Top Of The Lake: Peter Mullan

What is Top Of The Lake about?

It’s a strange world. It’s a world that kind of exists on the edge of the universe and it is what it is and the people are who they are and it’s recognizable because of the people. But the way in which things happen, the way they interact with one another is kind of different from probably most people’s lives and most peoples’ cultures.

What is Matt Mitcham like?

I can’t tell you much about Matt because I’d never profess to know a character. All you can do is kind of find their soul. The rest takes care of itself. He simply exists and he exists in his own world and he has his own rules and he has his own issues, shall we say, not least of which is a certain narcissism, a certain amount of self-loathing, a fairly complex relationship with his mother, a very complex relationship with his kids, and a certain sense of entitlement. He believes that the world kind of owes him something. He’s good fun and he’s a bit wicked in the sense that he’ll do things some people would wish they could do. And he’s rude and abrasive and massively, massively insecure and full of all his own self-pity. But it’s all wrapped up in this kind of shell that he’s this sort of hard guy, he’s rough and ready and he’s a bit alpha male.

When Matt finds out Tui is pregnant and then she goes missing, how does he react?

He doesn’t make any judgment on it and he doesn’t go looking for the father. He doesn’t seem to be particularly interested in who the father is so it’s strange. He seems more interested in her not having the child and having a life, which in some respects is quite old fashioned, and in other respects is very, I would not like to say progressive, but unique, you know.

What kind of a father is he?

His kids love him only because he’s all that’s there to love. He’s the father. You’re hardwired as a child to look to your Mum and Dad for that emotional kind of nourishment and you don’t just disconnect that. A lot of us in our lives spend a lot of time trying to disconnect that because one’s father or one’s mother have not given you that kind of nourishment and that emotional tenderness and the truth is you can spend a lifetime trying to reprogram yourself. And it’s achievable, but it’s very, very difficult. I don’t think he’s good at it at all. I think he’s been way too hard on his sons and has lack of concern about their relationship with their mothers and he’s selfish; unspeakably selfish. He loves his daughter but is utterly incapable of showing it, except in his own way and on his own terms.

How do you find the humanity in someone like that?

I’ve no interest in making someone sympathetic. What I am interested in is, even though one may not like someone they’re as human as the next person. That’s not to excuse what they do, that’s the reality of it. And I think, by your very nature, you’ll bring humanity to someone. Unless you just want to play him as some kind of panto-baddie. Because even bad fathers can have their moments of tenderness and compassion, even if it may be completely enmeshed in their own self-pity and their own sense of self and their own image. But they’re still more than capable of that primal kind of emotion.

What is Matt’s relationship with Robin?

To Matt, someone like Robin is just a nuisance, she’s not doing what he wants her to do, which is simply just find Tui and stop asking awkward questions, you know. And she’s a threat. He doesn’t want her to know what he’s doing in his cellar. He’s trying to mix her up in every conceivable way. And he knows that she’s intelligent enough to find out things that he doesn’t want her to find out and he knows that she’s bright and tenacious enough to really mix things up for him which he could real do without.

Laketop is an isolated community so how does Matt view the women’s camp?

Matt looks at it as modernity gone crazy, women getting beyond themselves and talking about their vaginas and their issues. To him that’s progressive and too modern. And yet to the audience, to the rest of the world they’re the present, they’re the now. But to someone like Matt and his family, it’s like the 21st century. It’s like when did this happen? When did women start looking into themselves and wondering about relationships and being open about their sexuality? The idea of a woman thinking of herself being on an equal footing with him, it’s not even a political challenge for him. It’s not even a cultural challenge. It’s from Mars. It’s from a different planet. It has no place in his world.

You have a very successful film career, why did you decide to do this piece of TV ?

Jane Campion. That’s all. I’ve always been a fan of her work. I loved the script, met her in London, loved her. End of.

Jane’s an explorer. She loves to explore. And she takes you on that same journey. You’ll get seven different directions in the one hour because she just likes to explore. And I’ll be honest: I love it, because you don’t know what she’s going to ask you to do from one take to the next. All she’s really doing is just seeing how you can play a scene completely contrary as to how it’s written. And even though you’ll probably, as always happens, end up doing it much as it’s written, she likes to take you off on all these mad journeys. She likes to go off the beaten track and then nine times out of ten you’ll come back to it. But usually if you come back, you’re bringing elements of what you discovered when you went off the beaten track and that’s when it becomes fun. That’s when you’ve learned something and that’s when you get to really enjoy it.