Latest / Rusty's Garage / Eric Bana (Part 1)

Transcript

Eric Bana (Part 1) · Rusty's Garage

• 0:02
  A listener production.
• 0:10
  I'm automotive commentator and journalist Greg Rust and this is Rusty's Garage.
• 0:27
  G'day, it's Rusty here.
• 0:29
  I just want to say a huge thanks to all of you who listen and engage with me on socials about the podcast.
• 0:35
  We read every feedback suggestion.
• 0:38
  It's grown into something I'm very, very proud of.
• 0:41
  Thanks also to those companies that have come on board as sponsors along the way and found it to be a great fit.
• 0:47
  This is, can you believe it, our 50th episode.
• 0:51
  Crazy.
• 0:52
  And to celebrate the milestone, we have a big-name guest.
• 0:56
  This one's been more than 12 months in the making, and for me, it ticks all the boxes.
• 1:02
  Proper, passionate automotive enthusiast, that's probably not a good enough description actually, with some cool machines in the garage, and a racer.
• 1:12
  I recorded this one at home.
• 1:14
  At the other end of the line in Melbourne is Eric Banner.
• 1:17
  He started out doing stand-up comedy.
• 1:20
  It was a natural when the door opened to the TV show Full Frontal and its classic comedy sketches.
• 1:25
  He gained attention in the castle and blew everyone away with that portrayal, a serious role in the bio-crime film Chopper.
• 1:33
  What followed is a very impressive list of Hollywood hits.
• 1:38
  Black Hawk Down, The Hulk, and Steven Spielberg's Munich, just to name a few.
• 1:43
  Many of you will remember his passion project too, Love the Beast, which he starred in and directed.
• 1:49
  It gave you a window into Eric's life.
• 1:52
  A family man with two kids, a massive St Kilda supporter, and the other love of his life, an XB Falcon coop that he's had since he was 15.
• 2:00
  He's still got it.
• 2:03
  In the chat, we'll talk about the rebuild after his crash in the Target Tasmania rally and how Dick Johnson got him motivated.
• 2:10
  His racing, including the realisation of a lifelong dream to compete at Bathurst.
• 2:15
  And if you're into bikes, there's plenty for you too.
• 2:18
  In fact, that's how we kick things off.
• 2:20
  By chatting about a fabulous new movie project in the works based on one of the greatest of all time, Mike Halewood.
• 2:28
  Oh, and I think this is why people loved him so much is everything you hear about him, secondhand, thirdhand, he was just the most terrific bloke.
• 2:39
  And he came from quite a privileged background, as you all know, but had this ability to be able to...
• 2:47
  talk on the same level to everyone he came into contact with and had no airs and graces and just did things in a very, very kind of matter-of-fact normal way and just loved his racing.
• 2:59
  But, yeah, the overwhelming thing is just great sense of humour
• 3:03
  which I love, and just a real, real fantastic person.
• 3:10
  So I've been working on the screenplay for the last couple of years, and, yeah, it is essentially the story of Mike's comeback.
• 3:17
  I'm not looking to tell the story of his life.
• 3:20
  It's a very particular idea that I have that I'd like to pursue, but it's incredibly exciting, no doubt about that, and we feel...
• 3:30
  you know, indebted to the Halewood family, in particular Pauline, who unfortunately recently passed away.
• 3:37
  And her contribution has just been immense.
• 3:39
  And she's been someone who's been incredible to get to know and talk to many times.
• 3:45
  And just one of the great, great women of this world and motorsport.
• 3:51
  It's fantastic to hear that the Hailwood family are behind the project.
• 3:56
  Mark Webber, a good friend of both of ours, has been a regular, a spectator at the TT over the years.
• 4:01
  Cam Donald, the Aussie, has been enormously successful in the modern era there.
• 4:06
  It's hugely dangerous, Eric, isn't it?
• 4:10
  But captivating at the same time.
• 4:12
  What is it about that event and that race that appeals to you as well?
• 4:16
  Oh, look, it is – I mean, I think – you know, I love my racing, but I think when you put a vehicle on the road, whether it be, you know, a tarmac rally environment or a TT-type environment, there is something, I think, primal that tells us as motorsport viewers that it's a different arena.
• 4:36
  It's kind of like the difference between –
• 4:40
  sparring with a punching bag in a gym and hopping into a UFC arena, you know, is kind of like the difference.
• 4:47
  And, and I, and I think there's, there's a level of respect that the audience has for the competitor that is different to when we watch motor racing in a more controlled fashion.
• 4:59
  We understand the potential sacrifice.
• 5:01
  We understand the danger, um,
• 5:04
  And there is no doubt that is part of the appeal.
• 5:07
  And also, I just think the relative speed factor is the thing that makes it so thrilling.
• 5:12
  You have this love of MotoGP.
• 5:14
  We often see you sneaking into the garages at Phillip Island.
• 5:18
  Is it bikes?
• 5:19
  Is it athlete?
• 5:20
  What is it that you admire about that two-wheeled sport so much?
• 5:25
  I think being a rider, the thing that I love the most about watching motorcycle racing is that
• 5:33
  Not that drivers don't have the same passion, but I absolutely love seeing the podium presentations after motorcycle racing.
• 5:42
  I think it's a different fraternity.
• 5:45
  I think we're still capable of seeing the pure joy in the sport with motorcycle races that we don't often see with the drivers to the same extent or level.
• 5:56
  And I don't know what that's about.
• 6:00
  So I guess on a human level, I feel as though they're getting as much joy out of riding a motorcycle as I am.
• 6:06
  And I love that kinship, even though, you know, as fans, we can't relate to their skill level.
• 6:15
  You do kind of feel like there's a shared joy that you can relate to that I think is different when we're watching F1 or Le Mans or those types of racing.
• 6:25
  Shane Jacobson's been a guest on the podcast and he told me that he rode his bike to set one day and they kind of freaked out because from an insurance perspective, they were worried about one of the lead actors sort of doing that.
• 6:37
  Is it hard for you to blend that passion?
• 6:40
  Because I know you enjoy track days and things like that, but at the same time, occupation must sort of limit what you can do and how often you can do that sort of stuff.
• 6:49
  It's actually pretty easy for me because I really do have a really solid line between the two.
• 6:55
  And that is that when I'm in Australia, which is 90% of the time, I am my own boss and I can do what the hell I want.
• 7:03
  Fantastic.
• 7:03
  So I have no restrictions.
• 7:05
  I'm self-employed.
• 7:06
  If I go and bang up my knee on my shoulder, it's my bad luck.
• 7:10
  Yeah.
• 7:11
  And then when I go to work, once I'm about two weeks out from jumping on a plane, everything changes.
• 7:19
  Everything changes mentally, physically, in terms of the way I think, the way I approach things.
• 7:25
  And I actually have zero interest in doing any of that stuff when I'm working because it's just like –
• 7:30
  They're like two separate pleasure capsules, you know, and I find the two don't actually mix.
• 7:37
  So when I'm filming, I just shut that side of my brain off.
• 7:41
  I literally, you know, you hear all this talk about the AFL being in a hub at the moment.
• 7:46
  Yep.
• 7:46
  And it's really interesting because that's kind of like how I feel when I go overseas to work.
• 7:51
  It's a really, really scaled back process.
• 7:54
  life, you know, I have very little interaction with the outside world.
• 7:57
  I'm just, it's just, you know, immersed six days a week.
• 8:00
  Like I don't really go out.
• 8:02
  I don't really socialize.
• 8:03
  It's just like, it's this really intense, which I love.
• 8:06
  I love the, the, the, the contrast between two.
• 8:09
  And then I come home and I get on that 450 and I go down the outways and I go nuts.
• 8:14
  And I, I,
• 8:15
  You can't do the two.
• 8:17
  When I get on a bike, I don't want to think about a potential injury getting in the way of my career.
• 8:22
  I think it's too dangerous.
• 8:24
  So I like to ride freely.
• 8:26
  If I come off, I come off.
• 8:27
  I think it's a safer way to be.
• 8:30
  And I do think it's a more enjoyable way of riding as well.
• 8:34
  So just share with the audience then the bike, what you ride, and how often you might get the chance to go out and just enjoy the pure pleasure of it.
• 8:41
  I get out a day a week regardless of what's going on just to get out of Melbourne, just to get into regional Victoria.
• 8:48
  So that's usually on my adventure.
• 8:50
  I'll jump on the BM and head out for a day on my own.
• 8:53
  And then every couple of months at least I'd grab a mate and we'd jump on our 450s and I'd do a lot of riding around the back of Anglesey and the Otways.
• 9:01
  Fantastic.
• 9:02
  And then track days, you know, as many as I can fit in and schedule.
• 9:06
  So it's a mixture.
• 9:07
  I have no absolute brand loyalty, although obviously, you know, I've always ridden Dukes and I love them.
• 9:12
  But, you know, the 450s are Yamaha, the touring bikes are BM, and I'll ride anything and everything.
• 9:19
  I'm just a...
• 9:21
  I just absolutely, absolutely love it.
• 9:24
  While we're on this two-wheel thread, you and Mark Webber had a fabulous ride in the lead-up to this year's Australian Formula One Grand Prix, which sadly wasn't to be for 2020.
• 9:35
  Just share a little bit of that if you can.
• 9:37
  I think you went from Queensland to Victoria, took in some of the bushfire-affected areas, and it just sounded like a great ride for two mates, was it?
• 9:46
  It was really, really fantastic.
• 9:48
  I would love to have had a couple more days, but Mark's schedule was pretty tight.
• 9:53
  So we plotted, I think we had four, four and a half days from Noosa back down to Melbourne, and we were both on adventures.
• 10:02
  So it was pretty fantastic.
• 10:04
  It's something that I like to do a lot, and Mark hasn't had much time to do that much stuff over the years, and I think it was actually his first week,
• 10:12
  ride of its type in Australia.
• 10:14
  And so I was able to, you know, map out a journey that I thought would, you know, get him hook, line and sinker, which it definitely has.
• 10:22
  He's just absolutely frothing to go and do it again.
• 10:25
  But yeah, it was pretty special, mate.
• 10:28
  And I'm so glad we did it, you know, for a number of reasons, at least of which being, you know, the world was turned on its head literally when I pulled into the garage at home.
• 10:36
  And
• 10:37
  He was due to go into the track that afternoon and was told not to bother.
• 10:44
  And before we knew it, we were in the position we were in.
• 10:46
  I've seen Love the Beast a few times, more than a decade after it was made.
• 10:51
  It is still fantastic to watch.
• 10:54
  For our listeners, you must go and see it, find it and enjoy it.
• 10:59
  The essence, Eric, of the bond, the love of the machine, that's something very similar that I try to tap into in these podcast discussions.
• 11:08
  You were mid-teens, I think, when you bought that XB coupe.
• 11:12
  Where'd you get it from?
• 11:13
  How much did you spend on it?
• 11:15
  Well, I spent quite a while convincing my dad that it'd be a good idea to buy a car before you get your license rather than wait to get your license.
• 11:22
  It was an ad in The Age, and I can't remember whether it was $1,100 or $1,300.
• 11:28
  And it was some dodgy bloke in St Kilda who owned it.
• 11:32
  And I remember clear as day, a wet, cold winter's night,
• 11:37
  driving over to St Kilda to inspect the car.
• 11:40
  And we pulled up outside this dodgy apartment building and there was no one there.
• 11:45
  And then this white coupe came around the corner sideways.
• 11:51
  And the guy pulled up and that was the car.
• 11:53
  And I'm not sure if he was sober at the time, but judging by how many hits the car it had, I think he had a bit of a checkered past.
• 12:01
  But yeah, that's how it started.
• 12:02
  We took it home and my grandfather, who was living with us at the time, took one look at it and said to me, you shouldn't have bought that.
• 12:12
  being the, you know, the German perfectionist that he was.
• 12:15
  I think he had an eye for how much trouble it was going to bring me.
• 12:21
  But I just loved it, mate.
• 12:23
  I still to this day can't believe how crap that car was when we bought it, given the fact that it was probably only about 12 years old.
• 12:33
  You know, it looked like a 55-year-old car back then.
• 12:36
  And you think about a 12-year-old car now, they should almost look like new, right?
• 12:41
  This thing was done.
• 12:42
  This thing was one of the most unstraight faded white coupes you've ever seen in your life.
• 12:51
  So that's where it all started.
• 12:53
  How fantastic that you could bring it back to life and it became the daily.
• 12:58
  But that's obviously in a very early part of your career too.
• 13:00
  And I think you reflected in the movie about, you know, naturally there were, maybe it was one of, you know, your brotherhood friends that said, you know, naturally there were ups and downs in your career in that early phase, mate.
• 13:11
  Was there ever a point where you thought...
• 13:14
  far out i might have to sell this thing that you might have to part ways with it or were you always just that you know absolute determination to hang on to it no there were definitely like there was always a couple of periods where for like a year or two you may not use it a lot or it would have to be stored you know off-site um but there was never ever a conversation in my head about about getting rid of it um
• 13:39
  You know, there were a lot of periods where it was, you know, hugely impractical.
• 13:44
  But it's kind of really come full circle.
• 13:46
  And I'm finding the car as therapeutic now as it was to me 30 years ago.
• 13:53
  And it's still fulfilling that same role that it did in the documentary for those who saw it.
• 13:59
  I mean, I still...
• 14:01
  It gives me something to do.
• 14:02
  There's always something to do on it whilst it's pretty much finished now and there's not really much more I could do if I wanted to.
• 14:10
  you know, in terms of maintenance, in terms of just driving it and enjoying it and the smile that it puts on people's faces when you're driving down the road, cause you just don't see them.
• 14:20
  I mean, forget the fact that it's the beast, but any coupe in that condition, you know, you just about get run off the road by trucks on the highway that trying to get a look at it.
• 14:33
  It's just a wonderful thing to have had for so long.
• 14:47
  If the Ford XB hoop is the beast, then who is the beauty?
• 14:51
  Is it me?
• 14:52
  It's me, isn't it?
• 14:54
  Don't say anything if it's me.
• 14:56
  I knew it.
• 14:58
  Is it true that you contemplated maybe leaving school at one point to go and pursue a career as a mechanic?
• 15:04
  And you still love being hands-on where you can, I would imagine.
• 15:07
  Yeah, always.
• 15:08
  That's true.
• 15:09
  I wanted to leave probably at the end of year 10-11,
• 15:14
  to get my apprenticeship.
• 15:15
  And my dad, being a Croatian migrant who had, you know, worked his way through the system and, you know, started out with a jackhammer on the Eastern Freeway and, you know, worked for Caterpillar.
• 15:30
  He's one of the longest-serving employees in their history, I think 47 years in the end in Australia.
• 15:36
  Wow.
• 15:36
  And, you know, worked in logistics in the office.
• 15:43
  Being in a workshop was probably quite confronting, I think, for a lot of migrants.
• 15:48
  And so he basically talked me out of that.
• 15:53
  Let's be honest, there wasn't really much choice.
• 15:56
  I don't think I could have pulled it off.
• 15:58
  So I had to stay at school and at least until my year 12.
• 16:03
  And so that was part of the part of the deal.
• 16:06
  What did he jokingly call you boys?
• 16:07
  The Essendon Grammar Car Mafia or something, wasn't it?
• 16:10
  Yeah, something like that.
• 16:11
  Yeah, yeah, exactly.
• 16:13
  Yeah, there was always someone around.
• 16:14
  There was always someone, you know, out in the garage with me.
• 16:17
  And it's funny because my best mate, Tony, who you see in the documentary, I was –
• 16:24
  at his workshop recently helping him with a project of his.
• 16:26
  And, you know, he's got a hoist and the car's up on the hoist.
• 16:29
  And I said, it just doesn't feel right doing all this work on a car when it's sitting at the perfect height.
• 16:34
  We should be on this cold concrete with at least half a litre of gear oil.
• 16:38
  We're talking about the unique smell of gear oil out of a gearbox and how once it enters a fibre or your skin, it's just impossible to remove, you know.
• 16:50
  It's ingrained, isn't it?
• 16:51
  Yeah.
• 16:52
  Some of those smells, still today when I smell them, it takes me back to the mum and dad's garage in Tullamarine and the amount of stupid, dangerous work I used to do on the car.
• 17:03
  Between your dad's T-bird and your friends that you talked about there, I mean, you were...
• 17:09
  surrounded by by car so that clearly had had an influence let alone the things you saw like the the one-two bathurst win for moffat and bond and you know mad max and things like that it was you were surrounded by that influence weren't you yeah well well i remember watching bathurst with my dad as a young young kid now rusty help me out here it's funny because i i sort of realized recently that
• 17:35
  I'm not sure if it's just because our family used to sleep in, but my memory was that Bathurst used to start at about 6am or 7am.
• 17:43
  And now I'm like, I still set the alarm too early when Bathurst is on and I'll go and make myself breakfast.
• 17:49
  Shit, it still hasn't started.
• 17:51
  What's going on?
• 17:52
  Surely it starts at 7.
• 17:53
  No, it starts at 8.
• 17:54
  No, it starts at 9.
• 17:54
  What is it now?
• 17:55
  It's like 10 o'clock or something crazy?
• 17:57
  The race proper, actually, they pushed back to gain some extra TV ratings towards like 11am.
• 18:02
  But from a broadcast point of view, you're absolutely right.
• 18:05
  From 7am, it was kind of this religious thing where you were glued to the lounge, don't disturb me kind of thing until the podium at whatever it was, 5 or 6 in the afternoon.
• 18:16
  It's that sort of event, mate, isn't it?
• 18:18
  Yeah, so dad loved his motorsport and his best friend was a mechanic.
• 18:23
  And so I have really strong memories of being at friends' houses of my parents late on a Sunday night watching Mario Andretti in F1.
• 18:34
  And dad, yeah, to this day is still obsessed with, you know, MotoGP and F1 and all things motorsport.
• 18:40
  So it was really through him that I was introduced to the TV spectacle and just every Sunday night watching it.
• 18:47
  There's been different characters that have been portrayed in movies from a Formula One standpoint.
• 18:52
  I mean, I think Mario Andretti might even be doing his memoirs at the moment.
• 18:55
  I mean, there's a guy with an immense story, Eric, and still to this day, so passionately in love with the game.
• 19:04
  Yeah, absolutely.
• 19:05
  And also, you know, that whole James Hunt era and... Yeah.
• 19:09
  Yeah, just the amount, the number of characters, and just the cars too, you know, like...
• 19:14
  The reaction you get now when you pick up like an Octane magazine and they do a spread on a 70s F1 car that's been restored.
• 19:23
  It's incredible the amount of memories that are evoked by those mechanical things.
• 19:29
  Someone sent me a link to a car that was for sale the other day and the car had in it a stereo, a particular Pioneer stereo that came out what must have been in the mid-'80s.
• 19:43
  And when I saw the stereo, I literally lost myself for half an hour because I realized it was the first AM FM deck that I put in the beast when I got my first paycheck.
• 19:53
  And it was absolutely incredible the amount of like tactile...
• 19:59
  auditory memory that came flooding back as a result of from there yeah I could I could feel the push button on the amfm and I could feel the you know the switches and um and everything and then I don't know I just they are they are memory machines and to me you know a lot of motorsport and a lot of car and motorcycle design is is no different to architecture yes and the way that architecture you know makes us feel so um
• 20:26
  Yeah, I'm just in love with that period.
• 20:28
  I love that analogy about the architecture, mate.
• 20:30
  So true.
• 20:31
  One of the early characters for you in the 90s was Poyta.
• 20:36
  And Timmy Lay said to me, I spoke to Tim Lay in the lead up to this, is it true that people still stop you today and do their best impersonation of Poyta?
• 20:45
  Well, Tim probably experienced it because we were racing together at Bathurst.
• 20:51
  So the crowd there is probably different to the one that I run into on a daily basis.
• 20:54
  But yes, he is a character that a lot of people have hung on to and...
• 21:01
  Yeah, it's such a gift.
• 21:02
  It's such a gift to have had a character like that that people relate to or amuse by or don't forget.
• 21:09
  Yeah.
• 21:09
  You know, someone said to me once, you know, don't you get sick of people talking to you about Poitre or Chopper or stuff like that?
• 21:15
  I'm like, mate, you know how lucky you are to have like something that people remember from that long ago.
• 21:20
  It's nothing to take for granted.
• 21:24
  No, not at all.
• 21:25
  So it is pretty funny.
• 21:26
  Yeah.
• 21:27
  I spoke to Craig Lowndes, Eric, just to recall when you went out in character to Calder Park there in 96.
• 21:35
  I think you two have spoken about it at the 12-hour since then.
• 21:38
  He says that you were more or less in voice character from the moment that you arrived.
• 21:44
  And is it true that the Falcon at the end that you did the circle work in, did you – is that a hustle?
• 21:49
  Did you have to borrow that car from someone or it came together – I don't know how it came together –
• 21:55
  Yeah, it was a bit of a hustle by someone at one of our production people at Channel 7 at the time.
• 22:00
  And I'm reasonably certain they weren't told that it was going to be used in some circle work.
• 22:06
  And it could probably be used as an OH&S safety video for, you know, how not to do things because God love our cameraman –
• 22:15
  Someone flipped me that clip recently and when I watched it, I thought, who was the cameraman that day that just happily stood in the middle of the rink whilst I was doing circle work around him?
• 22:29
  I mean, you just couldn't do that these days.
• 22:31
  No, not at all.
• 22:31
  Not at all.
• 22:32
  Lots of people will also, in this early phase that we're talking about here, remember the castle.
• 22:37
  I did a radio show, Eric, once with the likes of Neil Crompton and Mark Scaife, and we got talking to Eddie Maguire.
• 22:43
  And Eddie told us that it was his BMW that Dennis DiNuto used in the movie.
• 22:49
  I think the Working Dog guys must have borrowed it.
• 22:52
  Did you ever have to move the Chimera so that Daryl could get to the Tirana to get out the Commodore?
• 22:58
  Yeah.
• 22:58
  Now, I don't know if you recall, there's a tracking shot in Love the Beast of my parents' driveway where we start at the front and we go all the way down the side of the house into the TARDIS in the backyard.
• 23:10
  And it was a single driver.
• 23:11
  It was your classic 70s Jennings home with the driveway down the right-hand side.
• 23:15
  So at the time that both my brother and I were living at home with my parents and we all had a license, it was a stacker.
• 23:22
  It was basically, you know, like, there's the tube.
• 23:25
  How are we going to sort this out for the morning?
• 23:26
  So when I first read the script for the castle, you have to understand, my dad was a greyhound trainer when I was when I was a little kid.
• 23:35
  And we lived near the airport.
• 23:36
  So I read the script in the first 10 pages.
• 23:38
  I thought they were taking the piss out of me.
• 23:41
  I'm like, is this a joke document or what's going on here?
• 23:44
  Like, this is too close to the bone.
• 23:46
  So, yeah, there was lots about the castle that I could definitely relate to.
• 23:51
  You said before that when you get into movie mode, you kind of compartmentalise, you focus on that and everything else, you know, from a car, bike, perhaps even, you know, to a lesser extent, family perspective, gets parked while you focus on that.
• 24:06
  Do you still get to indulge when you're on set if there are vehicles involved, you know, along the way where, I don't know, there's some classic cars from that era in Chopper, for example, you know, you know, there's lots of different things on the set where you would imagine you're quite intrigued.
• 24:21
  Yeah, I have to be really careful because it's such a passion.
• 24:27
  I do have to sometimes just kind of like keep the blinkers on because I'll inevitably get involved in a conversation with one of the prop guys or vehicle guys or in particular stunt guys.
• 24:38
  I usually make friends with a stunt person in the first week of production who's into cars.
• 24:43
  Yeah, yeah.
• 24:44
  And so whenever you're doing sort of stunt training or fight training, you've got something to talk about whilst you're learning something.
• 24:50
  That's a pretty common occurrence.
• 24:52
  But, yeah, I do try and keep the blinkers on for sure.
• 24:56
  You'd brought up Chopper before and how thankful you were about things like that and the impact that it's had on your life since then.
• 25:04
  Massive change, I would imagine, at that stage from the stand-up, the comic stuff that you had done to this role that became an iconic movie in Australia.
• 25:15
  How difficult was it to prep yourself for that?
• 25:17
  Do you still look back now and think, far out, this has had such a huge impact on my life now and where I've gone?
• 25:25
  Yeah, look, it was a massive sort of sliding door moment, really.
• 25:30
  It really opened the doors and, you know, changed things for a period of time.
• 25:36
  It's interesting sort of looking back now that I've so much time has gone and I understand how the system works.
• 25:43
  I do acknowledge the fact that it does provide a window, but it's actually a really brief window to capitalize on because we have this notion in our business where there's heat on someone.
• 25:57
  And what that enabled me to do was to capitalize on that
• 26:01
  the heat that's created from an international perspective for a very short period of time.
• 26:05
  And if you don't make that move, you sort of do miss out.
• 26:10
  So I was lucky enough that I was able to make some pretty dramatic moves.
• 26:14
  And a lot of those moves came with a lot of help from people.
• 26:17
  For instance, you know, because it took so long for Chopper to come out, by the time the movie was released, I had sort of moved on and I was still doing stand-up.
• 26:26
  And at the time I was actually working on an ABC drama series called Something in the Air.
• 26:31
  and shooting out at Niora in Elstonwick here in Melbourne.
• 26:34
  So I had to be released from that contract in order to be able to go and work overseas.
• 26:40
  So I was always forever grateful to the producers at the time who let that happen because there'd been a precedent of an actress from New Zealand who got offered some amazing role, I think, in one of the Alien movies who had to turn it down.
• 26:53
  Wow.
• 26:54
  and because she was caught up in some TV series and couldn't be released.
• 27:00
  So, yeah, you just really, there's so much, so many sliding door moments that you really have to capitalise on and it takes a lot of luck and a lot of influence from other people and you just have to be in the right place at the right time, really, many, many times for it to sort of,
• 27:18
  I also really, it wasn't really my intention, Greg.
• 27:21
  Like I was stoked with where I'd gotten to, even just to be on Full Frontal, was well beyond my wildest dreams.
• 27:29
  Well beyond my wildest dreams.
• 27:30
  So it's not as though I had this kind of grand plan of where things would end up or that, you know, this would be this incredibly, you know, long journey that would continually give back to me.
• 27:43
  That wasn't really what I had in mind when I set out.
• 27:51
  That's the end of part one of my chat with Hollywood star Eric Banner.
• 27:55
  For all the success, don't you just love the fact that he's so down to earth?
• 28:00
  Make sure you head back to the Rusty's Garage Library and hit the gas on part two, where we'll talk more about Bathurst, his soft spot for Porsche, and how it got him into circuit racing, plus the Beast, a hands-on rebuild of his beloved XB Falcon Coupe after the Targa crash that almost destroyed it.
• 28:28
  Listener.