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Starring: Heath Ledger, Orlando Bloom, Geoffrey Rush, Naomi Watts, Joel Edgerton
Directed by: Neil Jordan
Screenplay by: Neil Jordan
Release Date: March 26th, 2004
MPAA Rating: R for violence and brief nudity.
Box Office: $86,959 (US total)
Studio: Focus Features
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Tagline: A film about a legendary outlaw whose story outgrew his life.
Reteaming for the first time since their breakthrough film Two Hands, director Gregor Jordan and actor Heath Ledger bring moviegoers the true story of their brave and iconoclastic countryman – Irish-Australian legend Edward “Ned” Kelly.
In the latter part of the 19th century, Australia is still largely untamed. The former penal colony’s first-generation Irish immigrant population lives in poverty. Having already experienced police brutality and the death of his father, bushranger Ned (Heath Ledger) is wrongfully imprisoned on the trumped-up charge of stealing a horse.
Emerging a few years later, in 1874, Ned is hardened but vows to stay straight. Rejoining his widowed mother and younger siblings, he makes money for his family as a champion bare-knuckle boxer. He also toils as a farmhand on the estate of an English landowner – with whose beautiful wife Julia (Naomi Watts) Ned shares a mutual attraction.
But the British colonial system and its Victorian English enforcers remain prejudiced against Australia’s working people, and the struggling Kelly family is no exception. When, in 1878, a bullying police officer is rebuffed by Ned’s younger sister Kate and targets the family for harassment, Ned and his mother are unjustly charged with attempted murder.
Ned is determined to avenge his family’s name and strike back against his people’s oppressors. While hiding in the bush, he forms a loyal Gang that includes his best friend and first lieutenant Joe Byrne (Orlando Bloom). A chance encounter with the police culminates in shots ringing out, and three officers are killed. The Kelly Gang is forced to go on the run. They blaze a trail through the Outback, robbing banks to fund themselves as well as to recover immigrants’ land deeds, and giving police the runaround. The Kelly Gang’s reputation as invincible outlaws grows, as does nationwide support from their immigrant countrymen.
To the masses, Ned is a hero. To lawmen and the establishment, he is the most wanted man in Australia. £8,000 is offered for his capture – at the time, the highest reward the world had known. When the authorities bring in the formidable Superintendent Francis Hare (Geoffrey Rush), and an army of police, with carte blanche to capture and/or kill the outlaws, Ned strategizes a risky showdown at the Glenrowan Inn. It is this event which will seal his fate – and his legend.
About the Production
Ned Kelly is based on the true story of Edward “Ned” Kelly, the 19th-century Irish-Australian bushranger whose daring bank robberies from the rich to give back to the poor triggered a massive manhunt and whose confrontations with the police turned him into a folk hero and legend. Ned was born circa late 1854, and was hanged on November 11th, 1880. For over a century, his story has been a recognized and enduring part of Australian heritage and history. An icon of Australian culture, he has been immortalized in books, films, theatre, opera, paintings, reenactments, and even the 2000 Olympics opening ceremony at Sydney.
Ned Kelly producer Nelson Woss, who is an Australian, recalls, “[Ned Kelly screenwriter] John Michael McDonagh sent me a copy of Robert Drewe’s book Our Sunshine back in 1999.
The book is about a man who stands up for what he believes in. I thought it was a fantastic story– one which had the potential to resonate with audiences internationally. John had a clear take on how to adapt the book, and this convinced me to option it.”
“The book tells the story in a dreamlike, poetic manner,” explains McDonagh. “I thought that if the story could be retold in a linear way then a dynamic, startling, lyrical film could be the result.”
Woss and McDonagh sent an early draft to Australian actor Heath Ledger. Woss then approached Working Title in the U.K., following which Tim White joined the project as executive producer. As thoughts turned to finding a director, Gregor Jordan emerged as the logical choice.
White had executive-produced Jordan’s feature directorial debut, the award-winning Two Hands, and therefore “knew that Gregor would bring vigor and a sense of boldness to material that other directors would perhaps have approached in a more traditional way.”
Jordan remembers, “I was excited by what I read. At the core of the story is a person fighting for a cause. He’s part of a persecuted minority, and he stands up and fights back. Ned Kelly was, and is, a national hero.”
Keen on making the project his next film, Jordan was quick to confirm that the ideal actor to portray Ned Kelly was Ledger, his Two Hands discovery. “The only way I was prepared to make the movie was with Heath,” says Jordan. “The casting of Ned, a real person, is essential for this film. You need someone who is the right age, physically tall, strong and charismatic. I also felt he should be Australian. So when you add those qualities together, there is really only one person to play the role.”
Like the director, Ledger immediately responded favorably. He says, “As a kid, I’d read a lot about Ned. I loved how passionate he was, and I was excited at the thought of giving life to the legend. Gregor and I had been looking for another project to do together for a while. I thought, ‘Let’s go for it.’”
With Ledger now committed to star, the project quickly coalesced. With Working Title Australia [WTA] just formed, Tim Bevan and Eric Fellner, co-chairmen of Working Title, would be shepherding the project as executive producers alongside their newly named WTA head, Tim White.
Another creative collaborator with a passionate interest in the subject matter was Australian producer Lynda House, who was already developing a documentary on Ned Kelly. Contacted by White, she came aboard Ned Kelly as producer.
With producers, star, and director all firmly in place, the creative team sought to finalize the screenplay by working with McDonagh to expand it. White explains, “John’s adaptation was exciting, but as with Robert Drewe’s novel it assumed a lot of stored knowledge about Ned Kelly.”
One of the challenges facing McDonagh in his screenplay adaptation was that Our Sunshine is a fictional novel about actual historical events. Woss and McDonagh had discussed how true the screenplay should be to historical fact. They concluded that there would be aspects about Ned Kelly that would be accurate historically while others that were fictionalized. Woss explains, “We did not set out to make a biopic or a documentary. What we wanted was to reveal the underlying themes of the Ned Kelly story in an entertaining way.”
Yet, Jordan adds, “The book is metaphysical – it’s inside Ned’s head and doesn’t preoccupy itself with the history. So we set about trying to combine some of the surreal elements of the book with factual truths. Much of the time, when we were in doubt, we would just go back to what was true. That nearly always ended up being the most interesting material.”
The film’s opening sequence depicts an incident in Ned Kelly’s childhood, where he saved another boy from drowning in the flooded waters of Hughes Creek. As a reward, he was given a silk sash – which became one of his most cherished possessions, and which he would wear beneath his armour during the Kelly Gang’s famous standoff at the Glenrowan Inn.
Also referenced on-screen is the Jerilderie Letter, perhaps the most important of the Ned Kelly artifacts that have been preserved for decades. (Among the other artifacts are five death masks made a few hours after he was hanged, Ned’s original armour and a Colt Carabine Revolver from the Glenrowan Inn standoff, and the sash from the Hughes Creek rescue.) The Letter was directed to the Premier of Victoria and ran dozens of pages long. It was dictated by Ned Kelly to Joe Byrne in February 1879 – during the last of the Gang’s two bank robberies (in Jerilderie). In it, Ned tells his side of the history of his conflicts with the law, and outlines the persecution that he felt he and his family had suffered at the hands of the establishment.
Writing of past police harassment of his family, Ned states in the Letter that “this sort of cruelty and disgraceful and cowardly conduct to my brothers and sisters who had no protection [,] coupled with the conviction of my mother…certainly made my blood boil as I don’t [sic] think there is a man born [who] could have [had] the patience to suffer it as long as I did or ever allow his blood to get cold while such insults as these were unavenged and yet in every paper I am called the blackest and coldest [-] blooded murderer ever on record… [The shooting of the] three troopers [was done] in self [-] defence…I am a widows [sic] son outlawed and my orders must be obeyed.”
Another storytelling challenge was to condense a true story that spanned several years into under two hours. The solution was to mostly depict the latter part of Ned’s life. Heath Ledger began actively preparing to incarnate Ned Kelly. He was especially struck by a photograph “of Ned two days before he was hanged. I looked into that portrait and it’s all in his eyes; he is very dignified and very proud.”
Meanwhile, the supporting cast was being assembled. Jordan sought age-appropriate actors to play the three other members of the Kelly Gang, “who were all very young – I wanted to cast young lads.” The search began in Ireland because, as White explains, “Ned was as much Irish as he was Australian, so Gregor was keen to go to Dublin to meet with young actors.”
On the director’s first trip to Dublin, he went to a play at the Abbey Theatre to see 19-year old Laurence Kinlan (who had previously appeared onscreen in a small role in Angela’s Ashes). “I was watching this actor up on stage and I realized how good he was. The character of Dan Kelly, Ned’s little brother, is sensitive and has a very powerful and emotional scene towards the end of the film. Laurence’s performance that night convinced me of his ability to play Dan – who is 19 in that scene at the end.”
The following day, Kinlan was called in for an audition. Also there that day was Philip Barantini, who hails from Liverpool and had already been featured in television roles (Band of Brothers), and was at the time 20 years old – the same age that Kelly Gang member Steve Hart was when he died. Jordan reports, “When I saw Laurence and Philip together in the screen test, I knew the audience would empathize with these two young men.”
Barantini remembers the audition well: “They gave us large fluorescent water pistols to use as guns. We both refused, opting for our mobile phones instead. I got really into the scene and then everyone in the room cried. A few days later, I got the call saying I had the part.”
For Kinlan, getting the part “was everything. Ned and Dan were Irish and their Dad came from around where I am from.”
Jordan had also set up a meeting with Orlando Bloom in Los Angeles. The Lord of the Rings discovery was aware of the project but was unaware of the history of Ned Kelly. Bloom reflects, “I thought it was about a bunch of guys shooting guns and riding horses, making havoc wherever they went, until I discovered they were unjustly persecuted and were fighting for freedom and for justice. I made a good connection with Gregor at the meeting and flew to London for the audition.”
Originally, Bloom had been asked to have a look at both the Steve Hart and Joe Byrne roles, but he had been immediately drawn to the role of Joe, because “he was Ned’s right hand man, his first lieutenant. Joe would live or die for the loyalty of his friends, especially Ned. He would go to hell and back, and that is what he does. I felt this was the foundation for a strong character.” At the audition, “he nailed it, simple as that” says Jordan – and was signed to play Joe.
To play the formidable eminence of the law, Superintendent Francis Hare, an actor of stature was required. As House points out, “Hare is a menace – a very powerful menace, and it was crucial that Heath have someone equally powerful opposite him.”
Jordan found his perfect Hare in Oscar-winning Australian actor Geoffrey Rush. As it happened, the actor was back in Australia finishing up a new film before going on to a new project. Ned Kelly intrigued the actor right away: “For a start it came packaged with Gregor Jordan, whose work I admire. Then, when I read the script, the role jumped out at me because Hare doesn’t actually say much, but he is very much an encroaching presence in and on the lives of the four youths. To me, the story is really about doomed youth, and my character is the perpetrator of that doom.”
“Geoffrey is a world-class actor,” notes Jordan. “He understood the character and the story. He brings the necessary confidence and power to the role of Hare.” White adds, “We so wanted Geoffrey in Ned Kelly. We knew he would bring so much to this story.”
Rush – no stranger to portraying real-life people – began doing research, accessing information from the archives and records of the Australian Victoria Police Museum. He notes, “I wanted to find out why Ned took the road he did. I realized that, at that point in history, Ned would have only had two options – one was to go down the path of law and order and the other was to be an outlaw. The epic nature of the myth is a very attractive story to try and crack, and I wanted to be a part of that. It plays out as a fairly fateful tragedy, but Ned has so much rebellious spirit that he took this on and almost pushed it to the point of a revolution, planting the seeds of a civil war.
“When Ned was captured, 32,000 people petitioned that he should not be hanged, which gives a fair indication of the heightened hero he had become. It was wonderful to be able to create a character in history that belongs to where I am from.”
Naomi Watts signed on to play Julia Cook, the gentrified, married, English lover of Ned Kelly. The in-demand actress reflects, “Having grown up in Australia, I know the Kelly Gang is a very important story from our history. I also wanted to work with Gregor and with Heath. After being away for some time, it was wonderful to come back and work on an Australian story.”
Jordan knew that the actress was ideal for the role “because she has this great beauty about her but also an earthiness. She can play an English rose but with a wild side as well.”
Watts saw “a parallel between Julia and Ned, even though they are from vastly different backgrounds. Julia is married and wants out of that situation but can’t escape. Her destiny is being controlled by others in much in the same way that Ned’s is, so she identifies with him. Also, most of the time, Ned is in a state of struggle and chaos – but when he’s with Julia, we see a different side of him.
“From day one on set, I was really impressed with Heath. He is both a movie star and an actor. There is always something going on behind his eyes – intelligence, warmth, or sadness.” Jordan clarifies that, although Julia was the creation of Our Sunshine author Robert Drewe, “in the Jerilderie Letter, there is a sentence which says ‘to get a kiss from Julia.’ So, although it is not documented whether Ned had a girlfriend, there is a chance that this woman did exist.”
To play the Kelly Gang’s compromised compadre, Aaron Sherritt, Jordan cast another rising Australian star, Joel Edgerton. “Joel did a fantastic Irish accent and audition,” Jordan says. “He’s got very good comic timing and a great voice.”
Given the nature of his role, Edgerton researched the character carefully. He describes Sherritt as being “considered a traitor by some but not by others. It is not as clear-cut as him being the Judas of the Gang. From reading all the history books, it’s clear to me that there is an uncertainty about where Aaron sat in terms of his loyalty or disloyalty.
“I found a great empathy with him; being in that situation, being seen to be affiliated with Ned Kelly, the hard decision was whether to go down with the rest of them or assist the police – which in the end he saw as the best thing to do.”
Jordan spotted Irish actress Kerry Condon (who, like her Ned Kelly character’s sibling Laurence Kinlan, had played a small role in Angela’s Ashes) performing on stage in Dublin. Condon had already heard about the project through screenwriter John Michael McDonagh, and was eager to join the project. “The Kelly family came from near where I’m from,” she states. “So I liked the idea of going to Australia to work on a film that encompasses both Irish and Australian history. Kate is fundamental to the story because she is the sister that the Gang is outlawed for protecting.”
With the principal cast finally in place, the filmmakers started to define the Gang’s on-screen image. This raised the question of just how much Heath Ledger would look like the real Ned Kelly. The answer was, very much; the actor wanted the resemblance to be as close as possible.
As soon as Ledger had committed to the film, he contacted Oscar-winning make-up and hair designer Jenny Shircore and convinced her to join the project. He comments, “The first person I called was Jenny, who is an absolute genius. Because Ned’s look – the beard in particular – is so important for this movie, I did not want to do it without her.”
With Shircore’s collaboration, four distinct looks were developed to take Ledger through Ned’s different stages in the film. Depending on what stage of Ned’s life was being depicted, up to four hours at a time in the make-up chair were required of the actor, who believes that “Jenny gave me a wonderful mask to hide behind. That in turn gave me the confidence to believe I was the character I was playing. Without that, I really could not have done the work.”
Ledger also insisted on bringing in supervising dialect coach Gerry Grennell – who, like so many on the project, was eager to join up: “Being Irish, I knew the Ned Kelly story well,” Grennell notes. Ledger states, “Gerry gave a lot of color and life to my accent. He was able to put me in a real comfort zone where I was able to forget about the accent and perform the story.”
Even so, Grennell clarifies that the Australia of the 1870s, there would have been a mixture of Welsh, Scottish, Irish, and English accents, since “it was too early for any accent to have settled.”
Jordan secured the participation of valued past creative collaborators, including production designer Steven Jones-Evans and cinematographer Oliver Stapleton, whom he had just worked with on Buffalo Soldiers. Both men were intrigued by the challenges of bringing this period in Australian history to life.
Jones-Evans says, “One of the hardest things was to find the kind of landscape that existed back then. We didn’t want pristine beautiful wilderness. We wanted a darker, more brooding landscape to undercut the story.” To that end, he worked closely on the color palette for the film with costume designer Anna Borghesi. He adds, “We both wanted a highly restricted palette; we chose only about four or five colors with different variations and tones.
Stapleton comments, “We wanted to depart from the romanticized look of the Australian landscape, and we worked towards a much more brooding look to the film. The process that attained the desired look is called bleach bypassing.”
Production began on location in Australia in rural Victoria, with the assistance of the Melbourne Film Office. “The whole film was shot within an hour’s drive of Melbourne,” notes Jordan. That region is integral to both film history and the Ned Kelly legend, as The Story of the Kelly Gang–regarded as the world’s first feature film – was made there in 1906 (directed by Charles Tait).
One more well-known Australian actor wanted to be a part – however small – of telling the Ned Kelly story. According to Jordan, one of the highlights of the shoot was the two days Rachel Griffiths was on set for her cameo appearance as Mrs. Scott. Caught in a Kelly Gang holdup, this wife of a bank manager finds herself drawn to one of the Gang members.
Jordan adds that Griffiths contributed a lot more than just two days’ work: “She’s very intelligent in terms of the craft of filmmaking. She had some great thoughts about the script – and we changed it in certain areas based on some of her comments.”
Griffiths was in Melbourne performing in a stage production of Proof during filming. Her schedule necessitated her being on set all day in period garb and on stage each night in modern dress. Additionally, by day her Ned Kelly character was of Scottish descent while by night her Proof part was purely American. It was a unique 48 hours but Griffiths pulled off the dual acting challenge.
Another scheduling challenge for the production was occasioned by Geoffrey Rush’s limited availability. The production had originally planned to shoot the climactic large-scale Glenrowan sequence, appropriately enough, during the last week of filming. But with Rush’s character central to the action, the actor’s schedule meant that this logistically complex sequence would have to be shot in the first days of principal photography.
This key shift in the filming schedule meant that armour makers Jonathan Leahey and Dylan Thornton were now required to complete the armour, an iconic symbol of the Ned Kelly story (funded with money from the two bank robberies), on an extremely tight deadline. This was not the project’s first complication where the armour was concerned. Costume designer Anna Borghesi remembers, “It took about four weeks during pre-production – going through the process of how we could make it, and negotiating with the institutions who are the custodians of the actual armour. We were eventually given access to three of the original suits of armour to take patterns from, which we replicated and modified.
“I had made the commitment to make the armour out of steel, and to make it exactly as the original suits would have been made. As a result, a forge was set up outside the production office, and Jonathan and Dylan came in from the country. They forged the hot steel over trees and worked in the same way as the original blacksmiths. Research shows that four different blacksmiths made the real armour. Likewise, hiring two different armour makers for our task ensured that the suits did not look the same.
The central question concerning the armour – which, then and now, was fashioned in different pieces customized to each Gang member – was its weight. Could the actors work and move in suits made from steel? Once more, the production went back to what was true. Leahey reports, “We made the armour out of 4mm thick steel to give it authenticity, and this meant it was heavy. In case the actors rejected the armour, we had fiberglass versions made as backup.
“But there was no debate. If they had worn the fiberglass version, their stance would have been greatly affected. All that weight hanging down on you changes your whole body persona. We decided never to tell the actors how heavy it was, as a means of getting them to wear it.”
Yet, one actor was given a choice – and insisted on wearing the steel armour. Explaining his decision, Heath Ledger comments, “I needed to know what it felt like to try and walk, maneuver, and see with the armour on. They had to make special chairs for us so we could rest between takes, and it took four people with tools to get it on, but I wanted to feel exactly what Ned felt when he stepped out at Glenrowan.”
The decisions about the armour and the filming dates turned out to be beneficial for all concerned, particularly the actors. Shooting the sequence thrust them further into character and brought home the full impact of the story, and the characters’ fates and places in history. Tim White says, “The change in our shooting schedule meant that we plunged ourselves into night shoots with a cast and crew of 350 people, along with special effects.”
“Shooting many of the scenes was fairly eerie because we were capturing a piece of time,” reflects Ledger. “Shooting the Glenrowan sequence – when we stepped out into the rain with our armour on and dozens of policemen were firing metal pellets at us, it felt like we were there that night in June 1880. I realized how crazy the Gang must have been to do it – and that there must have been a real fire in their bellies, that they were fighting for something.”
White adds, “It was awe-inspiring seeing the actors in their suits of armour at Glenrowan. Undoubtedly, the single most famous moment in the Kelly Gang history is this surreal image of four strange-looking medieval knights, armed with pistols, facing lines of police. On the set, there was definitely a collective sense of connection to the story coming alive.”
A few days later, having completed filming the intense emotional and physical scenes inside the Glenrowan Inn that precede and accompany the rainy standoff, Ledger announced, “Now I really feel like Ned.” Similarly, Jordan found these scenes to be “probably the hardest to direct.”
A few weeks after that, as filming wound down, Ledger confided, ”Ned certainly is going to be carried around in my heart and my mind for some time. He’s definitely given me the courage to stand up for, and be true to, what I believe in.”
About Ned Kelly
Edward “Ned” Kelly’s exact birthdate is unclear; it was in either late 1854 or early 1855. He was born in Beveridge, a small town north of Melbourne. His parents were Irish Catholic immigrants, and his father was an ex-convict. Ned was the oldest of their eight children. The Kelly family moved to the northeast Victorian hamlet of Greta. There, Ned attended school until age 11, when his father died. At age 14, he had his first run-in with the law. Ned was accused of assault and held for 10 days until the charges were dismissed. One year later, in 1870, he was again arrested. The accusation was of being an accomplice to the robberies perpetrated by a bushranger named Harry Power but, once again, the charges were dropped. Still in his teens, Ned had already developed a strong resentment towards, and powerful mistrust of, authority. The police, it seemed, had begun to resent him in return.
Later that year, he was again charged with assault. This time he was sentenced to 6 months in jail. The following year, he was charged with receiving a stolen horse – which, Ned claimed, belonged to his friend Isaiah “Wild” Wright. Ned was sentenced to 3 years’ gaol [jail] in Melbourne’s notorious Pentridge prison.
After his release in 1874, he was alleged to have kept stealing horses but did not have any real run-ins with the law for several years. Then, one day in April 1878, a trooper named Alexander Fitzpatrick arrived at the Kelly home with a warrant for Ned’s arrest. What happened next is particularly subject to debate; Fitzpatrick claimed that Ned arrived home and shot him in the wrist. The Kellys, however, maintained that Fitzpatrick had behaved inappropriately towards Ned’s sister Kate, and that as Ned’s brother Dan scuffled with Fitzpatrick a gun went off.
As a consequence, troopers were dispatched to arrest the Kelly boys. Ned and Dan disappeared into the bush, but others were arrested. Among them was Ned’s mother Ellen, who was sentenced to 3 years in prison. The government posted a £100 reward for the apprehension of either Ned or Dan, and they were now outlaws. The Kelly Gang took shape as the brothers were joined by close friends Joe Byrne and Steve Hart. An encounter with 4 policemen at Stringybark Creek escalated until 3 of the troopers were dead (the fourth escaped) and the Kelly Gang went on the run. The government upped its reward to £500 and added the “dead or alive” specification.
The Kelly Gang’s response was to audaciously rob two banks, one in the Victorian center of Euroa and the other in Jerilderie (over the New South Wales border). The robberies gave them much-needed money to live on (as well as to later fund their armour), and they also returned some seized land deeds to the poor. During the second robbery, in February 1879, the Gang held 60 people captive and Ned read from the Jerilderie Letter (which he had dictated to Joe Byrne).
The Letter detailed his conflicts with the law as well as the persecution which he thought that he, his family, and all poor Irish Catholics in Victoria had suffered at the hands of the establishment.
The Kelly Gang remained at large, even as the bounty on Ned swelled to a then-record £8,000, until their arrival in the small township of Glenrowan, on June 27th, 1880. There, they took the community prisoner and herded everyone into the local hotel, the Glenrowan Inn. About 50 police arrived by rail and surrounded the Inn. Ready for battle, the Kelly Gang donned armour that had been made from metal ploughshares. The resulting bloody shootout culminated in the burning down of the Inn, claiming several casualties including Kelly Gang members. Ned, who was shot numerous times during the rain-drenched nocturnal siege, survived.
Taken into custody by the police, he was tried in Melbourne and sentenced to death. On November 11th, 1880, he was hanged in the Old Melbourne Gaol [Jail]. Ned Kelly’s final words were “Such is life.”
 Production notes provided by Focus Features. |
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Ned Kelly