Polson, John 1965-

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POLSON, John 1965-

PERSONAL: Born September 6, 1965, in Sydney, New South Wales, Australia; son of Ron (a jazz singer) and Marie Francis (a piano player) Polson; engaged to Amanda Harding (a casting director).

ADDRESSES: Agent—Robyn Gardiner, RGM Associates, P.O. Box 128, Surry Hills, New South Wales 2010, Australia.

CAREER: Actor, director, producer, and screenwriter. Actor in films, including (as Leo Hawkins) For Love Alone, 1986; (as Brian Day) Call Me Mr. Brown, 1986; (as Tony) Tender Hooks, 1989; (as Cyril) Candy Regentag (also known as Kiss the Night), 1989; (as Private Jimmy Fenton) Prisoners of the Sun (also known as Blood Oath), Skouras Pictures, 1990; (as Billy) Raw Nerve, 1990; (as Tony) Dangerous Game, 1991; (as Greg) The Sum of Us, Hallmark Home Entertainment, 1994; (as Frank) What's Going on, Frank? 1994; (as Tom) Sirens, Columbia Tristar, 1994; (as Stan) Gino, 1994; (as Johnny Peterson) Stitched, 1995; (as Nick) Back of Beyond, Live Entertainment, 1995; (as Jonah) Idiot Box, Alta Films, 1996; (as Glenn Sprague) The Boys (also known as Down under Boys), Axiom Films, 1997; and (as Billy Baird) Mission: Impossible II, Paramount, 2000.

Actor in made-for-television movies, including (as Deejay Saxophone) Shout! The Story of Johnny O'Keefe, 1985; More Winners: The Journey (also known as Touch the Sun: The Journey), 1990; and (as Richard Turner) Kangaroo Palace, 1997. Actor in television miniseries, including (as Serge) Vietnam, 1986; (as George Forster) Captain James Cook, 1987; and (as Kevin) Dadah is Death, Columbia Broadcasting System (CBS), 1988. Actor in television series Embassy, 1990.

Director of films, including What's Going On, Frank? 1994; Siam Sunset, 1999; Swimfan, 2002; and Fear Itself, 2003. Founder, Tropicana Film Festival.

AWARDS, HONORS: Critics' Week Audience award, Cannes Film Festival, 1999, for Siam Sunset.

WRITINGS:

SCREENPLAYS

(And producer and director) What's Going on, Frank? (short film), 1994.

(With Howard Roughan and Michael Douglas; and director) The up and Comer, Further Films, forthcoming.

SIDELIGHTS: Australian screenwriter John Polson is best known for directing such hit films as Swimfan and for starting the Tropicana Short Film Festival, universally referred to as "Tropfest." Tropfest started in 1993, with two hundred people jammed around one television at the Tropicana Café in Sydney to screen a short film which Polson had directed; ten years later, 150,000 people in six cities across Australia watched sixteen short films, each a maximum of seven minutes long, which were selected from the several hundred films submitted.

Polson is also an actor. Among his more notable roles are Russell Crowe's gay lover in The Sum of Us and a helicopter pilot in Mission: Impossible 2, which starred Tom Cruise. Polson collaborated with Michael Douglas, who produced Swimfan, to write his first feature-length screenplay, for the film Up and Comer. Based on the novel by Howard Roughan—who also helped to write the screenplay—Up and Comer is a dark comedy about a successful New York lawyer who suddenly finds himself being blackmailed by an old school friend.

Through acting with so many Hollywood stars, Polson made many powerful friends in Hollywood, among them Crowe, Cruise, and Douglas, who have helped Polson to get his own films made and distributed. (Crowe has also been instrumental in bringing Tropfest up to its current level of size and success.) But, Polson told an interviewer from Age, "I don't think of it as networking. I like people. That's me.... I'll go to a party and realize that I haven't spoken to anybody who can do anything for me. The other night I went out to dinner with all these big-time film-makers. I ended up speaking to the driver of one of the actors."

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

Age (Melbourne, Victoria, Australia), October 8, 2002, "In the Deep End: Director John Polson."

Australian (Sydney, New South Wales, Australia), September 10, 2002, Sophie Tedmanson, "Mr. Tropfest Fans U.S. Box-Office Fire," p. 3; February 24, 2003, Jane Albert and Sophie Tedmanson, "Tropfest Awash with Stars and Crowe Flies In," p. 3.

Daily Telegraph (Surry Hills, New South Wales, Australia), September 14, 2002, Freya Grant, "John Knows More than Great Friends," p. 33.

Film Journal International, October, 2002, Kevin Lally, review of Swimfan, p. 86.

Hollywood Reporter, September 6, 2002, David Hunter, review of Swimfan, pp. 13-14.

Independent (London, England), November 10, 2000, review of Siam Sunset, p. 11.

Los Angeles Times, September 6, 2002, Manohla Dargis, review of Swimfan, p. F11.

Maclean's, April 3, 1995, Brian D. Johnson, review of The Sum of Us, p. 67.

New York Times, October 28, 1988, John J. O'Connor, review of Dadah Is Death, pp. 22, C34; March 8, 1995, Janet Maslin, review of The Sum of Us, pp. B4, C19; September 6, 2002, Stephen Holden, review of Swimfan, pp. B11, E13; September 13, 2002, Peter M. Nichols, review of Swimfan, pp. B8, E8.

People, October 31, 1988, Jeff Jarvis, review of Dadah Is Dead, pp. 19-20; August 5, 1991, Ralph Novak, review of Prisoners of the Sun, pp. 16-17; March 27, 1995, Joanne Kaufman, review of The Sum of Us, p. 17.

San Francisco Chronicle, September 9, 2002, Jonathan Curiel, review of Swimfan, p. D2.

Sight and Sound, November, 1998, Richard Falcon, review of The Boys, p. 43; December, 2000, Claire Monk, review of Siam Sunset, pp. 54-55.

Sunday Mail (Brisbane, Australia), September 22, 2002, Paul Fischer, "In the Swim," p. 68.

Sun-Herald (Sydney, New South Wales, Australia), September 16, 2002, John Polson, "My Week as the World's Hottest Film Director."

Sydney Morning Herald (Sydney, New South Wales, Australia), August 15, 2002, Garry Maddox, "Polson Sticks to Straw Dogs Formula"; August 18, 2002, Jennifer Hansen, "Big Pond Splash," p. 106.

Time International, May 11, 1998, review of Darkness of the Soul, p. 64.

Variety, February 23, 1998, David Stratton, review of The Boys, pp. 78-79.

Who Weekly, February, 2002, Craig Henderson, interview with Polson.