Honoured mega-producer Bruna Papandrea most excited for her mum

She muscled her way from housing commission to Hollywood’s apex via a series of runaway hits. Now Bruna Papandrea has another reason to be proud.

Bruna Papandrea and Reese Witherspoon. Picture: Amanda Friedman / The Wall Street Journal.

Hollywood mega-producer Bruna Papandrea says “Australia has always been one of the great places in the world to make things”.

Papandrea, who muscled her way from a housing commission childhood in Adelaide to the apex of Hollywood, was on Thursday awarded the Order of Australia medal for service to the performing arts.

Though she feels “immense pride” about the honour, Papandrea admits she’s most “excited for my mother.”

“She’s my greatest fan. She might have been the first person to nominate me,” she says.

“My mother was an immigrant, and moved here when she was 13. She was a single mother and raised us, so it does give me enormous pride, given those circumstances. I know how meaningful it is to her – she’s very proud of me.”

For decades, Papandrea grinded in the Hollywood shadows. In 2012, she teamed up with Reese Witherspoon in founding Pacific Standard, a production company devoted to bringing complex female stories to the fore.

Their first two projects, literary adaptations Gone Girl and Wild, were runaway hits – Papandrea counts the latter as one of her most “fulfilling” projects to date “on so many personal levels”.

Witherspoon in 2014’s Wild. “It just fulfilled me on so many personal levels, as well as, obviously, getting me recognition,” says Papandrea.

Five years later, she parted ways with Witherspoon and went on to launch her own production company, Made Up Stories, ­keeping that ethos of championing women.

Made Up Stories has released dozens of films and TV shows, ­including The Undoing, HBO’s most watched show of 2020, and Nine Perfect Strangers, which ­Papandrea and her team transplanted to Byron Bay after the ­production was shut down in Los Angeles by the pandemic – something she says is her proudest achievement.

“I’m really proud of the way we pivoted, and were able to sustain our business during Covid. I think that was a real test for us,” she says.

“I love Australia. I am Australia’s greatest ambassador. It’s been so important to me to build not just an international business here but our domestic business as well.

“I do feel immense pride. I love this country.”

Reflecting on her time making films, Papandrea says “Australia has always been one of the great places in the world to make things”.

“We have the best crew, best locations, best technicians, we’ve always had so many ‘bests’.”

That’s something the rest of the world has cottoned on to, she says, “Which is really challenging for domestic business”. It’s important for us, as a country, to “build infrastructure so we can sustain an international and domestic business”, she says.

Papandrea’s first feature-­producing gig was in 2000 on the rom-com Better Than Sex, starring David Wenham, who, in a full circle moment, has also been honoured in this year’s Order of Australia.

Susie Porter and David Wenham in Better Than Sex.

“Oh god, I remember everything about that experience,” Papan­drea says of the film.

“It was a like a $900,000 movie, and we made everything ourselves. It was such an amazing experience from start to finish.

“I remember trying to make curtains for the production office, and I convinced a friend of mine, a chef who had the apartment downstairs from the apartment we filmed in, to come and be the caterer. It was just such a tremendously gratifying experience.

“When you don’t have the resources, you’re forced to be creative, and you’re all pitching in,” she says.

Better Than Sex was a windfall for the producer – it took her to ­Toronto Film Festival, where she met Anthony Minghella, “which is really the biggest break of my career”.