Geoffrey Rush has slammed 'mean spirited' reviews of his new film, The Book Thief, saying critics and Oscar voters need to reconnect with cinema audiences. Here, Rush reveals the inspiration behind his subtle performance as Hans, an out of work housepainter and 'slight maverick'.

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The inspiration for playing Hans came from close to home

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Hans is a relatively simple, uncomplicated character who is a working class housepainter in this small, southern German town.

I’m getting the most phenomenal feedback from 10-year-olds to 80-year-olds, some of whom might have been survivors from the camps. The emotional temperature in the room with these audiences was extraordinary Geoffrey Rush

As I was reading the screenplay, I had a lot of thoughts of my stepdad, who was a shearer.

He was very lefty and very down-to-earth; he used to listen to ABC Radio plays in the shed and was self taught and a very ordinary kind of bloke.

I remember around the time I was in my late teens and being subject to the Vietnam draft here, back in the late ‘60s, early ‘70s. He told me stories about himself being 20 when he was up in Borneo in the Second World War.

All of these little resonances were kind of floating around inside my head, and they became a useful touchstone to try to give life and credibility to this character, on top of the beautiful details that Markus [Zusak] had created in the novel.

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This was a more subtle role than many of my other characters

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If I look back on my CV, there are quite a few boisterous, extravagant pieces out there, whether it’s Barbossa [Pirates of the Caribbean], or the Marquis de Sade [Quills] or Peter Sellers running the gamut from A to Z of crazy goon characters.

That was part of the appeal for me, to find something that had a slightly more inward, nuanced uncertain quality with a lot of ambiguities in it. It was kind of a self challenge in some ways.

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Hans's hairstyle was very important in shaping my perception of him

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I thought okay, this guy is out of work because he refuses to join the Nazi party, so he becomes a bit of a pariah within his community, that would have up until then been a close-knit community.

I suppose the stereotype of Nazi control was that the hair was always very severe and very shaped, to go with the uniforms. Research proved that to be correct, because the hair and makeup department art directors had hundreds and hundreds of authentic photos of what people in southern German towns looked like in the late '30s.

Of course [Hans and his wife] don’t have money to have a haircut every couple of weeks, so they were quite wild and woolly.

It appealed to me that, given Hans’s slight maverick political viewpoint, his musicianship and his layabout quality, that the hair would be subliminally a statement of mild anarchy.

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I think critics should only watch new films on the big screen

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I did my online voting [for the Academy Awards] the other day, because I’m a member of the academy.

I suppose the majority of people now watch and vote from screeners, but I try not to do that unless there’s no way I can catch it on the big screen. It makes such a difference, and in some ways I also wish the critics would go and watch them, with audiences, on a big screen.

If you’ve got a remote in your right hand and you think, I’ll just go to the bathroom or pop out and get a cup of coffee, you’ve broken the rhythm that the director, editors and actors have slaved over to achieve a unified piece of storytelling that’s meant for communal involvement.

The Book Thief got a mixture of reviews when it opened in America, and some of them were, I thought, pretty mealy-mouthed and mean spirited. [At screenings] I’m getting the most phenomenal feedback from 10-year-olds to 80-year-olds, some of whom might have been survivors from the camps. The emotional temperature in the room with these audiences was extraordinary, and I think if you’re a critic watching it isolated and not seeing how a 10-year-old or a 13-year-old might look like when they come out of the cinema, you’re missing out a vital ingredient in the process.

The Book Thief Thursday 9 January 2014 Listen to Jason di Rosso's full interview with Geoffrey Rush, and get his latest film reviews on The Final Cut, your guide to films worth talking about. More This [series episode segment] has image,

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REVIEW: Jason di Rosso on The Book Thief

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This adaptation of the holocaust novel by German Australian writer Markus Zusak, narrated by Death no less, is a film with some surprisingly cheery moments. Often war, especially when viewed through the eyes of children, can deliver some surprising moments of warmth, humour and play.

Anne Frank’s diary stands out as an example. And so, this story about a young girl handed over to elderly foster parents in a bleak German town—and the Jewish man who hides in their cellar—does play a lot lighter than you might expect. As the title suggests, the story is also about books, and as Germans start burning them in town squares across the country, the young protagonist, Leisel (Sophie Nélisse) becomes an avid reader, encouraged by her good-hearted step father (Geoffrey Rush), and even the sympathetic wife of the town’s Nazi big wig, who has a huge library in her house.

British director Brian Percival, who’s been plying his trade on Downton Abbey recently, finds a suitable compromise in this drama between the historical horrors and the innocence of the story’s central character. The film makes sense most as a kind of family friendly war allegory, though a few moments are powerful enough to shock even adults. It begins and ends with the image of a dead child, for example, and there’s a surreal scene with a school choir in Hitler youth uniform singing about evil Jews that’s, of course, all the more confronting because it’s based in historical fact.

At the preview screening I attended, the novel’s author Markus Zusak spoke about how he was inspired to write the book by the stories of the war he heard from his German parents while growing up in suburban Australia. This story feels like a tribute to the kind of everyday courage of people living through wartime, and enduring the madness of a regime like Hitler’s with bravery and resourcefulness.

Alongside Rush, Emily Watson, who plays the step mother, and Ben Schnetzer, who plays the young Jewish man, embody this kind of resilience. It’s enough to inspire Leisel, and despite a slightly sentimental tinge, her coming of age is quite powerful to watch.

Rated PG

This is an edited version of Geoffrey Rush's interview with Jason di Rosso. Find out more at The Final Cut.

