Kodi Smit-McPhee, Andy McPhee, The Power of the Dog and the Academy Awards
Inside the world of Kodi Smit-McPhee, the young SA actor on the cusp of an Academy Award nomination, and the movie-star famous father who guided his course.
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Andy McPhee has crammed a lot into his nearly 70 years. He was an Adelaide-based train driver who became a scrap metal merchant, pool lifeguard, bouncer and pro-wrestler. He then took up acting, headed to Hollywood and in the past 30 or so years has had more than 100 roles on TV and the big screen. He’s also been married three times, is a father of seven and a grandfather.
It’s already been a ridiculously rich and fulfilling life, but there’s one more milestone he’s keen to tick off. In March next year, he hopes to be there when son Kodi Smit-McPhee walks on stage at the famous Dolby Theatre in Hollywood to accept an Academy award.
Sure, there’s a lot of water that needs to go under the bridge before that can happen, but the film industry is buzzing with speculation that Adelaide-born Smit-McPhee’s remarkable performance in Jane Campion’s The Power of the Dog will earn him a Best Supporting Actor Oscar nomination.
“Maybe I’ll get a ticket to be front row at the Oscars next year – now that would be cool,” proud father McPhee tells SAWeekend with a cheeky wink at his son.
The three of us are chatting via Zoom, with Andy in his LA pad, and Kodi wandering the corridors of the Hotel Casa Del Mar in Santa Monica where he’s staying briefly before flying to New York for more media for the film. The closeness of father and son is evident as they banter about the unpredictable life as members of the McPhee Family Acting Troupe.
If the pundits are right, Smit-McPhee would become just the second South Australian actor to be nominated for an Oscar. Dame Judith Anderson, who played the villainous housekeeper Mrs Danvers in Alfred Hitchcock’s 1940 classic film Rebecca, was the first.
Critics are entranced with his performance as the effeminate, picked-on Peter Gordon, opposite Benedict Cumberbatch and Kirsten Dunst in the film considered Campion’s best since her multi-award winning The Piano (1993).
Smit-McPhee, 25, has already had a stellar on-screen career since his first role as a 10-year-old, playing opposite Eric Bana in the film Romulus, My Father (2007). He is accustomed to hanging with big name actors. He played Viggo Mortensen’s son in The Road (2009) with Robert Duvall, Charlize Theron and Guy Pearce; and opposite Chloe Grace Moretz, as Owen, a bullied schoolboy who strikes up a friendship with a young vampire in the shock feature Let Me In (2010). And he’s been in two megahit X-Men films as the mutant Nightcrawler.
But The Power of the Dog, an edgy, complex, character-driven Western set in the vast wilderness of Montana in 1925, looks set to launch him to stardom and a level of attention he’s keen to resist.
Intense, intellectual and considered, he owes his start in movies to his dad who, when Kodi was born in the Calvary private hospital in North Adelaide in the winter of 1996, was a 44-year-old jobbing actor with six dependent children, and a new young wife, Sonja Smit.
Kodi was the couple’s second child together, and they had a third, Caden, now 16 and living with his mother in Melbourne.
Their first child Sianoa (pronounced Shinoa) was already making a mark in the acting world filming TV commercials before she started school at Allenby Gardens Primary. She played schoolgirl Bree Timmins in Neighbours for three years before heading to LA for greater success with the family in 2009.
The McPhee family acting dynasty began improbably when Andy, a former train driver of the Overland from Melbourne to Adelaide, turned pro-wrestler Mad Max Miller, won the role in a Hungry Jacks commercial opposite a “Whopper”. Since then he has been in dozens of major productions in Australia and the US, including the Hollywood hit Saving Mr. Banks (2013) with Emma Thompson, Tom Hanks and Colin Farrell. He’s based in Los Angeles, where he teaches acting when he’s not performing.
Kodi is also living in LA, in the heart of the multi-billion-dollar film industry, with his Melbourne-born long-term girlfriend Rebecca Phillipou.
I caught up with father and son just before they walked the red carpet together at the famous Chinese Theatre, a movie palace on the historic Hollywood Walk of Fame, for the glitzy US premiere of The Power of the Dog.
Cook: I saw on Instagram Andy has been out on Rodeo Drive, buying an expensive suit for the premiere; you obviously don’t want him letting down the side Kodi?
Smit-McPhee: I’m always happy having Dad on set with me but it’s not been so easy through Covid so I thought it would be pretty special at this landmark career achievement to have him at the premiere. My career is hand-in-hand with my personal life and Dad’s a big part of that. And of course, I want him dressed up nice in a tailored suit.
McPhee: This will be a hard gig for me. I’m more comfortable in my thongs and trackie dacks. The biggest event we’ve been to together was the AFIs, sitting there with all the producers, the director, Eric (Bana) and my dear friend Jamie Brown who wrote that funny little speech for Kodi that he carried off brilliantly. That’s when I was first overawed by him, knowing how young he was and so professional. And here we are again, maybe – and I hope we get to see him make another brilliant speech. It’ll be another proud Dad moment and I get them all the time with all my kids. And if Kodi does get nominated for an Oscar, I reckon you’ll be able to drag me along in a very good suit that night too!
Cook: So, we are allowed to talk Oscars without jinxing anyone’s prospects?
Smit-McPhee: Let’s do it, I don’t believe in jinxing. I’m just grateful that discussion (an Oscar nomination) is going around. The best I can do for now is to be ever-present at all the press calls and enjoy the ride of the promotional tour. The way I see that process is that it’s the first translation of any film. At these endless film festivals you get to see that first wave of response, which can be bad of course but for this film it’s been extraordinary. It’s been the warmest response I’ve ever seen for a film I’ve been involved with.
Cook: You’ve been in several big Hollywood productions, working with impressive ensembles, was this film a different experience?
Smit-McPhee: It was so unexpected. Money can’t buy genius or a perfect storm. From the audition through the boot camp rehearsal and the shoot and the reviews it’s been a bit of a dream state. I could feel it was very different from any other film I’ve done. But it had its stresses. In the audition I talked about Dad and how he’s never been a stage parent. That he’s very direct and to the point when it comes to acting technique and taught me all I know. Jane smiled and said, “Yeah, but I really think you can do this on your own”. I got a bit insulted by that. I’ve always called up Dad when I need a bit of “oomph” in my performance. I get this feeling when I’m reading a script that there’s more there and I can hear Dad’s voice in my head saying: “You’re just not getting this, you’re over thinking it too much” – Dad’s very good at grounding me and bypassing the nonsense and sidestepping my intellectual mind. He’s instinctive – more natural. Why didn’t Jane understand how much what I am as an actor is what Dad passed on to me? But she wanted me out of my comfort zone. It was necessary but difficult to confront: I’ve avoided that before.
McPhee: That’s important. My process is only a suggestion. A starting point for someone else. I’m glad someone like Jane has pushed him beyond what I’ve said because it’s important to find your own way. And, you must always remain a student. I’ve heard famous actors say, this is what I’ve learned and this is what I’ll stick with – well, good luck with that. Don’t get too much pride either because that’s when you become stagnant and don’t evolve and improve.
Smit-McPhee: My favourite philosophical saying is: “It is impossible for a man to learn what he thinks he already knows” (Epictetus). All these nuances of my character Peter, I know I wasn’t going to explore them myself, if Jane hadn’t pushed me. Dad would tell me to choose an animal or an archetype for my character and write down their traits … but never had I thought to get on the floor and be that character and that’s what Jane had me do; to crawl around like a fox. That’s something I might have giggled about before but that experience got me to go to the depth of Peter. I worked with a body coach to learn new ways to walk and developed a tic and added a lisp. They all bring little sparkles to Peter that we would have missed out on if I hadn’t been pushed. Other directors have done this but not to the degree Jane did. For someone to peer into my sanctuary, my safe place, I got a little defensive. Not just me, if you ask Benedict, Kirsten and Jesse (Plemons) we all felt she had skills to poke and prod to get a positive acting result. Not that I’m sacking Dad as an acting mentor. The cool thing about his tutoring is that it’s going through the filter of his identity, his personality and all his life experience to show the person he’s become through hard work, who I really look up to.
McPhee: Honestly the greatest accolades should go to Kodi’s mum (Sonja) – she kept him truly grounded. She fed him, schooled him, cared for him and trained and coached him. His talent is both nurture and nature and a lot of it comes from Sonja’s creativity and inquiring mind. She doesn’t like the limelight, and I respect that, but she always deserves the credit for the way our kids turned out. She is the stalwart, the brains and talent behind all our success – and she supported me through everything. Even though we’ve been broken up a while, we talk and have the best time on the phone. The funny thing is when we first started all this in Adelaide we had no expectations. There was no big deal. I’m excited for Kodi this might be another level but we’ve been doing this together as a family for so long we’ve learned to really enjoy the process – and then at least you’ve had fun and anything else is a bonus. Looking back, it’s been a magical journey.
Cook: Self-discovery and self-improvement appear to be a McPhee family trait and you’ve led the way there Andy?
McPhee: We all know our past will dominate our future unless we put it where it belongs. And that’s what I’ve been trying to do since Sonja and I split up and I’m very open about it. Every relationship I’ve had, broke down because of my volatile nature. And that was down to my childhood trauma. I was just a volcano as a kid. I put my foot through the back door as a three-year-old because I couldn’t stand to hear my parents argue. But I’ve worked hard to transform my life. I’ve got my family back and regained the respect of all my kids. We all support each other. No one’s looking to outdo anyone.
Cook: In contrast Kodi, you’ve only had the one serious relationship with Rebecca?
Smit-McPhee: I really enjoy having that longevity. Someone who is your rock that you can return to and who knows your history. I was quite successful when we first met but now she’s been here through this time where I’m redeeming recognition for all the years of hard work. Obviously from the outside people don’t see the trial and tribulations that we go through – we’ve been through that transition of being teenagers in love to dealing with large scale adulthood including moving away from our families, living together in LA and then dealing with the (film) industry. We’ve moved from that co-dependency of an early relationship that can be quite toxic and progressing to a maturity and supporting each other with those respectful boundaries that you need. This was the first film where Bec hadn’t read the script or was on set. She did come over to New Zealand for a few days but that was when I had time off. It was really cool this time for her to see a movie of this magnitude, that was such a passion project for me and everyone else involved, that she knew absolutely nothing about, and to get her totally unbiased opinion.
McPhee: That was the same for me. I knew nothing about the film. I had heard of Jane Campion obviously and it was such an amazing cast I just thought, go for it Kodi – but you never know how it’s going to turn out and I wasn’t expecting anything like this. It’s not just good, it’s fantastic. I thought I can’t wait to act with him again. I haven’t even told Kodi about this but a very dear friend who has written some brilliant scripts rang me the other day and said he had something for a father and son and for me to read it with no expectations. So, who knows – it would be great to see that happen. But Kodi is extraordinarily fussy with scripts, which I totally respect.
Smit-McPhee: I met up with my agent the other day and she asked how I was liking the (scripts) she was sending and I was very positive saying, yeah, I could see myself in some of those and she looked at me straight and said: “Kodi, you say no to absolutely everything.”
Cook: So why didn’t you say no to this film?
Smit-McPhee: It was all about the story. The way the film plays out, without giving anything away, well, let’s just say it’s one you might want to go back and watch again. As an audience member it spurs a lot of judgments about the characters. There’s a lot of impending doom and you’re never quite sure which character it will fall on. Because my character is naive and vulnerable he’s an obvious candidate, but reading the story, the ending just really shocked me. And once I read it again and again it revealed all these metaphorical and poetical layers that if you weren’t open to go on this journey you wouldn’t find. That goes to Thomas Savage, the writer of the novel 60 years ago, who was a gay man writing a story about toxic masculinity. It’s about what happens when you have to repress an important part of yourself. It was extremely brave to cover those topics in his day and still relevant now. It’s a masterful work that sticks with you.
Cook: So, for you it wasn’t just a matter of thinking it’s Jane Campion – I’m doing this film because she made The Piano and is a famous director?
Smit-McPhee: That’s what I’m trying to say, without stepping on anyone’s toes. It’s not that I’m uneducated or uninterested about my industry – I spend a lot of time informing myself about those primordial stories from the bible, mythology, history, Shakespeare and other writers that we adapt and reapply to modern day stories. I don’t spend any time on celebrity gossip or research who are the hot directors or actors at the moment. I think it messes with my filter when I’m reading a script … thinking this is a director I really need to work with. I’ve said no to things that have surprised others but I’m not persuaded by what someone’s history can bring to a project – it’s all about the source material. That’s not to say I wouldn’t want to work with David Lynch or Tim Burton, these incredible surrealist artists but it’s not something I chase.
Cook: You really haven’t embraced stardom yet have you?
Smit-McPhee: I do find myself explaining a lot about that in press interviews and I’ve crafted a couple of lines that seem to keep people happy – but I have to be myself. I still have a very pleasant lifestyle of living normally. I don’t get recognised or have paparazzi. That’s something I’ve admired among actors I’ve worked with, like Viggo Mortenson. He’s a household name but because of the choices he’s made to control his career he’s not someone who is often recognised in the streets.
Cook: What comes next for you both?
Smit-McPhee: In this industry it’s best not to plan too far ahead and I take the same approach to life. Who could see the pandemic coming? For me, weirdly, it played out pretty well. I auditioned with Jane and got the job. It was the same time my lease was up in LA. I put a lot of my stuff in storage and flew back to Australia, made the film and then based myself back in my roots staying with my mum and brother and at my girlfriend’s place (in Melbourne). I didn’t want to head back to the States during the height of the pandemic and it was great to spend all that time with my little brother. During that time I got a small role in Baz Luhrmann’s Elvis Presley biopic (he plays US singer-songwriter Jimmie Rodgers). It was very cool to go from Jane Campion to another masterful filmmaker like Baz. I’m coming back to spend Christmas with my family and I’m enjoying discovering parts of Australia I never knew. It definitely serves me well to refresh the Aussie accent. Previously Dad has had to coach me once every few months to keep it going. I’m feeling the pull of being back in Australia and grounding myself because I have spent so much time in the States, but again not thinking too far ahead. I like learning new things, like modelling (for Gucci) that I’ve been trying of late. I’ve been rediscovering many of the subjects I wasn’t any good at school like maths, science, philosophy and history. I’ve always been curious about the universe and my place in it, but I couldn’t find that spark in school. But now I have a love for learning about religion and spirituality. If I hadn’t had such open parents – who didn’t create those boundaries of fear-based ideology around me – I wouldn’t have had the freedoms to explore those things. It’s important, I don’t want to just put on a show my entire life.
McPhee: And for me, well I’m certainly not thinking my acting career is over as I’m still fit and ambitious but I’m at peace either way. I would have had far more work if I’d based myself in Australia through Covid but it wasn’t to be and I wouldn’t have this fabulous new relationship if I had. I’ve met a woman (Amy) who is good to me and good for me. I said to God you’ve got to give me a woman who can keep my arse in line – and he might finally have listened! There’s a possibility I might be starting my own production company to be producing great Australian Crime stories. I’m just excited to be buying the next train ticket to be going on the next great train journey. And maybe I’ll get a ticket to be front row at the Oscars next year – now that would be cool. ■
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