The second coming of Thom Green
Australian actor Thom Green has a long, complicated relationship with the limelight. After a stellar performance in 2022 romantic drama 'Of An Age', could he finally be ready to embrace what's his?
WHEN THOM GREEN WAS A CHILD, he put on performances for his family. At six years old, they were spontaneous improvisations of Michael Jackson songs and the like; but as he got older, they were performed on request. At 12, his performance of Lou Begaâs then-ubiquitous âMambo No. 5â for a talent contest at a since-demolished amphitheatre in his hometown of Wollongong cemented his status as the family entertainer. For years to come, he says, he would be called upon by his parents at a family memberâs birthday, âlike câmon Thom, do âMambo No. 5!’â
Childhood performances, as enthusiastic as they may have been, donât necessarily foretell a future in showbusiness â something to which those of us without a thespian bone in our body can attest. In the case of Thom Green, they did. But despite his obvious talent, a tension has always existed between the actor and his field. Twenty minutes into our conversation, Green makes a comment that might well summarise his entire life since that talent show. âI had sort of stepped back from it, and somehow it sort of just found its way back to me.â
To the uninitiated, Greenâs most recent role in Australian writer-director Goran Stolevskiâs film Of an Age, could be viewed as something of a breakout, when, in fact, itâs his second coming.
His first real breakout occurred 15 years ago, when he was cast in an internationally acclaimed short film, The Ground Beneath. Back then, he was warned of âpeaks and valleysâ to come in the acting profession. But when heâd find himself in a valley, something would inevitably draw him back in, sparking an existential push-and-pull that would shape his career.
GREEN IS ONE OF 10 CHILDREN. âMy parents had eight on their own, then they started fostering and then they eventually got into adoption,â he explains. âGrowing up, there was a lot of noise and … always activities.â As is often the case in families with more than one child, hobbies must be shared and so if Greenâs older sister was a dancer, he would be as well. Initially, Green was hesitant, intimidated by âall the girlsâ. But when the judge at that fateful talent contest told his mum that the reason he didnât place was because âhe needs to learn how to moveâ, he began dancing in earnest.
âI started with jazz, contemporary,â he says. âI wanted to do modern, but I had to do ballet to do modern and I didnât want to do ballet because that was a girlsâ thing. I eventually did it and then I just fell in love with ballet,â he says. He loved the discipline and the rigour required and âit became, like, trying to improve, every single year getting better and better and [jumping] higher and [doing] more spins.â
His love for dance awakened an appetite for outdoing himself. Open auditions for a childrenâs casting agency offered his first foot in the door; he (and by extension, his parents) spent their weekends travelling from Wollongong to Hurstville in Sydney to compete against other child actors (or more aptly, their competitive parents) for roles in Pine O Cleen and NescafĂ© commercials. Green had an agent and his parents were supportive, but they were also practical. When they realised they could no longer justify the financial and psychological toll the process was taking on them, they began to hide the casting calls from him.
But when Green was 16, the acting world came calling with an offer his parents couldnât hide: a co-starring role alongside iconic Australian actress Georgie Parker, in a film pilot called Emerald Falls. He got the part and Parker showed him the ropes on set, but despite its bankable leading lady the film wasnât picked up.
It wasnât until an open casting call for a short film titled The Ground Beneath came along, at high school of all places, that things began happening for Green. When he got the lead role, âthat just changed everythingâ.
The Ground Beneath toured the world, winning awards locally and internationally. Green was nominated for the Best Young Actor Award at the AACTAs and AFI Awards in 2008; he signed with a new agent and âeverything snowballedâ. To the adolescent Green, acting had been a âcoolâ opportunity to see himself on screen; but now that he was watching The Ground Beneath, he realised the man he was watching wasnât him at all. âI was watching [myself] on screen and I was like, I donât even fucking recognise myself. And it was exhilarating,â he recalls. âI was hooked.â
So, at 17, he moved to Sydney, chasing the dream in a share house with three women in their twenties. Along came a role on Home and Away, quickly followed by Dance Academy, which offered Green an opportunity to revisit his love of dancing on-screen.
â[From] teens to 25, it just felt like it was nonstop,â he says. After a string of local jobs, he moved to Los Angeles at 20, where he was exposed to âthe more cutthroat side of the businessâ. There were more roles, though now being a smaller fish in an even bigger pond, they were harder to land. A lead role in a TV miniseries inspired by the video game Halo had him thinking, âthis is it, Iâm gonna be working for the rest of my life,â he says. âAnd then the phone didnât ring for two years.â
After four-and-a-half years in LA, running out of money and hope, Green moved back home with his parents in Wollongong and applied for the dole. He says heâs processed that âconfrontingâ period of his life in therapy, but thereâs still a tinge of pain in his voice when he discusses it.
âI donât tell this story ever as a pity thing. I think I learned a lot. Maybe [I] had a bit too much pride. Maybe [my] ego was a little too inflated. Because I remember coming back and just resisting Australia and being like, I donât want to be here and just feeling stuck. And I was stuck in the mud for about three years.â
SPEAKING OVER VIDEO CALL, itâs hard to detect even remnants of that ego Green admits to. Itâs the day after our photoshoot with the actor and heâs still hyped on the whole experience. Playing a stylish jetsetter with a wardrobe full of head-to-toe Gucci was a role Green never imagined himself landing; the brandâs spirit of travel and discovery, which takes centre stage inside its first permanent boutique dedicated to its ever-expanding world of travel, the recently opened âGucci Valigeriaâ in Paris, was a point of reference for the performer and us, his proverbial crew. âI like clothes but I was nervous. It was kind of like first day on set vibes.â
Pruning back the ego that had been growing since his youth, at 27, Green got a retail job at a local Bonds store. He had changed, though â he didnât watch films anymore and certainly not in the devoted way he did as an 18-year-old, when he would religiously patronise the local Dendyâs cheap Tuesday nights. He would book the occasional ad, because âsure, Iâm broke and this is gonna pay 15 grandâ, and most importantly, he had friends who supported him and loved him for him. They âwerenât in the businessâ and âdidnât give a fuck about anything I was doingâ â in a healthy way, of course.
But âthe businessâ came calling again, as it inevitably seems to do for Green. It was his former Dance Academy co-star, Dena Kaplan, who convinced him to meet and then sign with her agents. Eight months later, in 2020, he was cast in the Stan original series Eden. And it was Scott Ryan, the writer and star of Mr Inbetween, who wrote him into the third season of his acclaimed black comedy after two other roles Green had auditioned for werenât quite the right fit.
â[Eden] was my first job in five years,â says the actor. âI got to sort of restart. I got to go on set and thereâs parts where I was feeling like I was this sort of doe-eyed person who was still green and there were other parts that were just like riding a bike. I had sort of stepped back from it and somehow it just found its way back to me.â
As fate would have it, this process repeated itself again last year, when Green was cast in Of an Age. When he read the script and viewed writer-director Goran Stolevskiâs other work, it felt like everything he loved to watch â like Drake Doremusâs almost-completely-improvised Like Crazy, Richard Linklaterâs Before trilogy and Ben Mendelsohn in David MichĂŽdâs Animal Kingdom.
Stolevski loved Greenâs self-tape, met with him and the pair bonded over the films they shared a love for, as well as others they vehemently disagreed on. Stolevski was determined to find a place for him in the film, eventually settling on Adam, one half of the leading duo who embark on a whirlwind romance in 1999, drawn together by a mutual feeling of displacement in their small town.
In addition to being âthe best experience [Green has] probably ever had on setâ, he shares that his charming, tender performance in the film has âopened up a couple of doorsâ. And while itâs as though the magnetic connection between him and performing is charging back up again, threatening to lure him back into the limelight, Green tells me he is determined to be more cautious this time. Heâs settled in Melbourne with âa nice, calm lifestyleâ. âI walk to work, I come home, I might watch a film, Iâll go to bed, Iâll go to the gym. The people I do hang out with, they just have so much substance and theyâre easy-goingâ.
Weâve spent our entire conversation reliving the past and all its glorious peaks and humbling valleys. Given that rollicking journey, Green is hesitant to offer any specific dreams for the future. He admits heâd love to work on more projects like Of an Age, or try something completely different. âI just want to do â I want to try everything,â he finally concedes, and itâs as though I can see that 12-year-old Green â determined to jump higher, spin further â creeping back in.
Grooming: Ashleigh Carpenter @ Hart & Co.
Shot on location at W Melbourne.
This story originally appeared in issue 01 of Esquire Australia, on sale now.
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