Queensland’s Top 50 Thinkers: Geoffrey Rush, he’s not your average Hollywood movie star
A DEEP-THINKER who can take on almost any role, Geoffrey Rush chooses his parts carefully — and more often than not comes out with the best characters on screen.
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â— These are our best and brightest, the people who have turned their minds to making society better.
● They are the people who have made Queensland the smart state. They are our top thinkers …
● Scroll down for 10 best of the best
● Stay tuned as we bring you the full list of Queensland’s Top 50 Thinkers
OSCAR-winning actor Geoffrey Rush is about as far away from stereotypical Hollywood movie celebrities as you could get.
A deep-thinking thespian with an incredibly broad range, he is very picky about which roles he takes — and has a knack for choosing the best.
Toowoomba-born Rush grew up in Brisbane, where his interest in the theatre first flourished, and graduated from the University of Queensland with a degree in English.
His big break came in Shine. Rush’s portrayal of the absurdly talented but mentally troubled Australian pianist David Helfgott is still hailed by other actors as one of the all-time great screen performances.
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Shine earned Rush his Best Actor Academy Award and he has been nominated for his roles in Shakespeare in Love, Quills and The King’s Speech, a movie he also co-produced, demonstrating his business acumen.
The 63-year-old is also one of a handful of actors with the distinction of winning “the Triple Crown” — an Oscar, an Emmy (for The Life and Death of Peter Sellers) and a Tony (for his Broadway debut in Exit the King).
His mantelpiece is also sagging with the weight of Golden Globes, BAFTAS and a host of other accolades.
But Rush is no elitist. His performances as the peg-legged Captain Hector Barbossa in three of the four Pirates of the Caribbean movies have helped make it one of the highest-earning franchises in history and he is currently filming the fifth instalment on the Gold Coast.
Rush is known for his wicked sense of humour.
The 2012 Australian of the Year still regularly treads the boards in smaller stage productions that appeal to him, and provides philanthropic support to arts companies and young actors, as well as being a UNICEF goodwill ambassador.
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NICK MARTIN — GENETICS
PROFESSOR Nick Martin is a globally renowned researcher and, having published more than 1000 peer-reviewed papers, is one of the most cited medical scientists in the southern hemisphere.
The 65-year-old heads the Genetic Epidemiology Laboratory at Brisbane’s QIMR Berghofer Medical Research Institute.
The senior scientist’s work has covered conditions ranging from melanoma to migraine, anxiety to asthma, and everything in between.
Much of Prof Martin’s groundbreaking research into human diseases and behaviours has been based on studying twins.
He co-founded QTwin — a registry of identical and non-identical twins born or living in Queensland — and he and his team have worked with 7000 sets of twins in the past decade.
Topics under investigation include alcohol and nicotine dependence, mental ability and cognitive performance, and osteoarthritis.
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NOEL PEARSON — INDIGENOUS ISSUES
FROM an Aboriginal kid who grew up in poverty on a Lutheran mission on remote Cape York Peninsula, Noel Pearson has become one of the country’s most influential thinkers and opinion shapers.
The 49-year-old is a man prime ministers seek the counsel of.
After boarding school in Brisbane, he graduated from Sydney University with a law and history degree.
Mr Pearson first came to prominence as
a land rights lawyer, but he is now regarded as a key policy player across the whole
range of issues affecting Australia’s indigenous population.
He argues that decades of political responses have created entrenched welfare dependency and excluded Aboriginal people from economic participation.
His views frequently spark controversy, but they’re impossible to ignore.
Mr Pearson’s eulogy at the memorial service for former prime minister Gough Whitlam was hailed as one of the finest orations in the country’s recent history.
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SAGADEVAN MUNDREE — PLANT BIOTECHNOLOGY
HE does not look like a cape-wearing superhero, but Professor Sagadevan Mundree is working hard to try to save the planet.
Based at Queensland University of Technology’s Centre for Tropical Crops and Biocommodities, the 49-year-old is working on pioneering projects to protect and replenish the Earth’s dwindling resources and save lives.
Billions of people rely on rice as their basic diet, but with drought and increased salinity causing crop failure, up to a third of the world’s population could face food and water shortages within a decade. So Prof Mundree is studying drought-resistant Australian grasses to try to identify genes that could be transplanted into rice.
Another project is developing protein-rich super-pulses, such as chickpeas, to help meet growing demand for food in the developing world.
A third is turning waste material from plants into biofuels as a renewable alternative to finite petroleum products.
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SANDRA HARDING — HIGHER EDUCATION
CALL her “Cyclone Sandra” — an irresistible ball of energy sweeping through the tropics. But far from wreaking destruction, James Cook University Vice-Chancellor and President, Professor Sandra Harding, 57, is determined to be a force for good in what she says are critical, but neglected, regions of the world.
“My ambition is geo-political … to help create a brighter future for life in the tropics worldwide,” she says.
By 2050, the tropics will be home to two-thirds of the world’s children; they have
80 per cent of global biodiversity and generate 20 per cent of world economic product, growing more quickly than anywhere.
As a developed nation, Australia — and particularly Queensland — is in the box seat to help the regions flourish and share the benefits. Prof Harding is positioning Townsville’s JCU at the cutting edge and attracting some of the top academic talent in her quest.
James Cook led a collaboration of 12 research institutions around the world to produce the landmark 480-page State of the Tropics report last year. And such are Prof Harding’s powers of persuasion that Nobel Laureate Aung San Suu Kyi agreed to launch it.
Closer to home, she brings her sharp intellect to a long list of groups, including Townsville Enterprises, Advance Cairns and the North Queensland Cowboys NRL club.
With a background as a social scientist, she says: “What drives me is to see a defining need and to pursue a solution to that need through bold ambition and ultimately to achieve it.”
Only the foolish would get in the way. Asked about a previous article that quoted her cautioning: “I remind people not to confuse courtesy with weakness”, she laughs.
“Yes I did say that, and the second part is: I would encourage people not to confuse size with strength.
“People only tend to do it once.”
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ROSS HOMEL — CRIMINOLOGY
YOU may say Ross Homel is a criminal mastermind but, don’t worry, he is one of the good guys.
The 64-year-old has spent 25 years investigating the causes, prevention and responses to crime and his work has earned him national and international acclaim.
Following his appointment as foundation Professor of Criminology and Criminal Justice at Griffith University in 1992, he played a key part in establishing the
world’s first Centre of Excellence in Policing and Security.
Much of Prof Homel’s work has focused on studying the underlying causes of crime, links with other social problems, and the effectiveness of early intervention.
His “pathways to prevention” initiative, run with Mission Australia, integrated family support with school-based programs across Logan City, reducing anti-social behaviour and boosting educational performance.
He is director of the Griffith Institute for Social and Behavioural Research.
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PETER COALDRAKE — HIGHER EDUCATION
PROFESSOR Peter Coaldrake has been a driving force in the education sector through his role as Queensland University of Technology Vice-Chancellor and President since 2003.
He is the longest-serving head of any tertiary institution in the country and the regard in which he is held is apparent when QUT moved last September to lock him into a contract until 2017.
The 63-year-old has consistently built QUT’s reputation and it was recognised as Australia’s top “young uni” (those less than 50 years old) in the prestigious Times Higher Education Supplement in 2013. It is ranked No.31 in that category worldwide.
Prof Coaldrake describes himself as “a simple person”, but is a dual Fulbright scholar who writes books on the future direction of universities and education. Highly respected by his peers, he is a member, and past chairman, of Universities Australia and chairs the Australian Technology Network.
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JUDY SMEED — EDUCATION
DR JUDY Smeed is the woman underperforming schools turn to in order to boost their students’ results.
Senior lecturer at Queensland University of Technology’s Faculty of Education, she was the first academic in Queensland to identify the importance of detailed data analysis to boost outcomes.
The approach enables teachers to pinpoint where students need more or less attention. The results of her intervention have seen the former geography teacher and deputy principal come to be regarded as something of a wonder woman in the sector.
Dr Smeed has been recruited to work with more than 100 schools across the state in the public and private sectors, producing an increase of up to 20 per cent in the proportion of students achieving OP scores between 1 and 15.
She is also a strong defender of the controversial NAPLAN literacy and numeracy tests for students in Years 3, 5, 7 and 9 and works with schools on curriculum change.
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MAHER GANDHI — CANCER RESEARCH
MAHER Gandhi has built an international reputation for his trendsetting research into the causes and treatment of lymphomas — the most common form of blood cancer.
As a trainee doctor, Professor Gandhi witnessed the relief and joy of a young father at learning he was in remission after receiving a new treatment. He knew then that he wanted to combine treating people with cutting-edge research. He is now the senior staff specialist at Princess Alexandra Hospital’s haematology department.
Prof Gandhi’s work focusing on immunity and identifying biomarkers enabled his team to make a breakthrough last year in being able to tailor treatment to individual need so patients with Hodgkin’s lymphoma — and potentially other cancers — will have to endure only the minimum amount of chemotherapy and radiotherapy.
The research could lead to better response rates, fewer unpleasant side-effects and lower costs. In 2010, Prof Gandhi won the prestigious Australian Society for Medical Research clinical research award.
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MARK VON ITZSTEIN — MEDICAL RESEARCH
PROFESSOR Mark von Itzstein reckons the best scientists have a bit of Sherlock Holmes in them.
Prof von Itzstein says he is driven by “the desire to benefit humanity by finding solutions to diseases and by the love of the detective aspect of this work”.
“There is a touch of the Sherlock Holmes in working out how to do that,” he says.
Prof von Itzstein led the Monash University team that developed the worst’s first anti-influenza drug, Relenza.
Director of the Institute for Glycomics at Griffith University, he heads a team of 165 researchers that has just made a “really critical breakthrough” in tackling the highly infectious human
para-influenza virus that causes croup, pneumonia and bronchitis.
They will now move to pre-clinical studies that could lead to the development of drugs or vaccines.
Another stream of work tackling leukaemia has identified a change in the carbohydrate layer of cancer cells. By removing the modification, they can kill the cancerous cell.
It is a major discovery that could lead to new ways of fighting the most common childhood cancer, acute lymphoblastic leukaemia, especially when the cancer becomes drug-resistant. “We are thrilled,” Prof Itzstein says.
A keen musician, Prof von Itzstein is not one to blow his own trumpet, but he does fanfare the importance of science.
“People still view scientists as people in white coats detached from the world. That is not the case,” he says.
“People at my level need to be able to articulate to people that their tax dollars are being well-invested.”
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