Back in the days when I still held hopes and dreams of being a brilliant actor – adored by the masses and mobbed by beautiful women wherever I went, I mainly scored the highly glamorous  work of being an extra on different TV shows.  Name a bad Melbourne-made Aussie cop show from the 90’s and chances are if you watch a few episodes carefully enough you will eventually spot me milling around in the background.

I did however appear in three movies.  One was ‘made for TV’ (On the Beach) and two went to cinema.  In one I was just an extra (The Road to Nhill) but in the other I auditioned and actually scored a speaking role!  This is the tale of how I ended up there and the immortal words I got to utter on the big screen.

The movie was Strange Fits of Passion, a very teenage-angsty flick.  It was being shot in 1998 for a 1999 release.  Quite a lot of the people I was doing Drama with at La Trobe Uni auditioned for different parts but if memory serves I was the only one who achieved success.  Yes I got picked but I’m not sure, given the role I auditioned for, that this was a compliment.

I auditioned at some studios in St Kilda along with probably a dozen other guys.  When I went in they had a camera set up to film me and asked me to riff some ‘sexist abuse a yobbo would yell at a girl’.  Now, being a country boy while at the same time dating a woman whom I secretly loathed, I had me a plethora of inspiration to work with.  I looked down the camera and let fly with the kind of gutter talk that had never before or since passed my lips!

I was thanked for my time and told they would be making a decision in the next 10 days.  However 40 minutes later as I was driving home my mobile rang – it was my agent calling:

 

“Trev, we don’t know what you did in there but they said you are perfect for the role.  You got it!  They shoot in two weeks”.  I was officially Hoon No. #2

 

A fortnight later we are shooting on Little Flinders street in the city.  The police had the road closed off and were redirecting traffic.  I sat there in my flannel top and footy scarf in my actors chair awaiting my scene as the stunt driver pulled up in a two door car.  I got told to sit in the back  and to then lean up and over the driver’s seat so that from the waist up I was hanging out the window.

We did about a dozen takes, each time doing a blockie to come back and shoot again.  It was very cool to be doing 70kph in a 40kph zone whilst hanging out the window  from the waist up, all in front of police who not only did not stop me but blocked traffic so I could do so!

 

So here we are, the scene and my immortal lines:

The heroine of the movie is at her lowest ebb.  There is a fine mist of rain.  She walks down Little Flinders street in Melbourne with her head hung low.  As she passes a construction zone where someone has spray painted “Kill yourself – it’s cheaper” she looks up to see the man she craves silhouetted at the end of the alley.  As she starts towards him a car slowly drives by which distracts her.  There is a handsome yobbo hanging out the window who yells at her:

“Show us ya pink bits baby!”

“Give us a headjob ya uptight slut!”

Then as the car continues down the alley he looks back and chants “Shows us ya tits!  Show us ya tits!”

She looks back down the alley but her dream man has gone.

 

I got paid $52 an hour for that gig (a lot of money for a struggling actor back in 98′) and got to watch myself say it on the big screen to boot!  I may have never become a star, but I will always have that warm memory from my short lived career.

 

Update:  My mate Kenan actually found this movie on youtube!  If you wanna hear the line and see a red beanie blurring by which is yours truly, you can find it here at the 32:20 mark!