Once upon a time, they thought I was a sweet, wide-eyed boy that was just trying to figure out how to kiss the girl. Lots of comic relief and adolescent yearnings.

The very rough story is this: Melbourne boy, out of both my parents' houses at a young age, lived with my grandmother, drama teacher twisted me into doing this TV thing that I thought my mates were doing, too.

I never felt like someone who was boyish and coming to terms with asking girls out or anything like that, which was what 'The Big Steal' and 'Spotswood' were about. But I guess that's the impression I left on people.

The first 'Star Wars' film was enormously important. I grew up right smack-bang in the sweet spot of all of those. It's true cinema magic. It's fair to say that, as a kid, I would have been very happy to be Han Solo, and I would have been happy to have gone out with Princess Leia.

One of the things that I found very confronting in my early working life was that people thought I was some sensitive doe-eyed lovelorn boy, because they'd seen me do that a couple of times. What tends to happen is you get a run of similar roles.

Before 'Animal Kingdom,' I wasn't particularly thought of in villainous roles.