The first time Kip Williams set foot inside the headquarters of the Sydney Theatre Company was for a cattle call audition for the role of the cabin boy in Moby Dick. “I was 10 years old, and I remember walking up the stairs off Hickson Road and seeing this corridor that seemed to disappear into eternity,” says the now 37-year-old. “It was so intimidating.”

After several callbacks, he progressed no further than the top three, marking a rare moment of setback in what has otherwise been quite a career. He became the captain of Sydney’s Cranbrook private school, and then the editor of Sydney University’s student newspaper Honi Soit. At 22, he was accepted into the directors’ course offered by the National Institute of Dramatic Art (NIDA) – the minimum age it allowed.