Together Again for Apocalypse ‘On the Beach’

Rachel Ward was the leggy British model-turned-actress who had starred in the movies “Sharky’s Machine” and “Dead Men Don’t Wear Plaid.” Australian Bryan Brown was making his mark in such international hits as “Breaker Morant” and was well on his way to heartthrob status.

The two rising stars met and fell in love 18 years ago while making the classic Emmy Award-winning miniseries “The Thorn Birds.” They married in 1983 and have raised their three children, who range in age from 7 to 15, in Sydney, Australia, far from the Hollywood limelight.

The couple have worked in separate projects over the years, appearing together only twice since they married: in 1986’s “The Good Wife” and now in Showtime’s “On the Beach,” the new three-hour adaptation of Nevil Shute’s legendary apocalyptic novel. Directed by Russell Mulcahy and penned by David Williamson and Bill Kerby, the thriller, set in 2006, deals with a nuclear holocaust that threatens the lone civilization surviving in Australia.

Ward plays Moira Davidson, a beautiful, carefree Australian woman, and Brown plays her former boyfriend, cynical scientist Julian Osborne. Armand Assante also stars as American submarine commander Dwight Towers, who falls in love with Moira.

Charming and down-to-earth, the couple, recently in Los Angeles for an invitation-only premiere of “On the Beach,” chatted about the project and their marriage in their expansive villa at the Sunset Marquis Hotel.

Question: Don’t you think “On the Beach” is a grim reminder that nuclear war is still a major threat?

Bryan Brown: Yeah. We have got the India and Pakistani problem there with nuclear weapons. We have got the whole thing in Russia with the old nuclear weapons and [the question of] where are they stored.

Rachel Ward: We have North Korea buying uranium from North Africa.

Brown: It’s interesting. When we were first asked to do this, it was probably eight years ago. If we had made this [then], it would have been a bit passe, but it has come back in a big way--the whole nuclear fear. I think it is far more topical.

Q: When you were first approached about “On the Beach,” was it for TV or a feature?

Brown: It was to do as a miniseries with the same producers. They didn’t have a director on board then, and the American part hadn’t been cast at that stage. It took a long time to finance it. The biggest problem was with the [commercial] networks. It’s a great story, but everyone dies. But there aren’t too many ways of telling this story. Showtime has wanted to do this for a long time, and Southern Star in Australia was committed to it. They were trying to find another piece of the jigsaw in terms of budget over the years, and Hallmark is now that entity. So it was last year that suddenly all the pieces fell together.

Q: Were you always going to play the roles you have now?

Brown: These were the two parts we were offered to play, and it was the only way we could play it. I certainly couldn’t play the American naval commander because I would rather see an American play it.

Q: This is only the second project you have done together since you got married. Has it been difficult to find joint projects, or don’t you want to be known as the Lunt-Fontanne of Australia?

Ward: It’s hard enough to find something you want to do on your own, let alone something that you want to do together. It’s very hard to find parts that are equally balanced and equally good as each other’s. They don’t come along very often.

Brown: I don’t know too many people who work together time and time again. I think if there is someone you really enjoy working with, you’re lucky to do it five times in your life. That hardly ever happens. How many times did Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall work together?

Q: They made four movies together.

Brown: And they were a major [movie star] couple. It’s very hard to do. Nicole [Kidman] and Tom [Cruise] have done it three times, and that is actively developing and finding the pieces. Also, you don’t want to be playing love interests all the time. I mean, then you start to feel like you are being revelatory rather than playing performance, so the great thing here was that we weren’t the lovers. She falls for the other guy.

Ward: Someone said to me the other day that there is no chemistry when married couples play lovers on screen.

Brown: I find it a little bit off-putting if I am watching people I know who are together [playing love scenes on screen].

Q: When you’re on set do you just treat each other as actor and actress?

Brown: You work the scenes. I didn’t find this any different than doing any other [project]. Rachel was just an actress.

Ward: There were a couple of times when you told me how to play a scene.

Brown: Well, she does get a bee in her bonnet and we have an argument. But that’s OK.

Q: Did you ever think while making “On the Beach” what you both would do if you knew the world was ending?

Ward: A lot of the talk on the set at the time was what would you do. How would you behave if you were in a similar situation? How would you choose to spend the last few months of your life? Would your better nature emerge or would your worse nature emerge? It’s really difficult to know. Basically, I think people try to continue as they always have. You try to pretend it’s not there, and you live in denial a bit. That is certainly what happens with my character.

For me, to make my character work was to keep her in denial so it wasn’t just one big long dirge. She was very much living for the moment and she was going to fall in love even if it was five seconds before the end of the world. She was going to live it to the max. If everybody is dealing with the inevitable end, it gets a bit boring. Definitely Bryan’s choice and my choice was very much to keep living in the moment.

Brown: From my point of view, when they say the world is going to end, it makes me focus on what do I want out of life and what I want out of life is her. But [my character] was too late. So you are not actually playing the fear of nuclear war, you are actually playing what am I about, given I know the limited amount of life I have left.

I don’t think the film is about the wiping out of the human race. I think it’s about how human beings actually are quite dignified.

Q: What’s next up for you both?

Brown: My production company has been working on different things and Rachel also writes and directs. She’s just been given money to direct another 20-minute film.

Ward: This will be my third. I went back to university [in Sydney] and did a post-graduate degree six years ago and majored in writing. I had been sort of mucking around about what form my writing would take for a while. I was writing a lot of prose, and then I kind of thought it’s silly to throw away all my knowledge of film. I decided to make the most of the knowledge and experience that I have and put them together. When I did start writing scripts, I enjoyed it and I certainly enjoy being on the other side of the camera.

* “On the Beach” will be shown Sunday at 8 p.m. on Showtime. The network has rated it TV-14 (may be unsuitable for young children).