25 years since Chopper, Eric Bana is still one to watch

Eric Bana spent five years preparing to play Kyle Turner, the main character in the hit Netflix crime drama Untamed. The six-part series, set in Yosemite National Park, follows Turner as an investigator for the National Park Service and the role fits Bana like a deerskin glove.

A man of few terse words who’d rather be riding his horse through the majestic countryside than talking to people, he has a keen eye for detail and knows this striking, rugged territory like the back of his hand. It also emerges through the six-part first season that he’s a grieving father living alone in a cabin full of unpacked boxes since his divorce from Jill (Rosemarie DeWitt).

The series was created and written by the father-daughter duo of Mark L. Smith (The Revenant, American Primeval) and Elle Smith. Bana committed to the project in 2019 on the basis of a pilot script and stuck with it as the production was delayed for years by the pandemic, strikes and other obstacles.

That’s a useful insight into Bana’s approach to his career: he knows what he wants to do, and he sticks with the stuff that he thinks has value. Untamed, which has been greenlit for a second season and is being hailed as the new Netflix franchise, has value in a range of ways. In a streaming era crammed with crime thrillers – many of them fairly forgettable – it stands out. Cleverly written, both in terms of the character development and the strategically placed revelations and story hooks, it’s also well-cast, with accomplished actors such as DeWitt and Sam Neill working alongside less familiar faces including Lily Santiago, Wilson Bethel and Raoul Max Trujillo.

It makes good use of a spectacular setting, which is actually Canada’s British Columbia playing America’s national treasure. And the directors do impressive work throughout in a series boosted by a couple of stunning set-pieces: the can’t-look-away opening sequence involving a cliff-fall and a frightening, intensely claustrophobic journey through a mineshaft.

Bana’s ability to identify productive opportunities reflects a pattern that’s been discernible since his early days as a comedy writer and performer. It’s a skill that’s served him well as he’s crafted a remarkably varied film and TV CV. He wears his fame with ease and still manages to take on challenging and rewarding projects. He’s also managed to maintain a work-life balance that suits him, keeping his home base in Melbourne and temporarily relocating for work.

The global success of Untamed seems a fitting milestone exactly 25 years after he burst on to screens as the title character in Andrew Dominik’s debut film, Chopper, delivering an astonishing, who-knew-he-could-do-that? performance as Mark “Chopper” Read.

This was a man who’d previously made his mark in comedy, notably as sweet-natured, slightly cocky but clueless Poida, a mulleted, Esky-toting bogan on Seven’s sketch show Full Frontal. After which came accountant Con Petropoulos, kick-boxing enthusiast and husband of Tracey Kerrigan (Sophie Lee) in Working Dog’s beloved comedy feature, The Castle.

But with the full-blooded, career-changing role of Chopper, he smashed any preconceptions about the limits of his ability. Prior to it, he’d been voted Cleo’s Most Eligible Bachelor (1996), and won a Logie as Most Popular Comedy Personality (1997). By 2004, he was being touted as the next James Bond.

In the decades since, he’s astutely played the long game in a fickle and turbulent industry. He’s done superheroes (Hulk), sci-fi (Star Trek) and sword-and-sandals epics (Troy). He’s appeared in war movies (Black Hawk Down), thrillers (Munich, Hanna), romantic and period dramas (The Time Traveller’s Wife, The Other Boleyn Girl). He’s played leads and supporting parts, heroes and villains (Dirty John) and worked with some of the industry’s most respected directors (Ang Lee, Steven Spielberg, Ridley Scott) and producers (John Wells, Bruna Papandrea). He’s returned home for memorable roles (Romulus, My Father; The Dry) and formed a partnership with local powerhouse producer-director Robert Connolly for the adaptations of Jane Harper’s best-selling Aaron Falk novels.

Like many actors who’ve recognised the need to take more control over their careers, he’s also started his own production company, Pick Up Truck Pictures, for which he directed 2007’s documentary, Love the Beast (DocPlay). A film clearly close to his heart, it’s about his beloved Ford Falcon XB coupe, his enduring band of mates, his family and his passion for race-car driving – a devotion that seems as steadfast as his commitment to the St Kilda footy club.

Oscar-winning filmmaker, claymation maestro Adam Elliot, another local who’s maintained a base in Melbourne, cast Bana in both of his features, Mary and Max and Memoir of a Snail. He recalls: “For Mary and Max, I wanted somebody who sounded masculine, but not toxic – somebody who had depth and sensitivity. I think I’d just re-watched The Castle, and he’s so funny in that, really lovely and likable, even though he was quite earnest. I love casting people who are contradictions and in Chopper he played somebody completely gruesome yet funny.”

In Mary and Max, Bana voices Mary’s neighbour and eventual husband, Damien Papadopoulos. “He was fantastic to work with, no airs and graces,” Elliot says. “No demands, no special food. He drove himself to the studio in South Melbourne, did the job, in and out in an hour and a half, and even did some funny outtakes for the documentary about the film.

“Then, out of the blue after it was finished, I got a letter from him saying he’d seen the film, and he was really moved by it and commenting on the music. I haven’t had any other actor do that, send a letter to say, ‘Thanks for working with me.’ He’s a gentleman and he’s very private. He doesn’t like doing lots of interviews and red carpets; he’s very selective, and he really has navigated carefully.”

After that happy experience, Elliot asked him to play James, the disgraced drunken magistrate in Memoir of a Snail.

Now Bana’s riding high again as Kyle Turner, with Netflix announcing that the next season of Untamed will involve a new case and a different park for the lawman to police. Twenty-five years after that breakout, award-grabbing performance in Chopper, he’s still one to watch.

Untamed is on Netflix now.

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