Book Club - by Suhaili

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Brushing the Tip of Fame

May 5th 2006 07:36

Brushing the Tip of Fame by Nicholas Hope

Nicholas Hope isn't the most well-known of Australian actors. His best role was in the cult classic 'Bad Boy Bubby' and, although he won the AFI award for Best Actor that year, he has kind of disappeared off the radar since. But he has not been idle! This is a extremely funny and uninhibited memoir of Hope's adventures in the screen trade, a chronicle of the time he has spent travelling from one European festival to another and making various films in Scandinavia that have remained largely unseen in the rest of the world.

Looking somewhat like a poor man's Hugo Weaving, Hope was never going to make it big as a leading man... so instead of wedging himself into character bit parts playing a range of lunatics that all riffed off his most well-known role he instead opted to use his new-found and brief fame to take a wild ride along the European film festival circuit, promoting 'Bad Boy Bubby' and living it up via it's cult status. So, as you may imagine, 'Brushing the Tip of Fame' reads almost more like backpacker's travel literature rather than a film memoir.

Nicholas Hope - poor man's Hugo Weaving?

That's not to say this all-too-slim book is without juicy film gossip or close-up views of out of control egos. Hope has played alongside James Caan, Sarah Michelle-Geller and Rowan Atkinson, and has appeared in a Hal Hartley film... not that anyone has really noticed. And this is what lends this book it's charm... Hope himself seems devoid of ego to the point of rampant self-depreciation and it makes for sympathetic and endearing reading. It makes me want to track down some of these odd and hidden films he has been making in the far-flung corners of the world.

This is easily worth checking out for anyone who's a fan of 'Bad Boy Bubby' or just after a well-written insider's view of the outskirts of the film world. The unabashed and humble documentation of the making of 'Bad Boy Bubby' is enough reason alone to read this book.

This book is an Australian equivelant to the scathing memoirs of another talented actor who'd never made it to leading man status, Richard E. Grant ('With Nails' - also worth checking out). I'm pretty sure 'Brushing the Tip of Fame' is still in print, and if not it can be found quite easily in a lot of second-hand book stores.

Book Club - by Suhaili

Brushing the Tip of Fame

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