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'The tumour was already as big as a mango': Jacki Weaver’s health scare
Aussie actor Jacki Weaver is happy to chat about her upcoming psychological thriller, Bird Box. She'll talk about her well-dressed but very worried character, caught in a post-apocalyptic nightmare, and she'll rave about her co-stars, Sandra Bullock and John Malkovich, and how lovely it was to film in her adopted home city of Los Angeles for a change. Just don't expect her to watch it.
"I don't think I'll be able to sit through it because I hate being frightened," confides the 71-year-old, who has been basking in Hollywood's bright lights since her 2010 Best Supporting Actress Oscar nomination as the deceptively sunny matriarch of a Melbourne crime family in Animal Kingdom.
"I made a [2014] horror movie called Haunt and never saw that and I probably won't see the [upcoming] movie Grudge, either," she continues unapologetically.
"I always say my idea of recreation is not being terrified. I would rather get adrenalin rushes from other means, because I have enough terror after they yell 'action', so I don't want it in my leisurely pursuits too."
Bird Box is a nail-biting Netflix thriller based on Josh Malerman's 2014 novel of the same name and directed by Oscar-winning Danish filmmaker Susanne Bier.
When a mysterious entity is unleashed on earth, it decimates the global population by driving people mad – and to suicide – with just one glimpse.
A group of random strangers, who take refuge in the same home, discover they can remain alive as long as they keep the world locked out and cover all the windows.
But as food supplies dwindle, they must decide on a new plan.
"My character is a straight-laced lady who is caught up in this event and they all feel helpless and react in different ways," says Jacki.
How would she react in a Bird Box-type situation? "My husband [actor Sean Taylor] and I were talking about this, and he's a real panicker and I am the one who gets practical.
“I want to work more, not less,” she insists. “I’m no spring chicken, so I should just keep pedalling as fast as I can while I can.”Credit:Getty Images
"I don't know why that is. I think some people just have different stress levels maybe, but I'm the calm one and usually don't get hysterical."
In January, the youthful-looking septuagenarian suffered her own health crisis, one that must have tested her patience. After routine X-rays at LA's Cedar Sinai hospital to check on minor heart palpitations, she ended up being rushed into emergency surgery for seven hours after they found a tumour on her adrenal gland.
"It turned out I had a rare tumour called a pheochromocytoma," she reveals, spelling out the medical name in anticipation of the next question. "When they discovered the tumour, it was already as big as a mango and I was told they're usually as big as a 25-cent piece, so that was scary."
Jacki's able to crack a joke about the topic – maybe because she now has a clean bill of health. "There are only a few thousand of them a year in America and a few hundred a year in Australia, so I'm a bit conceited about my tumour being so rare," she says with a giggle.
She recounts a later conversation with her doctor. "I said, 'How do you stand there for seven hours doing surgery?' And he said, 'It's a bit like you on a two-show day in the theatre.' I said, 'Well at least I get a wee-break!' "
Will the hard-working thespian take it easy now? You can feel her bristle at the suggestion. "I want to work more, not less," she insists. "I'm no spring chicken, so I should just keep pedalling as fast as I can while I can."
She's just returned to her West Hollywood home after filming the Canadian drama Stage Mother, with Lucy Liu. In four days, her suitcases will be repacked as she travels to New Mexico to shoot the 10-episode television series Our Lady, LTD with Ben Kingsley.
Jacqueline Ruth Weaver was raised in the Sydney suburb of West Pymble by an Australian father and an English mother. She started acting professionally at 15 in a lavish theatre production of Cinderella and was 24 when she made her film debut in the 1971 comedy Stork.
The theatre veteran has appeared in close to 90 stage productions during her colourful career, including classic plays by Neil Simon, Tennessee Williams and Arthur Miller, but she has always worked less in front of the camera.
She didn't get offered a single film between the 1996 comedy Cosi, with Toni Collette, and the 2008 feature film Three Blind Mice. She then had to wait two years for Animal Kingdom – a game-changer not just for Jacki, but also director David Michôd and co-stars Joel Edgerton, Sullivan Stapleton and Ben Mendelsohn.
Jacki is surprisingly Zen about all those years missing out on major roles in big Aussie films.
"I was kind of cool with it because I really worked a lot on stage. I never got bitter, but I did get slightly bewildered at times, thinking, 'I could have done that,' and wondering why nobody ever thought of me."
When I note that she's in good company – Dame Judi Dench, another theatre vet, was also 63 when she earned her first of seven Oscar nominations – she agrees, "I've kind of made up for it since, haven't I?"
Jacki Weaver and Elizabeth Debicki in Widows.Credit:Merrick Morton
That's something of an understatement, especially after she scored a second Oscar nomination for the 2012 film Silver Linings Playbook, in which she appeared with Bradley Cooper, Jennifer Lawrence and Robert De Niro. Her list of credits since then is so prolific that neither of us can work out an exact number.
"I think since I came here eight years ago, I must have made 29 films," Jacki suggests, "but I've also done a few in Australia [Goldstone, Last Cab to Darwin] and quite a bit of television [Blunt Talk, Gracepoint, Secret City and Squinters]."
She's got a charming habit of reducing her big-name co-stars to terms of endearment. "Sandy is such a darling," she says at one point about Bullock. She also describes her Life of the Party co-star Melissa McCarthy and McCarthy's director husband Ben Falcone as "a gorgeous couple" and says she "adored" Diane Keaton – the pair played elderly cheerleaders in the upcoming comedy Poms.
As well as popping up in the 2017 James Franco comedy The Disaster Artist, Jacki has a juicy role in Widows, a drama starring Viola Davis and fellow Aussie Elizabeth Debicki, who plays her daughter. "She's a gorgeous girl," she adds affectionately, "but she's six-foot-three and I'm four-foot-11, so the only way they could get us in the same shot was if she was sitting down!"
Jacki sounds pleased at her Hollywood presence being described as ubiquitous. "I like that," she says, trying it on for size. "When people say, 'Oh my God, I didn't know you were in that,' I consider it kind of a compliment that people don't recognise me straight away."
She's missing her husband Sean, who is in Sydney, and brightens up when congratulated on their recent 15th wedding anniversary. "He's such a dear," she muses fondly. When asked if this marks the longest of her four marriages, she playfully replies, "Well, I was married to Derryn Hinch for close to that time, and I think he doesn't think we are divorced yet!"
Does she consider herself a hopeless romantic? "I think I'm romantic, sure, but I don't think I'm hopeless."
For a few fleeting moments between self-deprecating jokes, the feisty actor acknowledges she's still surprised at becoming so sought-after that she's turning down work.
"I didn't expect the respect that I got when I came out here," she adds in awe. "Someone who interviewed me once said, 'Your second Oscar nomination proves your first one wasn't a fluke,' and it does count a lot in Hollywood. I always knew I was respected in Australia, but over here, this feels like suddenly getting to the finals at the Olympic Games."
Bird Box launches on Netflix on December 21.
This article appears in Sunday Life magazine within the Sun-Herald and the Sunday Age on sale November 18.
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