The act of performance is akin to a metamorphosis; a shedding of one’s emotional exoskeleton in order to become another. For artists, it seems that the nuances of performing – be it on screen or stage – take no preordained shape; its adrenaline-fuelled highs and crushing lows a ubiquitous experience for all who dare to take up the gauntlet.
For David Hallberg, a lifelong classical ballet dancer and now artistic director of The Australian Ballet, this act of becoming is rooted in physicality – a pursuit that led him three years ago from a 20-year tenure in New York City to the leafy pocket of Abbotsford in Melbourne. For Australian actor William Lodder, the act is more cerebral; a delicate balancing act of immersion and expression that he unleashes with dualling passion and precision in front of the camera’s lens.
Despite speaking across creative fields and career milestones, as two kindred creative minds, they share a remarkable amount of common ground. Both exude a penchant for the unexpected, a predilection for unbridled expression, and embody a captivating sense of self.
Between dialogue on the formative nature of Fred Astaire and The Wizard of Oz, the pair speak to their experiences of working with idols, getting lost in the moment, and pushing past technique into the realm of primal expression.
WL: My influences and how I started has been such a big impactful thing for me – I was interested to know if there were any forms of dance or expression that you were influenced by as a child? Even outside of ballet.
DH: My first inspiration was Fred Astaire. He was like a god to me. And so, it wasn't ballet at first. Ballet came a lot later. It was just... moving. Very primal. I started out very attracted to moving; dancing. But I didn’t know how to do it. I had no technique or structure, and I didn’t take classes. Then my parents put me in classes because I wanted to do it. Ballet is such a strict artform. It’s really regimented – you train like a soldier. But now that I’m artistic director of the company, what I love about dancers – what I want from dancers – is their own individual, primal expression.
Ballet is very different to acting in a way. There’s this odd expectation with ballet you will look a certain way and dance a certain way – you can’t veer outside of the box. But that’s so boring. I don’t want dancers that are just cookie cutters who can’t express themselves.
WL: Because it is expression, in itself.
DH: Yeah, ballet dancers can often forget that actually. They forget that it’s about movement, not just the execution of technique.
WL: Are a lot of the dancers in your company from different parts of the country, or from different parts of the world?
DH: Mainly Australian – like, 90 per cent are Australian – but from all over the country: small towns, main cities. And then there’s a smaller cohort that have come from other countries – dancers who are Brazilian, Russian, Japanese, Chinese. Interestingly, most ballet companies are a kind of melting pot of nationalities, but The Australian Ballet is one of the few companies made up of predominantly Australian dancers. You know, we have The Australian Ballet School which is just down the hallway – we really nurture and bring up Australian dancers.
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WL: I imagine you’re around each other quite a lot, rehearsing day-in and day-out. Are you able to easily separate your time at work from your personal life?
DH: No, not at all. It’s so insular. And especially here, because a lot of these dancers have spent six years training at the school together, from 12–18 years old, and then end up at the company. It’s the same as in your field I imagine. People are ambitious – they want to do their craft and realise that dream. But it’s not like Black Swan! [Laughs.] There’s competition, but I promote healthy competition. I don’t think it’s a bad thing.
WL: What was the age you started dancing?
DH: I started when I was around eight years old. I started with tap dancing – like Fred Astaire! And then ballet when I was thirteen.
WL: Was there a pivotal moment where you decided this was something you wanted to professionally pursue?
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DH: I don’t know if you feel this way about acting, but dance was always the only thing for me. It was the only choice. I never actually thought “I’m going to do this”, it just came out of me. I’ve thought before, what if it hadn’t worked out? But it was the only option, and it grew from obsession to dedication to devotion from eight to twelve to fifteen to eighteen – and then I became a professional dancer. Do you feel that way about acting? Or do you have a much more grounded approach? [Laughs].
WL: I didn’t really have a moment. It was more subconscious. Similarly to yourself, I just knew that it was what I wanted to do. I grew up on music and movies, and I’m pretty grateful that my parents had really good taste. At the end of the day, I just love telling stories. For me, it’s about being a part of something that can move an audience member.
DH: When you say your parents had good taste, elaborate on that...
WL: Music has played such a big role in my career. I’ve listened to all sorts – I have a big admiration for classical music. My Mum and Dad brought me up on reggae and punk – and hip-hop has been such a big influence for me in my life. And movies as well. My parents just had such a broad taste. The Wizard of Oz was such a huge deal for me. It was such a pure way of storytelling. When I was a child there was something that just really drew me in to that film.
DH: Was there a character in The Wizard of Oz that you most connected to?
WL: Probably Dorothy? [Laughs.] I think, because she was never going to say ‘no’. There was something in her I think that wanted to go along with the journey.
DH: That’s really insightful.
WL: I think there was – I can’t believe I’m going to say this – a yellow brick road for myself. [Both laugh.] And I had a lot of people that were guiding me on that road.
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DH: In terms of your trajectory as an actor?
WL: Yeah. And as a person – as a young man. The people that have supported me and been there for me have made me the person I am today.
DH: Well, you recently got to work with Hugo Weaving in the series Love Me. Were you scared to work with him? Excited? Intimidated? Observant? I once worked with Baryshnikov – he coached me in a role – and he’s one of the greatest dancers of all time. I was absorbing his coaching, but also at the same time, freaking out.
WL: I don’t get starstruck by a lot of people. I’ve grown up on Hugo’s films and he is just such a titan and an artist. It was such a demanding role, and there were so many talented people involved, I tried to stay in my own lane and not get distracted by who I was working with. It was already difficult enough to try and be acting at the same level as these actors on screen – especially Bojana and Hugo – both of whom have been doing it much longer than I have. Hugo just doesn’t bring any of that nonsense to set. He’s there to work and have fun and play. And that, to me, was so giving and beautiful. It made me, as a 20-year-old, blossom.
DH: Do you think he is aware of the effect that he has on people? Or do you think he’s just being himself?
WL: I think he was just being himself, man. Unless maybe I was shivering like a Looney Tunes cartoon. [Laughs.] He’s one of the few actors that are just so appreciated by everyone. He’s wholly and completely himself. I owe so much to that man.
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DH: I want to talk about adrenaline. I think the adrenaline of a screen actor is different to the adrenaline of a stage performer. For me, when I was dancing, the adrenaline was in front of two thousand or four thousand people. It was live and in colour. Nothing could be edited – if you mess up you just have to push on with the show. And so, I have this really personal relationship with what adrenaline felt like for me. I’m curious, what does adrenaline feel like for you as an actor? When you’re in rehearsal, or when it comes time to film and you’re in front of a camera on set – when does it kick in? Does it propel you?
WL: I feel like one of the things that actors don’t talk about – one of the subconscious reasons that I do it at least – is that we’re allowed to express emotions that we don’t get to on a daily basis. I think it’s quite... relieving. You might have something going on in your personal life, and then you get to go to work and have a scene that allows you to expose and express that feeling through a character and through a different situation. And expressing it is accepted and appreciated. There’s an adrenaline that comes with that. When you walk around in public, you have to stay in your lane. But with acting, there’s this thing that makes me feel like I can bring out the monster. It’s the best feeling.
DH: I had this one show of Romeo and Juliet in New York with this dance partner of mine – and we were completely obsessed with each other on stage and off. And it felt like the audience became complete voyeurs, watching us fall in love. But after the show we couldn’t get out of it. We couldn’t get out of the roles – we would find each other a couple of hours after the show and just hold each other. I’m curious if you have a hard time stepping of roles?
WL: I think it’s quite dependent on the character and the project I'm working on – like if it’s one that requires more emotional baggage. I try to, as soon as I get home, hang the hat on the door and make sure that I don’t take anything into my personal life. But sometimes it’s hard, even with quite simple scenes – it’s not always the scenes that demand more emotion. Sometimes you do go home and just think about things for a couple of hours and it can be hard to shake.
DH: The Narrow Road to the Deep North – the word on the street is it’s the hardest role you’ve done. Is that true?
WL: Definitely. So far, yes.
DH: What made it such a challenge for you?
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WL: That job demanded everything. I guess, the team that was involved with that project, and the subject matter that we were nailing, it demanded 100 per cent. Particularly since we were portraying real events, I felt a moral obligation do it well – out of respect to the people that had gone through it – but also to Richard Flanagan who wrote it, and to Justin Kurzel and Shaun Grant who made the project. It was both emotionally and physically very demanding, and a job that really gave me a new outlook on acting and myself as well. It was a tough one.
DH: Is there one specific moment that you look back on where you were really put to the test? Or was it the experience as a whole?
WL: I think it was the first scene we shot. We shot it like a play. We just went for it and, as much as we stuck to the script, there was also so much freedom. And Justin, our director, allowed us so much freedom and expression as actors. You don’t get that a lot. Myself and six or seven other actors were in this one scene, and I just remember the cameras going around us in this bunker. It gave me more of an awareness of needing to be continuously present, rather than just present when the camera was on me. It was so immersive.
DH: Did it make you less self-aware? Not knowing where and when you would be on camera?
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WL: In some ways, I was more self-aware. The character I was playing was a soldier in a platoon. He was in another country and surrounded by enemy forces, he needed to be in tune and on guard with everything he's doing.
DH: When I was performing on stage in front of a full theatre, I was, at times, more aware of the audience than I wanted to be. Sometimes I was fully immersed, but that didn’t happen often enough for me. I was often very aware of the performance.
WL: Is there an acceptance in knowing that not every single night you were going to be there with the other dancers?
DH: Yeah. There’s also an acceptance that some days you’re going to have really terrible shows. Now, as a director, I constantly tell dancers to not go off the cliff after a show they’re disappointed in. A lot of them break down into tears. And I'm just like “Relax! You’re catastrophising!”. It goes back to what I was saying about doing everything perfectly and how boring it is. They might fall out of a pirouette. They might fumble a step. But, interestingly, no one really cares – people care about the emotion of a performer. And normally they’re obsessing over stuff that only the technicians of the artform would notice.
WL: That is actually quite similar even in theatre, where you forget a line, or you miss a mark. And you’re thinking in your mind – this scene is ruined! But no one has any idea. Unless you’ve been to the last three shows – no one knows. Even when I’ve forgotten lines on camera, I’ve been told by older actors that I just need to go with it. Don’t stop. You should never stop. If you forget the line, it’s almost sacrilegious to stop. I’d love to know where you source your inspiration for dance? How do you nurture it?
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DH: Honestly, I think for me, my job is very extroverted. And as a dancer, I was very extroverted. I was in the spotlight. But my inspiration always came – and still does as an artistic director – from my more internalised moments. It’s when I’m on my balcony having a scotch and just in my head about something. Or when I’m alone, looking at art. Or listening to music – that can be really emotional, listening to something. Or if I’m hearing something live – I really love techno. But it’s always happened alone.
WL: I find that when I’m in a scene, that’s where I find something I hadn’t found before. Do you find that when you’re performing? Little moments of self-discovery?
DH: In fact, I guess it has always been the opposite for me. Yes, I discovered myself through my art, but I was able to inform my dancing because of my discoveries outside of it. I was able to express emotion because of the stuff I went through personally – heartbreak, solitude, life – you know? And that’s something I was going to ask you, actually. How much of your life experience do you bring into acting?
WL: The same definitely applies in my own work. What’s expression without experience?
