I’m working on a memoir about how the world can be inspired by Zionism to create their own nations. It’s all about the beauties of ethnic unity. This is the message of the Jews — join with your own kind to pursue your group interest. Group unity conveys an advantage in the struggle for scarce resources aka life.
LUKE Ford is a magnet for trouble.
While you’re unlikely to read about him in the social pages throwing phones across expensive hotel foyers or spitting the dummy at hapless crew members, the young actor’s screen persona is extremely volatile.
Serial killers, autistic teenagers, gangsters and crystal meth addicts are Ford’s characters of choice.
“Actually, it’s more that they choose me,” he says.
Ford is currently in rehearsals at Sydney’s Belvoir Street Theatre for a new production of Summer of the Seventeenth Doll directed by Neil Armfield. The 30-year-old will play the role of Johnnie Dowd.
“He’s the guy that causes all the trouble for one big scene and then goes,” says Ford, admitting that the prospect of his first stage performance in nine years has been causing him a few sleepless nights.
“But that’s OK. I liked to be scared. That’s how I approach my work.”
Also adrenaline-charging was the tight, 12-day shooting schedule for Ford’s latest film, the low-budget Australian drama Face to Face.
Based on a play by David Williamson, it tells the story of a young construction worker who rams into the back of his boss’s Jaguar in a fit of rage.
Ford, who seems remarkably well-adjusted in real life, says he doesn’t set out to find difficult roles. But while he has actually played ordinary blokes in his two highest-grossing films – Red Dog and The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor – it’s the darker, more nuggety performances that have shaped his career.
His breakthrough performance came the same year as Dragon Emperor, when he played the autistic brother in 2008’s The Black Balloon. Ford’s physical transformation was so remarkable, it won him an AFI Award. But that very distinctiveness turned out to be something of a mixed blessing.
“I was out of work for a while after Black Balloon,” he admits.
Though he has since appeared in a string of high profile productions, including the ABC telemovie 3 Acts of Murder in which he played serial killer Snowy Rowles, Ford reckons directors and casting agents might sometimes be guilty of mistaking him for the characters he plays.
