Modesty to Burn

When Geoffrey Rush won the best actor Academy Award this year for his work in “Shine,” it was a choice most people supported; Rush was brilliant in Scott Hicks’ chronicle of the turbulent life of Australian piano prodigy David Helfgott. However, many critics and fans felt Noah Taylor’s performance as the teenage Helfgott was Oscar-caliber, too, and every bit the equal of Rush’s.

Taylor didn’t even get a nomination, though. In fact, he disappeared during the period that “Shine” was constantly in the press, choosing instead to spend those months in Australia working onstage in a production of Chekhov’s “The Seagull.” Why, one wonders, did he maintain such a low profile during “Shine’s” glory days?

“I’m shy and handle it badly when people make a fuss over me, so I was happy to let Geoffrey do the publicity for the film,” Taylor says during an interview at Hollywood’s Formosa Cafe. “Geoffrey’s smooth and witty with the press, whereas I’m usually a stuttering mess, and quite frankly it would’ve been too much attention for me to cope with. Plus, Geoffrey’s been working in theater for 30 years and deserves any award he gets, so I was happy to step out of the way and had no bad feelings about that at all.”

In L.A. for six weeks to shoot “There’s No Fishfood in Heaven,” an independent comedy directed by Eleanor E. Gaver, Taylor shows up by cab at the Formosa Cafe looking alarmingly pale. “I haven’t eaten all day,” he confesses, lighting the first of several cigarettes. “I don’t drive and there was nothing in the house.”

Temporarily settled in an apartment in a grand old residence hotel in the Larchmont area for the duration of the shoot, the 28 year old actor exudes a sensitivity and intelligence evocative of his characterization of the tormented Helfgott. “I’m feeling very scattered today,” he confesses before ordering some food and venturing forth into the interview--an experience he usually avoids.

As to what moved him to sign on for “There’s No Fishfood in Heaven,” he explains, “I liked the script, one of my favorite American writers, Denis Johnson, is writing poetry for the film, and [artist] Sam Messer is doing paintings for it, so it sounded like a worthwhile project. Fairuza Balk is also in the film and I play her boyfriend, who’s an artist. I prefer doing comedies rather than dramas because it’s simply a more enjoyable process.”

“Shine,” of course, is a searingly emotional film and Taylor confirms that “it was a very tough shoot. I find it hard to judge my own work when I’m actually doing it, so I had no idea what the film would turn out to be, but when ‘Shine’ went to the Venice Film Festival, I felt pleased. In fact, it was the first time I’ve felt comfortable as an actor. I’ve always felt ambivalent about acting because if you’re good at it, that means you’re good at being insincere; the very thing that makes a person a superb actor can make them a horrible human being. ‘Shine,’ however, showed me that acting can be a worthwhile profession.

“This sounds corny,” he continues, visibly uncomfortably with having to say something nice about himself, “but I meet a few people every now and then who say the film helped them in some way with their father, or whatever. Although it wasn’t what we set out to do, ‘Shine’ had a healing effect on lots of people, perhaps because it tapped into some deeply archetypal vein.”

Taylor was born in London, the elder of two sons born to nomadic journalists. When he was 6, the family settled in Melbourne; it was there that Taylor grew up, and that his parents changed careers.

“In the early ‘80s there were big retrenchments with all the [Rupert] Murdoch papers in Australia, so my dad went into copywriting and my mother became a book editor,” he recalls. “I’ve had a shockingly bad education, but because my mother used to review books, there were always thousands of books around the house and reading seemed a natural part of life to me.

“I’ve always been interested in the dark side of things and my staple diet of the last five years has been American crime fiction,” he continues. “Jim Thompson’s my favorite writer of the genre, and I’ve also read all of James Ellroy, whose books made me afraid to come to L.A. My interest in crime fiction is beginning to wane, though, and at the moment I’m reading [Federico] Fellini’s autobiography, ‘I, Fellini,’ which is really good.”

Melbourne had a thriving punk rock scene during Taylor’s teenage years, so it’s not surprising to hear him declare that “music is my great love.

“Unfortunately it’s not what I excel at, but I nonetheless took a few years off to play in bands and I loved doing that,” says the actor, who plays guitar and has studied viola and French horn. “I prefer to keep music untainted by career considerations because whenever commerce and art get involved, the commerce invariably crushes the art.

“I was taken to plays and movies when I was growing up but nobody in the family had connections to the entertainment world. I don’t know how to explain the fact that when I was 13, I joined the St. Martin’s Youth Theatre because I’d never harbored any secret desire to act--until I was 16, my only ambition was to be a trained assassin,” he says, laughing.

“Someone suggested I join the group and it seemed like something to do,” he continues with a shrug. “As a child I was comfortable speaking in front of people, although I wouldn’t describe myself as self-confident, then or now.”

Three years after joining the theater company, Taylor made his film debut when he starred in “The Year My Voice Broke,” an affecting coming-of-age story directed by John Duigan and released in 1987.

“Making the film was a greatexperience but it brought an end to my high school career,” recalls Taylor, who was nominated as best actor by the Australian Film Institute for his performance. “Having a career at a young age makes you grow up faster because you spend your time with adults who mostly treat you as an equal. But lots of money and freedom at an early age can be destructive. Most 16-year-olds, if you take them out of the home and give them lots of money, they’re not gonna do anything smart with it--I certainly didn’t.

“I would add, however, that it’s virtually impossible to make real money doing films in Australia, and you have to do horrible TV and radio work just to survive. I’ve done my share of schlock and have been in lots of low-budget Australian films.”

Taylor worked with Duigan again in 1990 in the film “Flirting,” which was a sequel of sorts to “The Year My Voice Broke.” Three years later he starred in “The Nostradamus Kid,” an autobiographical film written and directed by Bob Ellis about growing up in a family of Seventh Day Adventists. Taylor’s performance netted him his third Australian Film Critics Circle Award for best actor, and made him a certified movie star in his homeland--a development that he says “made me incredibly uncomfortable and introverted.

“Fame is discouraged in Australia and because the country has a small population, it’s impossible to disappear up into Beverly Hills because there’s no such place there. You’re forced to stand out like a sore thumb, which is something I don’t enjoy at all.”

Though Taylor is ambivalent about the way film has affected his life, he remains a movie buff and loves talking about them.

“ ‘Grand Canyon’ was such an important film for America--I think it should be shown in schools,” he enthuses, mentioning Lawrence Kasdan’s film of 1991 when asked what he’s seen lately that impressed him. “Yes, it had an element of Hollywood schmaltz, but hats off to them for attempting something like that. Emir Kusturica’s [1995 film] ‘Underground’ was also amazing, and I loved ‘Private Parts.’ I used to listen to Howard Stern on the radio when I was in America and found him despicable, but he’s brilliant and sweet in the film. I mostly watch old films though--I just saw Nicholas Ray’s ‘In a Lonely Place,’ and ‘Chinatown’--and I love Jacques Tati and Buster Keaton.

“I don’t see as many films as I used to because my girlfriend and I broke up,” he says. “I still love her but after three years of complete misery, I’m finally starting to get over it. Before I met her, I used to fall in love at the drop of a hat and was a hopeless romantic, but that’s a foreign feeling to me now because I’ve become conscious of the general unfairness of life.

“A miserable person is generally not an attractive person,” he says, “and I’m a bit of a loner. I haven’t lived anywhere longer than two months for the past four years. It wasn’t my intention to live so rootlessly, but I’d never made any plans for my life. I’m getting a bit more organized these days because [Australian director] Richard Lowenstein and I have started a production company in Rome, and we hope to make films in Italy. For some reason I feel at home in Italy, perhaps because it’s suitably chaotic. I also think they know how to live--the priorities in Italy just make sense to me. I’ll be in our first film, ‘He Died With a Falafel in His Hand,’ which will be financed by Italian investors and shoots next year in Australia.”

Prior to that, he hopes to do a film called “The 4,” which will be written and directed by David Portlock, and produced by Kit Carson. “Kit co-wrote the screenplay for ‘Paris, Texas,’ and wrote and starred in a fantastic film directed by Jim McBride in 1968 called ‘David Holzman’s Diary,”’ Taylor says. “Kit’s a great guy and is my closest friend in America, so anything he wants to do with me is No. 1 on my list.”

He says he’s also committed to a film called “Getting to Know All About You,” shooting early next year in New Jersey, to be directed by Lisanne Skyler and co-starring Heather Matarazzo, Seymour Cassel and Lolita Davidovich.

“I’m trying to take a more pragmatic approach to things now, but career’s always been the least important thing in my life,” he says. “All I really want is to have a child with someone I love and be reasonably sane.”