David Campbell juggles TV work and family life to star in North By Northwest

Stepping into a shoes of matinee idol Cary Grant was a dream come true for lifetime fan David Campbell as he takes on a new theatrical role in North By Northwest.

David Campbell grew up watching Alfred Hitchcock movies, so to star in the theatrical adaptation of his spy thriller North By Northwest is like a dream, even if it means 14-hour days, juggling the stage with his television and radio commitments and family time.

Campbell steps into the immortal role created by matinee idol Cary Grant, playing advertising executive Roger O. Thornhill, running for his life after getting caught up in a spy operation.

The gripping adaptation combines the magic of film and theatre to capture every twist and turn from Hitchcock’s original work.

It is a film that Campbell fondly recalls watching with his grandmother, and Bill Collins, of course.

“I’m much older than probably some of the people in the cast, so I remember Hitchcock through Bill Collins’ Golden Years Of Hollywood, and watching old movies with my grandma. I was watching Psycho and Vertigo and getting into Hitchcock quite early,” he tells Insider.

David Campbell is starring in North By Northwest.

“And then as I got into my 20s, really getting into his artwork and how he structured scenes and how he directed movies. He’s one of the great all-time directors.

“I mean, he was problematic as a person. How he treated women especially was something we don’t look back on very fondly, but to separate that and to talk about his movies and his artwork, he was absolutely second to none.”

Co-host of Nine’s Today Extra, Campbell has been managing rehearsals that run until late after doing the early show, and says while the juggle is hard with family life – he and wife Lisa have three young children, Leo, Betty and Billy – it’s all worth it for the final product.

“You’re watching the clock a lot and at the same time, trying to be in the moment because you can’t just interview people, whether it’s on TV or in print without being focused on the person in front of you, or the job at hand, so I have to be aware of what I’m doing at work and then running around to get to my next work,” he says during a break in rehearsals.

“And when I come here, I can certainly turn my phone on silent, put in the bag and just concentrate on the script and the task at hand of learning lines and where I’m going. But the hardest part is the rehearsals don’t finish until night, so I’m out from 7.30am to 9pm so it’s hard because I don’t see my kids, which I’m used to doing.

David Campbell has three children with his wife Lisa. Picture: Instagram

“I’m used to ferrying them around and being Uber Dad in the car. I’m used to being that guy who DJs the music.

“They’ve been in our pockets because of homeschooling for so long, and then we had school holidays with them, so all of a sudden I am more emotional because I’m like ‘see you tomorrow, Dad misses you’ and they’re like ‘yeah, sure Dad’ and go to school.

“And I’m like the Cats In The Cradle song is happening now before my eyes.

“It’s like we were trapped for so long and now I miss them – the curse of parents,” he laughs.

North By Northwest tells the story of Roger O. Thornhill, whose uneventful life is turned upside down when he is thrust into a world of espionage, romance and murder.

Abducted by thugs who insist he is a government agent, the New York exec is hunted by ruthless spies in a breakneck journey involving the federal agents, a cropdusting plane, a blonde femme fatale and a cliffhanger that has to be seen to be believed.

“It plays like a movie so for people who are familiar with how movies are run – a film might take place in one room for one scene and another room for another – this is like short scenes, short bursts. It’s an incredible task,” Campbell says.

“It’s moving sets around constantly as we go from one short scene to another, there’s phone calls and lighting changes and they’re moving more sets then the most extraordinary thing that director Simon Philips and the team have come up with is modelling with cameras on the side.

“So tiny models cars are projected on to the screen behind us, which gives it a real filmic element that has been created in real time by the cast.

“So things like the Mount Rushmore scene or the cropduster scene from the movie, or the train sequences or driving sequences, are all created by the cast on the side in these two booths with cameras in front of them, which has been put onto the big screen with a soundtrack.

“It’s incredible.”

Cary Grant in the original Alfred Hitchcock movie.

David Campbell rehearses on stage for North By Northwest.

Campbell, who also presents his own national weekend afternoon radio show on Smooth FM, is joined on stage by Helpmann Award winners Amber McMahon as femme fatale Eve Kendall, Bert LaBonte as master spy Vandamm and theatre veteran Genevieve Lemon as roger’s mother Mrs Thornhill.

Campbell and LaBonte were first introduced by director Simon Philips almost two decades ago, making the cast more like family.

“Bert was in my wedding party actually. We met doing a show with Simon 16 and a half years ago for the Melbourne Theatre Company,” Campbell says.

“We shared a dressing room and were very close friends and would host drinks in our room every Thursday night, and that’s where my wife walked in — in that room.

“So Bert and his family have been very close to my family since then.”

Campbell has also known co-stars Sharon Millerchip, Genevieve Lemon and Tony Llewellyn-Jones for many years.

“Sharon and I have done every musical under the sun but never together and now all these people who I have loved for so long, get to work together. It’s great,” he says.

Playing a role immortalised by Cary Grant, “a proper movie star”, was a surreal opportunity.

“It’s someone who I’ve never felt that I’ve been close to touching the cloth of a garment of. He was such a style icon, such an incredible actor, he was just amazing,” Campbell says.

“If anything, I feel alike Cary’s rubbish cousin Gary Grant. Not as tall and not as handsome, but Gary Grant is going to give it a Gary go.

“This show really has to be seen to be believed. Buckle up Sydney it’s going to be a wild ride.”

North By Northwest, Lyric Theatre, March 9 to April 3, northbynorthwesttheplay.com