Joel Edgerton on his first feature film as director The Gift starring Jason Bateman and Natalie Hall

ACTOR Joel Edgerton’s finally found time for his directorial debut movie The Gift as he talks about the difficulty of acting in his own film.

IT’S been general knowledge for some years now that Joel Edgerton has more going on than just acting.

He’s directed a couple of shorts, wrote The Squarefor his brother Nash to direct, dreamt up The Rover with his mate David Michôd, scripted last year’s cop drama Felonyand stepped in to find a new director and do uncredited rewrites when the (as yet unreleased) western he was to star in alongside Natalie Portman, Jane Got a Gun, was falling apart.

Now, finally, he’s directed his first feature film: thriller The Gift, about an old high-school classmate who reappears in Jason Bateman’s life, wreaking havoc on his marriage to Rebecca Hall.

This photo provided by STX Productions LLC shows, Rebecca Hall, from left, Jason Bateman, and Joel Edgerton, in a scene from the film, "The Gift." The movie opens in US. theaters on Aug. 7, 2015. (Matt Kennedy/STX Productions, LLC via AP)

Still, Edgerton admits, he might have got around to it sooner.

“There were times where we almost were financed,” he says of The Gift, “and out of fear I ran and hid in certain productions (as an actor).

“I’m thankful that I did because some of the films, like Black Mass(next month’s gangster biopic in which he co-stars with Johnny Depp), I’d hate to think I’d have missed that boat.”

The delaying tactics couldn’t hold out forever, of course, and in January of this year, Edgerton assembled cast and crew in Los Angeles and made his film.

“It’s like an amusement park ride that you remember being kind of scary but fun,” he laughs of being a director. “It was much more enjoyable than I thought it was going to be — every different aspect. It’s so much more absorbing, demanding and thoughtful than being an actor is.

“I know that the future of me as an actor, as I get older the roles will be smaller and smaller — I’ll be that guy sitting in a chair waiting to get rolled out to do a scene. I just have this feeling like I’ll be engaged more and enjoy my life more if I’m calling the shots.”

Edgerton admitted his character, the socially awkward Gordo, heightened the difficulty of directing The Gift. Picture: Matt Kennedy / STX Productions, LLC via AP

The Gift — which Edgerton was discussing last year under the working title Weirdo — was born out of its writer-director’s fascination with bullying.

“I kept seeing bullying in the Zeitgeist. So I thought: What if I were to tell a bullying story well after school is finished, about whether we change or don’t change and the idea of your past coming back to haunt you?

“Twenty-five years after school, someone could tap you on the shoulder and be like, ‘Hey, do you remember me?’ If you hadn’t been a good person, that could be either a beautiful experience that led to a resolution or a very dangerous experience that led to an inability to move forward.

“This and The Square and Felony are all kind of the same movie, in that they’re all about a guy doing a bad thing and not properly taking responsibility for it. The Gift just has a bigger gestation period between incident and accountability — 25 years.”

The outcome of that tap on the shoulder in The Gift definitely falls into the dangerous category. In fact, the film plays something like a horror movie with its gradual rises in tension and slow reveals.

Jason Bateman plays Simon, a rising star at a tech firm who’s just moved to California with his wife, Robyn (Rebecca Hall).

While out buying furniture for their new house, they run into Gordo (Edgerton), an old schoolmate Simon dismisses as a weirdo and expects never to see again.

But Gordo overhears their delivery address and is soon dropping around uninvited, leaving gifts. Robyn, who has been through the ringer trying to have a baby, feels a strange affinity for him and slowly learns there is more in her husband’s dismissal of Gordo than he’s letting on.

“Jason’s character has this theory that you just move forward, you don’t look back; that time fixes everything and apology is a weakness,” says Edgerton.

“But your future is your past, and vice versa. Unless you make shifts and changes and have acknowledgments and understanding, you’ll keep living the same s--- out over and over again. That part is very personal to me.”

Joel Edgerton arrives at the LA premiere of his first feature film The Gift on July 30, 2015. Picture: John Salangsang / Invision / AP

Edgerton says he cast English actor Hall because, “I needed someone you could trust the moment you saw her”. As for Bateman: “He needed to be very likeable in the first instance, then let the jerk seep in when it was necessary. Jason’s shown that through all his comedies — we just had to tune the funny part down.”

It didn’t hurt that Bateman has done the acting-to-directing thing himself.

“He was the first person that said to me, ‘I know you’re going to be great at it and I know you’re going to love it’,” Edgerton recalls. “I hadn’t really thought about how much or how little I was going to love the experience, but it is so important.”

Edgerton’s other safety net was big brother Nash, who also has a small role in the film.

“Nash was there in order that, when I was in front of the camera, I didn’t have to try to and run back, put the headphones on, watch the monitor,” Edgerton explains. “I didn’t want to slow the process down. I needed someone and thank God Nash was able to do it because he and I have such a great understanding.”

The difficulty of directing a film you’re also acting in was heightened for Edgerton on The Gift given he’d transformed himself to play the socially awkward Gordo.

“Rebecca in particular couldn’t really look me in the eye,” he says. “I had lost all this weight, I was a bit skinny, I had the brown contacts, the earring and these teeth that were more perfect and whiter than my teeth ... Rebecca found it weird to take direction from me, so I would at least try and take the teeth out.”

Your future is your past, and vice versa as Simon, played by Jason Bateman and pictured with wife Robyn (Rebecca Hall), discovers in new movie The Gift.

Weird director vibe aside, the 41-year-old was a pig in mud calling the shots on scenes where Hall uncovers Bateman’s deceit.

“Those scenes made me feel the happiest I’ve ever been on set. I was steering the ship but they were elevating what I thought we were doing ... I had one of those moments where I was like, ‘I am really privileged to be doing this’. Which I don’t often feel as an actor — a lot of cynicism creeps in, the day to day grind of it allows you to grumble a bit too much. Which is all filed under A-class problems.

“But that was a day where I wasn’t thinking about anything else, you know? I just felt so much more alive and healthy in my mind when I was directing.”

Given the upward trend of his happiness chart, it’s no surprise to hear Edgerton has a couple of ideas on the boil and is determined to direct again in the next few years. There’s just one little thing playing on his mind.

“I’m scared now ... We had such a good reception with this one, I’m terrified I’m gonna suffer from, like, second-album blues and fall apart the next time around.”

Rebecca Hall in a scene from film The Gift, directed by Joel Edgerton.

THE GIFT OPENS THURSDAY

EDGERTON’S NEXT BIG THINGS

Joel Edgerton has a string of movies cued up for release.

BLACK MASS

“Gangster movies I’m a big fan of. (Director) Scott Cooper is just excellent with actors — I’d heard that from Christian Bale. I’ve always been a fan of Johnny Depp. And it’s one of the best gifts of a character I’ve ever had. That was unmissable.”

Joel Edgerton (left) and Johnny Depp in a scene from forthcoming film Black Mass.

LIFE

“I love (director) Anton Corjbin. I also have a real fondness for Rob Pattinson after his excellent work in The Rover. So I stopped into Toronto for two days to do that.”

Joel Edgerton as John Morris in a scene from forthcoming movie Life.

MIDNIGHT SPECIAL

“It’s a little bit Close Encounters Of the Third Kind/Starman — a connection with another plane or universe. But essentially 95 per cent is a chase movie and tangible real-world stuff, it’s not super-fantastical CGI craziness. It’s very much like ’80s throwback sci-fi, in a good way.”

JANE GOT A GUN

“It nearly got locked in a vault. Just when we thought it was about to get released, (studio) Relativity hit financial woes. All of their property was going to be put on a shelf. You know that moment where Indiana Jones rolls out underneath that stone wall that’s falling and he reaches back and grabs his hat? David Boies, who financed the movie, was Indiana Jones and just pulled the movie out before the vault got locked. So it’s gonna come out in February/March next year. If it doesn’t come out I’m gonna start doing a live stage show of it.”

Originally published as Joel Edgerton on his first feature film as director The Gift starring Jason Bateman and Natalie Hall