Entertainment
25 February, 2025
Getting square after 23 years
TWENTY-THREE years after the cult classic ‘Gettin’ Square’ David Wenham has returned to his iconic character Johnny Spitieri in the new comedy ‘Spit’ coming to Cairns’ cinemas on March 6.
The beloved Johnny ‘Spit’ Spitieri is returning to the big screen, this time in his own film, ‘Spit’ – directed by Jonathan Teplitzky – 23 years after his first appearance.
This time an older and drug-free Spit finds himself in trouble after attempting to return to Australia with a false passport and ends up in an immigration detention centre. There he’ll make new friends and allies and find the true meaning of being Australian.
Currently the film is touring across the country. Last week it made it to Cairns for a screening and special Q&A with David Wenham on Saturday, February 15 at Event Cinemas Cairns Central before officially coming to the cinema on March 6.
“It’s been a pretty amazing journey. It’s been 23 years between films and I never anticipated that I’d play the same character twice in my life, especially one 22 years apart, but as soon as I put the thongs on, he suddenly came back, it’s as if he had been dormant in me all those years,” Mr Wenham said.
“Time just went way back and now I’m travelling around the screenings and hearing the audience’s response. It really makes us as a filmmaking team very satisfied that we went with the decision to make this film.
“Creatively, it was very, very satisfying, one of the most creative things I’ve ever done in my life.”
In ‘Spit’ we see our protagonist in a new light and dive deep into his story while we also experience life in an immigration centre alongside refugees and immigrants. Despite what seems very topical, Mr Wenham said the story was not political and it was just meant to be funny and heartwarming.
“This is a standalone film,” he said.
“It’s like a character piece of one man – Johnny Spitieri – and he’s been clean for 20 years, which is a big change for him and he’s aged, but besides that, he’s still the same.
“He tries to sneak into Australia under a false passport, and he doesn’t really succeed, so he hasn’t changed but Australia has quite a bit. The whole film is about mateship and when you sit through the movie you realise that for all of Johnny’s faults – and he has lots of them – he’s a real good man and the most unjudgmental person you’ll come across.
“This is not a political film, it’s a comedy. The idea for the film came a long time ago from Chris Nyst (writer), there was a little bit of discussion at the time about migration and he couldn’t really understand the heat of the argument.
“He said: ‘I’m a migrant and we’re all either migrants or the product of migrants’, so he thought that today’s migrants will be tomorrow’s incredible Australian citizens, that’s where it came from.
“But it’s not political and people will laugh immensely through it. There are some characters there played by refugees or offspring of refugees and they said they were tired of people looking at this issue in such a serious way. They said: ‘We’re all the same, some of us are smart, some aren’t’.
“It’s not divisive or controversial, it’s just a film that brings people together.”
Mr Wenham said the film would only be released in theatres and not streaming services to return to the culture of enjoying films in the cinema.
“I think everybody needs a laugh at the moment, and you’re going to get more than one laugh. Your laughs will be in the triple figures,” he said.
“You get as many people to go to the cinema with you as possible, bums on seats, and it’s a great community, community, uplifting experience.
“I can’t tell you how enriching it’s been for me to sit in the cinema with different communities around the country.”
