretty trying but in a way it sort of helps you stay in the situation in the film.

Do you know any blokes like Rex?
Not quite like Rex but I have known some blokes in the area.

You originally come from rural Queensland.
I was born in central Queensland and my family comes from there, but I basically grew up in the city. When I left school I worked in the pastoral industry in pumps and irrigation and windmills. So you might say I have been tilting at them ever since.

It's not just a movie about a lonely bloke wanting to off himself. It's addressing other stuff too, particularly racism with its Aboriginal characters.
Yeah, I know, mate. My family is from central Queensland. I know all about racism. I know all about racism and it's not underground there, I tell you, it's not underground at all.

But it's still kind of hopeful about race relations too.
Jeremy always had that image of this black woman and white man holding hands as the sun goes down. I think it's one picture worth a thousand words.

So were you tempted to get out of the cab in the middle of the outback and ask: How's the serenity?
Ha ha ha. Not at all. The movie actually had its genesis in a play so all that dialogue is so well-honed from the play it had to be all stripped-back and reimagined but it shows - that dialogue is really lovely.

This will likely be your biggest movie since The Castle. Are you still career-minded?
Oh God, yeah. I want to do as much as I can while I still can. That is my philosophy. Yeah, I want to work. I hate sitting around the house watching television. It doesn't turn me on at all.

Michael Caton in The Last Taxi to Darwin. Photo / Supplied

What did The Castle do for you?
The Castle just rebooted everything really. I was pretty well dead in the water for 12 months before The Castle and it just rebooted everything. So I owe it a great debt.

I imagine Darryl Kerrigan must follow you around quite a lot.
Oh, he does. I mean mind you, when I first took my sons to New Zealand about 30 years ago, I was on the ferry between the North and South Island I think I signed every seasick bag on that ferry. I didn't think it was ever going to stop. That was The Sullivans days, mate. A few of those things follow you around. Some people call me Uncle Harry, others call me Darryl and I remember Beagle Bay, which is an Aboriginal settlement in Western Australia and this young boy goes, "Hot Property!" And I thought "'what is a Koori boy in Beagle Bay doing watching Hot Property? They must be desperate for something to watch."

Well they always say those property shows are aspirational. I also see you are a work of art [a portrait of Caton entitled "He's Not Dreaming" won the Archibald Packers Prize, which is voted by gallery staff, last month ]. It's quite a painting.
Yes but when you get the Packers Prize it's a kiss of death, you'll never get the main prize, so there you go.

It must take a lot of patience to sit still for that long but in this movie you had to as well.
Yes indeed and put up with the flies and heat and the cold. We had a bit of everything, really.

I am sure the movie will strike a chord here as it already seems to be doing in Australia. As I always said when we were promoting The Castle, "what could the Kiwis like more than a f***wit Australian?"

And we certainly love Australian cab drivers even more.

Ha ha ha.

Who: Michael Caton
What: The Last Cab to Darwin
When: Opens August 27

- TimeOut