THE WOMAN OF ‘PASSAGE’

The lady stares. You begin to see, quite quickly, why David Lean was so discomfited when they started to work together.

Australian actress Judy Davis seems guarded, on edge. She makes it clear that she can think of better things to do than talk of herself. But gradually she relaxes; now and again there is even a glimmer of a smile.

When she began filming “A Passage to India,” in which she plays a key role, there was considerable friction between Lean and herself. He was the first to talk about it--”I don’t think she liked me much at first,” he said the other day.

True?

Sitting rather stiffly in her suite at the Beverly Wilshire Hotel, Davis admitted this was true.

“We didn’t get off to a good start,” she said. “Because I didn’t think he liked me either. I felt sure he was looking at me and thinking: ‘Who is this girl? What have I got here?’ And my guard came up. And my fists.”

She admits there was something else.

“I had to try hard not to be awed by the fact that I was working with David Lean, the great film maker. Otherwise, I couldn’t have acted at all. I’d just have been mumbling ‘Anything you say . . .’ to him. Because he is quite definite about how he wants something done. And I had to have some faith in my own ability to bring something to the performance.”

As filming progressed in India, and Lean--away from the camera for 14 years--grew more confident, their relationship began to improve.

“In the end it was fine,” she said. “And I felt able to make suggestions to him without worrying about how he’d react. At first I didn’t dare do that because he was so unsure about me. . . .”

(“The fact is,” said Lean, “her work in the trial scene is some of the best acting I’ve seen in years. And it was nothing to do with me. . . .”)

Understandably, most people assume Lean cast her in his film because he was impressed by her work in her first, award-winning film, “My Brilliant Career.”

Wrong.

“My understanding is that David didn’t like that film very much,” said Davis frankly. (“I didn’t,” Lean had already told me.) She laughed, fleetingly. “That’s all right. Neither did I. I never understood its success. No, I got the role in ‘Passage’ on the basis of a half-hour conversation with David. He’s a man who trusts his intuition about actors. And after we’d spoken for 30 minutes or so he gave me the role. . . .”

For Judy Davis of Perth, Australia, now 29 years old, Lean’s nod came at just the right time. Her movie career, which had seemed so promising five years ago when she made “My Brilliant Career,” in Australia, seemed to be faltering. Films like “The Final Option” (about Britain’s SAS special services) hardly helped.

“But, remember, even after ‘My Brilliant Career’ they weren’t beating down my door with offers,” she said. “It was actually a difficult time for me. I’d won a British Film Academy award for the film and that focused attention on me at a time when I just couldn’t cope. I was only just beginning my career, after all, and all of a sudden people were expecting me to be Sarah Bernhardt.

“So after doing a terrible play in Sydney (“Lulu”), I decided to get out of Australia for a while. Then this offer came along to make ‘The Final Option’ in London, so I took it. I’d always wanted to see Britain and this seemed like a good opportunity. But it didn’t work out well for me. I’m not a personality girl; I can only act when I’m given something to work with. . . .

“Still, we all make mistakes. Even Sir Laurence Olivier. We have to eat and pay the rent. If audiences want Olivier to remain faithful to his art, they should give him a state pension. Instead, they keep criticizing him for doing so many bad films.”

But if she didn’t like the film, she liked London. And England stole her heart.

“For me, there’s something magical about the place,” she said. “Perhaps because of all the myths and legends. (For the record, she is married to an actor who was born in Scotland but moved to Australia in his teens. When she had a few days off from filming “A Passage to India,” they both paid a quick visit to Scotland, which she loved.)

She did a play at London’s Royal Court (“Insignificance”), appeared in some television and took a flat in town. And she turned down quite a lot of things--among them the television version of “The Thord Birds.”

“I read that script,” she said, “and when I got to the scene where the girl and the priest kiss passionately, I knew I couldn’t do it. See, I was brought up a Catholic and that was so much a young Catholic girl’s fantasy--kissing the priest--that I knew I just couldn’t handle it. . . .”

Now what?

“Yes,” she said. “Now what? My role in ‘Passage to India’ (she plays Adela Quested, whose claim to have been sexually assaulted triggers the massive trial) was so terrific that I mustn’t dare hope for another one that good. Otherwise, I’ll be hopelessly neurotic like so many actresses. I don’t think like that, anyway; I just get on with my life. After finishing ‘Passage’ I went back to Sydney and did a production of ‘King Lear.’ You can’t just sit about waiting. . . .”

The Australian press, she says, is still unsure how to handle her.

“That’s my fault,” she said. “I tend to confuse them. You know Wendy Hughes (who won the 1983 best actress award in Australia for “Lonely Hearts”)? She’s their kind of Australian: open and friendly. Look at me: I’m reserved, I’m pale-looking and I don’t have a marked Australian accent. So they’ve always had problems with me. They don’t understand shyness. Of course, shyness is just ego; being too aware of self. I’ll get over that eventually--” a small laugh--”I hope.

“Remember, too, when they first descended on me, I was quite confused about ‘My Brilliant Career.’ Why everybody liked it, I mean. When I first read it, I thought it was a children’s movie and said as much to Gil (the director Gillian Armstrong). But I was just out of drama school, so maybe I can be excused.” (In the movie she portrayed a country girl learning about life and love at the turn of the century in Australia.)

Around the time of “My Brilliant Career” she was asked if she hoped to go to Hollywood.

“Australian film people all seem to regard Hollywood as the Holy Grail,” she replied sharply. “Well, I don’t. I think I’d need to be a lot tougher and more confident before I’d take on as powerful an institution as Hollywood. After all, a lot of corpses have been left along the way there. . . .”

Old quotes. The bane of actors and politicians.

“I still don’t see any point in coming here unless it’s for something good,” she said, making the best of it. “I know a lot of our directors have come here to work (among them: Bruce Beresford, Peter Weir, Gillian Armstrong), but I don’t think they’ll stay. I think you’ll find they all go home again. I know I always will. . . .”