Latest news with #TheAdventuresofPriscilla
Time Out
6 hours ago
- Entertainment
- Time Out
Kimpton Maa-Lai Bangkok rolls out the rainbow carpet for Pride Film Festival
Pride is in full bloom this month, with celebrations lighting up every corner of Bangkok in a dazzling display of colour, love and unity. And Kimpton Maa-Lai Bangkok isn't sitting this one out. For the fifth year in a row, the hotel is rolling out the rainbow carpet with its Pride Film Festival – an annual tribute to every shade of love, every voice and the power of storytelling to inspire change. Happening on June 13-14, this two-day queer cinema event brings together four award-winning flicks that shine a light on LGBTQ+ lives, love and everything in between. In partnership with the Australian Embassy in Thailand, the lineup features powerful stories from Thailand and around the world. Each one is chosen to spark conversation and connection. All films have English subtitles. Here's what's playing: Malila: The Farewell Flower – June 13, 7pmAn intimate Thai drama exploring queer love, grief, and spirituality through the story of two former lovers reconnecting. The Miseducation of Cameron Post – 14 June, 3pmA poignant coming-of-age film about a teen girl sent to a conversion therapy centre, where she discovers friendship and self-worth. God's Own Country – 14 June, 5pmA raw and tender British romance between a young Yorkshire farmer and a Romanian migrant worker. The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert – 14 June, 7.30pmA glittering cult classic that follows two drag queens and a trans woman on a road trip across the Australian outback, serving looks, laughs and liberation. To make the experience even more intimate and welcoming, all screenings will be held at the cosy Maa-Lai Library on the 30th floor with free entry for those who reserve here in advance. Come as you are and settle in with stunning skyline views, signature snacks and drinks available for purchase. Seats are limited and available on a first-come, first-served basis. And the extravaganza doesn't stop there. On June 14 from 5pm 'til late, the party climbs to new heights at with 'Proud & Loud: Queen of the Desert'. This sky-high soiree on the 40th floor turns up the fabulous with a night of unapologetic joy, fierce drag and rainbow realness. Get ready for electrifying solo sets by iconic drag queens Meannie Minaj, ZEPEE and Kandy Zyanide at 9.45pm onwards. Each will bring their own flair before coming together for a grand finale inspired by The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert. Come loud, come proud and come ready to slay.
Yahoo
23-04-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Robert Irwin—shirtless & with a snake around his neck—revealed as 'DWTS' contestant
The first celebrity announced as a competitor for Dancing With the Stars season 34 is none other than Australian heartthrob Robert Irwin — who walked into a press event fully shirtless, with a snake around his neck (à la Britney Spears at the VMAs), and a nod to the 1994 Australian queer film The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert. Sign up for the to keep up with what's new in LGBTQ+ culture and entertainment — delivered three times a week straight (well…) to your inbox! The 21-year-old son of the late Steve Irwin — otherwise known as the "Crocodile Hunter" — has been making headlines lately for his steamy underwear campaigns. Now, the Australian bombshell is entering the ballroom and making a huge splash with an announcement that already had him shirtless and playing with snakes. On Tuesday, April 22, Hulu hosted an event called Get Real House to preview some of its programming in the reality TV genre. DWTS cohosts Julianne Hough and Alfonso Ribeiro, along with mainstay judge Derek Hough, revealed Irwin as the first contestant joining season 34 of the long-running dance competition series. In a series of Instagram stories, the Hough siblings excitedly welcomed Irwin into the DWTS universe as he walked around shirtless, in full control of the snake around his neck, and casually revealing that the snake was named Priscilla — which immediately connected the dots to The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert, an Australian queer classic film from 1994. In subsequent videos, Julianne Hough had the snake around her neck and served the full Britney Spears performing "I'm a Slave 4 U" at the 2001 VMAs fantasy as Irwin stuck around to make sure that everything was going smoothly between Priscilla and Jules. Derek Hough then tugged at everyone's heartstrings by sharing nostalgic videos of Robert's sister, Bindi Irwin, who competed on DWTS season 21 back in 2015. Derek, who was Bindi's pro dancing partner during that season, went on to win the Mirrorball Trophy right by her side. "10 years in the making," Derek Hough wrote over one of the videos via Instagram stories. There we have it: Robert Irwin is officially entering the DWTS ballroom very soon. season 34 is coming soon to , Hulu, and ABC.
Yahoo
03-04-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Heard about The Ghan, Australia's famous train? Try The Indian Pacific instead
This article was produced by National Geographic Traveller (UK). Three hours: that's how long it takes Shelita Buffet to get ready. There are false eyelashes to glue and cheekbones to contour; there's a neon-bright wig to preen and a sequined pink leotard to tug on — and then there's the generous application of glitter to beard. Looking this good takes time. The first honeyed rays of dawn have only just begun to wash into the mining town of Broken Hill and Shelita is standing on the station platform in a pair of blocky white heels, watching as I step off the train. I'd boarded in Sydney the day before, leaving behind the skyscrapers and the Opera House's monumental clutch of alabaster shells to make tracks on a journey of continental proportions, rattling east to west across the bottom of Australia aboard the Indian Pacific. It's a journey of 2,704 miles in all from Sydney to Perth, roughly equivalent to travelling from London to Moscow and halfway back over the course of three days. Around the midway point we'll pass through the Nullarbor Plain — a landscape so arid it was once described by Victorian explorer Edward John Eyre as 'the sort of place one gets into in bad dreams'. Broken Hill is one of the stops en route, a remote town 300 miles northeast of Adelaide — in what undoubtedly qualifies as the middle of nowhere. Many might assume that this outback outpost may not be the most progressive place, given the traditional reputation that back-of-beyond country towns generally have. But drag queens like Shelita have long reigned here. At least, they have since the 1990s, when original royalty Mitzi, Bernadette and Felicia first rolled in on their clapped-out bus, en route through the outback to perform in Alice Springs. Shelita is a local and tells me she remembers when the cult classic Australian film The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert came out. She was seven, and many of her parents' friends appeared in it as extras. 'At that time, I had no idea what a drag queen even was,' she says, as we embark on a tour of the town. 'It wasn't until my teenage years that I realised what the movie was about.' Silver was discovered nearby in 1885, and many of the road names in Broken Hill now take their inspiration from the elements: there's Cobalt Street, Crystal Lane, Sulphide Street. As we reach Argent Street's broad avenue, the only sign of life this early in the morning comes from a tree dotted with squawking, white tufts — cockatoos. We pause opposite The Palace Hotel, where an ornate balcony wraps around the second of its three floors in a melange of heritage iron lacework worthy of an Old West saloon. Built originally as a 'coffee palace' in 1889 for the then-princely sum of £12,190, to provide a teetotal alternative to the alcohol-fuelled hotels, it's now known for its collection of maximalist 1980s-era murals that featured heavily in the film — among them an unconvincing reproduction of Botticelli's Birth of Venus. 'It's an iconic building as the home of Priscilla,' Shelita says, placing one manicured hand on her hip, as we take it in from the shade of a shop's domed veranda, the sun now beginning to heat the dry air. At the town's peak in 1915, around 35,000 people lived in Broken Hill. Today, it's a rather sleepier place: old train carriages gently decay in station yards; a lone man in overalls thumbs a newspaper on a terrace; at the end of a broad, straight boulevard, a slag heap from ongoing mining looms ever taller. Back in the day, trains like the Silver City Comet were a lifeline through the surrounding wilderness to Sydney to the east. It went by another moniker: the Rattler, named for its party trick of rattling tea out of cups as it traversed the uneven terrain. I'm travelling in comparatively more comfort. Back at the station, I leave Shelita and climb on board the Indian Pacific in time for a late breakfast. As the train heaves off from Broken Hill, an orchestra of squeaks, rattles and creaks starts up, the soundtrack of the carriages that strain to follow the same path they have for the past 50 years. I head to the Queen Adelaide dining car, which appears likewise much as it always has, time capsule-like in its undying commitment to all things retro: the browns and golds, the white tablecloths, the gilded ceiling panels and etched glass booth dividers framed by faux-Grecian columns. Breakfast today is a mix of both refined and unrefined Australian dining: creamy scrambled eggs with hot smoked trout, and a side of toast with Vegemite. Slowly, freight carriages and pylons pass beyond the windows to reveal a broad, flat plain of blue-green saltbush, broken up by dry creeks and gaping maws of that characteristic red earth. Every so often, a kangaroo raises its smooth head to watch our locomotive interloper, or an emu sprints on gangly legs in the direction of the great, flat horizon. Out here in the Australian bush, the only measure of time's passing comes from the steady arc of the sun. Clouds waft overhead, the dust settles as the breeze softens, and the world seems to hold its breath. Traversing the breadth of Australia by train is a considerable feat of engineering. Back in the 20th century, around the time of the Rattler, the beginnings of a cross-country railway did exist, but it was missing a central belt between Kalgoorlie and Port Augusta, spanning almost 1,243 miles. Western Australia was instead reached via treacherous sea voyages across the Great Australian Bight. Why this was deemed preferable is unsurprising — consider the technology, the sheer grit and determination, required to cross the breadth of a continent generally characterised by the inhospitality of its landscape. With the gold fields of Western Australia too isolated in a newly federated country, the first tracks of what would become the Trans-Australian Railway were laid in 1912 — using picks, shovels, carthorses and camels. Five years, 2.5 million hardwood sleepers and 140,000 tonnes of rail later, it was done. In 1969, the route was rebuilt and extended from Sydney to Perth, making it possible to ride a train 62 hours between the Pacific and the Indian Ocean for the first time. And the first passenger train to make the full crossing? The Indian Pacific. That evening, I crank open the blinds in my cabin to better watch the stars, so bright and clear in the inky darkness that they're more like beacons than pinpricks. Some time during the night, we cross into the Nullarbor, the place from John Edward Eyre's nightmares. It's here that the Indian Pacific quietens, its familiar clanking rhythms fading to a low, continual rumble. Where the route to Broken Hill had been thunderous, rattling skeletons as much as it once did teacups, the passage west feels calm and straight, almost like we've left all trace of land behind and set sail on the calmest lake. At some far-flung point in history, this vast expanse of limestone bedrock was an ancient seabed, which rose from the waves over the millennia at this near-southernmost edge of the world. There are few trees on the Nullarbor because the soil is a calcium-rich loam, derived mainly from unfathomable quantities of seashells. The following morning, the magic of the Nullarbor unfolds beyond the window. I watch, transfixed, from my narrow bunk — it's monotonous yet somehow utterly entertaining. Only sporadic, low-lying pockets of stunted eucalypts, saltbush and wild acacia break up the great expanse of perfectly flat, Lucozade-red earth, which unfurls in seemingly limitless quantities in every direction, beyond every window. Few places on Earth are so featureless, few horizons so unbroken for so long. It's a view that tugs at your feet and suggests you take a long walk. But set off here, and trouble surely follows; daytime temperatures can reach 50C, the plains go on for around 124,000 sq miles, and there's a reason why its Aboriginal name is 'Oondiri', or 'the waterless'. Australia is the sixth-largest country in the world, about 30 times the size of the UK, and on this mighty plateau you finally gauge a sense of its mammoth scale. This, the longest straight stretch of train track in the world, is even identifiable from space. Edward John Eyre was the first European to cross the Nullarbor on foot in 1840-41. He walked in the footsteps of three Aboriginal guides, eating kangaroos and sucking water from the roots of gumtrees to survive. Partway across they also ate their horses, and not long after that two of the guides mutinied — the year-long crossing only succeeding thanks to supplies donated from a passing French whaling vessel. Our crossing will take just over a day, with the contemporary luxuries of live music, air conditioning and an open bar — although in the Queen Adelaide dining car, kangaroo is still on the menu. In the lounge car, the train's equivalent of a living room one carriage along from the restaurant, proximity fosters conversation and friendships forge easily. Sitting on one of the pink banquettes facing each other across the narrow aisle, a tall man wearing a backwards cap offers the passenger next to him a crisp. 'Don't mind if I do!', says a passing septuagenarian, flashing a grin as he takes one. It's after lunchtime, and the carriage's usual soundtrack of light jazz and clinking wine glasses is punctuated with shouts of 'Indiana!' and 'North Dakota!' as a group makes a game of trying to name the 50 US states from memory. By evening, they'll switch to telling ghost stories. On the Nullarbor, the art of doing nothing becomes an Olympic sport. For there's virtually nothing here — its name is from the Latin nullus arbor, meaning 'no trees'. The Groundhog Day nature of the landscape means the world narrows to just 27 carriages. At first, it makes you feel nervous — what will you do? — but then your thoughts slow and you remember you like reading. You strike up conversations with strangers in the hallway, barely wide enough for one, grinning sheepishly and scuttling into your cabin like a crab evading the tide whenever another passenger needs to pass. Or you lie back on your bunk and watch all that nothing roll by. There's a screech as the train slows, red earth still rolling beyond one bank of windows, a grove of eucalypts now visible through the other. Once it stops, we step out into the dust one by one, our boots crunching on a fine layer of terracotta scree. It could be Mars — not least for its sense of utmost remoteness. We're still on the Nullarbor, as we have been for more than 24 hours now, around 620 miles from Adelaide but still some 1,000 from Perth. To my right, beyond the locomotive, the tracks plough on before surrendering to the horizon. Ahead, a jumble of low-lying houses is just visible through the trees. The township of Cook was established in 1917 as a service centre for the transcontinental railway, with a school, hospital, general store and golf course. Around 300 people lived here at its height, with the weekly 'Tea and Sugar' train supplying the families with sheep, groceries, haircuts — even a present-wielding Santa at Christmas. But by 1997, when the Australian National Railway was sold, it was decided that the town was only needed as a watering and refuelling station — and, almost overnight, it all closed. Cook became a near-ghost town. There are now no permanent residents, though a handful of railway workers endure. I walk towards the houses, the train's riveted stainless-steel carriages an incongruous procession of silver bullets in an otherwise elemental landscape. I pass a signpost pointing to Sydney, Perth and Souvenirs — though the word 'Souvenirs' has been scratched out. A flaccid windsock briefly stirs as a breeze whispers across the plain. Electricity wires undulate overhead; the only sound, beyond the low rumble of our refuelling train and the crunching of my boots, is the lonely call of a little black-and-white bird perched on one of the pylons. Ahead, town caretaker Brady Bennett is leaning against a low fence in a fluorescent orange jacket, attempting to flatten his cowlicked silver hair with such fervour that I wonder when he last had a visitor. 'G'day!' he calls over to me with a thick Australian accent, his eyes concealed behind dark glasses, his skin blushing pink from the sun. 'I'm Brady, like the Bunch.' He tells me he used to work in mining but now cleans the train drivers' quarters, usually remaining here for three weeks — sometimes up to six — before getting a week off. I ask him if it ever gets boring at the heart of the Nullarbor. 'Waking up every morning like this? How's that boring?' he says, his tone incredulous. 'I like the quiet — when I knock off, I go back to my house to have a couple of tinnies and listen to my records, do a bit of gardening.' He points to his house on the end of the row, where spiky succulents emerge from the gravel. On a rusted barrel, he's lined up a row of toy cars with the precision of a drill sergeant. 'I live in Adelaide, but I hate city life really. The traffic jams, everything else. Here there's no traffic, no roundabouts, no crime,' he says. 'I've got a couple of friends here. You sort of keep to yourself but sometimes you might go and have a drink or two with 'em, sometimes we'll have a fire out front and have a yarn. It really is the simple life.' He pauses thoughtfully, before adding: 'But if I want a hamburger, it's 140Ks that way.' He points back the way I've come along the tracks. Brady directs me along the path to the remnants of the school, past a decaying basketball court, the hoops' nets a tangle of forlorn strings. When I find it, decades spent beneath the Nullarbor sun have begun to erase all evidence: windowpanes peel, machinery rusts orange and an outbuilding classroom slowly turns to splinters, the bleached dingo painted on one side now a ghostly apparition in a field of desert flowers. The next morning on the train, I wake to something I've not properly seen for days, and Brady hasn't seen for weeks: water. So much of it that it froths and churns in the sunrise's amber light, threatening to spill over the rocky banks and surge into the forested hills that rise steeply on either side. The view through the windows is jarringly bucolic, the red earth of the Nullarbor traded overnight via scenic sleight of hand for green, endless green. The Avon River washes far below and runs parallel to the train tracks; in the far distance, trees dot emerald hummocks like broccoli florets. After a few hours, the Avon meets the Swan, the mighty watercourse that begins north east of Perth and coils right through the heart of the Western Australian capital before washing out to sea. As we approach the city, humanity appears in greater and greater concentrations: coffee-drinking suburbanites drive to work; people cycle between low bungalows; and workers tend to rows of manicured grapevines. And then I see them: skyscrapers emerging from the haze on the distant blue horizon. Over three days, we've crossed the breadth of Australia from the Pacific to the Indian Ocean, from Sydney to this westernmost terminus, via a landscape so empty that ours were the only footprints for thousands of miles. And now, with a jolt, we're about to rejoin society. Published in the April 2025 issue of National Geographic Traveller (UK).To subscribe to National Geographic Traveller (UK) magazine click here. (Available in select countries only).
National Geographic
03-04-2025
- Entertainment
- National Geographic
Heard about The Ghan, Australia's famous train? Try The Indian Pacific instead
This article was produced by National Geographic Traveller (UK). Three hours: that's how long it takes Shelita Buffet to get ready. There are false eyelashes to glue and cheekbones to contour; there's a neon-bright wig to preen and a sequined pink leotard to tug on — and then there's the generous application of glitter to beard. Looking this good takes time. The first honeyed rays of dawn have only just begun to wash into the mining town of Broken Hill and Shelita is standing on the station platform in a pair of blocky white heels, watching as I step off the train. I'd boarded in Sydney the day before, leaving behind the skyscrapers and the Opera House's monumental clutch of alabaster shells to make tracks on a journey of continental proportions, rattling east to west across the bottom of Australia aboard the Indian Pacific. It's a journey of 2,704 miles in all from Sydney to Perth, roughly equivalent to travelling from London to Moscow and halfway back over the course of three days. Around the midway point we'll pass through the Nullarbor Plain — a landscape so arid it was once described by Victorian explorer Edward John Eyre as 'the sort of place one gets into in bad dreams'. Broken Hill is one of the stops en route, a remote town 300 miles northeast of Adelaide — in what undoubtedly qualifies as the middle of nowhere. Many might assume that this outback outpost may not be the most progressive place, given the traditional reputation that back-of-beyond country towns generally have. But drag queens like Shelita have long reigned here. At least, they have since the 1990s, when original royalty Mitzi, Bernadette and Felicia first rolled in on their clapped-out bus, en route through the outback to perform in Alice Springs. Shelita is a local and tells me she remembers when the cult classic Australian film The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert came out. She was seven, and many of her parents' friends appeared in it as extras. 'At that time, I had no idea what a drag queen even was,' she says, as we embark on a tour of the town. 'It wasn't until my teenage years that I realised what the movie was about.' The Palace Hotel in Broken Hill featured in the classic 1994 film The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert. Photograph by Irjaliina Paavonpera Local drag queen Shelita Buffet has many friends and family members who appeared as extras in the queer cult classic film. Photograph by Irjaliina Paavonpera Silver was discovered nearby in 1885, and many of the road names in Broken Hill now take their inspiration from the elements: there's Cobalt Street, Crystal Lane, Sulphide Street. As we reach Argent Street's broad avenue, the only sign of life this early in the morning comes from a tree dotted with squawking, white tufts — cockatoos. We pause opposite The Palace Hotel, where an ornate balcony wraps around the second of its three floors in a melange of heritage iron lacework worthy of an Old West saloon. Built originally as a 'coffee palace' in 1889 for the then-princely sum of £12,190, to provide a teetotal alternative to the alcohol-fuelled hotels, it's now known for its collection of maximalist 1980s-era murals that featured heavily in the film — among them an unconvincing reproduction of Botticelli's Birth of Venus. 'It's an iconic building as the home of Priscilla,' Shelita says, placing one manicured hand on her hip, as we take it in from the shade of a shop's domed veranda, the sun now beginning to heat the dry air. At the town's peak in 1915, around 35,000 people lived in Broken Hill. Today, it's a rather sleepier place: old train carriages gently decay in station yards; a lone man in overalls thumbs a newspaper on a terrace; at the end of a broad, straight boulevard, a slag heap from ongoing mining looms ever taller. Back in the day, trains like the Silver City Comet were a lifeline through the surrounding wilderness to Sydney to the east. It went by another moniker: the Rattler, named for its party trick of rattling tea out of cups as it traversed the uneven terrain. The Queen Adelaide dining car juxtaposes its modern service with retro design. Photograph by Irjaliina Paavonpera (Top) (Left) and Photograph by Irjaliina Paavonpera (Bottom) (Right) I'm travelling in comparatively more comfort. Back at the station, I leave Shelita and climb on board the Indian Pacific in time for a late breakfast. As the train heaves off from Broken Hill, an orchestra of squeaks, rattles and creaks starts up, the soundtrack of the carriages that strain to follow the same path they have for the past 50 years. I head to the Queen Adelaide dining car, which appears likewise much as it always has, time capsule-like in its undying commitment to all things retro: the browns and golds, the white tablecloths, the gilded ceiling panels and etched glass booth dividers framed by faux-Grecian columns. Breakfast today is a mix of both refined and unrefined Australian dining: creamy scrambled eggs with hot smoked trout, and a side of toast with Vegemite. Slowly, freight carriages and pylons pass beyond the windows to reveal a broad, flat plain of blue-green saltbush, broken up by dry creeks and gaping maws of that characteristic red earth. Every so often, a kangaroo raises its smooth head to watch our locomotive interloper, or an emu sprints on gangly legs in the direction of the great, flat horizon. Out here in the Australian bush, the only measure of time's passing comes from the steady arc of the sun. Clouds waft overhead, the dust settles as the breeze softens, and the world seems to hold its breath. The big empty Traversing the breadth of Australia by train is a considerable feat of engineering. Back in the 20th century, around the time of the Rattler, the beginnings of a cross-country railway did exist, but it was missing a central belt between Kalgoorlie and Port Augusta, spanning almost 1,243 miles. Western Australia was instead reached via treacherous sea voyages across the Great Australian Bight. Why this was deemed preferable is unsurprising — consider the technology, the sheer grit and determination, required to cross the breadth of a continent generally characterised by the inhospitality of its landscape. With the gold fields of Western Australia too isolated in a newly federated country, the first tracks of what would become the Trans-Australian Railway were laid in 1912 — using picks, shovels, carthorses and camels. Five years, 2.5 million hardwood sleepers and 140,000 tonnes of rail later, it was done. In 1969, the route was rebuilt and extended from Sydney to Perth, making it possible to ride a train 62 hours between the Pacific and the Indian Ocean for the first time. And the first passenger train to make the full crossing? The Indian Pacific. Aboard the Indian Pacific, passengers get front row seats for magnificent sunsets on the Nullarbor Plain. Photograph by Irjaliina Paavonpera That evening, I crank open the blinds in my cabin to better watch the stars, so bright and clear in the inky darkness that they're more like beacons than pinpricks. Some time during the night, we cross into the Nullarbor, the place from John Edward Eyre's nightmares. It's here that the Indian Pacific quietens, its familiar clanking rhythms fading to a low, continual rumble. Where the route to Broken Hill had been thunderous, rattling skeletons as much as it once did teacups, the passage west feels calm and straight, almost like we've left all trace of land behind and set sail on the calmest lake. At some far-flung point in history, this vast expanse of limestone bedrock was an ancient seabed, which rose from the waves over the millennia at this near-southernmost edge of the world. There are few trees on the Nullarbor because the soil is a calcium-rich loam, derived mainly from unfathomable quantities of seashells. The following morning, the magic of the Nullarbor unfolds beyond the window. I watch, transfixed, from my narrow bunk — it's monotonous yet somehow utterly entertaining. Only sporadic, low-lying pockets of stunted eucalypts, saltbush and wild acacia break up the great expanse of perfectly flat, Lucozade-red earth, which unfurls in seemingly limitless quantities in every direction, beyond every window. Few places on Earth are so featureless, few horizons so unbroken for so long. It's a view that tugs at your feet and suggests you take a long walk. But set off here, and trouble surely follows; daytime temperatures can reach 50C, the plains go on for around 124,000 sq miles, and there's a reason why its Aboriginal name is 'Oondiri', or 'the waterless'. Australia is the sixth-largest country in the world, about 30 times the size of the UK, and on this mighty plateau you finally gauge a sense of its mammoth scale. This, the longest straight stretch of train track in the world, is even identifiable from space. The stripped landscape of Nullarbor invites for self-reflection and slowing down. Photograph by Irjaliina Paavonpera Edward John Eyre was the first European to cross the Nullarbor on foot in 1840-41. He walked in the footsteps of three Aboriginal guides, eating kangaroos and sucking water from the roots of gumtrees to survive. Partway across they also ate their horses, and not long after that two of the guides mutinied — the year-long crossing only succeeding thanks to supplies donated from a passing French whaling vessel. Our crossing will take just over a day, with the contemporary luxuries of live music, air conditioning and an open bar — although in the Queen Adelaide dining car, kangaroo is still on the menu. In the lounge car, the train's equivalent of a living room one carriage along from the restaurant, proximity fosters conversation and friendships forge easily. Sitting on one of the pink banquettes facing each other across the narrow aisle, a tall man wearing a backwards cap offers the passenger next to him a crisp. 'Don't mind if I do!', says a passing septuagenarian, flashing a grin as he takes one. It's after lunchtime, and the carriage's usual soundtrack of light jazz and clinking wine glasses is punctuated with shouts of 'Indiana!' and 'North Dakota!' as a group makes a game of trying to name the 50 US states from memory. By evening, they'll switch to telling ghost stories. On the Nullarbor, the art of doing nothing becomes an Olympic sport. For there's virtually nothing here — its name is from the Latin nullus arbor, meaning 'no trees'. The Groundhog Day nature of the landscape means the world narrows to just 27 carriages. At first, it makes you feel nervous — what will you do? — but then your thoughts slow and you remember you like reading. You strike up conversations with strangers in the hallway, barely wide enough for one, grinning sheepishly and scuttling into your cabin like a crab evading the tide whenever another passenger needs to pass. Or you lie back on your bunk and watch all that nothing roll by. The township of Cook was established in 1917 as a service centre for the transcontinental railway, with a school, hospital, general store and golf course. Photograph by Irjaliina Paavonpera The ghost of the Nullarbor There's a screech as the train slows, red earth still rolling beyond one bank of windows, a grove of eucalypts now visible through the other. Once it stops, we step out into the dust one by one, our boots crunching on a fine layer of terracotta scree. It could be Mars — not least for its sense of utmost remoteness. We're still on the Nullarbor, as we have been for more than 24 hours now, around 620 miles from Adelaide but still some 1,000 from Perth. To my right, beyond the locomotive, the tracks plough on before surrendering to the horizon. Ahead, a jumble of low-lying houses is just visible through the trees. The township of Cook was established in 1917 as a service centre for the transcontinental railway, with a school, hospital, general store and golf course. Around 300 people lived here at its height, with the weekly 'Tea and Sugar' train supplying the families with sheep, groceries, haircuts — even a present-wielding Santa at Christmas. But by 1997, when the Australian National Railway was sold, it was decided that the town was only needed as a watering and refuelling station — and, almost overnight, it all closed. Cook became a near-ghost town. There are now no permanent residents, though a handful of railway workers endure. I walk towards the houses, the train's riveted stainless-steel carriages an incongruous procession of silver bullets in an otherwise elemental landscape. I pass a signpost pointing to Sydney, Perth and Souvenirs — though the word 'Souvenirs' has been scratched out. A flaccid windsock briefly stirs as a breeze whispers across the plain. Electricity wires undulate overhead; the only sound, beyond the low rumble of our refuelling train and the crunching of my boots, is the lonely call of a little black-and-white bird perched on one of the pylons. Ahead, town caretaker Brady Bennett is leaning against a low fence in a fluorescent orange jacket, attempting to flatten his cowlicked silver hair with such fervour that I wonder when he last had a visitor. 'G'day!' he calls over to me with a thick Australian accent, his eyes concealed behind dark glasses, his skin blushing pink from the sun. 'I'm Brady, like the Bunch.' He tells me he used to work in mining but now cleans the train drivers' quarters, usually remaining here for three weeks — sometimes up to six — before getting a week off. I ask him if it ever gets boring at the heart of the Nullarbor. 'Waking up every morning like this? How's that boring?' he says, his tone incredulous. 'I like the quiet — when I knock off, I go back to my house to have a couple of tinnies and listen to my records, do a bit of gardening.' He points to his house on the end of the row, where spiky succulents emerge from the gravel. On a rusted barrel, he's lined up a row of toy cars with the precision of a drill sergeant. 'I live in Adelaide, but I hate city life really. The traffic jams, everything else. Here there's no traffic, no roundabouts, no crime,' he says. 'I've got a couple of friends here. You sort of keep to yourself but sometimes you might go and have a drink or two with 'em, sometimes we'll have a fire out front and have a yarn. It really is the simple life.' He pauses thoughtfully, before adding: 'But if I want a hamburger, it's 140Ks that way.' He points back the way I've come along the tracks. Brady directs me along the path to the remnants of the school, past a decaying basketball court, the hoops' nets a tangle of forlorn strings. When I find it, decades spent beneath the Nullarbor sun have begun to erase all evidence: windowpanes peel, machinery rusts orange and an outbuilding classroom slowly turns to splinters, the bleached dingo painted on one side now a ghostly apparition in a field of desert flowers. Passengers spot emus and kangaroos and other curiosities straight from their seat. Photograph by Irjaliina Paavonpera The next morning on the train, I wake to something I've not properly seen for days, and Brady hasn't seen for weeks: water. So much of it that it froths and churns in the sunrise's amber light, threatening to spill over the rocky banks and surge into the forested hills that rise steeply on either side. The view through the windows is jarringly bucolic, the red earth of the Nullarbor traded overnight via scenic sleight of hand for green, endless green. The Avon River washes far below and runs parallel to the train tracks; in the far distance, trees dot emerald hummocks like broccoli florets. After a few hours, the Avon meets the Swan, the mighty watercourse that begins north east of Perth and coils right through the heart of the Western Australian capital before washing out to sea. As we approach the city, humanity appears in greater and greater concentrations: coffee-drinking suburbanites drive to work; people cycle between low bungalows; and workers tend to rows of manicured grapevines. And then I see them: skyscrapers emerging from the haze on the distant blue horizon. Over three days, we've crossed the breadth of Australia from the Pacific to the Indian Ocean, from Sydney to this westernmost terminus, via a landscape so empty that ours were the only footprints for thousands of miles. And now, with a jolt, we're about to rejoin society. How to do it Getting there & around No airlines fly direct from the UK to Sydney, where the Indian Pacific departs. Airlines including Emirates, Average flight time: 22h. flies direct to Perth from London, with a flight time of around 17 hours. The Indian Pacific travels from Sydney to Perth, with stops in Broken Hill, Adelaide and Cook; and Perth to Sydney, with stops in Kalgoorlie, Cook, the Barossa Valley and Broken Hill. The latter itinerary is a day longer. There's a choice of excursions on each. When to go The southern belt, including Perth, Sydney and Adelaide, has Australia's warmest weather, with average highs in the mid-30Cs in summer (December to February), coinciding with the dry season. March to July sees the most rain. The west coast is generally slightly warmer than the east, while the Nullarbor can see temperatures as high as 50C in summer and very little rain. Where to stay . From A$970 (£485), B&B. . From A$333 (£169). , Perth. From A$783 (£392), B&B. . From A$229 (£116). More info: Lonely Planet Australia. £19.99 This story was created with the support of Journey Beyond. Four days on the Indian Pacific from Sydney to Perth costs from £1,510 per person, including all meals, drinks and activities. The price excludes airlines fly direct from the UK to Sydney, where the Indian Pacific departs. Airlines including British Airways Etihad and Qatar Airways fly to Sydney with one stop in their hubs.: 22h. Qantas flies direct to Perth from London, with a flight time of around 17 Indian Pacific travels from Sydney to Perth, with stops in Broken Hill, Adelaide and Cook; and Perth to Sydney, with stops in Kalgoorlie, Cook, the Barossa Valley and Broken Hill. The latter itinerary is a day longer. There's a choice of excursions on southern belt, including Perth, Sydney and Adelaide, has Australia's warmest weather, with average highs in the mid-30Cs in summer (December to February), coinciding with the dry season. March to July sees the most rain. The west coast is generally slightly warmer than the east, while the Nullarbor can see temperatures as high as 50C in summer and very little rain. Capella Sydney . From A$970 (£485), B&B. Swissotel Sydney . From A$333 (£169). Como The Treasury , Perth. From A$783 (£392), B&B. Quay Perth . From A$229 (£116).Lonely Planet Australia. £19.99 National Geographic Traveller (UK). To subscribe to National Geographic Traveller (UK) magazine click Published in the April 2025 issue of(UK).To subscribe to(UK) magazine click here . (Available in select countries only).
The Guardian
24-02-2025
- Entertainment
- The Guardian
Guy Pearce: ‘I'm not going to win the Oscar – Kieran Culkin will'
After his acclaimed performances in films such as LA Confidential, The Proposition, Memento, The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert, Animal Kingdom and The Hurt Locker, you may be surprised that Guy Pearce has just been nominated for his first ever Oscar: for his turn as the sociopathic industrialist Harrison Lee Van Buren in The Brutalist. Or maybe you haven't noticed Pearce's Oscars campaign because he keeps rubbishing his own career: he was 'shit' in Memento ('I'm bad in a good movie. Fuck!'), worse in Neighbours ('I played the same thing and it fucking drove me nuts') and has cheerfully owned up to acting in 'a bunch of shit during my divorce because I needed the money'. As awards campaigns go – well, it's a lot better than Karla Sofía Gascón's. Not that Pearce has paid attention. 'One of the [Emilia Pérez] actors said something on social media, right?' he says, in the understatement of the century. Though The Brutalist is at the front of everyone's minds, Pearce is promoting a completely different film: Inside, in which he plays a downtrodden prisoner who tries to convince a younger inmate to kill his notorious cellmate. But what is it like now being 'Academy award nominee' Guy Pearce? 'It's funny,' he says, rubbing that square jaw that suits both rich American industrialists and rough Australian inmates. 'Not funny that I haven't had one before – just funny to even get one, I reckon. I stop and go, 'Wow, is that – really? OK? That's really happened?'' Pearce is supremely unbothered by the fuss. 'I've been nominated for a few of these awards, and I haven't won any!' he laughs. 'I'm not gonna win! Kieran [Culkin] will win, again.' Has he got a speech ready? 'I've had one I've thought about for the last three months now – haven't used it once! Nah, I'll just forget it.' Pearce has a reputation as one of the more down-to-earth actors in the business: years of living in LA and now Amsterdam has not softened the Aussie contempt for puff and bullshit. He's sweetly unguarded, which can cause him trouble: two weeks before we speak, he made headlines for telling the Guardian his ex-wife, Kate Mestitz, was the love of his life – and not the Dutch actor Carice van Houten, his partner and mother of his eight-year-old son, Monte. The resulting outrage led Van Houten to issue an affectionate public statement, clarifying she and Pearce actually broke up years ago without anyone knowing. 'Oh God,' Pearce groans, of the headline. 'It blew up into this whole thing! Look, let's face it, I was in love with Kate when I was 12 – she got a pretty good run-up compared to anyone else in my life. So it's a fair enough thing to say.' Sign up for our rundown of must-reads, pop culture and tips for the weekend, every Saturday morning He and Van Houten 'never felt the need to say anything' about their separation, 'because it's nobody's bloody business,' he says. 'But Carice was really copping it in Holland. I mean, so was I. But she and I are the best of friends. We live together and look after our boy, and we function like a family. We have a great love, we adore each other. So yes, she probably is the love of my life now.' Then, a week after we speak, Pearce told an interviewer about how Kevin Spacey 'targeted' him on the set of LA Confidential, and how he 'sobbed' decades later when the allegations against Spacey began to emerge. (Spacey responded by telling him to 'grow up', to which Pearce declines to comment further.) In the unsettling Australian prison drama Inside, the feature debut of director Charles Williams, Pearce plays Warren Murfett, a prisoner on the precipice of parole who befriends younger inmate Mel (a remarkable Vincent Miller) and convinces him to kill his notorious cellmate Mark Shepard, who has been imprisoned since he was 13 for mass murder. Played by Shōgun's Cosmo Jarvis (doing the best Aussie accent by a foreigner since Dev Patel in Lion), Shepard unnerves the other prisoners with his wide-eyed sermons, often breaking out in tongues; killing him, Warren tells Mel, 'is the right thing, the best thing' he can do with his life. Warren cuts an angry, sorrowful figure: he reserves his little enthusiasm for completing the celebrity trivia on the wrappers of sweets that are clearly modelled on Austalia's Fantales. (Who cares about Oscars – Pearce was once a Fantale entry.) Pearce loved how realised Warren was; he hates turning up on set and feeling like the character is half-baked: 'If a director says to me, 'You can build the character however you want' – I don't want to build a character! That always worries me, because I don't necessarily do my best work when I have to do that. I don't trust myself.' Inside was filmed in a real prison facility near Geelong in Australia that hasn't yet opened. 'The staff are all there, the wardens are all there – we had to go through full security checks every time we came in and out every day, but we had the run of the place, which was quite incredible,' Pearce says. Between scenes, he would walk around the prison, talking to the wardens ('A lot of them have worked in prisons for years. They had stories') and the extras, many of whom were formerly incarcerated: 'I was getting a sense of how prison works – who would be where at what time, how you could move from here to there.' Sign up to Saved for Later Catch up on the fun stuff with Guardian Australia's culture and lifestyle rundown of pop culture, trends and tips after newsletter promotion Other scenes were filmed in a youth detention centre that was closing down; there were about 10 boys still inside, so Pearce spoke with them. 'It was deeply heartbreaking,' he says. 'I find it really moving and so sad, particularly with young men. Of course I'm vividly imagining what it would be like if my son were to end up incarcerated, what it must be like for families who have 17-, 18-, 19-year-old boys in prison. Yes, it's also sad for the 50-year-olds who keep going in and out all their lives – but to look at a young, vulnerable man is pretty devastating.' Pearce shot Inside after finishing The Brutalist's 34-day, breakneck shoot. Both films revolve around very ambiguous relationships between men: Van Buren and László Tóth in The Brutalist, Warren and Mel in Inside. The lines are blurred between what is brotherly, paternal, sexual and hostile behaviour; in one scene, Warren directs young Mel in how to kill Shepard during a blowjob – brutal advice, delivered with both friendly and erotic overtones. Pearce is 'deeply interested' in blurred relationships between men. 'As I go through life, trying to understand the dynamics between myself and my friends and – not that I really have any enemies, but people who have done wrong by me – what then happens with that relationship?' he says. 'I'm really curious about the susceptibility and vulnerability we live with constantly, whether it is with your lover, your son or your brother. If a writer has homed in on that stuff, I'll go to that every day of the week. But I've done some bad films before – I know I can't sit around waiting for scripts like this to come along. I'd only work really rarely!' Did he take angry, lonely Warren home with him? 'I probably inadvertently did, to a degree,' he says. 'But I'm so used to it now, especially compared to how I used to do things. I used to feel like I had to have the character in my head 24/7, because I was fearful of losing them, and that became incredibly exhausting. I've slowly realised that it doesn't necessarily mean I do better work. There are definitely days when I can't really socialise with everyone, but I'm better at compartmentalising now. I trust I can get back into the character. Thirty years ago, I was pretty stressy about that stuff.' Pearce is now based in the Netherlands, where he's 'really happy' living with Van Houten (they met on set of the 2016 western Brimstone) and their son, Monte. 'The pair of us are doing our best as a parenting team,' he says. 'But it means that I'm missing out on my life in Australia.' Ahead of the Oscars next week, he is trying to watch all the major nominees: 'Not to blame my son, but I don't think I've watched anything but Bluey and Harry Potter in eight years.' His co-star Adrien Brody is his call for best actor ('I just love him so much') but he thought Timothée Chalamet was 'stunning' as Bob Dylan, and Sebastian Stan 'really incredible' as Donald Trump. Years ago, when Pearce was nominated for every TV award going for Mildred Pierce, he found himself in a sort of support group for supporting actors: 'It was me, Paul Giamatti, James Woods and Peter Dinklage. But we all got one each! I got the Emmy, someone got the Golden Globe, someone got the SAG award. We'd see each other and go, 'Yay, you got one! Well done!'' This year, Culkin seems to be taking home all the loot – but Pearce is untroubled by that. He talks about his recent trip home for the Aacta awards ('divine'), when he ran into the singer Robbie Williams, nominated for his biopic Better Man: 'I said, 'Hey, another award show!' and he went, 'But have either of us won anything? No!' So we had a good old laugh – then of course he bloody won!' Inside is out in Australian cinemas on 27 February, with UK and US releases yet to be announced
