Clockwise from left:
Syd Zygier as Maeve, Lily
Sullivan as Petra and
Tysan Towney as Danny;
anger spills out onto the
streets; Toby Wallace as
Kane; Danny (Tysan
Towney) clashes
with the police.
warm, Empire escapes to Wallace’s trailer to
discuss his character’s heritage. “When Kane
finally found out his past it’s a big turning point
for him. He’s got a bit of a power complex and is
a natural born leader. He is able to get that power
quite easily and control and persuade people with
his extreme opinions. Then when he discovers who
may well be his father, he thinks it runs in his
blood. That is brought up a couple of times in the
series as well. And that is when he starts following
the ideology and he joins Patriot Blue.”
Blake, the leader of an extreme right-wing
movement named Patriot Blue, is played by
Lachy Hulme (Beaconsfield, Howzat! Kerry
Packer’s War). The actor is all too aware how
important the show is. “Romper Stomper shows
all the subsets in the debate about whether it be
the alt-right wing on my side or the hard-leftanti-fascists, the distinct Muslim community
and the media on the other. It’s huge! If the
first film is A Clockwork Orange then the
mini-series aims for the scope of Michael
Mann’s Heat,” says Hulme. “At the end of
the day, like all racists and bullies, he is a
coward at his core. I think whenever you’re
playing a really dark unlikeable persona,
and I’ve played a few, you try anything
between them yelling ‘cut’ and doing another
take to try and keep the mood on set as light
and jovial as possible,” smiles the actor, all
too familiar with roles that lurk in the depths
of the human psyche. “It’s too hard otherwise,
it’s too depressing.”ROMPER STOMPER WILL STREAM ON STAN FROM
1 JANUARY, 2018