More than 20 years ago, David Wenham stole the show in Gettin’ Square, a crime caper set on the Gold Coast. The film wasn’t really about Wenham’s character, Johnny Spitieri aka “Johnny Spit” (or just “Spit”) but his performance as the shambolic bogan, junkie, small-time criminal and murderer of the English language gave the film a second life after it failed to light up the box office.
“The bizarre thing is that it developed this cult status, and I ended up getting asked about that character, probably more than most characters I’ve played over the years,” says Wenham, on a Zoom call from his home in Brisbane.
In the late 1990s and early 2000s, Wenham was establishing himself as one of Australia’s most versatile actors. He won plaudits and fans as charming leading man “Diver Dan” in television series Sea Change and as the malevolent thug Brett Sprague in The Boys. Gettin’ Square, which came out the same year he played Faramir in The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King, was a rare comedic turn.
Now, there’s another bizarre thing – Wenham has stepped back into Spit’s jandals, ah, thongs, and pulled on a new mullet wig, complete with bald patch, for a second go at the character in a movie called Spit.
It’s the result of Wenham reuniting with Gettin’ Square writer Chris Nyst, who is also a prominent Queensland lawyer, and London-based Australian director Jonathan Teplitzky. That’s despite Gettin’ Square not exactly being a movie that was crying out for a sequel.
A few years ago, Wenham was talking to friend and film-maker Robert Connolly when they started wondering out loud about possible further adventures of Spitieri.
The actor called Nyst and Teplitzky. They’d already had the same thought. Nyst even had a script in his bottom drawer. The first draft ticked all the boxes for Wenham for a Spitieri return. “None of us were ever interested in doing a Gettin’ Square 2. This was a standalone film and a character piece that didn’t require audiences to know anything about the prior life of Spit, or any other characters. And first and foremost, it was a comedy that had some poignant moments throughout.”
Nyst had originally based the character on a defendant he’d encountered in a Gold Coast courtroom. “He saw a guy in the dock, and he couldn’t quite work out if this guy was conscious of what he was doing, or that what was coming out of his mouth was sheer happenstance, and it was, like, working its way out. He couldn’t sort of work out if he was the dumbest guy he’d ever seen or the smartest guy he’d ever seen, and that was the seed for Johnny.”
In preparation, the actor went to London to see Teplitzky for a workshop, some of which involved Wenham taking to the streets dressed as the character and the director filming him on an iPhone.
“I went on the tube in London without an Oyster card and had the transit authorities after Johnny Spitieri. We filmed near Scotland Yard and then we actually also got kicked out of the National Portrait Gallery.”
If rehearsing Spitieri on the streets of London might seem incongruous, it fits the film’s story. It starts with his return to Queensland from wherever he’s been hiding overseas and, because of some passport irregularities, finding himself among refugees in an immigrant detention centre, where he becomes a tutor in all things Australian to his fellow detainees. Says Nyst: “I come from a new Australian background – my parents were post-war immigrants – and I have strong feelings about the great contributions that migrants have made to our community over the years. Today’s migrant is tomorrow’s solid citizen. It fell into place quite easily for me around the idea that there was no better person than Johnny Spit to be teaching people how to be a good Australian in a cockeyed kind of way.”
The film touches briefly upon 501 deportees to New Zealand, while among Spitieri’s new mates is Jihad, played by Kiwi-Arab actor Arlo Green, the star of 2024 local television comedy Miles from Nowhere.
“As soon as we saw his screen test, I got rather emotional,” says Wenham, “because I thought, ‘Oh my god, this, this film is really, really going to work.’ Not that I ever doubted it.”
Many of the other supporting detention centre characters had been refugees or the offspring of refugees.
“One of the main reasons many of them wanted to be involved in the film was the fact that it was a comedy. They said, ‘We’re never portrayed in this way. We’re always painted with a very broad brushstroke, and finally, here we have an opportunity for people to see that we’re the same as everybody else. Some of us are smart. Some of us aren’t really smart. Some of us are completely stupid and idiotic,’ and they loved that.
“We’re very clear that it’s not a political film, but it is a comedy that will bring people together.”
Wenham says the Listener isn’t the first to observe that Spit has some of the vibe of Aussie classic The Castle about it – another film about the little bloke doing his best against great authority.
Also tying both films together is that “this film is about mateship and what mateship really is. We bang on about it in this country, and I know you do over there. This is a portrait of a guy, for all his flaws and idiosyncrasies and quirks, at his heart, he is a good man. He is the least judgmental person you will ever come across, irrespective of the colour of your skin or your religion or what your job is. He doesn’t care.
“I think people will leave the cinema thinking, ‘Yeah, I wouldn’t, mind being a mate of Johnny’s.’”
Spit is in cinemas now.
