Features

Charlie & Boots: comedy for the heart

Paul Hogan and Shane Jacobson
Paul ‘Crocodile Dundee’ Hogan and Shane ‘Kenny’ Jacobson are not synonimous with films that require audiences to BYO tissue box, but Charlie & Boots might change that. Laine Lister writes.

Charlie & Boots, directed and co-written by Dean Murphy, is the story of a father and estranged son who rebuild their relationship on the road in the wake of a family tragedy.

“It is a heartfelt comedy or dramedy,” agrees producer Shana Levine, unwilling to pigeonhole the film in a single genre.

For Jacobson, the focus was more on the heart; a technique he picked up from his director/brother Clayton Jacobson.

“He taught me that when you’re trying to do comedy and heart together then the focus should be on the heart and let the comedy come through. Let me put it this way; I like putting heart into comedy, but I don’t think it works when you try to make a joke out of heart, so I tend to separate the two of them,” he says.

The resulting humour is genuine and complements the film’s serious themes, including broken relationships, death, regret and emotional repression in Australian men.

“It’s a little bit like milk on your Weet-Bix; you kind of have to have both for it to work,” Jacobson says in his typical colourfully succinct language.

The cereal analogy is also true of Hogan and Jacobson, whose on-screen chemistry is symptomatic of their respect for one another as actors and comedians.

“It really helps when you get on fantastically with your co-star,” says Jacobson. The 39-year old actor, (he also writes and produces), says working with his childhood idol was a pleasure: “I’m embarrassed to say that I got paid to do it”.

“Everyone should be sent to the Paul Hogan school of humility because his true gift is just being himself, which means he’s inherently funny the entire time, he was supportive as well as great fun to be around,” he says earnestly.

Discussing his own trajectory into “overnight stardom”, Jacobson reluctantly admits that Hollywood has taken a shining to him since he shot to fame as the port-a-loo plumber in 2006. In recent months he’s auditioned for a fistful of roles in the United States and received as many new scripts for consideration.

But not keen to dwell on his talent, this unassuming and effervescent man quickly redirects the conversation and reverts to the larrikin, a person for which he is famous.

“Anyone wanting to make a film of any kind and looking for a rubenesque actor that involves seeing the Australian countryside and travelling with really good people and meeting country folk, I’m available.

“But they’d better make it a really good time because that’s what I had last time, so my expectations are high”.

TAILOR-MADE

It’s little wonder that Jacobson’s benchmark has been raised, given that ‘Boots’ was a tailor-made role for him. Likewise, the brains at Instinct Entertainment – the production company behind the film and its predecessor Strange Bedfellows, also starring Hogan – created ‘Charlie’ specifically with Hogan in mind.

“It was great knowing who we wanted in the roles because the script can be written with those actors in mind, which makes quite a difference [to the tone of the film],” Levine says.

Paramount Pictures and Transmission Films offered their backing at the concept stage; there was a great showing of faith in the project from all involved.

“As with any film though, film financing and contracting and getting everything ready to meet your dates is always a challenge, this was no exception from that point of view,” says Levine.

Logistically, the journey proved challenging with approximately 75 crew members housed in 30 vehicles, which Levine likens to a “travelling circus”.

Despite the “sheer number of kilometres” they canvassed, working closely knit the group together and that feeling transpires through to the final cut.

Extreme weather also wreaked havoc for the group, who in Tamworth narrowly escaped emergency evacuation from floods, before battling the stifling, windless heat of Emerald, Queensland – where the rodeo sequence was filmed.

“So of course we decided to put Shane in black leather,” says producer David Redman.

Levine agrees: “That was challenging for Shane; his face was so red, he earned his money that day”.

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