Robert Hughes Interview ROBERT HUGHES Interview - by Cotton Ward in 1993. I organised this interview by ringing his agent, who rang Robert and he agreed to do this free as a historical record for fans. The first time he rang me to arrange an interview time, he just got my "National ad" answering machine message (with no other details) and he said: "I suspect this is the home of Cotton Ward...???" He watched the movie before he came over to my flat in Bondi. I felt he suspected I was secretly a Robert Hughes fan (which I'm not!) - I'd had to fax his agent my journalism CV, etc - and he was hugely relieved when he turned up and saw my ABBA scrapbooks displayed prominently. I took some photos of him in my flat holding some of my ABBA books and got his autograph. He was very helpful and friendly. WHERE DID YOU FIRST SEE THE AUDITION NOTICE FOR ABBA THE MOVIE? It originally came from my agent and they were after actors to portray the part of a radio announcer/DJ in a film. We were told it was only going to be a 16mm documentary showing ABBA on tour and relaxing in between shows and the radio announcer would be a linking device. I went to the screen test, which was shot on video, and met the director, Lasse Hallström. We were in a room and there were some pencils in a jar on a desk and he said: "I want you to do some clumsy acting." He liked my clumsy acting and I got the role. HAD YOU DONE YEARS OF IMPROVISATION ACTING? No, I hadn't done any improv training. Then it turned out they were going to do some tests in 35mm Panavision and it was March, which is traditionally the rainy season in Sydney and it was pouring with rain. We went to North Sydney and in the rain I walked across the flyover of the approach to Sydney Harbour Bridge on the north side and they shot it. It looked fabulous and the decision was then made to shoot in Panavision and that it would be a major film. The walking scene was not actually a screen test; I'd already got the job, but they wanted to see what the footage would look like in 35mm, and it escalated from there. DIDN'T IT SEEM A BIT OBVIOUS THAT 35mm WOULD LOOK BETTER THAN 16mm? Whether it was a major screen test for me or not, I don't know, it might have been, but that's the story I was told. WERE YOU NERVOUS WHEN YOU AUDITIONED? DID YOU READ UP ABOUT ABBA BEFORE YOU WENT ALONG? No, I don't get nervous for screen tests because nerves get in the way and they block you and you can't perform properly, so it was something I'd developed over the years. I didn't read up about the group before I went. HOW OLD WERE YOU WHEN YOU GOT THE PART? 29. It was February or March. The first concert was in Sydney and that's when we were having talks about what the script was going to be like with Robert Caswell and we just started shooting. It was crazy we just sort of went out with cameras and did things. There's a sequence with the purple car and that was something we had to pick up later when we were in Perth - they wanted to do some more traffic jam scenes, which were supposed to be in Sydney - the close ups were actually filmed in Perth, so they had to go around and find the same colour purple car to match. BUT THERE'S NO TRAFFIC JAMS IN PERTH! Well we just jammed a whole stack of cars together and shot it really tight. We mocked up a traffic jam. Anyway, back in Sydney, just going out to the local department stores with all the cushions and merchandise - I think it was at Grace Bros in Chatswood - BUT IT LOOKED LIKE A NEWSAGENCY? No, there was another sequence which was shot at a newsagency in Stockholm and the film crew took a lot of merchandise back to Stockholm. Lasse didn't actually tell the band members that I was an actor playing a part so I didn't really get to talk to them until the end of the concert in Perth. In Sydney, when there was all that rain on stage and everything, there was a sequence when they came offstage and I was trying to get an interview with them and the bodyguards thought I was really a journo and they literally picked me up and bundled me out and of course Lasse got it all on film. If he'd told everyone I was an actor the bodyguards would have felt they would have to act and he wanted to get their natural reactions. He didn't want to say to them, "you have to act now" because, as nonactors, that's very difficult. So all their reactions towards me on the Sydney Opera House steps and at one of the Sydney concerts were completely natural. TOM OLIVER WAS VERY GOOD AT GIVING AGGRESSIVE LOOKS AND HE'S EXCELLENT AS THE TAXI DRIVER IN THE LAST SCENES IN AUSTRALIA The taxi interiors were shot in Sweden and the exterior shots of the taxi driving along were in Melbourne. But the taxi was a Swedish left hand drive model and I said "The shots are going to match, as we don't have left hand drive cars in Australia" so I suggested they just reverse the film. So they shot it and inverted the film. You can't tell. All those clocks you see we're driving past and me editing the tape in the back seat were all shot in Sweden. Tom wasn't sitting up high enough so they took the seat out of the taxi and he was driving round and round and round a left hand drive through the streets of Stockholm sitting on a apple box and he improvised all his dialogue. Tom went out with the camera in the back seat for a couple of hours doing all that stuff and then they put the camera in the front seat and I went out for a couple of hours and then they intercut between the back and front scenes. THIS WAS YOUR FIRST FILM ROLE. DID YOU THINK, THIS COULD BE A REALLY BIG BREAK? No. I don't know whether it was a break. I never believe hype or build my hopes up. When the film was coming out I wrote a whole stack of letters to producers and directors in Australia asking them to look at the film and I got a letter back from a director saying "I saw the film and contrary to popular belief about ABBA being terrible, I thought it was a good film and I thought you did a good job". I thought that was nice, getting a positive response from a director. DID YOU DO ANY ACTING PREPARATION FOR OR DURING THE FILM? No, because there was no script. Nothing had been written down - there was just a basic idea. There were so many film units and the crew wanted to know that at 7am they had to get up and drive to Point B and set up their lights and everything and Lasse was saying, "No, we can't do that, because I want to shoot it like a documentary, so you just follow ABBA with your camera and shoot what you can." THAT'S HOW YOU FILM WHEN THERE IS AN UNLIMITED BUDGET That's right. It was an unlimited budget. Some say a million bucks, nobody knows. DID YOU GET TO SEE ANY OF THAT MONEY? No, I won't mention how much I got, but I didn't get paid a lot of money for the film, in fact, I haven't got any residuals from any overseas sales or anything. I just got a fee for each week of work and that was it. I'm looking into this. There's a bone of contention over the contract, which nobody can seem to find. My agents have rung Grundys (Reg Grundy had the merchandising rights and co-produced the film in Australia) and they said they have no plans to re-release the film and that was when the big resurgence happened two years ago. The movie has been playing at the Encore Cinema, Sydney, about a year ago. I stayed in a nice hotel in Sweden but when the others were staying at the luxurious Parmelia Hilton in Perth, I got stuck with some of the crew at the Travelodge a couple of miles away. So I rang up and said, "This is ridiculous, I've got to be moved, I have to be with the director to discuss the shoots." WHAT ABOUT THE MOVIE'S PREMIERE? It was really strange because my wife Robyn was pregnant at the time with our daughter Jessica and they wanted to send a limo so we'd make a grand entrance. But the funny part was that the pre-premiere drinks were held in a building directly opposite the Regent theatre, Sydney. I said "This is ridiculous, don't worry about the cars or anything", and they said "No, no, no, you must have a limo". So we came downstairs after drinks, got in the limo, were driven down George Street, did a U-turn, got out and made our entrance. Later, when the film finished everyone went berserk. I was really worried because they were pushing Robyn around who was in the later stages of pregnancy. So there we were on George Street with all these teenagers tearing, ripping our clothes and the limos were gone! They were supposed to be waiting for us, but Mrs Grundy (Joy Chambers) had taken the car. She must have waltzed out, got in the car and driven off. I was really angry. We jumped into Tom (Oliver's) limo to make a getaway. WERE THERE ANY BODYGUARDS? No, we were really getting pushed around. WHAT WERE THE CROWDS LIKE? It would have been very wearying for ABBA when they were in Australia because of the mad crowds they were restricted to hotel rooms. There was a sequence when we left in a car from the Old Melbourne where ABBA was staying and there were barriers and security people everywhere and there were hordes of kids on bikes trying to catch up to the car and that was happening everywhere. It was interesting for me being on the inside looking at that phenomenon because when I was a kid it was Beatlemania and I was a fan on the outside so it was fascinating being in the inner circle. When we were in Perth we went on a private cruise to Rottnest Island on a large ferry and it was cool and I had an orange sweat shirt with ABBA emblazoned across it and when I got on the boat Frida said to me "If you wear that, could you wear it inside out because I don't want anybody going past in boats knowing that it's us". I've got quite a few slides I took of ABBA on the boat, including one of Benny pouring a glass into his ear. Before we left the dock everyone was on board and there were high cyclone wire gates and there was one girl, about 15, going off her brain, she'd really lost it and was hysterical, and she'd climbed over the wire and landed on the dock and started running towards the boat and ABBA had a doctor travelling with them who grabbed her and put her across his knee and gave her three good hard whacks on the bum which snapped her out of her hysteria and bundled her back to the gate and security people and she recovered. WHAT HAPPENED BEHIND THE SCENES DURING THE BOMB HOAX AT THE PERTH CONCERT ON MARCH 10, 1977? I was at most of the ABBA concerts. While they were onstage, I was backstage doing shots of me trying to get to them and hanging around. I was offstage in the corridor at the Perth Entertainment Centre and I knew something was wrong because Mike Chugg, who was the Paul Dainty tour manager, looked really worried and he was talking hurriedly to people and I heard him say "Just get your people out as quickly and quietly as possible". He told me not to worry, there was a bomb scare but we couldn't take any chances. It was when Benny was playing Intermezzo No. 1 and everyone went offstage AND WHEN BENNY STOPPED HE WAS PUZZLED BECAUSE NO ONE CAME BACK ONSTAGE AND HE SAID "BJÖRN WILL BE BACK IN A MOMENT". THERE WAS AN AWKWARD SILENCE WHEN NO ONE RETURNED, AND HE STARTED CALLING OUT TENTATIVELY "BJÖRN?", BJÖRN? HE'LL BE BACK SOON". THEN AN ANNOUNCEMENT WAS MADE FOR EVERYONE TO LEAVE, BUT IT FOR 20 MINUTES, BUT IT WAS NOT AN INTERVAL. WE WERE AT THE BACK OF THE CENTRE AND MY MUM SAW MEN LOOKING UNDER THE SEATS AT THE FRONT AND SHE SAID LOUDLY "IT'S A BOMB SCARE". NO ONE PANICKED, THOUGH, AND WE STOOD IN THE FOYER. BOMB HOAXES WERE VERY COMMON DURING THIS PERIOD IN THE 70s. I was with the camera operator John Swofield and everyone left the building. The muso's stayed right outside the back door and they started playing Swedish folk songs to keep themselves up and the feel of the concert going and I said to John "this may be a hoax, but I don't want to be really close to this if a bomb's going to go off" so we walked into the car park and stood a few hundred yards away from the building and then a limo came screaming out of the car park and Agnetha wound down the window, waved her hand and screamed out "Get in your car and drive away". I don't know who else was in the car. ABBA weren't taking any other chances either. BENNY'S SON WAS SUPPOSED TO HAVE BEEN IN THE AUDIENCE AND BENNY WAS CONCERNED FOR HIS WELL-BEING. I'M SURPRISED ABBA DROVE OFF, BECAUSE THE REST OF US WERE JUST STANDING NEAR THE SNACK BAR IN THE FOYER. A lot of the experience was like a dream for me because I was getting to bed extremely late and getting up really early. It was like I was on the outside of myself and just looking in because it was continual work and I didn't really know exactly what I was going to be doing. I got along very well with Lasse and we had a strong relationship and I trusted him very quickly and just said "OK, it that's what you want, we'll just do it". He used to sit as close to the camera as he could - often underneath the lens or right beside it and we'd do close dialogue sequences and with the camera rolling he'd say, "OK, give me a reaction here," or "Do that bit again" and he was editing it in his mind as he was going, he knew what he was going to use. It's a really good way of working because normally in a film you have shoot a scene, perform, discuss it with the director and do the next scene in a formal way. With Lasse, the style of shooting was a luxury and it was so informal and rapid. WERE YOU CONCERNED AFTER SO MANY LATE NIGHTS AND EARLY MORNINGS THAT YOU'D LOOK REALLY HAGGARD ON FILM? I remember thinking that I was incredibly tired but I had to keep coming up with the energy to just go out and do it - it was just one of those things as far as performance are concerned - you don't let it get to you. You might think about it but you try to push it aside. WERE THERE ANY DRUGS TAKEN ON THE SET? No, well everyone could have been taking drugs right, left and centre, but I never saw any evidence of it. No, I don't think they were into drugs. WHAT ABOUT CIGARETTES? I have a vague memory that maybe Benny was a smoker, but I can't be sure. I don't think Agnetha was smoking because she was pregnant. So I was continually running all the time, shooting shooting, shooting. For example, we got the late "red eye" flight from Perth and arrived in Melbourne at 4am for the Moomba festival and Peter Appleton, a co-ordinator for Grundy's, said "Go and get some sleep", so I got about two hours' sleep and then they woke me up saying "No, we have to shoot at Moomba", so all those festival shots I was running on two hour's sleep and it was just awful. The thing that really bugged me was that when I started I had a pair of boots and I was doing all this running and because the boots had become a part of the film, I had to take them to Sweden, and did many running scenes in them and they were extremely uncomfortable. I also had three identical sets of the jeans and top I wore; that became the uniform for the film so they didn't have to worry about wardrobe changes. I was always wearing the same thing. WHAT ABOUT THE SCRIPT? Robert Caswell was supposed to write the script and he was really upset because there was no time, everything was moving too fast and he didn't have time to write anything. DID LASSE COME UP WITH THE SCRIPT OR DIRECT WITH IDEAS? With ideas. We'd ask, "What's happening here?" and he'd discuss it with us. The stuff with Bruce Barry, the radio station manager, and myself was all ad lib. We'd discuss it and say "What do you want to talk about?, come up with a character idea, kicked it around and then shot it. HOW LONG DID THE FILMING TAKE? The entire time they were in Australia and about four weeks in Stockholm. WHAT HAPPENED TO ALL THE FOOTAGE? It was all taken back and Lasse's wife Malou was also doing editing and they ran through reams of footage. They had thousands of feet of film. When they were shooting at the Myer Music Bowl in Melbourne I think they had every Panavision camera that was available in Australia. They had six cameras with isolated cameras mounted for static shots and people hidden all over the stage. There were many people with buzzers and lights hidden around the stage to help sync the film and sound. A lot of the close-ups of stage footage were shot at many different shows. ABBA wore the same outfits and the scenes were intercut. There were some complaints of the cameramen getting in the way. I've got a terrific shot of cinematographer Paul Onorato on his knees in front of the girls in front and he's got a huge Panavision camera doing a close-up onstage and a lot of people complained about that and I can understand why. THEY WERE SUCH A SPECK IN THE DISTANCE FOR ME, I COULDN'T TELL WHICH WAS WHICH, THOUGH I WAS OVERWHELMED BY JUST BEING AT THE CONCERT. THERE'S FOOTAGE OF ALICE COOPER MEETING ABBA IN THE FOYER OF THE PARMELIA HILTON IN PERTH WHERE HE WAS ALSO A GUEST. Really? I don't remember it. We went and visited Lasse Hallström on their island and his father said they were related to Sir Edward Hallström who was very famous and had a refrigerator business here in Sydney and he was instrumental in setting up a private zoo in his home. WHAT SHOTS DID YOU SUGGEST? The one in Perth at sunset and we were driving along and I saw a line of seagulls hanging in the breeze so I suggested putting a long lens on the camera and I would walk towards it through the seagulls and I was pleased Lasse used it during "The Name of the Game". Another was a quick shot of the ABBA flag with the full moon behind it and the sequence at the end of the film when they're in the studio. Lasse said "What can we do, we've shot everything," and I said "But you haven't actually shot them in the studio" and at one stage they were going to use as part of the dream sequence me in the studio with them doing some playing and singing but that didn't eventuate so he used the idea while they sang "Thank You For The Music" at Polar Music, which is a nice studio. WHAT WAS IT LIKE WORKING WITH THE OTHER ACTORS? There weren't many other actors. Tom Oliver had a lot of work to do. He's a lovely guy and we had a great time together - we were always joking and carrying on. Harry Lawrence had a couple of hours' work as a ticket scalper at a concert. There's a lot of sequences where I was interviewing people that became really boring to do because I had to keep asking "And what do you think of ABBA?". All that stuff was live and I was operating the tape recorder, doing the sound, at the same time. A lot of that stuff was used. WHERE DID YOU FIND THE KIDS? We went to Carambeena at Lane Cove where we interview those kids. THE LIP SYNCING IN THE PRESS CONFERENCE IS SHOCKING. AT THE TIME IT WAS AN ISSUE THAT THE JOURNALISTS WEREN'T MEMBERS OF ACTORS' EQUITY SO THE QUESTIONS HAD TO BE VOICED OVER BY ACTORS. I can't remember it. The sequence where I've overslept for an interview with ABBA was shot in two separate locations - one is in the hotel (maybe in Adelaide) and then the second scene when I cross the room and look out the window and see the Moomba Festival was shot from he window of the first floor of a bank. DID LASSE SPECIFY THAT YOU HAD TO WEAR ONLY YOUR UNDIES FOR THAT SHOT? WHAT ABOUT SOME ABBA PYJAMAS? Well, I wouldn't have been wearing pyjamas and I certainly wasn't going to do the shot naked, so it was the only way around it really. SO WHO DID YOU TAKE OVERSEAS FOR THE SHOOT? Robyn and I went over in June during the summer solstice. Tom left earlier to visit his family in England and then we all met up in Stockholm. We spent 13 days driving around England and it was wonderful because it was the Queen's Jubilee year so all the tourists were in London, where we only spent a day, and there were no tourists in the countryside and it was absolutely stunning weather for summer in Europe, 1977 - very warm. Our tickets to Stockholm were paid for, so we went via London. It took 32 hours to get from Sydney to London and we got off the plane and wandered around in a daze saying "What do you want to do," "I don't know, what do you want to do?" and we went back to the hotel. Our flight was a milk run - we left Sydney and went down to Melbourne, something went wrong with the plane so we had to stay on it for about an hour; then we went to Singapore, somewhere like Zagreb, etc, and we were absolutely shell shocked and couldn't do any sightseeing when we landed. WAS YOUR WIFE PREGNANT THEN? No, we discovered she was pregnant in Stockholm. Robyn went and saw the doctor and got a certificate which was written in Swedish and we couldn't translate it. She stopped someone in the street and said: "Do you know what this means?" and the person said, "Oh, yes, this means you have paid your bill"! I rang Lasse and read it out in my worst Swedish accent and he said "Oh, oh, that means Robyn has gravidity - you are going to be a father, congratulations!" While I was out filming Robyn was having morning sickness and all that sort of thing. AT THE SAME TIME AS AGNETHA? I think they knew she was pregnant by the time they'd left Australia. SO THERE WAS A BREAK - THEY LEFT AUSTRALIA IN MARCH AND SHOT MORE SCENES IN JUNE? Yes, there's a sequence when they're getting on the jumbo and leaving which was shot at their last stop in Perth and Benny turns around and says "This is a crazy thing leaving like this" because it was a mad rush, rush, rush, finish the show, get on the plane and go! He thought it was crazy to have formed all these relationships and then just suddenly leaving, never to come back again! Before Lasse left he said we'd definitely have to go to Sweden to finish the film and Robyn and I thought "No way will that happen", but then I got a call a few months later and we were overjoyed because we'd never been overseas before. So we spent a month in Sweden, a month in Europe and a month with friends in America. We trained from Stockholm down through Germany to Amsterdam, Paris, Holland and flew from Europe to the US. WHAT ABOUT WHEN YOU MET ABBA FOR DINNER? Jack Churchill, the American cinematographer, who did a lot of the shooting in Australia as well as in Stockholm, Lasse said we're taking you out to dinner in the Old Town, the old section of Stockholm and we turned up at the restaurant on the second night we were there and ABBA were there - it was a pleasant surprise. WHAT DID THEY EAT AND WHAT WERE THEY WEARING? I don't remember. It was a very warmly lit, pleasant, inviting, old restaurant. We all chatted but I can't remember what they said. In the end sequence of the film it was shot from a helicopter as a big pull out shot of the island where they write and Lasse only had enough fuel in the chopper to do one more sequence before the helicopter had to go back and he wanted to get a shot of me on their large cruiser driving the boat with them on deck, being all palsy. We took off, going full bore, and unfortunately the shot wasn't very good and Lasse told me the cinematographer wouldn't start the camera when he was told to - Lasse had said "Shoot shoot, I'll fix it the shot up later," but because of the lay of the land and the speed of the boat, we had to turn the boat in a particular direction which wasn't at the right angle to get a shot from the helicopter, so we passed underneath the helicopter and because the camera mount was on the opposite side they couldn't get the shot so the 10 seconds of shot was never used in the film. BJÖRN WAS TEASING YOU? On another day, during the dream sequence on another cruiser when the journalists were running alongside the banks of the river, Björn  was sending me up because I was amazed at the light, I'd never been to the northern hemisphere before and I'd spoken to Björn  about how the light was softer and the greenery was vastly different and he spent the whole day sending me up about soft trees and hard trees. DID ANY OTHER ABBA MEMBERS MAKE ANY JOKES YOU REMEMBER? No. WHAT ABOUT WHEN YOU SPENT A DAY ON THEIR ISLAND (WITH THE LITTLE YELLOW CABIN)? We'd gone to the island to watch the shooting of that last helicopter sequence. We were hiding behind the cabin in the shot - you can't see us. There's a normal sized three bedroom timber home with a deck and everything where they live elsewhere on the island - the little cabin is on a high rocky knoll and the view is fabulous - looking down through the trees and on to the water. It's a terrific place to sing, play and write music. We spent most of the day waiting for the chopper to arrive and watching tennis on the TV - Björn  Borg playing. In the last scene, Agnetha has a yellow flower and she moved in a particular way so the sync could be matched up. SO WHAT DID YOU THINK OF THEIR ISLAND? It was fabulous. It's a huge archipelago and there's lots of Swedes with similar houses. During mid-summer they all spend their summer holidays there. ABBA was having a sewerage problem in the main house when I was there and they were most apologetic about it, because it didn't smell too good. SO YOU WERE WATCHING TENNIS IN ODOROUS CONDITIONS? There was a bit of a stench. On the mid-summer day we went to Benny and Annfirid's separate island and they had a wonderful procession led by Benny, playing the piano accordion, with all the kids and guitars and they had flowers in their hair and dancing in a grassy clearing. It's a traditional festival, There were at least 40 people - their extended family. There were other houses on the island as well - it wasn't tiny. WAS FRIDA'S SON, HANS, OVERWEIGHT? He was quite a large boy. I didn't speak to him - he came on the tour to Australia. (I thought it was Benny's son who came out). No, it was Frida's son from her first marriage. Agnetha was very quiet, maybe because she was pregnant. She gave me a lift back to town once and I asked her if she had any music and she said "In the glove box and there were some old cassettes in there of her earlier solo work and I wanted to listen to it, but she was most reluctant for me to hear any of them so I didn't push it but she seemed as though she hadn't realised they were in the glovebox, or if she did, she didn't want me to play them. It was quite funny that she was a little bit embarrassed - obviously they were vastly different to her ABBA stuff. They all spoke English very well. They were all very nice people. Björn  was an astute businessman - they all had good senses of humour. Surprisingly enough, even though we spent time together filming, I didn't really get to know them and we didn't become friends and I'll probably never see them again in my entire life. I should have asked them for their autographs but I didn't go through with it. DID THEY GET ON WELL? I'd like to tell you something intersting, but they got on like ordinary couples. Nothing unusual. WHAT ABOUT STIG? Didn't speak to him at all. WHAT ABOUT THE CRITICAL REVIEWS? The reviews were highly critical - "I'm set for international stardom" - well, here I am 15 years later and I'm probably better known for my role in Hey Dad. They kept saying I was Australia's answer to Woody Allen! WHAT ABOUT THE FILM'S SUCCESS? It was very successful. A friend came back from a hiking tour in Nepal and saw it years later in a stone theatre there. It only made it to cable TV in America. It was released mid-January 1978. The only time I've been aware of the ABBA film getting me work was for my role in "Squizzy Taylor". Simpson Le Mesurier Productions looked at the film and because of that I got the role. WHAT ABBA RECORDS DO YOU OWN? ABBA - The Album and a single with the live recording of Thank You For The Music. WHAT WAS IT LIKE BEING KISSED BY FRIDA AND BEING IN A TORRID LOVE SCENE WITH FRIDA AND AGNETHA AS REPORTED BY PEOPLE MAGAZINE AT THE TIME? No comment!