Brett Stiller is one of the rising stars of the acting world, constantly proving his immense talent and versatility across many different mediums. He sat down with Garrett Bithell.

You may know spunky thespian Brett Stiller from Tommy Murphy’s stage adaptation of Tim Conigrave’s memoirs, Holding the Man, which transfixed theatre audiences around the country. It had four sell-out seasons in Sydney alone, and after 203 performances in total, it was finally put to bed – for now at least.

    “I think we locked on pretty early to the fact that it was an extraordinary story and therefore piece of theatre,” Stiller tells AXN.

“When I read the memoirs, I spent the last three chapters in foetal positions sobbing. But what was incredible to me was to see it transcend the demography that we all originally believed it would adhere to.

    “It was a tragedy that kind of folded out before people, and it’s many years on now, but you could clearly see from the responses we would get from people that were intimately connected to the story how much it still hurts.”

    Stiller enjoys a dynamic relationship with Murphy and director David Berthold, with whom he first collaborated on the sold-out Strangers in Between in 2005. “I was pretty confident walking in to Holding the Man that both of them would again create something quite special. They’re a golden team – their understanding of each other.”

    Stiller dived straight into shooting an episode of City Homicide after the closing night of Holding the Man in Melbourne, before starting work on another harrowing role, Griffin Theatre Company’s Don’t Say the Words – a searing ‘epic-in-miniature’ by Tom Holloway, inspired by Aeschylus’ Agamemnon.

    “That was another extraordinary experience,” Stiller says. “It was a tough one – probably the hardest gig I’ve done thus far in terms of material. It’s brutal and it’s not really fun to kind of dig into that stuff – contemplating someone’s death every night. But we found the joy in performing that and telling the story; it was really rewarding in terms of an exercise for actors.”

    Stiller was born in Canberra, later settling in Sydney in 1987. He studied acting at Theatre Nepean, graduating in 2000. “I don’t even remember it being a decision,” he tells.

“It was just there – I was doing it and knew that I wanted to do it, but it was a never a ‘when I grow up I want to be’ situation. It was more of an ‘I am’ situation. Now I’m incapable of doing anything else! It’s jobs like Holding the Man and Don’t Say the Words where you realise how important telling stories is – I can’t walk away from that. I like attention too!”

Stiller’s first big break came in the form of Aussie film Garage Days, opposite compatriots such as Russell Dykstra and Marton Csokas. “What an exceptional experience that was for someone who’d just graduated from what was perceived as a second-tier acting school,” he muses. From then he continued to land small but significant roles in television series such as All Saints and The Alice. But he always returns to theatre.

    “I think theatre is more difficult,” Stiller says.

“I love departing from theatre for film and television whenever the opportunities arise, and then going back to theatre because I think it helps you check that all your basic skills are there. It feels like my moments of theatrical employment have progressed me – I seem to learn a lot more in theatre.

“There’s a lot of an actor involved in theatre, which diminishes a little in film, and even more in television.”

    Stiller has recently filmed a couple of episodes for Channel 7’s new drama Packed to the Rafters. As for what’s on the horizon beyond that, he doesn’t have a clue – which is fine by him.

“For the first time in my life I feel like I’m properly embracing the idea of flow and flux,” he admits.

“I have no idea and I am comfortable with that for the first time in a long time.”