Gyton Grantley, exuberant with a touch of the lovable Aussie larrikin in him, pinpoints the moment he decided to be an actor.
“I did puppet shows when I was six in grade one and every single kid loved it. I think that’s when I first liked performing,” he says in his charismatic style.
At 24, Grantley has achieved an impressive list of credits in film, television and theatre, given his relatively short career and now features in a lead role alongside television and film veteran John Howard (The Club, All Saints) in the new Australian comedy A Man’s Gotta Do.
Grantley won his first film role immediately after graduating from the Queensland University of Technology’s Academy of the Arts in 2001, as a swimmer in Swimming Upstream starring Geoffrey Rush, having cheekily made an audition tape of himself swimming and pronouncing his love for the sport.
In Evan Clarry’s schoolies comedy Blurred, he played a rowdy teenager, followed by a small role in Danny Deckchair. He reunited with Clarry in this year’s surf-gangster comedy Under The Radar playing a brutish goon.
“That was fun, riding about in utes, shooting guns and being a goose,” says Gyton.
He jests that he’s died more than once on film.
“I’ve been killed in a few things. I always send the pictures to my mum and she freaks out!” laughs Gyton heartily.
On television his credits include John Doyle’s clash-of-culture drama Marking Time as a Commodore driving stoner, the comedy Fat Cow Motel as a butcher and most recently in the telemovie Small Claims in which he plays a young policeman infatuated with a mother who moonlights as a detective, played by Claudia Karvan.
He’ll appear in the upcoming drama The Cooks and in November, will reprise his Small Claims role for two further installments. He continues to nurture his love of live theatre, most recently appearing in the award winning play Vincent in Brixton.
In the black familial comedy A Man’s Gotta Do, Grantley plays the
naïve and sensitive Dominic, toe crunching right hand man to stand over heavy, Eddy (Howard).
While the six week shoot, completed last June in Shellharbour, south of Sydney was hard work, it also embodied a vibe of mirth. Some of the film’s bawdier elements included discussion of pubic hair styles and a fishing-hook-in-the-eye sequence.
A dedicated crew led by director and dentist extraordinaire Chris Kennedy (Doing Time For Patsy Cline) made carrying off the Grantley’s first lead role just that little bit easier.
“Everyone was so giving and into the production” says Grantley.
“There was one scene where I had to throw up. The crew came up with three different types of vomit so there was this big discussion on what type we should use. I think we went for the two fruits, with carrot in it!”
Kennedy has plenty of praise for his young star admitting
that Gyton’s performance was in danger of almost “stealing the show”. His consideration for others on the set also stood out. “Chris would say you could hit Gyton over the head with a spanner and he’d ask if the ringing in his ears was bothering any one!” says co-star Alyssa McLelland (The Bet).
Such praise doesn’t prevent nervous apprehension for the co-stars when they watch themselves on screen. “When we went to the cast and crew screening, Gyton and I were sitting there shitting ourselves,” says McLelland.
And, true to his humble nature, Grantley believes his acting technique is constantly evolving.
“You’re always learning,” he says. “I’ve been fortunate to have a few jobs where you can just sit back and watch how people work, you can learn a lot that way. Personally, acting is not a conscious decision. If you’re trying too hard then it looks like you’re showing off.”
Having lived the life of an actor for a few years now, Grantley is acutely aware of the feast and famine nature of his chosen career. Last year he juggled two roles simultaneously, commuting from the Under The Radar shoot on the Gold Coast hinterlands to the set of Marking Time in Singleton north of Sydney.
“It was a buzz doing that,” he says. “I thought ‘Wow, I’m really working, this is my dream and I’m doing it!’”
In between acting jobs, Grantley lends his voice to radio commercials and works at the local cinema, which means he may find himself in the odd position of seeing himself on screen as he works.
So with the limited amount of work available in the Australian entertainment industry, could we see this talented actor make the journey to Hollywood as so many Aussies have done before him? Grantley reluctantly admits it may happen in the future but only on his own terms.
“In a perfect world, it’d be great,” he says. “You’d get yourself these big films, be like Hugo Weaving and still live in Australia and choose what projects that you want to do. That would be awesome!
“But that is a dream, a wonderful dream. It’s always been in the back of my mind that I’d love to go and do the Hollywood thing but I’m not interested in going over there and doing it tough. It’s all about networking. It’s not much at all about the talent”.
For now, Grantley seems almost blissfully content with the Australian actor’s life.
“I’m definitely not complaining one ounce. I don’t have any security but gosh I’m happy! I wouldn’t give it away for anything.”
This is an edited extract of a feature first published in Filmink Magazine, December 2004.
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