Great escape, Guy

by Alan Little, Evening Gazette

GUY PEARCE, who plays Houdini in the new movie DEATH DEFYING ACTS, accepts that the contrast couldn’t be greater.

On the one hand, there is Harry Houdini, one of the great, publicity-seeking showmen of the 19th and 20th centuries.

On the other, there is Guy himself (pictured in the role), one of the most reluctant self-promoters in an industry where promotion and self-promotion are reckoned by many to be essential parts of the job.

Even if he is happier doing the kind of work he enjoys rather than the kind that will bring him fame, Guy isn’t doing too badly by being a shrinking violet. This latest film might just be the one that catapults him to Hollywood stardom.

“I feel comfortable with parts that I know I am suited to and I’ve said No to roles that I didn’t think I would be able to pull off,” says 40-year-old Guy.

“For those films, there are obviously actors better equipped than me to play the lead role.

“As for whether a movie will lead to fame or not, well, that’s not something you can predetermine. It’s very hard to predict what impact a particular movie will make.”

He certainly has no idea what the public will think of Death Defying Acts, which focuses on a particular slice of escapologist Houdini’s life.

As Guy explains: “The movie is not a biopic. It’s not an A to Z of Houdini’s life in the latter part of the 19th century and the early part of the 20th.

“The film focuses on Harry Houdini arriving in Edinburgh and offering a $10,000 reward to anyone who can contact his mother from beyond the grave.”

Enter, stage left, Catherine Zeta Jones as a beautiful but deceptive psychic and her young “sidekick” daughter, who take up the challenge.

As Houdini spends time with this mysterious woman, he is beguiled by her charms and what begins as a con, evolves into a far more complicated and dangerous affair.

“I think, at the heart of the movie, is the contrast between Houdini, who by this point in his life was famous the world over, and Mary the psychic for whom he falls.

“Can people from such vastly differing backgrounds establish a relationship and maintain that relationship? The movie raises that question.”

Although the film centres on the relationship between Houdini and Mary, cinema audiences would no doubt have felt cheated had we not seen a bit of what made Harry Houdini so famous.

Indeed, Guy had intensive lessons in the subtle art of escapology before filming began.

“I spent time with a group of free divers who taught me how to survive under water by holding my breath.

“Houdini was, when all is said and done, an illusionist and a magician but he did also possess some uncanny natural attributes, including an ability to breath for long periods under water. And the free divers helped me go some way to replicating that skill.”

So how skilled did Guy become at breathing under water?

“Not bad, actually. I was pretty fit when I was shooting the movie, and, at my best, could hold my breath under water for three minutes.”

That kind of revelation is about as close as you get to Guy “opening up” about himself.

Aussies (though Guy is technically English, having been born in Cambridgeshire) tend to be quite open souls, but Guy keeps himself to himself.

He is married to childhood sweetheart Kate Mestitz and lives in Melbourne, just a few miles from where he first found fame as Mike Young in Neighbours between 1986 and 1990.

Since then, he has gone on to star in movies such as the cross-dressing extravaganza Priscilla: Queen Of The Desert (“It was the first time anyone had said what good legs I had,” he chuckles), hit thriller LA Confidential and, more recently, Memento and The Proposition.

He’s not about to sacrifice the relative peace and quiet of Melbourne for the hustle and bustle of Hollywood in an attempt to build his career still further, though.

“I lead an unremarkable life and am perfectly happy with it,” he says. “Why would I want to change that?”