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Speaker 1: Job mission with Jones and Amanda Well.

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Speaker 2: Our next guest has been telling stories with his distinctive

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Speaker 2: Australian voice on TV in any film for four decades,

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Speaker 2: but now he's writing Crime, his first ever book. We're

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Speaker 2: thrilled to have Brian Brian on the show.

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Speaker 1: Hollo Brian, good morning there. How are you both?

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Speaker 3: Always a treat to talk to you?

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Speaker 2: Yeah, how are you going? I'm in Queensland, so no

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Speaker 2: lockdown for you.

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Speaker 1: I had to do. I had to do two weeks

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Speaker 1: quarantine in a hotel because I'm filming up here, and

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Speaker 1: that was Yeah. I took that as a test. Every

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Speaker 1: day I'd say, here you going, Brian, how's this? I'm

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Speaker 1: going all right? Yeah, okay, So it was a bit

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Speaker 1: of a test that but I have to do that

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Speaker 1: if you're coming in yeah right.

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Speaker 2: So you just questioning yourself, Yeah, you have split personality.

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Speaker 1: I wanted to know what I wanted to sort of.

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Speaker 1: I did it as a sociological experiment on myself too, and.

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Speaker 2: How to yourself go?

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Speaker 1: Well? Myself was okay, I tell you what, you better

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Speaker 1: have routine, you better have stuff to do. You know,

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Speaker 1: you wouldn't want to be sitting there going you know.

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Speaker 1: I think it could pray on certain people's minds in

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Speaker 1: a certain way if they weren't careful.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, well, idle hands of the Devil's playthings as.

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Speaker 1: They say, Oh that's so good. Did you go to

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Speaker 1: a Catholic school?

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Speaker 3: Yes? It does it show. This is great, this book.

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Speaker 3: Sweet Jimmy, I've been reading it. It's just a it's

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Speaker 3: so iconically you. It's like you're reading it to me.

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Speaker 1: Oh really? Or how am I reading? Then?

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Speaker 3: Well you'd sound like you go, some drongos come down,

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Speaker 3: but you'd sound like you reading it to me.

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Speaker 2: Tell us about it? A series of short stories. How

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Speaker 2: did this come about?

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Speaker 1: Well, look what what sort of set it off? Was

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Speaker 1: about three years ago I was watching television and they

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Speaker 1: had this group of people in Hong Kong who'd just

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Speaker 1: been let out of prison. They're all people around my age,

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Speaker 1: men and women, and the judges said, you're not drug meals,

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Speaker 1: you're stupid. And there were people who had been caught

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Speaker 1: up in scams. The scams had come along to vulnerable

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Speaker 1: people at a certain age in particular that might have

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Speaker 1: lost a partner. And five years later, you know, something

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Speaker 1: comes around looking for romance and they think oh, I'll

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Speaker 1: just press a thing, and the next minute they're caught

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Speaker 1: up in all sorts of things, traveling and then perhaps

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Speaker 1: drugs in their things. And I looked at that and

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Speaker 1: I thought, if I was one of those people, I

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Speaker 1: would have to find out who was behind this. And

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Speaker 1: that led me to start writing a story about that.

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Speaker 1: I initially had it as an idea for a pitch

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Speaker 1: for a theories, but I just kept writing and writing.

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Speaker 1: It became a story. A couple of people read it

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Speaker 1: and said, that's pretty good. And I think I then

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Speaker 1: started to think more about stories on the page than

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Speaker 1: I had before. I worked with writers all the time

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Speaker 1: as an actor and that, and you know, I drive

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Speaker 1: along the car and I think, what if Sam Neil

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Speaker 1: was a thief? And so I started to write a

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Speaker 1: story about a bloke called Sam the Thief. I started

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Speaker 1: this little. I started to write stories over the last

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Speaker 1: two or three years, and eventually I had a bunch

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Speaker 1: of them, and someone read them and said, why don't

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Speaker 1: we publish them?

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Speaker 3: Imagine if Sam Neil was actually a thief, because he

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Speaker 3: get away.

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Speaker 1: From he probably is. I mean, you know, he gets

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Speaker 1: away with so much as it is, let me tell you.

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Speaker 3: Because he comes across. He comes across as like slightly

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Speaker 3: sort of you know, dottery, and and but there is

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Speaker 3: he stealing or your start?

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Speaker 2: What a front?

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Speaker 1: Yeah yeah, no, no, like he gets away with it.

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Speaker 1: I mean he comes across as this really nice bloke.

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Speaker 1: And let me tell you that's not exactly the truth.

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Speaker 2: I heard him say the other day that he doesn't

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Speaker 2: quite understand cats. And he said, you're the only person

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Speaker 2: he knew who had been hospitalized by their own cat.

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Speaker 1: We were going we were going to the to the

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Speaker 1: Venice Film Festival, which with Sweet Country about three years ago,

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Speaker 1: four years ago, and my daughters had given me their

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Speaker 1: cat to look after, which I now have, of course,

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Speaker 1: because that's how it ends up. And it was a

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Speaker 1: kit and it went jumped into another place and I said,

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Speaker 1: oh no, it'll go try to get back to where

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Speaker 1: they live. So I jumped the fence got it, and

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Speaker 1: of course cats are incredibly strong and like when they

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Speaker 1: go for it. Anyway, I'm trying to open the gate

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Speaker 1: of my house with a key with this cat in

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Speaker 1: one hand, and it's lipping my arms apart anyway along

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Speaker 1: the shorter because I get inside, throw the cat on

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Speaker 1: the ground, locked the door, lay down on the lounge

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Speaker 1: for about twenty minutes, exhausted, and then I thought I'd

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Speaker 1: better go to the doctors in case these are poisonous.

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Speaker 1: So I ended up at the Ventice Film Festival with

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Speaker 1: my arms wrapped in doors.

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Speaker 3: That's a story.

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Speaker 2: So with these stories, do you sort of write with

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Speaker 2: a craggy, enigmatic diamond in the rough in mind in

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Speaker 2: case they become films?

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Speaker 1: Excuse me, where's this enigmatic diamond in the rough business

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Speaker 1: come from? Well? I think right, like any suave right

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Speaker 1: would like right now. Look, the longest short of it is,

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Speaker 1: many of these stories have taken me back to times

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Speaker 1: when I was growing up and thinking about other young

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Speaker 1: men and women that I came across, and the things

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Speaker 1: that happened in the sixties and seventies where in the

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Speaker 1: suburbs where you could you could what became Alaricanism might

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Speaker 1: drop over into where you make a choice that can

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Speaker 1: lead to a very dark place. And I would think

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Speaker 1: of incidents at different times. Well, I mean, I'm sure

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Speaker 1: it happens with you. You think back on people you

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Speaker 1: went to skill with or incidents that happened, and I

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Speaker 1: started to sometimes think, you know, where is that person now,

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Speaker 1: and I would I would use that as a lead

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Speaker 1: to move on into a story about where I've taken

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Speaker 1: those characters.

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Speaker 3: So it starts with you Nick some hubba bubba bubble

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Speaker 3: gum from the corner shop, and next minute you missed Asia.

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Speaker 1: Mate, you are so close.

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Speaker 2: I think it was a big charm, the big Charlie.

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Speaker 3: They're very hard to stash, that's for sure, Brian, It's

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Speaker 3: always great to talk to. Your sweet Jimmy is available

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Speaker 3: in all good bookstores now. It's a cracking read. Brian Brown,

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Speaker 3: Thank you.

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Speaker 1: Thank you. Loving to talk to the pair of you.

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Speaker 3: Can you to ask yourself how you're going as well?

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Speaker 1: Oh he just said he's all right. Thanks. Jonesy and

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Speaker 1: Amanda's Gamnation