Acting is just like a round of golf, Australian screen legend William McInnes reckons – it’s rare when every shot truly clicks.
“There’s something intangible about when you get something right (in acting),” he says.
“I played golf the other day, and I was all over the shop but I hit four really good shots.
“And I broke a club in fury. Acting’s a bit like that. Sometimes for whatever reason it just clicks, and it’s just fantastic.”
McInnes, also a very occasional cricketer (“I’m going to have a hit this year but I’ve got no knees to speak of”) who moved to the “creative melting pot” of the western suburbs 23 years ago, is all too aware he’s led a charmed professional life.
“I can hardly say what I do is work, it’s like a paid holiday,” he says. “I can’t really do anything else.”
Also a writer, taking a break is the theme of his latest work, Holidays, which he’ll spruik in Sunshine for the Brimbank Readers and Writers Festival.
“It’s (holidays) something that everyone’s got in common,” he says.
“Doesn’t matter where you come from or how you speak, if you have a holiday it’s a special time.”
Compiling Holidays and his seven other books together hasn’t been a leisurely stroll through the literary world however.
“It’s very hard to write a lot of the time,” he admits.
“If you’ve got a deadline, you’ll do it, you’ll get it done.
“To be completely honest, I hardly ever feel like working (laughs).
“When you’ve got to do it, it’s a bit of a grind.
“Some people are born to write. I’m just a bloke who has a crack at things, like a majority of people I guess.”
Having a stab at different characters on the small screen is where McInnes made his biggest mark, and the man has serious range, from his shady Sandy in Kath and Kim to the more sombre Nick in Look Both Ways, which he made with his late wife, Sarah Watt.
Has there been a role that’s eluded you so far?
“I dunno, I’m getting fat and old and grey, so I don’t know what to do now,” he laughs.
“To be honest I like travelling so I turn down a lot of work.
“Then again, the work you turn down is like the stuff you’ve already done.
“People peg you for doing something. If they want some large, wooden guy with piggy blue eyes who can look mean, they give me a bell.”
He’s never been the type to get bitter about missed acting opportunities: “Every actor has stories like that”.
He remembers running into a fellow actor, and an accomplished one at that, who was whinging while “three sheets to the wind” about the roles he’d missed.
“That’s the thing about acting,” he says.
“It’s one of the most unsatisfying gigs, because no matter how much success you have, there’s always somebody who’s got a role you want or a role you could be better at, or you’re in a dud job.
“I’m sure there are electricians who get shitty because somebody else has a good job, plasterers, lawyers, dentists… it just seems a little bit more intangible and a little less secure (with acting).
“It (acting) sort of doesn’t really matter, but it’s all about ego.”
So acting is your greatest love?
“God no, the Western Bulldogs is.”
The Brimbank Readers and Writers Festival will host An Evening with William McInnes on Thursday, September 3 from 6.30pm.
