Kodi Smit-McPhee On 'Disclaimer,' Heavy Scenes And His Next Job

FOR AS LONG as he can remember, Kodi Smit-McPhee has been able to handle dark stuff. Not even the heaviest scenes scared him; if anything, he’d gravitate towards the kinds of projects that required them. “I remember, I’d go from a scene where my character’s father was dying, to playing my PlayStation,” reflects the actor. “Whether it was real wisdom or a pseudo-maturity, I’m not sure. But I’ve always been able to deal with these things in a way where they didn’t mess with me.”

Smit-McPhee is sitting in a Melbourne hotel lobby, a contemplative expression on his face. Our photoshoot is over, and he’s changed out of a silk shirt from Saint Laurent’s autumn 2024 collection and back into his regular clothes – a dark T-shirt and puffer jacket – while his wavy jet-black hair frames a prominent widow’s peak. We’re chatting about his newest project, the Apple TV+ Alfonso Cuarón-directed psychological thriller Disclaimer. It’s a series Smit-McPhee, who is 28, rushed to join, not only because of its Academy Award-winning director, but also its cast: Cate Blanchett and Sacha Baron Cohen would play his character’s parents, while Kevin Klein was the vengeful widower out to destroy their lives.

The series is visually stunning and emotionally harrowing – Smit-McPhee’s character, Nicholas, has a particularly dramatic arc. While typically the actor would have walked away from such a role unperturbed, this time, he felt something shift.

“I definitely felt, Oh man, it’s getting tough to do these dark things. It just hit me,” he concedes. “I’m beginning to notice changes in the way I approach this thing that used to be very ‘rinse and repeat’. The older I get and the more baggage that I collect throughout my life, it does become harder to do these darker things. Especially consecutively.”

Being back in Melbourne has granted Smit-McPhee the time and space to think about the meaning behind this shift. For the past two weeks he’s been here, hanging out with his fiancée and family, in the city where he spent most of his childhood. He lives at the home he purchased two years ago, in the suburbs right around the corner from his mum’s house. He’s wanted to buy property in Melbourne for the last five or six years, but until recently, he says, he didn’t have the guts to do it.

“Everyone in the industry knows that you’re supposed to be where the industry is moving and jiving, whether it’s New York, London or LA,” he says. “But I see myself as a little bit different to a lot of the people in the industry – for the better – in the sense that I really value being with my family, and I have a great understanding of things in terms of time and experiences that you don’t get back.” He smiles to himself. “It feels incredible to be a homeowner. Coming from not a lot of money, the craziest thing in my head was the idea that I could own a double-storey house one day . . . that I could have a house bigger than the one I grew up in.”

In the afternoon light of the hotel lobby, he turns his attention back to Disclaimer. “It was a smaller role than other things I’ve done, but it kind of went beyond the limit of what I’m comfortable with,” he says of joining the project so soon after his last. “Because if you don’t have time to clear yourself of these characters in between roles, then . . . it can start penetrating you, you know?”

SMIT-MCPHEE WAS nine when he landed his first acting job. It was the 2006 adaptation of Stephen King’s short book of horror stories, Nightmares & Dreamscapes. “I got one episode, and then I auditioned for another and got another episode playing a completely different character,” he recalls. “I auditioned for another after that, and they said, ‘We can’t give this kid any more roles, because he just did two other episodes playing other characters’.”

It wasn’t a favourite childhood film, or an actor he idolised, that inspired Smit-McPhee to pursue a career in showbiz. Instead, acting began as something he and his dad would do to spend time together – his father, Andy McPhee, a former pro wrestler, had landed a few supporting roles in Aussie productions like Blue Heelers and Wolf Creek, and would often take his son to set. “It became second nature to me. But honestly, I was just happy to get out of school. I wasn’t that popular or whatever. If anything, the different thing about me is that I was just so, so curious about the universe and my place in it.”

“If you don’t have time to CLEAR YOURSELF OF THESE CHARACTERS in between roles, then . . . it can start penetrating you”

In 2007, Smit-McPhee landed the part of Eric Bana’s son in Romulus, My Father, the story of a Yugoslavian immigrant struggling to raise his son in the harsh Victorian bush following the suicide of his wife. His next big break was a film called The Road, based on the Cormac McCarthy novel of the same name, a post-apocalyptic drama that follows an ailing father (Viggo Mortensen) fighting to protect his son (Smit-McPhee) as they wander in search of safety. He plays a bullied young boy who befriends a vampire in 2010’s Let Me In, and a teenager who’s placed in psychiatric care while struggling to deal with the loss of his father in 2014’s All the Wilderness.

Dawn of the Planet of the Apes (2014) and a stint as Nightcrawler in X-Men: Apocalypse (2016), Deadpool 2 (2018) and X-Men: Dark Phoenix (2019), marked a respite from the psychological weight of previous roles – as did a small part in Baz Luhrmann’s Elvis, in which Smit-McPhee played Jimmie Rodgers Snow. It was the Oscar-winning, Jane Campion-directed Western The Power of the Dog (2021) that saw Smit-McPhee return to a world of struggle, hatred and abuse, with the themes of toxic masculinity and repressed homosexuality thrown in for good measure.

Smit-McPhee plays Peter, the effeminate son of an alcoholic widow, Rose (Kirsten Dunst), who is derided by Phil (Benedict Cumberbatch), a cowboy so virile, he castrates bulls with his bare hands. For the duration of the production, Cumberbatch stayed in character, meaning he was dutifully awful towards most of the cast, save for Smit-McPhee – Phil eventually befriends Peter as a way of taunting Rose, a decision that ends in his murder.

For Smit-McPhee, witnessing Cumberbatch become Phil was extraordinary, and, as he told journalists around the time of the film’s release, the transformation was necessary to maintain the hostile energy on set. When I ask Smit-McPhee if he’s ever method-acted, he shakes his head.

“I can tell you that from observing it, there’s reasons why I don’t do it,” he tells me. “You can somehow get stuck in a character, sometimes, because you get so used to the way they move and the way they talk. That can get a little bit dangerous, I think, if you don’t know how to reverse-engineer that.”

Instead, finding a way into his characters’ psyches is about research and preparation. “If I do enough repetition of reading – reading, reading, reading – to where I know my character so well that it’s almost a suit I can put on, an entity I can jump in and out of between action and cut.” When he wraps, he says it’s a matter of just letting go. “Between wrap day and the film coming out, I make sure I’ve become myself again, to the point that I can watch my performance as just another member of the audience. That’s when I know I’ve done a good job – when I can perceive myself not as myself.”

He pauses, runs his hands through his hair and leans in close. “I view acting as a little bit niche, or different to how most people see it. For me, I believe what we do is one of the closest things to magic. And I mean actual witchcraft kind of stuff. Like, we go into a cinema and watch life play out in front of us. And we get to experience emotions that we maybe don’t wish to experience, but we want to view remotely. For the audience, not only is it magic, viewing all these stories together, but as an actor, you are incarnating, or possessing, these kinds of spirits. At least, that’s the way I see it.”

For his portrayal of Peter in The Power of the Dog, Smit- McPhee landed an Oscar nomination for Best Supporting Actor, while he took home the Golden Globe in the same category, beating out Hollywood heavyweights like Ben Affleck and Jamie Dornan. Critics labelled him an exciting up-and-comer – a fair assumption given his age, albeit one that amused Smit-McPhee: he’s been acting since he was nine years old.

THERE IS A SCENE in Disclaimer where Nicholas is reclining on a couch eating Froot Loops, in the architecturally-designed living room of his parents’ London townhouse, which he’s recently been asked to move out of. He’s listening to ‘Ego Death’ by British grime artist Zeo, lip-synching like a natural. I’m surprised to learn this isn’t just a case of fine acting – Smit- McPhee is a big hip-hop fan, and records rap music in his spare time. “I’ve recorded hundreds of songs, but they’re really just for me and my friends. I guess one day, if I record a song that feels right for the world to hear, and fits my image, then I’ll do a whole rollout. But for now, it’s just for me and my friends.”

Music isn’t his only hobby. Smit-McPhee is also a self-confessed motorhead. “I love all kinds of cars. It started with really rough stuff. Coming from [the outer Melbourne suburb of] Craigieburn – and I was born in Adelaide – it started with V8s and really obnoxious, loud stuff,” he says with a detached chuckle (though he’s clearly a deep thinker, Smit-McPhee’s speaking voice is surprisingly monotone). He recently purchased one of his dream cars, a Corvette C8 Stingray. “It has the engine in the back, it’s pretty cool.” I ask if it’s the car he drove to today’s photoshoot. “No, no, no. I was, uh, embarrassingly late. So, I thought the worst thing to do would be to show up in a supercar. I humbled myself, and just showed up in the little car today.”

“That’s when I know I’ve done a GOOD JOB – when I can perceive myself not as myself”

Nicholas has a fractured relationship with his mum, Cathy (Blanchett), who, for reasons that slowly, suspensefully become apparent, struggles to show love or warmth towards her son. Nick’s father, Robert (Baron Cohen, in an uncharacteristically dramatic yet compelling turn) tries harder, though often hopelessly, to force some version of a father-son relationship.

Smit-McPhee has acted out his fair share of father-son relationships; not many actors can call Bana, Mortensen and Baron Cohen onscreen fathers. He refers to the dynamic as “art imitating life”, because for so much of his career, Smit-McPhee was travelling from set to set with his own father.

“My dad is the person who got me into acting when I was nine, and he taught me everything I know, everything that I run with today. And I still go back to him for advice.” At the 2024 Melbourne International Film Festival, Smit-McPhee had the opportunity to watch a remastering of Romulus, My Father, while sitting next to his real-life father.

“I was bawling, in tears, because it just felt full-circle in many ways. A lot of the stories that I see in Romulus, My Father are replicated between me and my dad. My dad and I, we represent opposite sides of the spectrum. He’s 6’ 6” and covered in tattoos – I mean, I grew up around outlaw bikie clubs and had a very different upbringing to what people probably think. But we complement each other because my head’s always in the clouds, and he’s very grounded. We meet each other in the middle, I think.”

Smit-McPhee might have followed his insatiable curiosity into acting, but there was something else that motivated him to make a career out of it. “I didn’t come from a lot of money. So, I knew that I could possibly support my family,” he shares. “And this was a nine-year-old thinking these things. No one else put these thoughts into my head. I just tormented myself with them for a long time.”

One of his biggest focuses now is giving back to his dad. “He’s given me everything I have today. And ironically, in a weird, kind of sad, roundabout way – that he would never regret or take back – but he didn’t get to live the fame or the accolades or the success that I have. He kind of passed that onto me. And for whatever reason, it took off for me. He’s still acting, but it didn’t take off that way for him. And for me . . . that can be hard to grasp sometimes. So, I want to get him a home, give back however I can.”

Outside the hotel, the sky is growing dark. Before it’s time to say goodbye – to let Smit-McPhee return to his little car – I ask if he’s put a finger on why Disclaimer felt harder to do.

He thinks for a while.

“Is it worth talking about? Yeah, I’ve got nothing to hide,” he says. “Honestly, it had nothing to do with my character or the job itself. It was a personal-image thing. For this job, when I watched the first screeners, it was tough. It was just my body image, how I felt when viewing myself. I do have an autoimmune disease, and lately, it’s been progressing a bit more. It affects my appetite and my vision – I’ve lost vision in my left eye. So, it’s just hard to know what you used to look like, and now, I just look different.”

When he was 16, Smit-McPhee was diagnosed with ankylosing spondylitis, a degenerative form of arthritis that causes vertebrae in the spine to fuse. It can lead to chronic pain and loss of vision, which he manages daily. Remarkably, it hasn’t stopped Smit-McPhee from becoming one of the world’s most exciting young actors.

“Being an actor – and no matter who you are – it’s a tough thing to have, a body-image thing. I guess it’s just like a neural- adapting thing that I’m just gonna have to get used to. But I have no problem talking about that with you. Yeah, it was just a body- image thing.”

“As an actor, you are INCARNATING, OR POSSESSING, these kinds of spirits. At least that’s the way I see it”

AS I’M ABOUT TO submit this story, I receive an email from Cate Blanchett. During our interview, Smit-McPhee had referred to the Oscar-winning actress as his “fairy godmother”. Indeed, she has been one of the actor’s biggest champions – it was Blanchett who’d recommended McPhee to The Road director John Hillcoat in 2009, something he only just found out, on the set of Disclaimer. I had asked her to share a memory or two about working with Smit-McPhee, but because she’s Cate Blanchett, I hadn’t expected her to write back. The fact she did shows the type of impression Smit-McPhee has made on those he works with, from both a personal and professional standpoint.

“Kodi is a rare and fascinating combination of freewheeling spirit and technical wizard. His take on the characters he plays is always left of field and gobsmacking and surprising,” Blanchett writes, adding, “And he’s an absolute peach of a person.”

Smit-McPhee says he prefers to rely on fate to bring him roles, rather than strongarming himself into certain projects. Fate brought him a part in the soon-to-premiere Maria Callas biopic Maria, alongside Angelina Jolie, and recently, it struck again, when he landed the role of Konstantin in a new theatre adaptation of Chekhov’s masterpiece The Seagull. The production, which also stars renowned British actors Emma Corrin and Tom Burke, will run for six weeks at the Barbican Theatre in London’s West End from February 2025; Konstantin is the son of Arkadina, who’ll be played by Blanchett.

“She said, ‘It’d be cool if he could play my son again’,” Smit- McPhee recalls. It will be his first theatre production, and therefore, something entirely out of his comfort zone. Moreover, The Seagull is a drama about love and the power of art – and as Chekhov himself insisted, it’s also funny.

“It’s going to be a challenge, because I’ve never done theatre before. But it’s a fear that can’t harm me. So, I’m taking that bull by the horns.”