David Wenham and Jonathan Teplitzky Cover the Fare

Photo: Don Arnold

In the Australian cult classic Gettin' Square, people fell in love with David Wenham's dimwitted, thong-wearing junkie Johnny 'Spit' Spiteri. His hijinks were an amusing cog in the criminal enterprises of his no-nonsense counterparts. Fast forward to a couple of decades later, and Johnny has reemerged for a follow-up that puts him at the forefront. Wenham and director Jonathan Teplitzky have re-teamed in Spit to bring the man himself home to the Gold Coast after getting clean abroad. With a false passport, he is sent to an immigration detention centre, but his presence is felt immediately. As his adversaries plot revenge, Johnny reunites with family and acquaintances, while imparting his unique wisdom on the asylum seekers he's boarded up with.

It's a film brimming with avidity. Wenham and Teplitzky chart new emotional terrain for their darling larrikin, and their shared zeal in magnifying his imprint is clear to see. In my interview with the duo, we spoke about becoming older, probing grief, and not attempting a direct continuation. This conversation has been edited and condensed for clarity. 

This story contains spoilers for the film Spit.

CONNOR DALTON: Gentlemen, let's take things back to Gettin' Square. In 2003, we meet Johnny Spiteri with his mullet, tight jeans, and trademark thongs. How did you determine his appearance when you were initially developing him?

DAVID WENHAM: For nearly 30 years, I've lived just down the road from Kings Cross, so I'd seen many, many characters like Johnny Spiteri throughout my life. When I read the script for the first time — a script beautifully written by Chris Nyst — I could hear the rhythm of the character, and importantly, I could see him. I knew what he looked like. When we went up to the Gold Coast to start preparing for shooting, the original wardrobe designer had already chosen some wardrobe for the character of Johnny. But as soon as I saw the wardrobe, I was like, 'That's not him.' I said, 'Look, have you got some free time this afternoon? Let's go to some op shops!' So most of Johnny's wardrobe from Gettin' Square was sourced out of the Salvation Army op shop on the Gold Coast. I headed to the women's department and the children's department purposely because everything was slightly smaller. I knew the relationship between the size of clothes and Johnny should look slightly awkward. That's where it came from. 

DALTON: How long had there been conversations about a second project involving this character?

JONATHAN TEPLITZKY: Well, we loved the character, so it was always somewhere in our minds. But just to put a number on it, about 10 years ago we started talking about it. They were very casual conversations between David and me, Chris and David, and what have you, amongst the three of us. Then, over that period of time, Chris slowly started to think about ideas. He came up with a central idea of something he wanted to work on, and then it kind of popped. He had this idea of doing something with immigration because he thought the whole hullabaloo about it in this country was wildly out of place. He thought popping Spiteri into the middle of it was a great way to explore it because he's such an unjudgemental everyman, an almost mythological Australian character. 

WENHAM: Strangely, Johnny Spiteri brings common sense to the debate. 

TEPLITZKY: Exactly, very strangely (laughs).

DALTON: Normally, the comedic character serves a supporting function as a contrast to the more serious protagonist. In Gettin' Square, that dynamic is in full effect between Johnny and Sam Worthington's Barry. What was the thought in placing him front and centre this time around?

TEPLITZKY: We always wanted to make a film about Johnny and fill out some of his background, where he came from, and what he'd been up to. But also, the thing about comedy, particularly this type of comedy, is you play it as if it's the truth. There's no sense that the characters are all where they're being funny. That opens the door to exploring their emotional and dramatic lives. I think the combination of those two only enriches the comedy. 

WENHAM: Yeah, they're slightly different films. Jonathan and myself didn't want to do Gettin' Square 2. Gettin' Square was a crime comedy caper. Spit is a comedy, but it's a character piece. As Jonathan said, we explore the world of Spiteri. We get to understand why he is the man he is through his backstory. We get to explore the world through the eyes and interesting thought processes of Johnny Spiteri. That's what we wanted to do. 

DALTON: Although it is a different film, it has quite a few returning players, including those portrayed by Gary Sweet, David Field, and Helen Thomson. However, not everyone reconvenes, with the likes of Timothy Spall, Freya Stafford, and the aforementioned Worthington all absent. Was there dialogue regarding who would and wouldn't reprise their parts?

TEPLITZKY: Not really, no. The way stories, particularly original stories, unfold is by revealing themselves to you. In many ways, it was about discovering what Spiteri might be up to, which throws up a whole lot of new characters. And again, there wasn't any conscious effort, but we felt like there was some backstory to tell, and that's the direction Chris went. We never really went, 'We should bring this person back, that person back.' It would be following Gettin' Square too much. Whilst it's a spin-off — whatever you want to call it — it's a standalone movie. You don't have to see Gettin' Square to enjoy this film. We tried to make something that stood on its own two feet and introduced Spiteri to people who didn't know him. That was really our focus. 

DALTON: Your marketing leans hard on humour, but there are some unexpectedly thunderous scenes. A key example is when one of the refugees, Jihad, details his suffering at the hands of war. What was your approach, Jonathan, to tackling such heavy real-world themes amid the slapstick?

TEPLITZKY: Life isn't polarised into a funny life or a sad life or a dramatic life — it's a melange of it all. In exploring that world and those characters, we wanted him to simply tell his story, so that's what the character does. The fact that you're laughing five minutes earlier and [then the tone swings] two minutes later is a truthful approach we tried to take with the whole exercise. When Jared/Jihad sits down and tells his story to the visa board, it's him relating what happened to him and where he comes from in a very truthful, simple way. It contextualises so much of that whole thing without us having to be dogmatic. We didn't want to make a political film; we wanted to make a funny film. But funny is also sad and melancholic and all these other things because funny is not a one-dimensional concept. Why we laugh at stuff is often because it comes out of character, out of truth, and out of other emotions. That's what we wanted to juxtapose. 

DALTON: Spit reveals that Johnny has a sister named Julie. When she enters the fray, I understand that she is sick, but I assume she will be a major component of the story until the conclusion. It was a shock to see her pass away considerably soon and for it to be displayed nearly subduedly. 

WENHAM: I think the wonderful thing about what happens with Julie in the film is exactly what you said: it's unexpected. To me, surprises are the great things in any sort of storytelling, film, or theatre. And it's wonderful sitting in an audience and just feeling the reaction of the crowd during this particular film. There are moments of great uproarious laughter, but then, pin-drop silence because the audience didn't expect that we were actually going to go in a particular direction. That is really satisfying. As a filmmaking team, to subvert the audience's expectation is always a good thing. 

TEPLITZKY: It's also this Johnny Spiteri we meet 23 years later. He says in the film, 'I've run all my life. I'm not going to run anymore.' It's that idea that he has these hurdles that he has to get over, but he has grown some distance since the last film. He is now an ex-junkie trying to, in a sense, not make amends but make a life for himself and having to deal with the grief of not knowing where his sister was and the grief of their separation. Having to lose her again is a great hurdle for the character to have to deal with. That's partly where the richness of that emotion comes from. It very much, I think, enhances the character. 

DALTON: Her fate feels emblematic of your tone. It's far more reflective and weary than its predecessor. It reminded me a lot, actually, of the Trainspotting sequel in how it reckons with time and ageing and addiction. Was that a mood you were aiming for?

WENHAM: Without a doubt. We wanted to see the ravages of time on Johnny. Also, one of the things that Chris would say just as an overall thing is he believes that everybody is a good person at heart. However, for some people, along the way, events may occur that alter them in some way, shape, or form, and they're forced down alleys or laneways that they wouldn't have expected. That's what we see with Johnny Spiteri in his past, and now even his present, as you say, with his relationship with his sister, Julie, and dealing with the grief of her loss. It's completely unexpected, and it's real. That's the great thing about it: you can believe all these things that happen to Johnny as far out as they are, as crazy and idiosyncratic and funny as they are; they're all so real. 

TEPLITZKY: And we don't expect Johnny to be the Johnny from Gettin' Square. You don't expect him to be able to deal with that emotional challenge. That's part of what this film is: he's aged, he's grown. He's growing up in a funny sort of way. The other thing, too — just in answer to what you asked initially — we're all 23 years later — 

WENHAM: But we haven't aged, Jon! (smiling)

TEPLITZKY: No! We haven't changed! We just wanted to prove how vital we still are (grinning). But anyway, we wanted to make something that reflected our experience of life as well, to a certain degree. I'm really pleased with that experience in the film.

DALTON: David, I've noticed you in interviews say that once the thongs were back on, the persona returned to you almost instantly, but that said, this is an elder Johnny. Did you modify your performance to accommodate that?

WENHAM: Absolutely. The audience mightn't pick up on it, but it was something that I was definitely conscious of. Obviously, he does look older. I bring that naturally, but we enhance that as well. The idea of having a bald patch was an inspired touch, I thought, from myself and [hair and makeup designer] Tess Natoli. The other thing, though, and you mentioned it, is the fact that he's been clean for that period of time. I've been an ambassador for Wayside [Chapel] here in Sydney for a long time, and I've seen what drugs do to people when they're on the gear and when they're off the gear. One of the things is vocally. I was aware it was slightly different. When you're on the gear, it's a very, very, very particular vocal tone, so I'm slightly different in this. It shows that he's different; he's clean. He's still Johnny at heart, and you recognise that, but there are subtle differences. Physically, he's slightly more stooped, which was not good for my posture after doing it for however many weeks shooting. 

TEPLITZKY: I think David's performance is so great because it adapts those little nuances, those little things that collectively tell the story of aging without having to actually have it in the narrative. It's about the fabric of the film and character. 

DALTON: We also gain access to alternate sides of him. We view him as a father figure, as a teacher, as a mate. How was it to explore those facets?

WENHAM: For an actor, it was a gift because I had so much to work with. The more I have, the more things I can play with. Jonathan set up a playground, essentially for myself and the other actors, to create, and I've got to say, it was one of the most creative experiences I've had on set throughout my whole career because the breadth of time and space to play was just brilliant. 

TEPLITZKY: The ironic thing is that Chris writes a very tight script, but at the same time, by having that foundation, it gives you then the space to be able to go, 'We might have five minutes.' David and I had so many conversations — 'What would Spiteri be doing now? What would...' — just those very loose things. Sometimes they worked, and sometimes they didn't. Sometimes, absolute gold came out of it because your commitment to the character and David's commitment to the character allowed you to access it in a spontaneous way. 

DALTON: With these legacy texts, it is customary to clock callbacks to iconic moments from the original. Here, Johnny returns to the courtroom. Even certain shots are mirrored, such as the head pressed down on a table right of the frame by David Field's Deviers. Jonathan, at which points do you know when to pay homage whilst additionally being wary of not replicating too repeatedly? 

TEPLITZKY: Look, I've worked with Garry Phillips, the DOP [Director of Photography], for 30 years now. We have a shorthand. It's a conversation between David and I as we're on the set; it's all sorts of combinations. To be honest, I don't think about when's the time to pay homage. I might have an idea that something would be good, but in the end, we just say to Gary, 'What do we like? What works? What instinctively feels right for the moment where the character is and where we put the camera?' 

There's a subtle difference between how you shoot drama and comedy. Comedy, you want to give it some space. You don't want to be too fancy with your camera work and all the rest of it. For example, in the courtroom scene in Gettin' Square, I had a lot more of a moving camera. I learned comedy is like a slow burn, and in that courtroom, it bubbles up. To just sit there and watch it is the most enjoyable way to do it. We did a bit more of that this time. 

With his head on the table, I thought it was a good little tick to the other one without ever making a big deal about it. It's more of an instinctive thing. I prefer to work that way. I think and plan in advance a lot, but without cementing it because on the day, all sorts of things happen. Suddenly, you thought you were going to shoot that way, but you're going that way, it's sunny, not raining — it's so many factors. You get to a point in our age and careers and all the rest of it where you want to allow yourself to trust the process, basically. That often reveals a huge amount to you because you've done the prep and all the other things. 

DALTON: We've seen the ways Johnny has changed and perdured over 22 years. Have you seen each other change and perdure over that interval?

WENHAM: I haven't seen Jonathan change, in all honesty. We've known each other and worked together for nearly 30 years. It's been an ongoing thing. It's a brilliant relationship because it's completely open and honest. We have a great dialogue. On set, it's fantastic. We talk between each other, and the best idea wins. It doesn't matter where it comes from; we will go there. But in terms of change, I can't think of anything, really.

TEPLITZKY: Yeah, in a funny sort of way, it's exactly the same as it was. I think that's why we work together. I always felt that we hit it off straight away. We found a good place to exist together in. We were still getting to know each other on the first film, but it seemed to organically work. I think that's what's great about when you work in creative ways. You don't necessarily connect with everybody, but David and I have a shorthand. As he said, the best idea wins. It's about being greater than the sum of the parts. I really like that, and I feel that's what we bring to the party.

DALTON: Will I be seeing you two in another 22 years?

WENHAM: Yeah, we'll be in an old age care facility (laughs). Cheers, mate.

This article was originally published by SWITCH.