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"A friend of mine had set up an acting company and was doing her first show in a very shabby venue. But David Wenham came, sat through the whole thing, and then wrote her a lovely encouraging letter afterwards. Isn't that nice? He was on his own and so was I and the audience was really small, only about a dozen people. I always kick myself that I didn't at least say hello and say how much I admired his work. But I got attacked with a huge dose of the shys, sadly."

Australia's Dark Undercurrents  Adam Cullen, whose portrait of David won the 2000 Archibald Prize, has a mid-career survey show opening at the Art Gallery of NSW this week.  Says Cullen:

"I've always painted human beings in various stages of physical and psychological trauma...I am drawn to people by their psychological intensity. I don't care if it's an actor or ex-con or a plumber or some crazed gun freak."

A mention of David, from Variety's review of Children of Huang-Shi:

Young reporter George (Rhys Meyers) arrives in Shanghai in late 1937 to report on the Nippon takeover of China and the combined efforts of Chinese nationalists and communists to fight back. He and colleague Barnes (David Wenham) manage to get behind Japanese lines in Nanjing (better known as Nanking) during the horrific destruction and occupation of the city.

Below, we've picked a peck of pistol-packing Pete Pierpont pics (thank you, Neil, Lizzie, Nenya, Minkey, bellis, and nyttforsok):

Quote of the Week:

Hasn’t David Wenham tenuous into mist fine. I myself favorite oneself seeing as Faramir, rather chuckled at his Carl. After all hombre has settled himself seeing that Dilios. As to which, 300 is brazen, its insofar as recommendable as well.  --- urieldysis

Agree we could not more!

A telemovie is underway for the "Battle of Bennelong", the story of Maxine McKew's defeat of Prime Minister John Howard in last fall's election.  Says producer Catriona Hughes: "Many actors were involved in the election campaign, such as David Wenham. I expect they would be excited to be involved."

(Oo! Oo!  Please, oh please, let David play Paul Keating, so we can hear him say "desiccated coconut" once more.)

Emilie de Ravin (who plays Claire on Lost) will be joining the cast of Public Enemies in a supporting role.

Public Enemies continues to film this week in Manitowish Waters, despite a small fire that broke out on the set.  The tentative release date is July 1, 2009.

Between now and October, Baz Luhrmann will be releasing a series of podcasts called Set to Screen, which take a behind-the-scenes look at the filming of Australia.  David appears briefly in the first two, as seen in this screencap by Minkey:

Miwa discovered a new trailer for the Children of Huang Shi, which has a little clip of David towards the beginning.

There are some conspiracy theorists out there who don't quite believe that the Last Man project is a reality.  They claim that, like the NASA moon landing, the whole thing will be faked with elaborate stage sets and cameras and paid actors.

(OK....bad analogy.  But you get my point.)

For ye of little faith, the news feeds have been offering more signs and wonders:

Guy Pearce, David Wenham To Work On Fred Schepisi Film

Stars To Film In Queensland

Also, Renya Xydis (the genius behind David's coiff) has just opened up a new salon in Sydney:

Sydney Salon with Star Pedigree

Put away your potholders and cupcake tins: it looks like after all, we won't need to have that bake sale to raise funds for Last Man Standing.  Fred Schepisi's Local Venture  Of course, filming isn't definite yet, but getting approval from Australia's Film Finance Corporation was a major hurdle for this project.

On the other end of the funding spectrum, the art school at the University of Western Sydney is unfortunately suffering the same fate as its theatre program (where David learned his craft): School's Slow Decline

On set at Public Enemies with Michael Mann and Johnny Depp in Wisconsin  One extra's experience while filming a courtroom scene in Darlington.  The unanswered question: Who's paying for John Dillinger's bus fare today?

Billy Crudup has joined the cast of Public Enemies.  He'll be playing J. Edgar Hoover.

Check out these great photos of David from the original 1994 Hamlet program!  Scanned by Minkey!

WANTED

Harry "Pete" Pierpont

For: Bank robbing, heart larceny

$1,000,000 Reward

Hair: Red

Eyes: Blue

Hat: Big

Height:  Kind of approximately 6 feet-ish

Aliases: Henry, Harry, "Handsome Harry", Pete, Sir Petey, Pookiedoodle, Snoogums, Cuddleboo, Tinkybear, Honeybunny*

Warning:  Armed and dashing.  Approach with extreme caution.

*Nicknames may vary from historical record

Here's a shot from Ain't It Cool News, which is widely thought to be David wielding a Tommy gun. 

Also, two 300 premiere photos from nyttforsok's recent de-watermarking spree.  Knocking over banks is all well and good, but sometimes a girl just wants a sweet smiling David wearing a tie.

The town of Columbus, Wisconsin has been transformed this week for the filming of a bank robbery scene from Public Enemies.  Here's a report with some photos, and some more photos.  No David, but you can savor the images and get a small taste of things to come, like those little samples of barbecued-stuff-in-a-cup that they hand out at the supermarket.  Only here, you don't have to hunt for a wastebasket afterwards.

David, meanwhile, arrived on the Q.T. in Madison yesterday, and is getting ready to join the rest of the cast.

Although John O'Brien doesn't get a lot of screen time, David's gotten some nice mentions in reviews of Married Life:

From the Washington Square News:   "As for David Wenham (he played the one-eyed Spartan in "300"), he has established himself enough to warrant more than a paltry, one-scene cameo." 

"David Wenham plays inward turmoil and outward calm with flair", says IF magazine.  Cinema Blend calls him "underutilized".

During a routine Google search for "David Wenham + electric fireplace suites", it came to my attention that the CEO of Glen Dimplex Australasia is also named Dave Wenham.  I'm pretty sure that explains why David gets so many orders for portable cooling and air conditioning products, and why Glen Dimplex sometimes finds scripts spewing out of its fax machine.  Peter Jackson came this close to offering the role of Faramir to a ceiling fan.

David has his own bio page at the official Children of Huang Shi site.  His character is a journalist named Barnes:

The About The Production section notes:

"A few weeks out from principal photography there were still a few supporting roles to be cast.  The Australian actor David Wenham, who featured in the Lord of the Rings trilogy, was approached to play the role of Barnes, a hardened war correspondent.   By filming in a short block of time he was able to take the role before rehearsals commenced on Baz Luhrmann's feature Australia."

I've tidied up the long-neglected movie section: added Children of Huang Shi and Public Enemies, photos, more Dilios quotes, and fixed the Movies 2 link, which was obstinately pointing to a random other site page.  More clean-ups to come soon.

Today's update is brought to you by the collective wisdom of many David fans.

From Minkey, an article from the December 2006 issue InStyle magazine (click on the thumbnails):

Also from Minkey, photos from the official Children of Huang Shi site:

From bellis, two new/old articles:

"I Hate Being Famous" (Woman's Day) 

Stiff Upper Lip (TV Week)  Page 1   Page 2

Below, a photo of David at the Ruinart champagne launch at Macleay Street, Potts Point, Sydney, April 2007.

Source: newsphotos.  Finder: miwa.  Patient de-watermarker: bellis.  Lucky beneficiary: you.

Small excerpt from premiere.com's review of Married Life: 

"Precision casting is a necessity for a specialty film like this and Sachs never steps wrong, even where the minor characters are concerned. Australian actor David Wenham is effective as an easily recognizable "tennis pro" type, a serial wife-defiler whose moral compass is wobbly enough to allow him to be drafted into any kind of murder plot you might need him for."

In the ever-changing tides of Google, much flotsam washes ashore unexpectedly.  This astrology page was found wedged beneath the driftwood of the world wide web, draped in the seaweed of HTML, next to the rusty beer can of celebrity spam and Hollywood link farms.  For some reason, it goes on at great length about David's star chart.  No idea how accurate it is, but it describes him as a "deep and wise person who's not just content with noisy and flashy things" and as one who "usually blossoms in the second part of their life rather than earlier".

Not that he didn't do any blossoming in the early part of his career, but it is true that in the last few years he's had the opportunity to pursue roles with more complexity, more challenges, and more maturity.  So thank you, stars and planets, for whizzing through space and hastily scrambling into a mode harmonious to actors at the moment of David's birth.

Johnny Depp movie to be shot in Wisconsin, Milwaukee  I like the headline writer's implication that Milwaukee is somehow entirely different from Wisconsin.  "MOVIE TO FEATURE DIALOGUE, TALKING".

David Wenham Goes Gangster  "The Marrickville Mauler of 300 fame is in the Windy City at the moment, after completing work on Baz Luhrmann's Australia late last year."

David Wenham And Stephen Graham Wield Tommy Guns

David Wenham Joins Johnny Depp In Public Enemies

Michael Mann Makes A Few New Public Enemies  "...I'm very excited by the addition of Wenham, who is largely known to American audiences for noble, heroic characters like Dilios and Faramir in Lord of the Rings. But he has quite a reputation in his native Australia for playing dark and sadistic characters, and it's about time he finally got a chance to show off that nasty side to a wider audience."

And finally, this little morsel from The Spoof:

Wenham To Take Over Naked Chef Series

which is obviously fake, since everybody knows David prefers other people's cooking.  Also, it's extremely hazardous to fry bacon in the nude.

Exciting news!  David has joined the cast of Public Enemies, according to the Hollywood Reporter:

An adaptation of Brian Burrough's book "Public Enemies: America's Greatest Crime Wave and the Birth of the FBI, 1933-43," the film centers on the government's attempt to stop John Dillinger and his gang. [Johnny] Depp is playing Dillinger to [Christian] Bale's famed FBI agent Melvin Purvis.

Wenham is playing Pete Pierpont, a member of Dillinger's crew who has a violent hostility to all authority. British actor Graham will portray Baby Face Nelson.

Shooting begins in Chicago next month.

Wenham and Graham Board Enemies

Wenham and Graham join Public Enemies

Apparently, Harry "Pete" Pierpont was not a very nice man.

300 has garnered a bushel of Saturn Award nominations in just about every category for which it is eligible, including a "Best Supporting Actor" nomination for David.  The awards will be presented June 24th in Universal City, California.

Latest release dates for Australia:  USA - Nov. 14.  Russia - Dec. 4.  Germany and Sweden - Dec. 25.  Married Life and Children of Huang Shi will be getting limited releases this spring.

The shocking truth can now be revealed:  People stayed in a hotel while filming Australia.

People such as David.

The Sydney Morning Herald tells all....

David Wenham (above) -- one of the stars of the much-anticipated film Australia -- was among cast and crew who stayed in the Kimberley Grande hotel during the several weeks of filming in Western Australia.

Baz Luhrmann's Australia, with Nicole Kidman and Hugh Jackman as the romantic leads, will put the country's landscape on the must-see list of international travellers when released late this year.

The Kimberley Grande has been developed by Marilynne Paspaley, of WA's pearling dynasty, who was well-known as an actor in many TV series for Crawford Productions, in Melbourne, until she returned to the family business.

The Kimberley Grande

I tried mightily, but couldn't find the photo that went with the article.  So instead, here's an exclusive satellite image of David, courtesy of NASA (from their forthcoming coffee table book, Celebrities Photographed From The Ionosphere):

From The Advertiser, Jan. 26th, a cast preview for Australia:

NICOLE KIDMAN

Lady Sarah Ashley, an English aristocrat who inherits a cattle station, Faraway Downs, in Australia.

BRYAN BROWN

King Carney, a cattle baron who owns a huge portion of the land in northern Australia.

DAVID WENHAM

Neil Fletcher, a station manager who plans to take Faraway Downs from Lady Sarah Ashley. ``It's a very, very large cattle station and he likes it so much he wants it for himself,' the actor says.

JACK THOMPSON

Kipling Flynn, an alcoholic bookkeeper with a luxurious lifestyle. Thompson says he's ``somewhere between a total tragedy and a struggling spirit''.

HUGH JACKMAN

A rugged Australian drover who helps Lady Sarah Ashley move the cattle across her property. The role was originally to be played by Russell Crowe.

DAVID GULPILIL

King George, a magic tribal elder. The actor sings a great deal of his role in several pivotal scenes.

And more familiar faces . . .

Aaron Pedersen
Ben Mendelsohn
Bill Hunter
Ray Barrett
John Jarratt
Barry Otto
Arthur Dignam
Bruce Spence
Essie Davis
Sandy Gore

(Thanks to meaningofhaste, provider of these updates.)

At the Children of Huang Shi blog, to compensate for the trailer's non-Davitude, they've posted this video of filming a ballroom scene (thanks Nenya!).  It contains 200% of your minimum recommended daily allowance of vitamin D.  Maybe my hearing is bad, but I could swear one of David's lines is "Hello, Daisy!" 

Watch, it'll turn out that he's really saying "yellow hazey," because his character grew up listening to badly bootlegged Jimi Hendrix records.

bellis scanned, and shared, this interview from a 1999 issue of Marie Claire, when David had just finished Molokai, Seachange, and The Boys. (Thanks, b!)

Territory chases a world premiere - Northern Territory News.  The campaign is on:  Darwin or Bowen?  Where will Australia premiere?

If they get really stuck for places, there's always the Cinemagic 8 at the local mall.  Its floors have that authentic, gritty Outback texture.

Voici!  Regardez bien, un blog francais consacré essentiellement au David:   Unlimited 123's Blog

ENGLISH SUBTITLE:  The French blog, she prefer David, is it yes to say?

Trailer for The Children of Huang Shi (no David, but looks like a pretty intense film)

Here's some lovely words of praise for David's performance as Faramir from Forgotten Worlds:

David Wenham's acting is superb throughout. He is very subtle and doesn't overplay the emotion at all, but is visibly and heartbreakingly crushed by Denethor's continuous dismissal of him. Probably his finest scenes are near the end of RotK EE where he is in the Houses of Healing with Eowyn. The look in his eyes as he first catches sight of her, and later when he comforts her fears as they talk together before the final battle, just speaks volumes. His whole heart and soul are in his eyes, visible for the world to see. 

January 10 - Kate Agnew and David Wenham at the opening night of the play "Black Watch" at the Carriageworks, Eveleigh, Redfern, Sydney.

From the Jan. 13 edition of the Sunday Telegraph:

Scene

BLACK WATCH OPENING NIGHT

CarriageWorks Bay 17, Eveleigh

The cream of Australia's acting community gathered for the opening of one of the Sydney Festival's most acclaimed performances.

Cate Blanchett and hubby Andrew Upton, actress Rose Byrne and her actor boyfriend, Brendan Cowell, Jeremy Simms and his wife, Samantha Lang, David Wenham and partner Kate Agnew, and John Bell and wife Anna Volska stood out among the casually dressed audience of Black Watch.

The play, which takes a provocative look at Britain's military involvement in Iraq and the Scottish identity, was a sell-out hit at the 2006 Edinburgh Fringe Festival and its cast of 10 drew a huge round of applause on the night.

Black Watch, which had been on a hugely successful world tour before arriving here, is based on interviews with former soldiers.

Its plot swings between interviews in Scotland and the harsh reality of service in Iraq.

Playwright Gregory Burke drew on experiences gleaned fromsoldiers in their mid-20s who had served in Iraq.

The action is based on their true stories of extreme danger and boredom, the madness of war and the pressures of being in a country that didn't want them.

Also see the "Spotted" section of the Sydney Morning Herald's Festival Diary. 

And the Hannibal Lecter Award for "Worst Random Watermark Placement" goes to...

(L-R) Scott Crebbin, Steve Rielhoff, David Wenham and Karen Rogers at the 2008 Sydney Festival opening night after party at Hyde Park Barracks in Sydney.

Either I've never seen these photos before, or my memory is really bad.  Maybe they're new to you too.  They're from 2002.

Crowds Roll Up To Watch Performers Dress Down  On Saturday, David was at the Sydney Festival opening night party, where guests were entertained by Babylon Circus, among other acts.

Newtown Nearing Century  David's favorite rugby team turns 100 soon.  (If this article seems familiar to you, it's because they turned 99 a year ago.)

Dave or Daisy?   Scan by bellis of a wonderful 2005 interview from DNA magazine, which may be new to many of you.

Happy New Year to you and yours!  2008 arrives bright with the promise of three new David movies to look forward to:  Australia, Married Life, and Children of Huang-Shi/The Bitter Sea.

In the Chinese zodiac, 2008 is the Year of the Rat.  In the DC Zodiac, it is the Year of the Moderately Dented Macedonian Cowboy, symbol of dignity, strength, and quiet authority.  People born under this sign tend to win at coin tosses.

The cost of culture  From The Age's roundup of the arts in 2007: Artists' suspected left-wing tendencies were confirmed when actor David Wenham, surely the sexiest "ranga" on the planet, appeared on the hustings to support the equally appealing Maxine McKew. (No Young Libs, she does not need a facelift. ) The (old fogey) Liberals didn't even try to ingratiate themselves with the arts crowd, omitting altogether to launch an arts policy. Peter Garrett, formerly of the "Oils" and at present on Team Kevin, did, and was eventually named Minister for Environment, Heritage and the (tag along) Arts.

Peter Garrett visited the set of Australia recently to seek advice from cast and crew on keeping big-budget projects at home instead of exporting talent overseas.

No less than two '300' parodies are in the works for 2008:  Meet the Spartans and 301: The Legend of Awesomest Maximus Wallace Leonidas.  The latter stars Kevin Dillon, who also appeared in No Escape with David.  Stay tuned for "The Legend Of Awesomest Hotel Guard #3".

For previous news and updates, visit our News Archives