Tom Oliver Interview Tom Oliver interviewed by Cotton Ward in 1994 - he plays Lou Carpenter in Neighbours and was Jack in Number 96. I went round to his place after the 1994 Melbourne ABBA fan club convention. He served up ham, cheese and strawberry sandwiches with a delicious homemade mango jelly during this interview. Had a gorgeous dog named Louie. He hadn't looked at the movie recently and didn't seem to recall that much. HOW DID YOU GET THE PART IN "ABBA - THE MOVIE"? I had a phone call from my agent asking me if I knew of a pop group called ABBA and I certainly did because my 10-year-old daughter was a great fan of theirs. The agent told me ABBA was coming to Australia for a tour and Grundy Productions were tied up with them to do a feature film of the tour. The fun thing was that there was no script. They were just going to film the actual tour and there was a scenario that we could ad-lib to and when they'd taken all the footage back to Sweden they'd decide what to do with it. And I said, "Well, it sounds fun, I'll be in that." The thing that attracted me most was that I was to play four different parts in it and I looked upon it rather like Peter Sellers when he had to do numerous parts. I was a great fan of Sellers when he was alive. I was originally employed to play their bodyguard and then the film had dream sequences when Robert Hughes kept falling asleep and would dream of ABBA. One dream sequence featured him as a poor man's Clint Eastwood in the wild west and he was playing poker with Benny and Björn . Frida and Anna were sitting on his knee and pouring him drinks and I was playing a very drunk barman. Then there was another sequence where they dreamt he'd invited them to dinner and I played the butler. Just for a laugh I played it very gay and I had a beauty spot on my cheek, and there was some footage cut out of it which I'd love to see. One of the reasons I played this part as gay was because it was just so different to the usual drunk wild west saloon barman stereotype. Lasse decided to do a close up of me when I poured five drinks and I had my fingers stuck in each glass and I was licking them - it was very gross. He decided to do a cutaway of me watching ABBA and they had supplied me with a live chicken - there was also a donkey and goat tied up outside - and they decided to play a prank on me by doing a close-up and never saying "Cut", just to see how far I would go. I kept going until they said cut, which they had to, because Jack the cameraman fell off his crane still laughing. I had the chicken and was leaning on the bar, swigging out of a bottle of water or gravy essence, and I was force-feeding this chicken water and I had him on my shoulder, on my head, down the front of my shirt - he was like my only friend, as it were. And I kept passing out behind the bar and coming back up again - well, they couldn't use that in the movie! I was the golf caddy in a dream sequence to the tune of The Name of The Game and a butler in the dinner party footage. A lot of this wasn't used, such as when I had one of those little crumb dustpan and brushes and I finished off brushing Bob Hughes down with it and then I disappeared under the table as well. We really sort of let ourselves loose. I was also the Aussie taxi-driver during scenes shot in Stockholm. I had arrived at 3pm the previous afternoon and the very next day they put me in this old New York yellow cab, left hand drive, took the back seat out, took my seat out and replaced it with an apple cart, put the Mitchell camera in the back with Jack and Lasse, and put me in the Stockholm rush hour! I had to ad-lib everything. Lasse said to cover topics such as the fact that everyone from five-year-olds to grandmothers loved ABBA and also that Anna had just been voted as having the most beautiful bottom in Europe. So there was I motoring through the streets of Stockholm during the rush hour as a taxi driver with a false moustache stuck up my nose, screaming "Get out of here you raw prawn!" at these Swedish drivers, who didn't have a clue what was happening. I don't know who was more terrified - me or Jack the cameraman in the back. They reversed the negative so it looked like we were driving on the correct side of the road. I could see all sorts of car crashes coming up. Lasse Hallström, the director, had almost given me a free reign because Bob Caswell had done the script but had given us room to improvise and this was the way Lasse wanted to shoot it. It was just such fun to do that we all started coming up with crazy ideas. ABBA didn't know who I was when they came off the aircraft in Sydney - they knew we were filming their arrival - and I put myself in front of their real bodyguards and said "It's part of the film" out of the corner of my mouth, and started clearing people out of the way. Then we went to the Sebel Townhouse where they had a press conference and I was standing up behind them as all the bodyguards do and I knew many of the journalists and one, Matt White, who wrote for the Mirror, an old reprobate, was there and he had a quizzical look on his face. I had sunglasses on and was wearing one of those shirts they'd made for me which had very "Hamlet" sort of sleeves, it opened down to the waist - I was a lot fitter in those days - and there were big gold medallions hanging around my neck - very 70s. Very tight waist and hipsters which flared. So I could see this look on Matt's face thinking "No, that can't be Tom", and then he realised it was. I saw him after the press conference and I went across to have a beer with him and he said: "Things must be real bad if you have to moonlight as a bodyguard." I said, "No mate, that camera over on the right is a movie camera - we're making a movie about ABBA!" DID YOU STUDY UP ON ABBA BEFORE YOU MET THEM? No, I just asked my daughter - she knew everything about them. When they started they won the Eurovision contest in, whenever it was, 1966 wasn't it? (1974) I played it by ear from there. HOW DID YOU GET ON WITH THE OTHER ACTORS? Bob Hughes and I clicked straight away; we had the same sense of humour. When I was the bodyguard I'd curl my lip up at him and he'd just crack up and then I'd crack up. The then Prime Minister Malcolm Fraser bought his kids to see ABBA in Melbourne back at the Music Bowl and we were in the subterranean dressing rooms and Bob was sort of hanging on some piping to see ABBA and I said "Why don't you do that and thwack your head on the piping?" and he did and it worked beautifully - very Buster Keaton. He did it so well. Those little suggestions we could say to each other - we just clicked. DID YOU DO ANY ACTING PREPARATION? Good heavens no! No! I mean, if I play a rapist I don't go out and practise raping anybody, do I? I mean, I say the lines and don't bump into the furniture. That's been my philosophy for 30 years. For more serious roles I would. But there was no script for this. The whole movie was a big ad-lib. That feature film with ABBA was the last I've ever done. Maybe I was that bad no-one's ever offered me one since! Most of my work has been in the theatre and television. WHERE DID YOU FIRST MEET ABBA? At the Sebel Townhouse press conference. They were absolutely bloody marvellous. I cannot speak more highly of those four people. They were four of the most open, refreshing, marvellous company to be with. No airs and graces about them. We've all seen pop groups and actors that get lots of publicity and it goes straight to their head and they start believing it. In my experience, ABBA weren't like that at all. They were just the nicest bunch of down-to-earth, hard-working people I've ever met who were very good at what they did. I'd love to see them again, I really would. What was refreshing about them was that I've been to hotels in Melbourne and Sydney when there've been other international and local pop groups who've wrecked their rooms and chucked TVs out the window and yet ABBA were blasted for being so nice, so clean and so friendly. Well give me that any day, instead of hairy-arsed idiot scum. WHAT WAS STIG LIKE? Nice guy. You could see how well they were managed. WHAT WAS YOUR IMPRESSION OF LASSE HALLSTRÖM? He was a hot shot up-and-coming director - he later won an Oscar for "My Life As A Dog". He's a funny guy too, and so's his crazy wife, Malou - God she was funny. She discovered the word "shit" and she wouldn't stop using it, no matter where we were. ROBERT HUGHES MENTIONED DINING WITH ABBA IN SWEDEN. WHAT HAPPENED? When we were actually flown over to Sweden, Bob and I went out with Jack the cameraman for dinner to a subterranean restaurant in Old Stockholm, across the canal, and lo and behold Frida and Benny were there with some friends. It was very crowded and this voice on the other side of the room cried out "Hello" and there was Frida and she stood up and ran through the tables and embraced Robert and I and said "You must come and sit at our table". And we had a wonderful evening, it was great, it really was. ABBA don't get hassled in Sweden, they never did - in fact, quite a few Swedes resent them. WERE BJORN AND AGNETHA THERE? No, just Frida and Benny having dinner with some friends, that's all. It was totally unplanned - it was just a coincidence they were there. WHAT WAS ABBA-MANIA LIKE? It was just unbelievable. You'd fly interstate with them on the same plane and there were cameras waiting at the airport just to get footage of them coming off the plane. It was just like Beatlemania - there was thousands of screaming kids and you could hardly hear yourself think. There were occasions when I did have to act as their bodyguard after we'd finished filming and we'd have to get from A to B and I'd try to get the youngsters out of the way as gently as possible. ABBA went out quite a bit during their stay in Australia - usually by invitation. WHAT ABOUT THE URBAN MYTH ABOUT SELLING OFF AGNETHA'S DUMP AFTER A BOAT TRIP ON THE SWAN RIVER, W.A.? No, I've never heard of that. I saw them that evening because we were staying at the same hotel, the Parmelia, and asked them about their day and they made no mention of the fact that the toilet was bung on the boat or anything like that or auctioning off poo. Somebody might have pooed in a bucket and auctioned it off to raise some cash. God, you could come ashore with three tonnes of it, couldn't you, if there was enough crew! It's like chunks off the Berlin Wall! It's a rotten story - it's not a good story at all - it's awful. DID YOU SEE ALICE COOPER AT THE PARMELIA WHEN ABBA STAYED THERE? Yes, I did. I didn't see him with ABBA, though. WHAT WAS FRIDA LIKE? I liked Frida - she was spicy. I thought she had a better bottom than Agnetha. Frida really enjoyed singing - she'd been doing it all her life. I used to catch her before a concert going through an aria to warm up before singing pop songs during the concert. Bob Jones was the real bodyguard and on the roof of the Sebel Townhouse every morning Bob would be up there with Agnetha and Frida working out for at least an hour and a half to keep them in top condition because they expended an awful amount of energy on stage. WHAT ABOUT THE BOMB HOAX? I didn't take much notice of it because it was only a couple of years before that I'd just come out of Number 96 and we used to get quite a few bomb hoaxes and after the first three or four you don't take any notice of them, you keep on rehearsing while the police come and search. WERE ANY MEMBERS OF ABBA SMOKING DURING THE TOUR? Not that I remember. IN THE MOVIE AGNETHA PUT HER THUMB OVER THE WORD "DULL" IN A HEADLINE SAYING "AGNETHA'S BOTTOM TOPS DULL SHOW". So what? Good on her. What do you expect her to do? Point to it? DID YOU VISIT ABBA ON THEIR ISLAND IN SWEDEN? No, I had to leave straight after filming because my mother was very ill. So I missed out on that. WHAT WAS FRIDA'S SON HANS LIKE? Frida's son was huge for a 12-year-old kid. He was like a front-row forward. WAS AGNETHA PREGNANT DURING THE TOUR? Agnetha said to me they conceived their son when they were touring Australia and it was planned that way. WERE THERE ANY AMUSING INCIDENTS DURING FILMING? When we were in the Parmelia (Perth), Lasse had the camera near the lift and ABBA and I had to start walking up through a corridor, but we decided to have a bit of fun. When we did the rehearsal we did it correctly, but when it was a take Anna squeezed up close behind me - you could put a cigarette paper between us - Björn  behind her, and Frida and Benny at the back. We were very close together and we all set off on the left foot and marched off. Lasse yelled "Cut". The second time we all did a side step, waving our hands and later we did it about six different ways before we walked how Lasse wanted us to. WHAT HAPPENED AT THE MOVIE PREMIERE? It was a real Hollywood-style opening at the Regent, Sydney. There were searchlights, barricades and police everywhere. We had to walk on the red carpet and arrived in limos. There was lots of screaming and hysteria, all through the movie as well! It was the same in England - in my home town there were two cinemas, the Embassy and Savoy - and there were queues a mile long to see the movie there. WHAT ABOUT THE FILM REVIEWS? The critics weren't interested in a major feature film made about a pop group. They seemed to knock everything that came out of Australia then. It was an hour and a half of pure entertainment. There wasn't a great deal of dialogue from ABBA because it was a documentary of their tour. DO YOU OWN ANY ABBA RECORDS? I had one that came out at the time. My daughter has several albums and I gave her a copy ABBA had autographed. HOW WOULD YOU SUM UP YOUR EXPERIENCE OF WORKING ON THE MOVIE? After 31 years in the business, I'd have to say it was one of the most enjoyable working experiences I've ever had, and I was sorry when it ended.