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	Micallef happy to play the fool By Michael Bodey The Daily Telegraph November 13, 2003 SHAUN Micallef has enjoyed his unexpected forays into film, writes MICHAEL BODEY. It's a classic Australian scenario - the little Aussie battler who triumphs over money and privilege with a bumbling combination of naivete and charm. But is it a scenario Australian audiences are well and truly bored by? We'll know in a week when the box-office takings for The Honourable Wally Norman filter in. The gentle comedy by Kath & Kim director Ted Emery might just be the end point in a dismal year's takings for a batch of broad Australian comedies. It might also be the panacea. Emery has assembled a sturdy cast of dependable comedians, from SeaChange's Kevin Harrington in the title role to Greig "HG Nelson" Pickhaver and the TV comic-turned-actor Shaun Micallef. Micallef plays the nefarious right-wing politician F. Ken Oats, who is pillaging the small country idyll of Given's Head with his rapacious double-dealing. But in a silly mix-up, Oats comes up against local meatworker Wally Norman (Harrington) in a crucial election. For Micallef, the role proved calming after years of writing his own sketch shows, Logie Award banter and variety show schtick. Not that he was looking to get into film, let alone in two films in one year (he was also in Bad Eggs). "I certainly wasn't beating the drums for my own acting work," he admits. "It was as easy as knowing the two people who were reasonably important in putting the films together. I know [Bad Eggs director] Tony Martin quite well and Ted I know from years doing nonsense on television." Actually, The Honourable Wally Norman was the first gig in a testing period that included his ABC comedy series Welcher and Welcher, the Channel 9 variety show Micallef Tonight and Bad Eggs. "I finished Wally Norman, came back to Melbourne for a weekend and on Monday I had my hair dyed for Bad Eggs, which started shooting the next day." It sounds a little Nicole Kidman? Micallef agrees. "And like Nicole, I draw no distinction between the characters I play, so it was actually quite easy - apart from the hair colour, which was a handy way to differentiate between the two. Perhaps the only way," he says. He acknowledges there's a little typecasting going on his nascent acting career. "I'm always playing some sort of authority figure who's incompetent and then there are various levels of incompetence or stupidity," he says. "It's a little narrow corridor I can run through without looking too foolish," Micallef laughs. "SeaChange was the first sustained character I played and I guess he was an authority figure but he had no gravity at all, he was a complete fool. I'm comfortable playing that sort of character." In fact, Emery called to tell Micallef he had a role for him - he just couldn't remember the name. So Micallef read the script believing it would be "another pompous git", who was ultimately played by veteran Alan Cassell. Whatever it was, you get a sense that the former lawyer might have taken anything from trusted peers, if only for a change. "I did enjoy those two films, particularly after building a couple of things myself in the last couple of years," he says of his television shows. "In this one, I'm just comic relief or support, a bit like Greig Pickhaver." Working with a totally different crowd in Adelaide freshened life up even more. All up, The Honourable Wally Norman is one of the more pleasant working experiences of Micallef's time. "I was quite relieved to see I managed to have a reasonably consistent character all the way through, apart from a few small things that I kicked myself for," he says. "It's a sweet film, it's not the sort of project I'm usually involved in. My things are usually a bit more cruel or subversive or post-modern or something." This report was published at www.dailytelegraph.com.au