With his portray of Joh Bjelke-Petersen, the controversial, long-standing former premier of Queensland, Richard Roxburgh has pulled off the acting equivalent of a royal flush.
A star of the stage and silver screen, Roxburgh has played a South African villain (“Mission Impossible II”), an English gentleman (“Moulin Rouge!”), a roguish barrister (“Rake”), the colourful former prime minister Bob Hawke (“Hawke”), and now Bjelke-Petersen, the late leader of the Sunshine State.
With Hawke and Bjelke-Petersen, Roxburgh has worked both ends of the political spectrum. One a beloved Labor Leader, the other, a polarising National Party figure — arguably one of the most divisive politicians in modern Australia.
Dropping Sunday, June 22nd on Stan, “Joh: Last King of Queensland” is a feature-length documentary that explores the progress, power, corruption, and legacy of the politician, a devout, deeply conservative politician who controlled the state for 19 years, doing so with an iron fist.
Did Roxburgh, born in New South Wales, ever imagine himself tackling Joh? “No, not in a million years,” he tells Variety AU/NZ. “I think my mum would be rolling in her grave. But no, not at all. For kind of obvious reasons, that I bear no physical resemblance to the man and it’s not a thing that you would ever expect that you would end up playing both Bob Hawke and Joh Bjelke-Petersen in various productions in this country.”
Director Kriv Stenders (“The Correspondent”), who grew up in Queensland, pitched an idea to Roxburgh, one that would have the actor play out the final days of Joh’s reign, locked away in an empty room. Roxburgh’s Joh is the mortar that sits between all the bricks that is this documentary.
“I just loved both its outlandishness and the fact that I could see a way in and I thought it was a really interesting world to open-up inside a documentary,” he remarks.
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Roxburgh’s Joh cuts a sad, lonely figure. The Last King of Queensland without a throne.
“Everybody had a version of Joh, which was the trap of playing him. Because you have to fully imbibe, you have to fully grapple with the consciousness of that person. And their level of self-belief, when you’re doing this,” explains Roxburgh.
The other obvious trap was to portray a comedic, buffoon version, which he swerved. “I couldn’t do that and I didn’t want to do that because it also had to be measured. It had to be measured in the kind of humanity of him as well. You had to understand that he was a living, breathing human being. He might have had a lot of ideas that to all intents and purposes seemed hideous, despicable, awful. But inside that there was still a human being who had absolute faith in the righteousness of what he was doing. So, it’s about finding a path to that.”
Joh was finally ousted in November 1987, after nearly two decades in charge, and following an ill-fated attempt at leading the country as prime minister.
The capital Brisbane finally grew up, shedding its “largest country town” reputation, and Queensland would enjoy unprecedented growth and prosperity.
With Joh at the wheel, however, corruption, gerrymandering, and often violent suppression of protesters were part of residents’ diet. In his era, monuments to the arts were turned into carparks. For his many supporters, Joh was a problem solver, a fixer, a man of the Bible.
The documentary includes interviews with “The Australian” writer and investigative journalist Matthew Condon, “Pig City” author Andrew Stafford, The Saints’ Ed Kuepper, and The Go-Betweens bandmates Lindy Morrison and Robert Forster, the latter remarking that Joh “made no sense back then so how can you explain him now?”
Did Roxburgh have fun playing Joh? “I enjoyed the experience. I found it incredibly challenging to get to the right place,” he admits. “But once I was there, I felt really comfortable in it. There’s a moment where you feel like the wind’s in your sails and you’re away with it.”
“Revealed – Joh: Last King of Queensland” is a WildBear Entertainment production, with investment from Screen Australia and financed with support from Screen NSW and Screen Queensland. International sales are by WildBear International and developed with assistance from Screen Queensland. Stan executive producers are Cailah Scobie and Alicia Brown.
“Until I did the documentary,” Roxburgh notes, “I wasn’t across the full measure of the kind of wholesale destruction of heritage, buildings and landscape, and all of the treatment of Indigenous people” during Joh’s leadership. “There was a lot of that was quite shocking to me.”