TROYE SIVAN

Speaking With Spud

Although a relative neophyte in the world of cinema, Perth-based Troye Sivan has already scored his first starring role as the eponymous hero in the South African smash hit Spud.

Normally it takes a while to break into the word of acting, but Troye Sivan’s first big-screen performance got noticed by the right people. Then again, that performance was seen by an awful lot of people, period.

“I was in X-Men Origins: Wolverine,” Sivan, now 16 explains. “And basically somebody in Perth was doing a TV spot on me about how I got the part and everything, and the producer of Spud’s uncle lived in Perth and saw me on TV. I sing and Spud sings, and I was in Oliver and Spud is in Oliver, and Spud’s South African and I’m South African, and so he just thought that I might be good for the part. So within a week I’d done my first audition.”

And though he acquitted himself well - as his presence in the film shows - getting the role wasn’t nearly so cut and dry as might be expected.

“Because it was a South African movie they wanted to try to get a South African cast,” Sivan tells us. “The book is so, so South African; it’s a massive part of their culture there. It’s the best selling South African book of all time. They really wanted to give local boys a chance to get this role, so they went around with this almost Australian Idol style of auditioning, going around the whole country for eight months. But I had done my audition before any of that stuff, but the producers said ‘We like you, but we still want to hold auditions’. And then eventually, when I’d almost given up hope, they said yes - the entire time they didn’t find anyone else.”

A big part of the appeal of the film was being able to return to his homeland, which he left with his family at the age of two. “I’d been back to South Africa for holidays and that, so I had a slight memory of it. In Perth we live in a predominantly South African community, so the accent and things like that have never been far from me. But it was really, really interesting to be able to spend three months of 2010 in South Africa.”

And as for his most famous co-star, comedy institution John Cleese, Sivan admits to not being overly familiar with his body of work, at least initially.

“Films like Harry Potter, stuff that came out when I was young, that’s mainly where I knew him from. When they told me that I’d got the part and that John Cleese was attached, I went back and watched all his stuff. I don’t think I had embraced how funny he is, and how much he’s changed the comedy world forever. I realised that afterwards, and my new friend John, this really, really nice man, I can’t believe he’s the legend that he is. And that’s a testament to John, because if you see how he carries himself, he’s just the nicest man. And on top of being a comedic genius, I watched him give, in my opinion, one of the greatest performances of his career.”

_TRAVIS JOHNSON