Eric Bana On Suiting Up For Black Hawk Down
How an unknown Aussie became the coolest cat in a Ridley Scott war movie.
Eric Bana’s a legit tough guy. As someone who’s participated in the week-long Tasman Targa car rally, he knows what it is to risk your life in pursuit of your dreams. Ask him about the fighting men portrayed in Ridley Scott’s Black Hawk Down, however, and the Star Trek star adopts a hushed tone.
“The men who serve in Delta Force are a different breed. They live by a code that has more in common with the Middle Ages than the modern day. They have an understanding of honour and valour that would be lost on most people. I’d say they have my utmost respect but that simply doesn’t go far enough. To be thought good enough just to play a Delta Force sergeant is a great honour.”
As Sergeant Norm ‘Hoot’ Gibson, Bana is one of the many unfortunates who
were caught up in the Battle of Mogadishu, a key conflict in the US effort to bring stability to Somalia. Anxious to bring warlord Mohamad Farrah Aidid to justice,
the Americans found themselves up to their hips in chaos when two military helicopters were felled by local insurgents. The action captured in Scott’s film is extraordinarily intense. Like Saving Private Ryan before it, Black Hawk Down can only hint at how hellish warfare must be. But as with Steven Spielberg’s epic, the taste Scott’s picture provides is so bitter as to last forever.
With a cast that doubles as a who’s who of 21st century male movie stars, you’d think Bana would have a hard time standing out from the sizeable crowd. That he does so effortlessly has more than one cause. Firstly, at 6′ 3” he’s a lot taller than most of his co-stars. He’s also considerably more charismatic than the notional stars of the piece, Josh Hartnett and Ewan McGregor. Most remarkable of all, however, is the contrast between the cool, taciturn ‘Hoot’ and Eric’s most celebrated pre-Black Hawk performance, as infamous Aussie criminal Mark Read in Andrew Dominik’s Chopper.
Fat, thuggish, easily identifiable by his jail-house tattoos and self-mutilated ears – Chopper couldn’t have been less like ‘Hoot’ had he actually been female. But while Chopper might have won Bana his breakthrough role in Black Hawk Down, come the start of shooting, most of his co-stars were unaware of his earlier work.
“It’s true,” laughs the laidback Melbournian. “None of the other guys had much of an idea who I was. Chopper was really still only a big deal in Australia. Then some of the guys started bringing DVD players on set and one of them was sent a copy of Chopper by an Aussie mate. By the end of that week, the DVD had done the rounds. From that moment on, I couldn’t step on set without someone like Ewan McGregor or Jason Isaacs or Tom Sizemore shouting out, “Fuck me, I’ve just seen Eric in Chopper!!”