At the age of 17, Ben Mendelsohn appeared in his first movie, a 1986 Australian film called The Still Point — a film that’s hard to find much information about other than it exists. Anyway, nevermind that. The point is that now, 29 years later, Mendelsohn has become a Hollywood “it” actor at the age of 46. In the past few years he’s co-starred with Ryan Gosling in The Place Beyond the Pines; co-starred with Brad Pitt in Killing Them Softly; starred in the little seen, but highly regarded Starred Up, is now starring in Netflix’s acclaimed Bloodline. He’s also the subject of some pretty intense Star Wars rumors (we’ll get to that).
Right now, Mendelsohn is promoting Slow West, another in a long line of movies that Mendelsohn has appeared in that could be described as a “slow burn.” In first time director John Maclean’s gorgeous-looking film, Mendelsohn plays Payne, an Old West rabble-rouser who comes across a young Scottish man named Jay (Kodi Smit-McPhee) and a hired gun-slinging bounty hunter named Silas (Michael Fassbender) who are on a mission to find the woman that Jay is in love with, Rose.
When you speak to Mendelsohn, he comes off as a very happy man. And, come to think of it, why shouldn’t he be? And when the rumors of him possibly starring in Star Wars: Rogue One are discussed, well, those seem to make him really happy, too.
Ben Mendelsohn: How are you?
I just got over a bug, so I’m pretty happy, which is probably much more information than you probably wanted.
No! No, I like the context. It’s a positive association.
Me not being in the bathroom all day will now remind me of you.
Well, that’s good. And I’ll try not to send you back there.
I was looking for a picture of you for this article and the first one that came up was from you in a 1987 movie called The Year My Voice Broke.
Wow.
You’re very young in this picture.
Look, that’s nigh on 30 years ago. How the fuck is that? That’s nigh on 30 fucking years ago! It’s unbelievable.
You’ve been doing this for so long, what’s it like becoming the “it” actor at 46?
It’s just – I mean, what is it? – it’s just funny, is what it is. And it’s also very sweet. It is very, very sweet. There are a lot of valleys between these peaks, I’ll tell you that. It’s very nice and I’m enjoying it probably with a bit of perspective.
Someone should tell the guy in the picture from 1987, “Just wait until 2015.”
Exactly. Exactly! Very much so, because right after that there was a real bloom and it went for a couple of years.
You had Quigley Down Under…
That’s it.
Then you did a movie with Anthony Hopkins called Spotswood.
Yep, that’s it, around that period. And then after that? [Mendelsohn makes the noise of something falling.]
What happened?
I never really stopped working. There was a period there, a couple of years, where things were pretty bad everywhere. But, honestly, I’ve been plugging along, working away my whole life and this is just weird and funny and sort of sweet, life is at the moment. It’s a really good time.
“Sweet” is an interesting word to use.
I mean it as the taste in the mouth, not like, “Aw, that’s sweet.” It’s a good time, that’s the context.
Slow West is a very pretty movie. But filming in New Zealand and Scotland, you probably knew it would be.
No, you never really know. That’s a testament to them. That’s really a testament to John [Maclean] and to be honest, he could have gone for much more of a sweeping look. There is some really, hugely beautiful mountains a lot of time off screen he didn’t deem to use. Had he wanted to do a full, majestic vistas, he could have done that too.
Which can be overdone. This felt understated, which makes it even come out more.
Yeah, less is more. He’s got a great sensibility to him. And don’t forget, this is his first film.
You’re in a position where you’re working with a lot of great directors. Is this a leap of faith on a movie like this?
Yeah-ish. Ish. I wouldn’t want to oversell the leap too much … but, honestly, they’re always a leap of faith. It doesn’t really matter who they’re with, you never know how they’re going to go.
Is The Dark Knight Rises a leap of faith? That seems like a movie that will do well regardless.
Well, in that sense, yeah. But you still never know. But, point taken, there are things that feel like a sure bet. But, then again, if you just go for sure bets all the time, you’re not going to win as much, let’s put it that way. You won’t win as much and there’s something beautiful about people that have their whole creative lives and they’ve never done this one thing – and they tend to have a good deal of energy and it’s fresh and so they often pour everything they’ve got into that first film or that first record or that first book.
You mentioned that first bloom in your career. What movie set off the second bloom? Was it Animal Kingdom?
Oh, without a doubt. Without a doubt. None of this subsequent stuff happens without Animal Kingdom. There’s no way. There has been a sort of a one-two punch effect, but the right hook, if you like, is definitely Animal Kingdom … Animal Kingdom really set people going — going to Sundance, winning at Sundance, all of that sort of stuff. Then after that, a couple of one-two punch things too, depending on which one, but it’s either A Place Beyond the Pines or Killing Them Softly.
With those two movies and Slow West, you really like your slow burns, don’t you?
Yeah, I do. Or perhaps it’s fair to say they like me.
I have to admit something: There are movies I’ve rewatched and didn’t realize you were in them.
Which ones?
Quigley Down Under is one. But the one that I’m embarrassed about is The Dark Knight Rises.
Oh, look, that is a great compliment. There’s a lot of people. I had an agent who watched that whole movie waiting for me to appear.
That makes me feel better.
So my agent, in fact, has watched the whole of the film waiting for me. There you go.
At least I wasn’t specifically looking for you. You got killed by Bane.
Yeah!
Every time people bring up Star Wars: Rogue One, you dismiss those as rumors. But are you reading the reactions to the rumors? People seem excited about the idea of you being in that movie.
Well, it’s enormously flattering. Look, no one is going to be happier about those rumors than I would be. I can say definitively there is nothing that is substantial about those rumors. However, were that to be the case, yeah, I’d be pretty happy, too.
If you’re looking for a push, I’ll add one more vote of “you should do it.”
Well, I’ll tell you what, if you’ve got any juice over there, I wouldn’t mind the push.
Mike Ryan has written for The Huffington Post, Wired, Vanity Fair and New York. He is senior entertainment writer at Uproxx. You can contact him directly on Twitter.
