Danielle Cormack is one of New Zealand's notorious Topless Women. She recently sat down and talked to Greg King about her life and the unlikely hit film that has taken the world by storm.

"From the moment I first wanted to act I enjoyed sharing with good people, balancing off them, sharing all that energy that was created on the stage. I remember thinking that I love working with people like this, I love working in a group where people are bouncing off each other. I like working on a project in which people are equally as interested and putting in their creative energy and exploring their craft, rather than being in it for all the wrong reasons."
Looking refreshed from an early morning swim, New Zealand actress Danielle Cormack enters the bar of St Kilda's Novotel Bayside Hotel, and makes her way to a corner table that affords her a view of the magnificent Esplanade. Her boyfriend and baby son have headed off to take in some of the sights of Melbourne, having arranged to meet Cormack at a secret location after she has finished her publicity duties. Cormack is in Melbourne to promote her latest movie, the quirky, but highly acclaimed comedy drama Topless Women Talk About Their Lives, an unlikely hit that has taken the film world by storm.
An actress since she was eight or nine, Cormack has worked extensively in theatre, television and films. Her better known roles include Gloss, New Zealand's first soapie, and a year playing a nurse in the popular New Zealand soap Shortland Street, which she describes as a 1990's version of The Young Doctors. She eventually left that because she wanted "out of that whole soap environment" and returned to her first love - the theatre. "I like getting on a roll, which is probably why I'm drawn to the stage. You go for it. You haven't got a break, or someone to call 'Cut!' You just keep on going."
As well as appearing in numerous theatrical productions, Cormack has also written a few of her own little plays, which have been performed at Auckland's Basement Theatre. More recently, she has played guest roles in both Hercules and Xena, the popular sword and loin cloth tv dramas that are, as the whole world probably knows, both shot in New Zealand. The two shows provide a lot of work for local crew and talent at a time when the industry is struggling.
"It's kind of scary, though," says Cormack, "because you wonder what's going to happen when they pull the plug on these shows. There's going top be a lot of people just floating around." However, it is unlikely that the talented and resourceful Cormack will end up "just floating around" when the shows finish.
"I'm not finding it a struggle," she says, when asked about the current state of the New Zealand film industry. New Zealand only makes five or six feature films a year, and there is not enough government funding or private investment in the industry. "As far as the film industry is going I know its struggling. There's not a lot of money invested in film. It's unfortunate, because there's a lot of very talented and creative people down there. But because of government policies, there's not a lot of private investments. However, a lot of the most inspiring people in the industry are willing to stay in New Zealand and work in New Zealand, which is good. Personally, I'd like to stay and work in New Zealand because it's my home. There are a lot of creative people down there that have good vision."
"It's more about the creative side of things rather than the financial side of it," she continues. "Even though I do value the financial side, I don't mind working for people I believe in because I don't mind helping them complete their vision. If there isn't any work happening I just create my own, which seems to be the best way to go rather than just sitting down and crying because there doesn't seem to be any work."
"Early on I did choose projects because I needed the money. It's amazing what you'll sign to when you're panicking. But generally it's first and foremost character, and how it fits in with the rest of the project. And then the people I work with, because, after all, it's an ensemble."
The film that has taken Cormack's career to new heights is Harry Sinclair's low budget slice of life comedy, in which she plays the very pregnant Liz. Topless Women actually began life as a series of three minute segments exploring a number of relationships between various characters. In its early stages, it was an informal project, shot on weekends, using the houses of cast and crew as the sets. The style was very improvised and spontaneous as much of the dialogue and characterisations were created on the spot.
Sinclair had shot eight episodes before he became interested in developing the idea into a feature film and began pursuing his options. It was while working on episode 16 that Cormack informed Sinclair that she was pregnant. Sinclair thought it was too good an opportunity to pass up and wrote a script treatment about a pregnant woman, which attracted some investment from the New Zealand Film Commission. Sinclair emphasised the time constraints, given Cormack's actual pregnancy. "It was a big ploy in blackmailing the Commission into giving us the money," she jokes.
"In a sense, I thought he was quite mad to tell you the truth," she continues. "I thought: 'What's so interesting about a pregnant woman?' But that's probably because I hadn't gone through the whole pregnancy or birthing process at that time. Now I understand what's so special about it. I mean, it's one of the most intriguing and exciting experiences I've ever had. And, I'm sure, that for a lot of women and their partners, it is the same. But I trusted Harry, just from working with him all that time doing those tv episodes and just seeing what he did with them on nothing - pretty much nothing other than a group of creative people willing to come together."
"When I first met Harry, Liz didn't exist. He didn't have any characters as such. He just wanted to get together with some people and try something out. Over the duration of those tv episodes and pre the feature film, I was just part of those other actors, just part of filling out those characters and giving them some kind of identity. Through what we did with the characters, Harry would draw even more inspiration to write things into the script for the next time. A lot of the character actually came from me and how I interacted with Harry and the other cast members."
However, Cormack had never seen the film until its premier in Cannes. She had not gone to the cast and crew screenings or the rushes. "I was too scared," she says. But not of watching herself on the screen, more of the thought of seeing the images of her own pregnancy mirrored in the film. "I was a bit scared - it's a very vulnerable thing, that physicality of it. I don't think of it as watching myself; you can see the work of the other people. I really enjoy that, I enjoy seeing everyone's work come together in an ensemble."
Topless Women scooped the pool during the country's film industry awards. It scored several wins including the important gongs for Best Film, Director and Actress. The success and accolades have surprised Cormack, who admits that she never had any real expectations for the project from the start. "As far as I knew, it was a project that would not even be shown on tv. It was just a work shopping exercise and a place where we could go and have fun. So it was really lovely to sit back and see something being honoured that was never meant to be anything. We're proving to the world, and to New Zealand, that you don't have to have a huge budget and you don't have to have a lot of pre and post production to do something."
The key to the success of Topless Women, suggests Cormack, lies in the gritty realism of it, the fact that it reflects life with surprising honesty. "I think people find that charming. It wasn't predictable, either. People knew that Liz was going to have a baby, but there were other story lines that went askew. For that I pay tribute to Harry for his writing and his amazing sense of humour. It went off on little tangents, and I think people were genuinely surprised by that."
Since finishing work on Topless Women, Cormack has completed a role on a new film, Via Satellite, written and directed by young New Zealand playwright Andrew McCarten. However, she found the more structured approach and shooting schedule of this film a complete contrast to Sinclair's informal and largely improvised style. "I've had to pull myself out of my reverie, of that whole attitude of 'Wow, let's just turn up on set and do it.' I've had to learn that that's not how all of the industry works. Just having come off Harry's project I'd forgotten that there were all these departments that I had to pay homage to. I wasn't used to that, because on Harry's little film we didn't have lighting, we didn't have make up or anything like that. It was rock 'n' roll, primitive film making."
Topless Women Talk About Their Lives at the Nova, George and Como Cinemas from December 26.

©Greg King December 1997 Melbourne Australia