DIMITRIADES, ALEX - SUMMER CODA
SAME NAME, DIFFERENT CHARACTER
Variety is what actors like in roles, and playing the quiet farmer Michael in
Summer Coda came as a great contrast to his role as Mihali the loud nightclub
operator in The Kings of Mykonos, Alex Dimitriades tells Andrew L. Urban.
Alex Dimitriades remembers trying to ignore the sand flies crawling up his
trouser legs by the hundreds, so he could concentrate on the scene, a quiet,
brooding moment inside the cabin of his work truck, with his co-star Rachael
Taylor beside him. The heat was an unbearable 40 degrees outside in the Mildura
orange groves and the giant location lights added another 10 degrees to the
temperature inside the truck.
As soon as director Richard Gray called CUT!, “we’d literally just burst out of
the truck, screaming,” he says itching with the memory as we sit in the comfort
of a hotel facing the Sydney Harbour Bridge. “They bite and they stick and
they’re immune to every fly spray – I’ve tried them all,” he adds with memories
of desperation.
"a romantic drama tinged with melancholy"
A short fight aside, Summer Coda has little of the explosive action that
Dimitriades describes off screen. It’s a romantic drama tinged with melancholy
about Heidi (Taylor) returning from America for the funeral of her estranged
father, and meeting orange farmer Michael (Dimitriades). Both have to struggle
through personal demons to make room for a potential relationship.
“She’s a violin playing, snooker ball sinking, kick-ass independent girl … but
not as crass as I make her sound,” he says with a laugh. Taylor is
“inspirational to watch. She’s focused and intense and ambitious how she
approaches her role, which is great. We make so few films, so there are very few
roles for strong protagonist females.”
As for his character, Michael, he says he was drawn to it because “it was a
chance to display versatility – to play a character that is counter to the
comedy role I play in The Kings of Mykonos: Wog Boy 2. This is a softer
character and it keeps my life interesting.”
Indeed, his search for versatility continued with the role of Charlie (the Tom
Cruise role) in the Ensemble Theatre’s production of Rain Man, directed by
Sandra Bates, earlier this year. “We did 120 shows and it was great,” he says.
“It’s a great story and of course the stage is a very different medium to
cinema. A live, interactive audience . . . I hadn’t seen the film and I didn’t
want to see the film so as not to be distracted by Tom’s performance.”
That, wrote Diana Simmonds in Stage Noise, “means he has no idea quite how
brilliantly he transcends the narcissistic limitations of Cruise . . .” Daniel
Mitchell plays the idiot savant older brother, Raymond (the Dustin Hoffman
role).
"an instinctive actor"
Dimitriades describes himself as an instinctive actor; “I had no classical
training so I learnt it on the go.” His first acting performance was his
audition for The Heartbreak Kid. When he got the role, he “felt a lot of
pressure to match all the pros I was working with …”
That pressure is still there, but in a different way. Working with first time
director Richard Gray on Summer Coda, Dimitriades was keen to make it a team
effort. “He’s a talented young man and has put many years into this. So it was
great to be a part of it – I knew as soon as we met that we’d be able to work
well together.”
That first meeting was arranged quickly; Dimitriades hadn’t even finished
reading the script when he rang his agent and asked for a meeting with Gray. “I
liked the mood of the script and how these characters come to meet. The orange
grove setting was another factor …so I jumped up and rang my agent … it seemed
like a movie I wanted to see.”
First published in the Sun-Herald
Published October 21, 2010
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