There’s a semi-bearded gentleman sitting nervously to my right. We’re discussing Aussie horror flick, Wolf Creek. He didn’t like it, but I’m explaining the magic of cutting your the lead actresses fingers off. During our awkward lapses in conversation, I’m wondering why my right hand has turned a pinky-blue. But what’s really troubling me is the poster I saw downstairs; a man in shiny Aviator shades, grinning a toothy and demonic grin with the slogan: “I will try to use the least amount of violence necessary...” The (hit)man in the picture is Scott Ryan, and in a moment, he’ll be coming up the stairs to meet me.
Yet, before I’m accused of being intimidated by a man in a poster (although it was pretty big) Scott Ryan, the writer, director and star of Aussie-assassin-mockumentary The Magician, isn’t your average run-of-the-mill filmmaker, he’s a ticking time bomb of aggression and emotional pain. Or so you’ll hear. A man who proclaimed that his acting style stems from inner rage, and he now relives his tension by smashing people in the face with baseball bats - during filming, of course. On cue, Scott Ryan enters the room with an irked look on his face, swaggering like a man ready for a fight. Hmm.
I follow him over to a little, uncomfortable couch. So, are you sick of press interviews yet? Ryan sniffs bluntly and leans back, his eyes strolling around the room: “Not yet…” he says. Soon? I ask, he leans forward and gives me a look up and down; “Yeah, probably soon…” Long before Scott Ryan had the chance to swing hardened-wood into people’s faces à la The Magician, he was a 17-year-old who left school prematurely. Shifting through a series of dead-end jobs, Ryan eventually turned to the dole for regular income. It was here he honed his writing style, spending a decade writing screenplays which he deemed ‘shit’.
In previous interviews, he said he’s had little or no education and that being unemployed had destroyed his self-esteem, eventually leading to long-term depression. Yet despite the darkness that surrounds him, The Magician is considered a comedy: “I think the humour comes from the pain and suffering of childhood.” says Ryan. “Like Woody Allen, he’s pretty messed up and yet he’s a very funny guy. I think pain and misery generally breeds humour, you know?”
Certainly not one for being spendthrift, Ryan shot The Magician for $3000, which includes the cost to write, direct, produce, star, location scout, edit, production manage, and even provide catering. Catering? “Oh, I just took everyone down to the Chinese, or took them for a pizza or something.” He laughs. I wonder if his personal filmmaking factotum was down simply to financial necessity… he turns his voice down to a sly, Australian croak; “No, I just wanted complete control.”
After spending a decade on the dole, Ryan decided that enrolling for a film course may get things rolling (pardon the pun), which is where he met his actors-come-crew for The Magician. Did the course teach him any techniques when directing the film? “No” he says, “I already knew what I wanted to do, they try to teach you very conventional methods, and I thought, fuck that, I’ll do it my way.”
It seems Ryan’s ‘complete control’ has worked out alright, with critics from the Daily Mirror to Sight & Sound lining up to offload their storage of superlatives at The Magician’s ultra low-key - mostly ad hoc, filmmaking. Scott even received nominations for several Australian acting awards, which must have a shot in the arm for his self-esteem… Ryan looks uncomfortable, “Kind of, I mean, it was better than a kick in the tits, but I thought it’s probably best not to sit around wanking about it”. Quite.
There’s a lot riding on the success of The Magician in the UK, as it’s the only place outside of Australia that it has been shown thus far. Drawing comparisons with Rémy Belvaux’s Man Bites Dog and Chopper, The Magician follows filmmaker Max "Massimo" Totti (Massimiliano Andrighetto) as he shoots a documentary on his hitman-neighbour Ray Shoesmith (Scott Ryan). Ray plunders around, bumping off drug dealers, recommending Juicy Fruit gum and contemplating how much money he’d require to eat a bowl of shit. ‘How big is the bowl?’ asks Ray.
After discussing which actor Scott Ryan would have allowed to take his role (it was Daniel-Day Lewis; “Have you seen Gangs of New York?”) and the under-appreciation of the Australian film industry (“Well, over here, you probably don’t see the shit ones…”) Ryan sits back again in his chair, and his eyes begin to flicker. He complains of feeling a little run-down and that his brain isn’t quite working. Like a zombie, maybe? Ryan again re-awakens: “Oh, yeah, that’s going to be my next film, a zombie film, if I can get the financial backing. They’ll be lots of action, it’s about a Security Guard who’s depressed out of his head, then there are these zombies that start coming at him, and he’ll have to deal with them. I’ve already written it, it’s called Who Cares Who Wins.” Will there be an allegorical nod to consumers as zombies, mindlessly buying things they don’t need, shuffling around with their trolleys? Scott, a master improvised and scathing dialogue answers: “oh, um… maybe.”