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ERICBANA
NOW STARRING IN…The Hulk as Dr. Bruce Banner, a.k.a. the
Hulk. Based on the Marvel comic, the film focuses on scientist
Banner, who, after being exposed to a heaping dose of gamma
rays, turns into a scary green monster every time he gets angry.
BIO BITS: Don’t blame American actors for suffering bouts of performance
anxiety, the poor guys are continually being out-muscled
for macho leading roles by Aussie blokes. Joining the ranks of
Russell “The Gladiator” Crowe and Hugh “Wolverine” Jackman is
Eric “The Hulk” Bana, a former Australian stand-up comedian who
landed the coveted role of comicdom’s most misunderstood hero.
Bana was born Eric Banadinovich on August 9, 1968 in
Melbourne, Australia, to a Croatian father and German mother. He
grew up in Tullamarine, a suburb of Melbourne, with no desire
to be an actor. But he was a funny kid, who grew up to be a funny
guy, and, while working as a barman at Melbourne’s Castle Hotel,
he was egged on by bar patrons (who thought he was hilarious) to
go on stage and perform stand-up. That was in 1991, and by
1993 Bana had made such a name for himself that he was invited
to join the cast of Australia’s top-rated comedy show, Full Frontal,
where he wowed viewers with killer Arnold Schwarzenegger and
Tom Cruise impressions.
By 1997 he had his own TV talk show (The Eric Bana Show
Live) and had made his feature-film debut in the Aussie comedy
The Castle, playing a kickboxing accountant. After his own show
ended, Bana went on to star in an Aussie night-time soap,
Something in the Air.
His big break came in 2000 when he was cast, to everyone’s surprise,
as Australia’s most notorious criminal, Mark Brandon
“Chopper” Read, in the controversial bio-pic Chopper. Bana put on
30 pounds, covered himself in tattoos and was almost unrecogniz-
able as the vicious killer. His
performance was mesmerizing,
and led Ridley Scott to
cast him as a Delta Force
commando in his 2001 war
film Black Hawk Down.
Even before Black Hawk
Down was released, director
Ang Lee had decided
the relatively inexperienced
Bana would play his Hulk.
Next year, you’ll see him
hiding inside a wooden
horse when he stars as
Hector, alongside Brad
Pitt, in director Wolfgang
Petersen’s epic Troy.
SAMPLE ROLES: Lotto in
The Nugget (2002), Hoot in
Black Hawk Down (2001),
“Chopper” Read in Chopper
(2000), Con Petropoulous
in The Castle (1997)
LOVE LIFE: Married to former publicist Rebecca Gleeson. The
couple has a four-year-old son, Klaus.
TRIVIA: His first job was washing cars at a gas station. • Ate a halfdozen
doughnuts for breakfast each day to help gain weight for his
role in Chopper. • As a child, he was obsessed with the ’70s TV
show The Hulk.
ON CHOOSING HIS ROLES: “I think it’s just important to not kid
yourself, and like I say, I will make a mistake, I’m not perfect, I’m
going to make a sh-t film one day, but it will come as a surprise to me.
I couldn’t stomach making a sh-t film where I knew it was going to be
a sh-t film and I kidded myself.” [Inside Film, February 2002] —IR
famous 16 | june 2003
Jennifer Connelly and Eric Bana
in The Hulk