Strictly Ballroom’s Tara Morice stars in Flickerfest short The Home Team

Thirty years since Strictly Ballroom was a box office hit, actor Tara Morice said she still gets called Fran.

Thirty years since Strictly Ballroom was a box office hit, actor Tara Morice still answers to the name of her character, Fran.

Baz Lurhmann’s award-winning big screen debut was a global smash that went on to become an Aussie classic and set Morice up for a career spanning three decades so far.

“People sometimes call me Fran by accident,” Morice told The Daily Telegraph. “I take that as a great compliment because if you can inhabit a character and it actually sticks with people and it means something to them, that is really good.”

Tara Morice, star of Strictly Ballroom features in The Home Team which will screen at Flickerfest at Bondi Beach from Friday. Picture: Toby Zerna

Shot in Sydney with several iconic locations like the Kings Cross Coca-Cola sign, Strictly Ballroom turns 30 this year.

The film led the charge in what was a seminal time for Australian film, opening in cinemas in August 1992 and screening at the prestigious Cannes International Film Festival.

Another Aussie classic of the time, Priscilla Queen of the Desert, was released two years later.

Morice, now 57, was a graduate fresh out of acting school at the National Institute of Dramatic Art (NIDA) when she landed the gig.

The film catapulted Morice and co-star Paul Mercurio, alongside Luhrmann as it was his first feature film, to the international stage with its simple yet camp and kitsch message of good vs. evil set against the backdrop of the over-the-top National Championship ballroom dance competition.

Tara Morice and Paul Mercurio and in Strictly Ballroom.

“It is that thing of fighting against the odds, being the underdog and feeling like an outsider and wanting to be accepted,” Morice explained. "I met all of these amazing people when the film came out, people like Walter Cronkite, Sir Anthony Hopkins and Quentin Tarantino. A lot of them said, you are starting up high and that is hard because often you slowly build your career and reach a peak, whereas I kind of hit this high point with my first film.”

She continued: “The thing was, when I met people like Sir Anthony Hopkins and Helena Bonham Carter, the really great thing that they let me know quite quickly was that you are part of this acting fraternity and when you chose to be an actor, it is a craft that you can do your whole life with so many different roles and some things are hugely popular and some aren't. That is the thing I look at, that balance.”

Morice has worked continuously on the stage, small and big screen since graduating from NIDA.

Paul Mercurio and Tara Morice in Strictly Ballroom.

Outside of Strictly Ballroom, Morice is known for playing roles on shows like Dance Academy, Home And Away and Blue Heelers. She will be seen in Luke Cartwright directed short, The Home Team alongside Paul McDermott, that screens as part of the Flickerfest Short Film Festival that plays at Bondi Beach from Friday and runs for 10 days.

“I have been an actor my whole life, I haven’t had to do any other work which is incredible and particularly in Australia because it is so hard to make a living here.”

Morice meanwhile said she did explore options in Hollywood off the back of Strictly Ballroom, revealing she narrowly missed out on a lead in 1999 Brad Pitt flick, Fight Club.

Bonham Carter ended up playing the role of Marla Singer in the film.

“It started as a very low budget film and I was involved to play the character that Helena played,” she explained. “As it progressed, I did a lot of work with the screenwriter in developing the script, the producer rang me one day and said Brad Pitt has signed on and it has gone from small budget to mega. So that is my Fight Club story. You know what they say, the first secret of fight club is there is no fight club. The first secret of Tara’s career is there was no fight club.”