STAGES Episode 523: BRUCE SPENCE - PT1

STAGES with Peter Eyers

Bruce Spence is a cherished elder and pioneer of Australian theatre and cinema. He remains a vital presence on these platforms and was recently seen in the Sydney Theatre Company’s production of Angus Cerini’s Into the Shimmering World. The year also saw Bruce acknowledged as the recipient of the 2024 Equity Lifetime Achievement award.

Bruce began his acting career in Melbourne in the late 1960s as an inaugural member of the revolutionary Australian Performing Group while studying painting and printmaking at the National Gallery Art School. The APG developed an Australian voice for the stage, allowing audiences to see their culture presented in vivid stories for the theatre. The group inhabited iconic venues such as The Pram Factory and La Mama, with Bruce contributing to seminal works such as David Williamson’s The Removalists and The Coming of Stork, Jack Hibberd’s Dimboola and Barry Oakley’s The Feet of Daniel Mannix.

His first MainStage production was The Alchemist, with the South Australian Theatre Company. A long and distinguished stage career includes numerous credits with the South Australian Theatre Company, the Melbourne Theatre Company, Griffin and Sydney Theatre Company in repertoire as diverse as Les Miserables, As You Like It, The White Devil, Under Milkwood, Cyrano de Bergerac and The Importance of Being Earnest.

Bruce made his film debut in the title role of Stork in1971, for which he won the AFI Award for Best Actor. Since then he has amassed over 100 film and television credits including The Cars That Ate Paris, Eliza Fraser, Mad Max 2, Dimboola, Narnia 3: The Voyage of the Dawn Treader, Peter Pan, The Year My Voice Broke, Cloudstreet, Finding Nemo, Newsfront, The Dry, The Drovers Wife, Mad Dog Morgan, and Ten Pound Poms. Bruce is the only actor to have appeared in each of the Matrix, Star Wars and Lord of the Rings series of films.

Bruce has been a proud Equity member since 1971, served as NSW State President, Federal Vice President and chaired the Actors Benevolent Fund of NSW from 2019 to 2023.

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