Sydney Sweeney and Glen Powell may be generating plenty of heat throughout their new romantic comedy Anyone But You, but there’s some distinct Australian flavour ready to challenge the duo in the form of one Joe Davidson.
The Queensland-born actor, who looks as if he’s a long-lost brother to the famed Hemsworth clan, has snared his biggest role yet as one of the film’s romantic rivals for its lead duo, undoubtedly leaving a mighty impression thanks to his unique “vocabulary” (among other attributes).
As the film gears up for its release, Peter Gray spoke with the actor about the script’s slang dialogue, the risky audition process, and crying with Dermot Mulroney over My Best Friend’s Wedding.
Did you ever think all those years ago playing Edward Scissorhands and Fred from Scooby-Doo at Movie World that you would become “Bitch Hemsworth”?
(Laughs) I’ve always wanted to be Bitch Hemsworth, so as long as I’m in that family I can have half the success they’ve had.
With this film, obviously the Australian slang is exaggerated. When you’re performing in certain scenes, describing certain “parts”, was all of that scripted?
I didn’t create that part. I created some other parts that we threw into the movie, but didn’t make the cut. I have a part where I’m trying to invite Glen’s (Powell) character to come hang out with us on the weekend, and I said “Hey mate, you want to come with us to the bottle-o? You’re not going to pike on us, are ya? You wanna come? Yeah, nah? Or nah, yeah?” I’m saying all these things to him, but it all got cut. So much got cut. But I didn’t make those ones up. That was all Will (Gluck). It wasn’t in the original script I auditioned with, but it definitely surprised me. I was like, “Oh, what’s happening now?” Some cheeky little nude scene in the shower?”
When that’s presented to you, and there’s obviously a certain reveal with that scene, are there prosthetics involved? Or you’re just game for it? Like, “Let’s go!”
Well, you’ll have to watch the movie so that you can and guess if it’s real. Is it not real? I mean, I’ve seen the movie. It looks very real. But it’s up to the audience if it’s real or not. But it was an interesting experience shooting that. (It) was unexpected. I had no idea I was even going to have to be naked until I received the updated script. It caught me by surprise.
On the mention of that and saying things weren’t in the original script, was there a particular scene you had to audition with? Was it a scene that made the final cut? Or something we haven’t seen?
Yeah, I had three scenes for the audition. The first one where I meet Glen. I had another one where we’re walking through the forest, which has been cut, so much has been cut, like I said. But they’ll all come out in our deleted scenes. I’ve talked to Will and he’ll be adding those in (for the home release). And the third scene (was) the shower scene. Yeah, I just turned up, I had just come from Tasmania and wasn’t very fit, so I did a little Kmart workout, because there was a 24-hour Kmart, and turned up to the audition.
I had just come from Tassie, so I wasn’t dressed up. The other guy (for the audition) was in a nice button-up shirt, nice jeans, good shoes…he was very schmick. I asked him, “Are you nervous right now?” And he told me he’d been meditating the whole plane trip. I was biting my nails and everything! I just turned up in this singlet that says “Road Trip” on it. Like a $5 thing, and it’s the same colour as my pants, so I just looked like one colour. My pants are actually shorts, so I’m in shorts and a singlet. I looked so daggy. I even said to the director at the premiere in Sydney, “Do you remember that?” He goes, “You’re so fucking stupid” (laughs). So maybe it helped.
I thought the other guy got the part for sure. He was this big European looking guy. Bright blue eyes. Very handsome looking guy. So I just knew I was going to go wild. The shower scene was my final (audition) and I decided I was just going to rip off my pants in the audition. I knew I was going to do it though, so I had short shorts underneath, and I just went for gold. I was going to try and let my performance do the talking, because I couldn’t see myself beating this guy over his look. I think he looked so much more the part than me. So, I just ripped my pants off. At the end (of the audition) the director said “That’s our guy.” I had to fly out straight away. It was less than an hour turnaround between landing and getting on my next flight back to Tasmania. It’s pretty wild.
Your character really does barrel through the film like an over-excited Labrador, and it sits within this outlandish romantic comedy world that Will has created. For you personally, is there a genre film that you favour the most?
Oh, gosh. I really liked when we were here in Sydney, we watched My Best Friend’s Wedding. We had that in the Sony Cinema, and I hadn’t actually seen it before. I loved it. It was such a beautiful movie, and Dermot (Mulroney) was there and he was crying. We were all crying. It was funny as well. But, for me, my favourite comedy would be Joe Dirt. Do you remember Joe Dirt from back in the day?
Oh my, yeah!
(Laughs) Yeah, Joe Dirt. If it was more about the romance then maybe something like About Time, but if it was based around comedy it would be Joe Dirt. I just keep coming back to it. It’s still funny to me.
Mentioning the slang before, I saw the video you had on Instagram of testing Sydney Sweeney’s Australian vocabulary. We have a very distinct way of saying things. Did you have to act as a translator of sorts with the cast when you were all here together?
Sometimes. There were definitely times, but then there were words even I didn’t know, so Bryan Brown would be pretty helpful with that. Between takes I’d ask him what he thought and he would whisper little things in my ears. Usually his words were quite vulgar, and I would be like, “Oh, maybe I won’t use that.” I think my character is a bit more light and lives up (in the clouds). He’s not going to be, like, “Fucking this and fucking that” (laughs), so I’d go to Bryan for some answers. But there was some stuff that just lives in you that you don’t even think twice about, like I would ask if someone was keen to go do something, and they’d ask “What’s keen?” And I’d have to explain it’s like if you want to go do something.
And you’re another graduate from Neighbours. Everyone talks about soap operas being the best training ground for actors. Did you find that as you’ve moved on to bigger films and bigger roles you still carry what you learned with you?
Yeah, definitely. People talk about Neighbours like it’s just a soap opera, but it is a really, really good learning ground. I remember in my last weeks of Neighbours they handed me 21 pages of dialogue, and they’re like, “This is for you for the next two days.” You get that on Friday and you’re shooting through to Monday. I remember I would stay in the studios until 3am. They eventually made a rule that I wasn’t allowed to be there after 8pm at night. I just wanted it to be good. I’ve got two days to try and make this as good as I can. I wanted to feel my way through it and find every variation. It was a really good learning ground, yeah.
But it’s not the only way. There’s so many doors. Try all of them and find what works for you, and, for me, it was Neighbours. And it doesn’t mean you can’t be in the industry, because, you know, I had a four year gap after Neighbours, so you don’t always get that momentum. It’s not the be-all-and-end-all.
Anyone But You is screening in Australian theatres from Boxing Day, December 26th, 2023.
