David Wenham

I'd love to work with the people who really got the film industry going again through the '70s: Peter Weir, Bruce Beresford, Gillian Armstrong, Fred Schepisi.

I would love to direct a feature and have Robert Connolly produce it. That would be really fab.

As we mature and grow older we collect a lot of baggage, and a lot of that stuff you collect on life's journey gets in the way of acting. My kids can imagine a character and transform in the blink of an eye. It's so simple for kids, so complex for adults.

My life at the moment is a bit like my wardrobe. Organized chaos.

Some people have heard of The Method, which originally goes back to Stanislavski... he gave you six major pointers whereby you became that character and tried to fool your mind psychologically. That's it in a nutshell. Daniel Day Lewis is an example of somebody like that who stays in character between takes.

My representation overseas can't stand me doing theatre because it takes me out of action. But it's what I want to do. If it means passing up other possibilities, them's the breaks.

Well you just have to own it, I suppose. Own the character, which is difficult.

There's different ways of getting into character. There's what's called 'the outside,' in which is finding the physicality of the character first. To give an example, in 'Gettin' Square' - Johnny Spitieri - that's how I found that character. I knew those people that I'd seen up at Kings Cross. I knew how they sounded.

In very general terms 'Top Of The Lake' is about good and evil. It's a deep dark mystery. It also deals with lots of fascinating human relationships, and it's also about the battle of the sexes.

I've ended up spending more time in front of a camera than on stage, but the stage is where I come from.

Australia is a phenomenally beautiful country, and every time I go away and come back, it never ceases to amaze me.

People who have never done theatre before, and have only worked in front of a camera, would find it very difficult, I think, to know how to command a stage and work with the logistics of being on stage. They're very different. The theatre is quite tricky, actually.