We are very proud to have alumni Baz Luhrmann (Acting, 1985) and Sarah Snook (Acting, 2008) share how their NIDA training is such a big part of their success, as well as iconic Director John Clark speaking to what makes our training unique.
While the value of what we do at NIDA stretches far beyond the bright lights of Hollywood, a story on a show like this is a chance to pause and feel pride in what we do together here. One of Australia’s leading exports is creative talent, and our training has the power to continue to shape storytelling around the globe for generations to come.
Watch the full 60 Minutes segment:
An excerpt of the transcript
Scene: London’s West End, it’s Theatre District. Sarah Snook is fresh off her Emmy-winning breakthrough role as Shiv Roy… the vicious-yet-vulnerable daughter in the HBO show Succession.
For her next act, she has upped the degree of difficulty and pivoted from TV to live performance, playing all 26 roles in an innovative, multimedia staging of Oscar Wilde’s The Picture of Dorian Gray… a theatrical sensation, coming soon to Broadway.
Jon Wertheim: It’s not unheard of for someone to have a successful run in TV or film and then go do theatre. I’m not sure I’ve seen someone do 26 roles of theatre at once. What are you thinking?
Sarah Snook: You know, it’s an incredible play, an incredible opportunity to be able to play so many different roles, and so many different characters. And, you know, it’s that thing of you come off some of the best writing in the world, what do you do next? Something has to be, you know, out there to challenge you. And this certainly is. Yeah. The challenge.
If it’s an unusual bit of career management, it is also on-brand as the kind of daring move you would expect from a modern Australian star.
Jon Wertheim: What is going through your head during this performance, with all of these marks, and roles, and lines, and angles?
Sarah Snook: Nothing. Which is quite nice.
Jon Wertheim: Really?
Sarah Snook: Yeah. The focus required is a kind of a state of meditative flow in a way. Because if I’m sitting there going, “Oh. Am I on my mark? Am I doing this?” Then the next line has happened. So, if I think about anything else, then I’m stitched up.
Stitched up? That’s Aussie for in a jam…. didn’t know Sarah Snook was Australian?
If you couldn’t have guessed by the accent—we’ll get to that soon—you might have guessed it by simply playing the percentages.
Name an A-list star of the stage or screen today; odds are bloomin’ good, they come from the Land Down Under.
Jon Wertheim: There are a lot of you, aren’t there?
Sarah Snook: Yeah. There’s a few of us out there.
Jon Wertheim: Here’s this country. Fewer people than Texas.
Sarah Snook: Is it really? Stop it. Really? Pretty good ratio.
Jon Wertheim: I was gonna say you guys are doing pretty well for yourself, aren’t you?
Sarah Snook: Yeah. Not so bad. Not so bad. Huh.
Yes, they are everywhere, these Aussies… filling up IMDB pages and call sheets…
Luhrmann, too, still leans on his NIDA training…
Baz Luhrmann: The National Institute of Dramatic Art, the drama school I went to, I mean, I, I do remember one thing. And I think it’s sort of an Australian attitude which is, “Don’t wait for permission to be told that you can act.” We were taught to devise things. We were taught not to sit around and, “Okay, there’s the play. That’s your part. You may be in it.” We were taught to make up story, get with friends, make a show, create something. I had an idea that I would take the Greek myth and with a bunch of friends devise it and set it in the world of ballroom dancing while I was at the National Institute of Dramatic Art. That little play went for about 30 minutes. It was called Strictly Ballroom.
Within a few years, Luhrmann had turned that “little play” into a worldwide film, a cult hit with all Aussie cast and crew. That was 1992. Then, Australia was still a theatrical outback of sorts. True, Errol Flynn was born in Tasmania; but Australia’s contribution to the silver screen extended not much beyond well, this…
Then the NIDA talent started filtering out… Mel Gibson…Cate Blanchett… Toni Collette …
Baz Luhrmann’s wife, the four-time Oscar-winning costume and production designer, Catherine Martin is another NIDA grad….
Jon Wertheim: Help us understand where NIDA fits into the broader entertainment industry.
Baz Luhrmann: That “can do, will tell, you know, don’t wait for permission” attitude that NIDA instilled in the very first graduates, that spilled out into the kind of larger sense of what it was to be, you know, a performer in Australia. You know, just throwing yourself off the cliff and flying.
Finally.. about that distance… Baz Luhrmann believes that the remoteness of Australia—a place where actors can stretch their talents and horizons beyond the gaze of Hollywood tastemakers—is, in fact, a blessing….
Baz Luhrmann: The one thing everyone agrees about with Australia is that it’s far, far away. And I think that we still think that the idea of being either in a movie or in a play on Broadway or in a television show in Hollywood is still a romantic notion. It’s still a privilege. It isn’t a job. It’s a dream.
60 Minutes, CBS News
Produced by Jacqueline Williams. Associate producer, Elizabeth Germino. Edited by Daniel J. Glucksman.
