Q&A: Nicholas Hammond, actor, 72

Nicholas Hammond on acting in the original Sound of Music, what he learnt from Julie Andrews and his latest stage role.

Nicholas Hammond. Picture: Julian Kingma

Few Australians know there’s a boy actor from the original Sound of Music film living in their midst. Hello Friedrich. What brought you here in the ‘80s? I was in Cyclone Tracy and The Challenge [as yachtsman Dennis Conner] for Channel 9, then four more miniseries... by that time I’d bought a house, had a whole set of friends and an Australian girlfriend, and this became a second home. Eventually I got dual citizenship and started working back and forth. I still love being in Hollywood when I’m there, but I think I prefer living here.

How did you cope with lockdown? I just sat and wrote. I wrote a couple of screenplays and a World War II series set in Warsaw that looks like it’s going ahead.

You’ve just come from a martial arts film in Thailand. How’s your jump kick? I don’t think my name is the first one that comes to people’s lips when they think of martial arts movies. But I’d been in [Tarantino film] Once Upon a Time in Hollywood and the producer called me up and said, “Come and have some fun with us!” So I did. It’s called The Art of Eight Limbs and I play a CIA station chief.

With dozens of films, more than 200 TV shows and countless plays under your belt, what’s left on the bucket list? I think every actor secretly wants to star in their own TV series, and I did that with The Amazing Spider-Man [1977-79]. You want to play the lead in a movie, you want to be in one that wins an Academy Award, and you want to be in a big Broadway musical. I’m now ticking that last box with Cinderella. I can’t think of a genre I haven’t had a chance to do. I love it all. The minute I walk onto a stage or set, I’m home. It’s just my world. It has been since Lord of the Flies in 1963.

Back to a certain 1965 film with Julie Andrews – you’re not sick of talking about it after all these years? I don’t mind it at all. I’m pleased and proud of The Sound of Music. When we [the child cast] get together – which we did last month in LA when Julie was honoured by the American Film Institute – we all say how incredibly lucky we all were. Because it changed our lives forever. It’s wonderful to have been a part of something that brought so much joy to so many people.

What did you learn from Julie? To put your head down, work hard, don’t complain. She showed me by example how a real star behaves. I remember her saying, “Just always be prepared, because you never know when the opportunity’s going to come”. It was very, very good advice. And I feel very grateful that as a 13-year-old boy I had her as a mentor.

Now you’re on stage in Cinderella, another Rodgers and Hammerstein musical. Julie did laugh when I told her I was doing it. She said, “Well, it’s come full circle now.” They wrote it for her in 1957 [for TV]. What’s really interesting about this version is that the playwright Douglas Carter Beane has maintained the Cinderella fable but thread under that issues of female empowerment, gender politics, the way power corrupts... all weaved around these wonderful Rodgers and Hammerstein songs. It’s a rich show that has a lot going on.

In your performance as Sebastian the Lord Chancellor (taking over from Todd McKenney), are you channelling anyone? Think of any autocratic, populist leader who tends to bend the rules and not always tell the truth in order to keep himself in power. Another person like that just lost his job in England. But because it’s a fairytale, he gets his comeuppance. For me, playing the baddie is always enormously good fun.

Rodgers & Hammerstein’s Cinderella is at QPAC, Brisbane, August 5-28; Lyric Theatre, Sydney, October 23 to December 23. cinderellamusical.com.au