Rachel Griffiths: In Progress

by Shelton Hull

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p align=”center”>“I never see myself as a Beautiful Carrier of People’s Projections. I represent everygirl. People can identify with me when I’m true to that. When I’m not true to it, I’m really, really bad.”

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p align=”right”>–Rachel Griffiths, 1998. [3]

What is there to say about Rachel Griffiths that won’t be said eventually anyway? I am using this space to put myself on the record, in the year 2003, as saying that Rachel Griffiths may be the best actress of her generation. It’s good to be on the record when the obvious things in life come to be, and I’m resting here well ahead of the curve. Some things are better to know than others, and the case for Rachel Griffiths counts among them.

The lead of Graham Fuller’s Griffiths piece in the June 1999 issue of Interview bears quoting here, because it provides an amusing distillation of Griffiths’ basic appeal: “Rachel Griffiths is one of a new breed of unstarry but forcefully elemental actresses . . . who could dominate English-speaking cinema (of the non-Hollywood variety) in the next decade. Yet Griffiths is also a breed of one by virtue of being a mass of contradictions: an earthy intellectual; a woman who says she isn’t beautiful but who’s exactly that . . . a larger-than-life performer who trades in nuances; a hoot who can convey profound melancholy.” [14] I’m very fond of the phrase “forcefully elemental,” and I hope Fuller’s locution enters the vernacular, especially in re: RG.

Rachel Griffiths was born in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia in 1968, one of three children. Her uncle is a Jesuit theologian; although her name appears on a “celebrity atheist” web site, she describes herself as Catholic. “I did have a very visual background. My mother [Anna Griffiths] was an art teacher and terribly practical and we also didn’t have a lot of money and you know there was a lot of making and transformation through artistic labour in the house, furniture would be dragged home . . . stripped back and Victorian piece would appear from underneath green slime. . . . So I grew up in quite an intellectual atmosphere, you know but with art but also kind of practical as well.” [2]

“Sometimes when I was little I used to know I was feeling what another person was feeling just by mimicking them. I think a psychologist would say I was deluded in a completely ego-narcissistic way or that I suffered from an emotional overdependence on my family or something. I just became aware I could feel what it was to be another person immediately.” [14]

“I was quite good at art and really into visual things, but it just got to the point where for my own identity I had to look elsewhere. And I was doing dance more than acting and my tits just went from an ‘a’ to a ‘d’ and then my career went, it wasn’t ever very possible, but it certainly went down the toilet and I thought big tits, should become an actress.” [2]

“I did well academically but I was very unhappy. It struck me that writing papers was the most insane outcome of a meaningful investigation of a topic. It was like, This is three months of my life and one fucker’s gonna read it and then only with his head. So I decided to go to drama school. It wasn’t to be an actor–it was to go somewhere where a human experience was explored in a much more exciting, dynamic way that an academic piece of paper.” [14]

“The idea that I could do something that could communicate what I loved was always possible and when I wanted to leave university, my mother was just horrified that I was bailing out of honours at Melbourne University and you know she was slightly satisfied that I was doing a Bachelor of Education in drama and I think that it’s no coincidence that I dropped out of Rusden three months before I was to get my teaching degree. Because I didn’t want that degree, I didn’t want to be able to go into that place, because it would have been terribly easy for me. I was good with kids, I loved teaching, something I’d still love to do, I still believe in the notion that communicating a love of an art form and communicating a craft process is a really exciting thing to do, no matter what form you took it in, as teacher or in your area as communicating arts, demystifying them. But it was quite a leap for me to say ‘No, I’m not going to teach it, I’m not going to write about it, I’m not going to talk about it, I’m going to do it.” [2]

“I figured at 21 that you don’t decide to become an actor at 30, you’ve got to do it when you’re young because it’s so hard, it’s so tough, there’s so many things against you. You’ve got to be young, you’ve got to want to be poor and that’s got to not be a factor . . . So I thought ‘okay, until I’m 30 I’ll just act, that’s all I’ll do’ and I’ve been extremely fortunate that my life has allowed me to do that. . . . I was extremely lucky that there were still then regional theatre companies that now no longer exist, so that option isn’t there if you don’t get into drama school.” [2]

She would recall years later that “I always thought that if you were an actor, you could kind of take yourself to work. You didn’t have to leave yourself at home like in so many occupations. You have to put your warmer, caring self on ice and go be a bastard at the office. I go to work, I play and I get well paid, and overly complimented. How lucky can you get?” [20]

She joined Woolly Jumpers, Inc., a Melburnian theatre group, in 1991.Wrote and performed the one-woman show “Barbie Gets Hip,” which played the Melbourne International Film Festival in 1991. Melbourne Theatre Company (MTC) roles included: “A Doll’s House,” “The Grapes of Wrath,” “The Rover,” “The Sisters Rosensweig,” and “Sylvia.” “We always explored different processes of making shows. Sometimes we had no director, sometimes we had a director but no script. We were cutting things out of the paper for topics. We just always kept the process of where the work comes from open. That approach is getting harder and harder economically. Everyone wants guarantees. They want a perfect script, they want everything storyboarded. There’s little room for anything to change along the way.” [3]

Griffiths spent the early 1990s working in the Australian theatre, and even some television, including the lead in “Secrets,” (1993), before making her film debut as Rhonda in Muriel’s Wedding (1994). The part–and the praise she won for it, including an Australian Film Institute (AFI) award for best supporting actress–came as a surprise to her: “I grew up so sort of gangly and tomboyish; I was such an awkward adolescent. I’d always thought that beautiful people made the movies. So I always thought that maybe once I’d hit 50 I’ll start popping up in old movie roles.” [4] The film is best-known as Toni Collette’s star-making vehicle, but that it was also a sort of coming-out for Griffiths as well should eventually be the cause of considerable future viewings.

“I just didn’t think I was a film person, I thought I was too weird or too intense or you know, I wasn’t beautiful, so it just never occurred to me that there’d be a film I’d suit. So when I found it, I just thought ‘Wow, this is me, wow I could do this’ . . . And that was there in Muriel’s and that’s terribly rare to be offered a part where you can do that, you can start as one thing and then kind of twist it and take them with you, it’s really wonderful.” [2]

Muriel’s Wedding was a phenomenon in the industry, in that it was of several films released in the early ’90s that collectively declared the Australian presence in film to the larger consumer base. The presence was hardly new, but our media structures (especially in the US) place a heavy premium on formality. It seems sometimes that critics and commentators are incapable of acting outside of consensus, without the support of other critics and commentators. This tendency has only increased over the years of Griffiths’ career, and poses a significant threat to those industries–film, TV, music, politics and, to a lesser extent, art and literature–directly involved in symbiotic relationships with the intellectual classes that seem increasingly unable to use that pro-style intellect.

I think the rise of Rachel Griffiths and certain others (who’ll go without examination here, so as to keep this essay tidy) is a positive omen for the business of mass-media, for reasons beyond just her own intrinsic worth. I’ve taken it to mean that a business lurching unsteadily into a new century, toward technology that cynics purport will make actors obsolete, is still committed on some level to sustaining the grand tradition of film as a medium that, by illuminating the inner workings of a character, can be larger than life. For me, the greater implication of Rachel Griffiths is that the industries upon which America relies to define the norms of contemporary human existence are not quite ready to remove the human element. Acting still matters, “and that’s a good thing.”

Over the past decade, Griffiths has established a presence in all three of the extant outlets for dramatic work: film, television and the theatre, in reverse order. She has, in fact, done all three things in three different countries: Australia, England and the United States. This fact speaks volumes for her versatility, which is perhaps Griffiths’ primary defining trait as an actor. It’s worth compiling a brief list of the accents she has done in various projects: American (Texas), American (California), American (New York-via-Texas), Australian (not her own voice) British, French and Russian.

“My belief in myself as an actor can get eroded in the film process because of the difficulties of filming and the lack of rehearsal. I’ve done six films in two years [1994-96] and I do find plays fantastic for synthesizing and consolidating your skills. The great thing about a play is that you can have four weeks. You basically are biting off more than you can chew on day one, but you have four weeks to get there.” [1]

“[While playing an adopted stray dog who looks, talks and acts like the New Yorkers she lives with in “Sylvia,” a play she did in the winter of 1996-97] I rediscovered the elasticity you develop in theatre and about controlling an audience. You remember what timing is Timing is very difficult in a movie because it’s all chopped around, you’re not in control of it, and there are only two people watching you: the actor you are with and the director. Everyone else is watching for aeroplanes or holding booms.” [1]

“With film I find I get increasingly narrow in my view of the human condition because it is all to do with the realism of cinema. You begin to think, ‘Oh, my character would never do that.’ As soon as you say that I reckon you’ve got to go off and play a dog!” [1]

“The roles I really love are the roles I chase down, hunt, kill. . . . I think the first thing is it’s just got to turn you on, that’s even before it’s even a conscious or an articulated thing, it’s just like ‘yeah, that turns me on’ and you kind of think ‘why is that?’ I think any role is a balance between a stretch and knowing that you can do it. I wouldn’t take a role, and I have knocked back roles that I really could not see myself pulling off. Even if other people could, because I think I’m just a bit gutless about that. I just couldn’t bear failing in such a spectacular fashion. So I’m pretty safe in my choices. . . . I guess I look for a particular humanity in a film, a film that moves me, not necessarily the character that I’m playing moves me.” [2]

“I’m not interested in films that leave you with nothing when you come out, that just throw information at you with no sense of, not resolution. . ., but just kind of give you something, something to come out with that you kind of hold for a little while before it breaks up. And the best films leave you with that, you come out kind of feeling like you know something, just for a while and then it fades away and you’ve got to go back and try and get the experience again.” [2]

“It is our job to lift a character off the page and make it live. Even the most realised character on paper is still only on paper–our job as actors is to make them credible and give them an emotional life and hopefully make you care about them.” [15]

“I’m struck by how we try to reduce the size and depth of people once we translate them to film. A novelist seeks to fill out, but film tries to box actors in, to limit what people can do. It’s all about immediate effect. Anyone who commits to defying this trend is a gift to three-dimensional people who want to go to the movies and see themselves represented.” [3]

“An actor can be not terribly good, but if they’re truthfully present, they can be delightful and they can still carry our dreams. I think bad actors are dishonest in the moment–they’re not really opposite the person who’s talking to them, they’re not actually listening. They’re acting out something in their head or from a previous moment.” [14]

Griffiths made news of an entirely different kind in May 1997 with her protest at the opening of Melbourne’s Crown casino, a display that was explicit in both the visual and metaphorical sense: “When I did it, it wasn’t there, just page after page of ‘Oh glorious Crown, you’re going to save us all and we love you so much and thank God we don’t have God anymore because we have Crown.’ And that’s what it was about, it was about this completely one-sided presentation of gambling, an awareness that I saw that the state was encouraging gambling because it needs it for its budget and it’s the big federal taxation state relationship that’s being explored at the moment. At the time I did it, I was just like ‘what can I do to make people think a different way,’ because everything was one-sided. . . .” [2]

“I was dressed as Jesus Christ. I wore a crown of thorns ‘cause the place is called the Crown entertainment center. We’ve not had gambling except on the races in the state [Victoria] until recently. It suddenly went from being something that wasn’t part of our culture to being enthusiastically promoted by the government because it’s lucrative. I’ve got nothing against Crown casinos per se but I don’t think they should be built on prime city land and shoved down people’s throats as a solution to social problems.” [14]

“I was terrified for myself to be absolutely honest . . . I did not think for a second that people would understand what I was trying to do, I mean I hoped they would but I couldn’t be certain. Ironically on a personal level, it did make people see me in a different way that is favourable, but I don’t think career-wise . . .” [2]

“I was looking at metaphors because I wanted to make a protest as an artist. . . . [I]t was illegal actually to protest with a banner within half a kilometre of Crown, so that basically excluded that. I couldn’t just go down and be there with a banner with a bunch of people and that really incensed me. . . . I thought ‘Okay, I’ve just got to turn up in a really big limo, because money seems to speak to these guys, so if I turn up in the biggest limo I can find, I can get inside, no questions asked.’ Then I started to think, ‘well, what can I do once I’m out of the limo that will get any attention?’ And so then I thought, ‘naked is good’ and I did remember Lady Godiva, that’s where it first came from . . .

“So naked women on horses, white horses, white limos you know that’s a metaphor obviously potent for our feminist history. So I thought ‘yeah, that’s good,’ then I started to think, ‘Crown, Lady Godiva, Crown,’ and then I started thinking ‘Jesus Christ’ . . . And then I thought, ‘girl Christ, that’s very good, girl Christ is good. Half naked girl Christ, that’s very good, we’re getting somewhere.’ Thinking, ‘Crown of thorns, half naked, tits, crown of thorns. It’s all coming together, the white limo, the Lady Godiva,’ so I thought, ‘there is my essential image.’ And then this little girl wanted to do it as well so I had the girl and she was an angel and that was that.” [2]

Griffiths only appears in the opening scene of Welcome to Woop Woop (1998). Jonathan Schaech stars as “Mr. Bojangles,” who begins the movie in fake moustache and goatee, selling rare Australian birds to a couple of wealthy New York women, one of whom is played by Tina Louise. While doing the deed, Bojangles is accosted by two thugs seeking payment on a five-figure debt. As the thugs walk past the front of the truck carrying the birds, toward the back, you can see her hand and then her face peering out of the cabin through the foggy drivers-side window. As an exotic dancer named “Sylvia,” RG intercedes on behalf of Bojangles wearing a short sequined mini-dress, spike heels, feathery jacket and a cowboy hat. She is heavily made up, very pale and carries a toy gun that is soon replaced by a very real .45, which she uses to shoot Bojangles’ attackers while adding to her arsenal of accents with a thick transplanted-southern drawl that totally overwhelms the aural sphere in its brief period of use. Sylvia shoots the second thug after he’d handcuffed himself to her; Bojangles flees to Australia, leaving Sylvia in the alley as the scene turns surreal: a young boy released the birds During the commotion, and it seems that everyone in the streets of New York has pulled guns to kill the birds, though none succeed.

Rachel Griffiths’ Best Supporting Oscar nomination in 1998 announced her arrival on the American scene. Hilary and Jackie is the story of Hilary and Jacqueline Du Pre, sisters in the European classical music scene of the 1960s. Jackie is played by Emily Watson (also nominated as a lead actress), Hilary is played by Griffiths. Although Griffiths was careful not to meet her before filming, Hilary Du Pre told Tee Hun Ching of the Singapore Times that “It was like she crept into my soul and became me.” [7]

“It was a character I felt more comfortable doing than that of Jackie. I think Emily’s amazing, and I can’t imagine being more able to play that role, nor would I want to, because that’s not the kind of actress I am.” [4] Whereas Hilary opts for marriage, children and normalcy, Jackie becomes one of the all-time legendary cellists before her premature death from muscular dystrophy [?] As the older sister, Griffiths has a lot of work in the movie–Watson’s brilliant immersion into the very core of her character is only really possible because Griffiths provides such a strong emotional backbeat to Emily’s Watsonesque viscerality.

The take from Hilary and Jackie also included nominations for a British Independent Film Award, a Chicago Film Critics Association Award and a Screen Actors Guild Award. “I came to the film stone cold,” she says, “because I didn’t know about Jacqueline Du Pre. Being Australian, I didn’t grow up with a kind of icon of this woman, and I’m suspicious of biopics. . . . Just because this woman is extraordinary, that’s not a good enough reason for me. A film must resonate for me. The reason for making this kind of film is the kind of complex themes of family and forgiveness, and love and the complexity of love in a family–it’s not like lovers, you can’t break up and leave to never see each other again, or if you it is a great pain that you take to your grave. I loved the idea of what happens in a family when someone takes up more room because they’ve either got extraordinary ability or disability, and how things are rearranged in a dynamic to support or protect that person.” [4]

The movie brought some complaints from people who’d known the real Jackie, who found the film somewhat sensational, but Griffiths rejects the critics’ concept of where the story’s focus should have been. “The film makers did not sit down to do a biopic of Jacqueline Du Pre. . . . The story is of two sisters, of what happens in a family when one sister is born with something very, very special that the other sister doesn’t have. How that affects all the family dynamics is the story that fascinated them. They weren’t pretending for a second to write the story of Daniel Barenboim. It wasn’t the story about Jacqueline’s contribution to 20th century music, or about Jacqueline’s 10 meetings with Julian Lloyd Webber, who now claims to be an absolute expert on her entire life story. Because they’re not film makers, I think a lot of music critics think a very dry docu-drama does more justice to somebody’s life, whereas we felt the need to explore the complexity of life, the light and shade, that every human being has. We felt that does justice to somebody’s life.” [6]

It was while watching this movie for the third or fourth time (though only the second time actively) that I noticed how Griffiths’ face looks different in every work she’s done, and indeed changes several times within the space of Hilary and Jackie. Beyond the obvious differences in hair style, makeup, lighting, there’s something at work on a basic structural level; maybe it’s the degree of assimilation she achieves with her characters, or maybe it’s just me looking for things to write about. Either way, it’s true, it’s damn true. Few actresses do so good a job at aging plausibly in film as Rachel Griffiths; her work in Blow (2001) should reinforce the fact established in Hilary and Jackie.

As the older sister, Griffiths’ Hilary is a talented flautist damaged in that regard by overbearing pedagogues and the impossible comparisons with a gifted younger sister. The scene in which a music teacher begins with admonishment of her posture and later expresses no tolerance whatsoever with her B-flat in a Mozart piece, then making her repeat the note over and over is a study in controlled tension, and Griffiths plays the scene like a girl that really wants to do her best. She bears the stress of being Jackie’s sister without ever letting her feelings boil over. To do so would be infringing on Watson’s terrain, so instead she waits until pivotal moments to expose her emotional business. A lesser actress would have taken the part down into a black hole of self-pity, like a poor parody of Jan Brady or Owen Hart. Restraint wins out in the end. “I’ve often played characters who are very open emotionally. But Hilary, whose hurt is buried under a very controlled response to the world, was a complete departure for me.” [14]

“The spectaculars had to be done by Emily and if she didn’t pull them off, the movie didn’t work,” Griffiths told Movieline’s Joshua Mooney. “I had to be a constant–a counterbalance. That enabled me to take the risk to do less than ever before. I loved just feeling things, because that’s what Hilary did.” [5]

“I love the language of British scriptwriting in British cinema, whether it’s the working-class genre with its rich vernacular, or the more erudite films, such as Women In Love (1969), in which ideas are explored. [paragraph break] When I was growing up in Australia I became enthralled with the idea that Britain was this little island fighting for its life, and that its people must have been so strong. So I love Second World War propaganda films.” [15]

“I had the highest odds. I was a rank outsider, I was lucky to have made the final five. I just knew it was not going to happen. Nobody wins those awards who has not won a Golden Globe or a Screen Actors Guild or a New York Critics Award. It just doesn’t happen.” [6]

“It finally puts the little voice in your head to rest, that is constantly going, ‘Am I good enough? Am I good enough?’ That’s not to say, when taking on a new role, I’ll be complacent, because I won’t be, but I’m not going to waste much more brain power wondering whether or not I’m a good actor.” [6]

Griffiths has made it known that she wants not only to act in film, but to also be active at the camera’s other end. “I’d been thinking that I’d really love to tell a story. I’d love to have a forum for ideas. As an actor, you can’t embody ideas. Designers can, and directors can, but it’s the one thing that limits an actor.” [1]

She has written and directed two short films to date. “I love the short form when it works, not when it’s a self-indulgent calling-card for some pratting advertising director.” [1] The first, Tulip (1998), is based on a piece of family history: “It’s about an old farmer [played by Bud Tingwell] whose wife has died. It’s four days after her death and he’s trying to come to terms with the fact that his partner of fifty years is not with him and this cow is wailing in the paddock waiting to be milked. He tries to milk it but it won’t milk. He really wants to die, but he’s got to deal with this problem. So he ends up getting dressed as the dead wife to trick the cow. . . . Apparently my mum’s great uncle used to get dressed as his dead wife every morning, milk the cow, come in, take off the dress, and make a cup of tea. When she told me, I said, ‘Mum, he was a tranny,’ and she said, ‘No, he wasn’t. It was just something he had to do.’” [2] Tulip was named “Best of the Festival” at the 1999 Palm Springs International Short Film Festival and won the OCIC Award at the 1998 Melbourne International Film Festival, as well as two awards at the 1999 Aspen Shortsfest.

My Son the Fanatic stars Om Puri as Parvez, a cabdriver of Pakistani descent living and working in England. His family slowly disintegrates as his son begins to reject the western assimilationist values professed by Parvez, especially the consumption of alcohol and socializing with immoral, decadent whites. Griffiths plays Parvez’s friend Bettina, a prostitute whose occupation provides the fulcrum of the movie’s dramatic action. For most of the film, Parvez is stuck in a strictly reactionary mode, ironically given the nature of his problems; his inner turmoil is reflected in his unsteady relationships with the other characters. A German tourist, who becomes Bettina’s regular customer, adopts the carefree, liberal-democratic stance to which “little man” Parvez aspires, while his son’s increasingly militant musings are diametrically opposed; they represent the conflict raging within the protagonist. Parvez’s wife, who verbally abuses her husband but submits to the will of a visiting Islamic cleric (whose stay at Parvez’s home forces the eventual resolution) is of no use to him anymore–Bettina becomes his ideal, and the relationship is consummated. The movie climaxes with a protest at the point of congregation for Bettina and her colleagues. While driving the German, Parvez happens upon the protest and goes toward it despite the fare’s protests. The presence of Parvez sends the son into a violent rage, and he attacks Bettina. At that point Parvez must decide where he stands, and he stands by Bettina. His family leaves him, and the movie ends with Parvez turning on lights in his dark, empty house, with Louis Armstrong’s version of “Black and Blue” playing louder than he was ever allowed to play it before. Avoiding the temptation to note its prescience in light of recent events, I’ll say only that it’s a pretty good movie that tells its story credibly and convincingly on all sides. Griffiths, as always, is superb.

Rachel Griffiths was nominated for another AFI Award in 2000 for Me, Myself I (1999), a comedy written and directed by Pip Karmel. Among the many ways in which the role appealed to her: “I was craving to not have the extra apparatus of working in an accent.” [13]

Griffiths plays Pamela Drury, a successful writer for glossy women’s magazines, who’s reached a point where nothing present in her life quite satisfies her anymore. (One wonders how turning 30 around the time of filming may have influenced her work in this film, since Pamela’s “crisis” is of a type typically brought on by the reaching of certain symbolic ages at which time comparisons to the operative “norms” may spur feelings of inadequacy.) She dwells on memories of romantic failure, which drive her right to the point of suicide, before one of those deus et machina moments where unknown forces intervene to cause a blackout just before Pamela can drop a hairdryer into her bubbly bath. She is hit by a car while crossing a street the next day; the accident throws her into a parallel dimension, an existence in which Pamela Drury has married an old boyfriend and produced three children. The process of physical and emotional adjustment to a new reality, from potty training to diaphragms to the idea that she is no longer the only person of immediate relevance to her life, forms the film’s dramatic center and gives Griffiths the chance to play off the weirdness of spontaneous, unplanned domesticity.

“The first things we discussed [were] things like the tone of the film and how she saw that being placed. When I read this script I could see it played so many ways. That kind of ‘what if’ comedy is not a genre we’ve really done a lot of in this country. Americans are much more confident with it in that their actors are much more used to the genre–like Splash and Groundhog Day and Multiplicity and right back to It’s A Wonderful Life or Wizard of Oz–with that fantasy element and real suspension of disbelief.” [15]

As in all her roles, preparation is key. “I worked out for six weeks for Me, Myself I. I was getting paid a lot of money, so I wanted to make sure I stayed healthy. It was like training for a marathon, but I knew physically I had to stay more positive than I ever had done on any other film in order to be light and funny.” [18] “I think my biggest preparation for Me, Myself I . . . was to watch a lot of comedies and start to work out how actors play that romantic comedy. How they make moments poignant and never drag the film into some kind of domestic realism. Not to say there aren’t moments where an audience might be moved to the brink of tears. It’s a hard line to walk.” [15]

“[Body surfing] isn’t really a sport, but more a religion. For me, the perfect wave is as big as I can handle and one that I don’t get munched in. But often I think I let the perfect wave go past because I think it’s going to kill me, and then my brother rides it all the way in to shore and it doesn’t Dump him at all. I have body surfed for as long as I can remember. When my body’s riding the waves it is such fun; you sometimes laugh all the way in. The best surf is supposed to be in Hawaii, but when I was there I was too scared to get into the water. The best surf for me is the beach that I am familiar with; I prefer to know if a wave is going to crack me on to a reef or not.” [15]

“For me, it’s all about the part. If I think I can inhabit the character and bring it to life, I will chase after it.” [7] Among the roles that Griffiths was unsuccessful in pursuing was Althea Flynt, the wife of Woody Harrelson’s character in The People Vs. Larry Flynt (1996), a role that ultimately went to novice Courtney Love, who just barely missed Oscar nomination herself. It’s feasible that, had Griffiths won the role, she could have converted it into her first Academy Award.

Rachel Griffiths’ debut on American television occurred in the spring of 2001, when “Six Feet Under” premiered on HBO. The show is the creation of Alan Ball, the Oscar-winning writer of American Beauty, one of Griffiths’ favorite films, which she had seen seven times before hearing about the new pilot he was working on. “I shrieked, ‘Alan Ball! I want to see it!’ They faxed the script to me and, by the time I’d read it, in my own head I was already in it. I was Brenda.” [19] Ball recalls that “Rachel flew at her own expense to California from Australia [which probably cost around $7,000 dollars] to meet with us, and I was just blown away. She’s very smart, she’s complicated and she’s unapologetically sexually assertive. She’s very funny, and I knew she would bring the character to life in a way that would be really fascinating and fun to watch.” [19] Judging from the critics’ response, it would seem that all Ball’s casting choices were, as they say, dead-on.

“To me, of all the characters in the pilot, she was the least afraid of death. And she was the most willing to really stare death in the face and describe it as it is. Brenda has an amazing humanity. And I think she is a seeker. I think she really seeks to kind of cut through what a lot of pretending isn’t there.” [20]

It so happens that I missed the first episode, because I was unaware of its existence and had, at that point, no idea who Rachel Griffiths was–but that would change by episode two. Having since seen the show’s debut months after seeing the season finale, I was able to view the characters in what might be called their raw form, before the action of the storyline had begun to have its desired effect. The extent of the characters’ creative evolution is easily appreciated in retrospect, especially so in the case of “Six Feet Under,” a show in which every major character dealt with major themes in the first season. Given the frenetic pace of Alan Ball’s storyline development and the profundity of internal and external change in the dynamics of character relationships, those first few scenes are especially gripping, because I knew of all the weirdness preordained. (www.hbo.com/sixfeetunder)

“I have a reactive capacity,” she told Howard Feinstein in 1999. “I’m most happy on screen when I have someone else on with me, and the scenes are about a relationship, not so much a moving forward of the plot. I love the intimacy of that. It’s a cool thing to keep your cards under the table and just play them.” [3]

Of all the show’s characters, Brenda Chenoweth makes the least profound of shifts–when she ceases the unhesitating tolerance of destructive behavior by her younger brother Billy (Jeremy Sisto), she is able to achieve greater emotional intimacy with Nate Fisher (Peter Krause). Unlike the other characters, Brenda’s issues are never overtly manifested in “normal” behavior occurring outside natural character relationships, although they are revealed in scenes with Nate, Billy and her parents and alluded to from her first scene, in which Brenda has sex with Nate in an airport broom closet without knowing each other’s names. But Brenda emerges at the end of season one as probably the least altered character, and one who functions (along with Nathaniel Sr. and Federico) as the most stable figure in a softly swirling vortex of narrative. Brenda’s bon mots, emanating as they do from a woman born to Dual-psychiatrist parents, always seems to fit, and they point a way out of Nate’s inner turmoil, whether he recognizes that or not.

Unfortunately, neither “Six Feet Under” itself nor its cast and crew were eligible for Emmy awards in 2001 because of the peculiarities of HBO’s scheduling, although Griffiths and Krause did present an award, which is a sign of industry regard in itself. Part of what brought HBO to its present preeminence among TV networks (a designation based on recent Emmy tallies and the sum total of high-end media attention) is its willingness to broadcast new episodes–indeed, to schedule a whole run–outside the traditional fall TV season. The downside is that sometimes shows air outside the window for Emmy balloting, and a show like “Six Feet Under,” which was good enough to compete in almost every dramatic category, misses the cut. It’s unlikely, however, that HBO will permit another season to air without an appropriately phat PR campaign, and that will generate a buzz for the cast and crew heading into the voting.

Her work as Brenda earned Griffiths the Golden Globe for Best Supporting Actress in a TV drama on January 20, 2002, which she accepted in a pale pink gown, straps at shoulder-side, tassled across the busom, by Valentino. “My stylist brought over a couple, and this just, like, leaped out–I’ve never worn couture before, and I had no idea how beautiful couture is. Thank you, Mr. Valentino.” (Leon Hall, ever the contrarian bitch, cut a promo on the sainted RG: “I love Six Feet Under, and I love Rachel Griffiths. It’s my favorite show, and I thought that poor Rachel did everything wrong: that sort of Scarlett O’Hara hair, and that dress! That’s a Valentino couture, it’s probably 30,000 dollars; I thought it looked like a Mardi Gras drag dress.” Personally, I thought she looked exceptional.)

“I think I did the best shocked acting of the night, because it was true,” she told E! after the show. “I really though Allison [Janney, nominated for her work as press secretary CJ Craig on “The West Wing”] would win. I’m in awe of her as an actress, and she’s a real role model for me, because she’s got such breadth and depth and she’s not your classically-beautiful actress that’s kind of made it young, you know. She’s going to have a long, extraordinary career and she’s a stage actress, and I was like, ‘My turn will come, and if that’s when I’m 40, fine.’ And [winning] was just a punch from left field . . . It’s weird. It’s very out-of-body. I’ve never won anything before, and I was going to have a good night anyway, but–winning’s fun. I think my dress wanted to win a lot. My dress was very happy I won. It really wanted to be up there, I think. It wanted to be on the podium.” Griffiths’ achievement was commemorated by the Democratic Republic of Congo, which paused its long-standing civil war to issue a postage stamp depicting Griffiths and Alan Ball holding their Globes. Given the situation there, one might regard the apparent Congolese regard for “Six Feet Under” as weirdly ironic, if not just simply weird.

(The Globes ceremony was touted by the international press as an “Aussie invasion” of sorts, with no Australian–including Best Actors Russell Crowe and Nicole Kidman–losing in any category for which they were nominated. It was surely no surprise to Griffiths, who said of the scene in 2000 that “Mel [Gibson] and Judy [Davis] were there such a long time ago and you can go back to Errol Flynn and Peter Finch. I think that Australian men are really powerful energies on screen. And the actresses in the last 10 years have been making a lot of international noise–Toni Collette and Cate Blanchett–but it’s also a credit to our very fine drama schools. I think we produce very unmannered actors and the world responds to that. The women are not coy; we have to kind of match the men we produce! Russell has been very successful in our eyes for a very long time–he had been doing very fine work well before L.A. Confidential–and I grew up watching Geoffrey [Rush, who won an Oscar for Shine in 1996] in the theatre and just blowing my mind and inspiring me to be that kind of actor–and he made his first film at 38.” [12])

In my opinion, “Six Feet Under” was the best show on American television in 2001, and it’s also the first essential show of the 21st century. Both Rachel Griffiths and Frances Conroy (who plays Ruth Fisher) were worthy of Emmy nominations in the best actress/supporting actress category, with Conroy getting the lead actress slot for obvious reasons. The Globes win has upped RG’s profile heading into season two. Mike Binder, whose show “The Mind of the Married Man” debuted the same year as “Six Feet Under,” was first to speak the truth on TV (after a public viewing of season two’s premiere of “Six Feet Under” at Mann’s Chinese Theatre) when he told HBO cameras that “Rachel Griffiths is one of the best actresses out there.”

Brenda begins season two in a state of depression brought about by the realization that her life to that point has revolved around other people. I find this interesting because Rachel Griffiths’ name is listed on a website devoted to celebrities who’ve suffered from depression, which is probably because her short film Roundabout was partly funded by Beyondblue, Australia’s national depression institute. I would assume that almost everyone has dealt with depression at some point in their lives, and that it’s actually a viable reaction to certain realities of life, when viewed honestly.

The actors on “Six Feet Under” have all praised the material they’re given to work with, and critics have begun to recognize the quality of the show. It was HBO’s highest-rating first-year show ever with over five million viewers, almost two million more than “The Sopranos.” Part of HBO’s genius, from my perspective as a viewer and professional speculator, is that they refuse to fall into the industry trap of assigning relative merit, by which I mean that their shows are not forced to “compete” with one another as cheaply and brazenly as the networks. Even if HBO executives study the Nielsens as obsessively as the suits at ABC, CBS, NBC and (to a lesser extent) Fox, they fail to give that impression, which is to that impression. As the networks sell away their credibility for advertising revenue garnered by largely disposable programming, HBO’s original series aim for permanence. Like most shows on HBO, “Six Feet Under” couldn’t be aired in its present, most vital form on another channel. That uniform distinction gives HBO a ground-floor perceptional advantage in the battle for attention.

I’m frankly concerned about the media’s ability to cover the show and its cast in a manner proportionate to their value–which is one reason why I’m writing this. Depth, detail and dialogue are the journalism industry’s weak points, which leaves–photography. My research has turned up more and better writing about Griffiths than about “Six Feet Under,” because she has the advantage of international appeal. As such, the only really interesting piece of American press I’ve turned up (given that it all has an inherent value, being of her) has been the Interview piece by Graham Fuller; the bulk of quality material was composed in Australia or Britain. Obviously, press matters, because it imposes those conditions by which the unfamiliar view the subject, their expectations. Krause, Griffiths, Michael C. Hall and others on the show are at a delicate point of career transition, wherein they’re using new but increasingly familiar characters to establish a referential base in the minds of the domestic dramatic market. This will hopefully generate more and more good roles, fame and money for them, even after “Six Feet Under” leaves the air; incompetent journalists in high-profile spots can monkeywrench their forward trajectory with just a few bad, misleading articles. But so far, so good.

Season three will begin at heights of uncertainty, with Nate on the table having brain surgery and Brenda on the road in search of something as-yet unknown. “I feel she’s coming close to myself, to how I feel about being on the planet, and the richness and depth I aspire to find in my human relationships. And all the obstacles there are to that.” [20]

In “Blow,” Griffiths and Ray Liotta play the parents of Johnny Depp’s character, George Jung, a major cocaine trafficker of the 1980s. . . . With “The Rookie” premiering in July, 2002, Rachel Griffiths finds herself prominently placed in a movie produced by a major American studio, Disney. Griffiths is cast as the wife of Dennis Quaid, who plays a Little League coach who realizes his dream of playing major league baseball after his making a bet with his team that he would try out if they began to win. This much I got from the previews in theaters; I’d guess that Griffiths will function as a sort of moral and emotional touchstone in this film, which is aimed at boys. I would expect it to work–that is, to work as well as a Dennis Quaid film can be expected to work. . . .

Griffiths’ second outing as a filmmaker occurs in Roundabout (2002): “It’s about a man who is having a breakdown. The whole male depression thing is a real big issue in Australia at the moment. We have the second highest male suicide rate in the world. I think Australian men are even less likely to talk about their problems than English men. I found English men do talk more to each other, and not just about football and shagging.” [14]

Griffiths announced her engagement to longtime friend Andrew Taylor in the summer of 2002, and the deed was done on New Year’s Eve. No word on plans for children, though she did tell the Denver Rocky Mountain News two years previously that “It’s something I deeply hope I do in my life. It’s never been something I felt I should do. I feel I’ll be a much poorer person if I don’t have that opportunity. You know children aren’t like pizzas; you can’t just order one when you want one.” [10]

The outlook for Rachel Griffiths as the century progresses is entirely good. She’s 35 now, and in a strong position. The extent to which greater systemic processes in TV, movies and theatre affect the talent has not been fully determined yet, but an easily imaginable consequence of existing market trends, should they persist, is a steady diminution of management’s ability and willingness to build large, expensive productions based simply on the expectation of big box-office profit. As this aspect of media comes to grips with its possible end as a cash cow for its parent companies, there should be a shift (within the next five years) to a mode of operation more like when these businesses were nearer to their inceptions, when the dynamic of the marketplace was determined in terms of the superiority of one’s product. The literal ability to act effectively will become a commodity again, separate from the studio’s ability to generate interest through propaganda. In that environment, Griffiths should dominate her industry. And until such terms come to pass, she’s still likely to dominate, for reasons mentioned above.

“I know that I’m not beautiful. I’m a channel for what I perceive and experience and all that I can be is beautiful on the inside. If, as an actor, you are truthfully moved by the story you’re telling, you can then offer that to an audience to identify with. And if they do, then maybe it touches something beautiful and humane inside themselves. . . . There’ve got to be some of us who don’t represent the beautiful people, but represent the beautiful part of us all from the inside out. And if I can make people think I’m beautiful because I’ve done that then that’s really good.” [14]

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p align=”center”>Bibliography

A note on the bibliography: I’ve been able to find a good deal of information on RG and her work via the internet. Tracking down the print versions of any of her press material has proven difficult, if not impossible. As a fan, I found that irritating, and as a journalist I decided to expand the literature, using what I’d found to construct a framework upon which the actual piece was written. This is pretentious shit, and I’d rather not even go into it, but I felt compelled to explain my methods in case any readers think I’m piggybacking previously published material. The list below includes only those pieces from which quotes were used; its internet availability, besides the fact that I can’t obtain the originals anyway, suggests that it’s okay to do so. The piece works without the quotes, and would work better if I could arrange an interview, but I’m leaving them in because they’re her words, not the publications’.

1. “An actor’s life as a dog,” by Jim Schembri. The Age, December 6 1996. (http://www.theage.com.au/ent/e960106a.htm)

1. “Rachel Griffiths–On Express.” Interview with Madeleine Swain for Express, Australian Broadcasting Corporation, 1998. (http://www.abc.net.au/express/stories/rachel.htm)

1. “The Rachel Capers,” by Howard Feinstein. Guardian Unlimited (UK), December 18, 1998. (http://film.guardian.co.uk/The_Oscars_1999/Story/0,4135,36396,00.html<a/>)

1. “Griffiths, Rachel: Hilary and Jackie,” by Paul Fischer, Urban Cinefile, 1999.

1. “Hype: Rachel Griffiths,” by Joshua Mooney. Movieline, April 1999.

1. “Classy Outsider,” byline not given. The Age (Melbourne), April 16, 1999.

1. “Life! Life!” by Tee Hun Ching. The Straits Times (Singapore), May 25, 1999.

1. “Rachel Grrrrriffiths,” by Graham Fuller. Interview, June 1999 (http://www.findarticles.com/cf_0/m1285/6_29/54793381/print.jhtml)

1. “Griffiths, Rachel: Me Myself I,” by Andrew L. Urban. Urban Cinefile, 2000.

1. “Griffiths Keeps Firm Grip on Her Identity,” by Robert Denerstein. Denver Rocky Mountain News, April 23, 2000.

1. “Rachel Griffiths . . . spiky, outspoken and up for a bit of everything,” by Akin Ojumu. Guardian Unlimited (UK), July 2, 2000 (http://film.guardian.co.uk/Column/0,4541,338756,00.html)

1. “Aussie Rules,” by Duncan Campbell. The Guardian, August 11, 2000.

1. “Accent on Success,” by James Mottram. Scotland on Sunday, August 13, 2000.

1. “Interview: Rachel Griffiths.” BBC Online, 2001.

1. “My cultural life: Rachel Griffiths,” by Pauline McLeod. The Times (UK), May 19, 2001. (http://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/0,,342-202359.00.html)

1. “Dysfunction Junction,” by Jason Lynch. People, July 16, 2001.

1. “She’s No Angel,” by Brett Thomas. Sun Herald (Sydney), August 19, 2001.

1. “From Woolly Jumpers to Movie Fame,” by Betty Jo Tucker. KOAA Online.

1. “Death Becomes Her,” by Ivor Davis. The Age (Melbourne), March 28, 2002.

1. “Free Spirit,” by Debra L. Wallace. Scotland on Sunday, June 23, 2002.</a>