Guy Pearce
ALL ABOUT GUY PEARCE
Full Name: Guy Edward Pearce
Date of Birth: 5 October 1967
Place of Birth: Ely, Cambridgeshire, England, UK
Spouse: Kate Mestitz (March 1997 - present)
Relationship: Shaney Stone (together 1987-1993)
Family: Father - Stuart Pearce (test pilot; New Zealander; died in 1976 in an air crash), Mother - Anne Cocking (schoolteacher; British; remarried in 1983), Sister - Tracy Pearce (born in 1965), Step Father - Laurie Cocking (deer farmer)
Fan Mail: Shanahan Management
PO Box 1509
DARLINGHURST NSW 1300
AUSTRALIA
Bio:
With classic, square-jawed good looks, Australian actor Guy Pearce brings to mind the leading men of Hollywood’s Golden Age; however, the actor is a thoroughly modern one, using his talents to play characters ranging from flamboyant drag queens to straight-arrow Los Angeles policemen.
Pearce was born October 5, 1967, in Cambridgeshire, England. His father, who was a member of the Royal Air Force, moved his family to Australia when Pearce was three. Following the elder Pearce’s tragic death in a plane crash, Pearce’s mother decided to keep her family in Australia when young Pearce was eight, and it was there that he grew up. Interested in acting from a young age, he wrote to various members of the Australian television industry requesting a screen test when he was 17. His efforts proved worthwhile, as he was invited to audition for a new soap called Neighbours. Pearce won a significant part on the show and was part of it from 1986 to 1990. Following his stint on Neighbours, Pearce found other work in television and made his screen debut in the 1992 film Hunting. He acted in a few more small films and in My Forgotten Man, a 1993 TV biopic of Errol Flynn, before coming to the attention of film audiences everywhere in the 1994 sleeper hit The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert. As the flamboyant and often infuriating Adam/Felicia, Pearce gave a performance that was both over the top and immensely satisfying. The role gave him the international exposure he had previously lacked and led to his casting in Curtis Hanson’s 1997 adaptation of James Ellroy’s L.A. Confidential. The film was an all-around success and drew raves for Pearce and his co-stars, who included Kevin Spacey, Danny DeVito, Kim Basinger (who won a Best Supporting Actress Oscar for her performance) and fellow Australian Russell Crowe.
After the success of L.A. Confidential, Pearce went on to make the independent A Slipping Down Life, which premiered at Sundance in 1999. He followed that with the highly original but fatally unmarketable Ravenous (1999), Antonia Bird’s tale of chaos and cannibalism which cast Pearce alongside the likes of David Arquette and Robert Carlyle. Though his role in the following year’s military drama Rules of Engagement would offer a commendable performance by the rising star, it was another film that same year that would cement his status as one of the most challenging and unpredictable performers of his generation. Cast as a vengeance seeking, tattoo-covered widower whose inability to form new memories hinders his frantic search for his wife’s killer, Pearce’s unforgettable performance in the backwards-structured thriller Memento drove what would ultimately become one of the biggest sleepers in box office history. Pearce was now officially hot property on the Hollywood scene, and producers wasted no time in booking him for as many upcoming blockbusters as they could. A memorable performance as the villain in The Count of Monte Cristo found Pearce traveling back in time for his next film, and his subsequent role in The Time Machine would find him blasting so far into the future that mankind had reverted to the days of prehistoric times. A trip to the land down under found Pearce next appearing as a hapless bank robber in the critically panned crime effort The Hard Word, and the popular actor would remain in Australia for the elliptical drama Till Human Voices Wake Us (2002). In 2004, Pearce played a lion hunter in the family-oriented epic Two Brothers
Trivia:
Literally gazed into the eye of the tiger, at close range and without protection, during the shooting of TWO BROTHERS. (June 29, 2004)
At the age of fifteen or sixteen, he won the Mr. Junior Victoria body building competition.
Broke a rib during the filming of THE TIME MACHINE.
His character in THE TIME MACHINE shows us an electric toothbrush he has invented; in the movie TIME AFTER TIME, Malcolm
McDowell (playing HG Wells) has a humorous encounter with a similar toothbrush.
The first time he travels backwards in time, he goes to buy flowers at the Fleur de Lis Flower shop. In LA CONFIDENTIAL, Guy
Pearce investigates a prostitution ring called the Fleur de Lis (THE TIME MACHINE (2002))
Colour of eyes: Piercing Blue
Colour of hair: Light brown
Hobbies: Write and play music
Favourite actor/actress: Robert DeNiro/Wendy Hughes
Favourite Music: Kate Bush
Favourite Writer: Johan Wolfgang von Goethe
Favourite Film: THE ELEPHANT MAN
Tries to be vegetarian
Was ranked #17 in E’s Most Sexiest Men in Entertainment 2002
Was ranked #20 in E’s Most Sexiest Men in Entertainment 2003
Quotes:
“You meet these people who are confident all the time. They annoy me. And I wonder if it’s because I’m envious or if it’s because they’re shallow.”
(talking about his living arrangements with his wife in 2004)” I want us to move in together again but she’s not sure if she wants to. She’s got used to seven years of independence. I guess it serves me right.”
“When I go to a movie, I’m always thrilled if I’ve seen an actor do something and I didn’t realize until the end of the movie that that was that person. I love that.”
“The good thing is, really, if I’m to do a role where I want to put some muscle on, it doesn’t take long back at the gym, because of muscle memory. It doesn’t take long to go, “Okay, we’re back!”"
“I have to admit, the only thing I feel comfortable doing in my life is singing. I’ve always sung and played music whether it was the saxophone in school or now learning the guitar, playing the piano, whatever. It’s a great form of expression for me and it really grounds me. I generally operate on a high frequency, I tend to be quite anxious, so it slows me down.”
“I’ll have a different answer tomorrow that I do today.”
“I haven’t done too many big American movies, really, have I? Well, I’ve a couple, I suppose. I certainly haven’t done as many as I could have done.”
“I grew up doing musicals. I’ve done so many musicals in my life, I kind of got them out of my system. But, I certainly would be open to them. Rocky Horror Show is a big favorite of mine.”
“I always look at films as real stories with real people in real situations. That’s why I struggle with the whole notion of calling someone the ‘good guy’ or the ‘bad guy,’ because I think we all have potential to do good things and all have the potential to do bad things.”
“Even though we all speak English here in America, you all speak a very different language. So it’s really enjoyable for me to work at home. It’s more cathartic, I suppose. To work in America or other places is more about curiosity, because I’m dealing with cultures and sensibilities that I don’t really know.”
“You meet these people who are confident all the time. They annoy me. And I wonder if it’s because I’m envious or if it’s because they’re shallow.”
Filmography:
Guy Pearce Filmography as an Actor:
2009 Kevin Approaches
2009 Last Man
2008 Bedtime Stories
2008 The Road
2008 In Her Skin
2008 Traitor
2008 The Hurt Locker
2008 Winged Creatures
2007 Death Defying Acts
2007 First Snow
2006 Factory Girl
2005 The Proposition
2004 Two Brothers
2002 The Count of Monte Cristo
2002 Till Human Voices Wake Us
2002 The Hard Word
2002 The Time Machine
2000 Rules of Engagement
2000 Memento
1999 A Slipping-Down Life
1999 Ravenous
1997 L.A. Confidential
1996 Dating the Enemy
1994 The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert
1993 Flynn
1990 Hunting
1990 Heaven Tonight
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