Having carved out a successful acting career in Hollywood, Louis Mandylor finds himself back home in Melbourne and making movies there once more. Shooting for How to Rob a Bank in 10 Easy Steps started just after Christmas, and he is clearly excited by the project.
“It’s a great script,” he explains. “It’s one of those scripts where absolutely everyone I showed it to or spoke to has read it in one sitting.”
The drama revolves around a young student who submits a fiction assignment to her professor, who fails her because the story is too unbelievable. She decides to prove him wrong by acting out literally the scenario she wrote: how to rob a bank in ten easy steps.
“It’s a really intelligent cat and mouse game. It’s one of those great stories where much of it plays out in real time. It all happens over the course of one day. It’s pretty special, and we’re working with a great cast too.”
That cast includes Louis’ brother Costas, which has worked out well, giving them some time back home over the Christmas break. Their parents immigrated separately from Greece after the war, then met and married in Melbourne. They must be very proud of their sons, both of whom have made significant inroads into the international film industry.
Louis’ entry took a somewhat circuitous route. As a young man, he played top flight soccer and boxed. Costas had moved to the US to pursue an acting career, but Louis found himself there as a boxer. Nevertheless, he sat in on one of Costa’s acting classes and was hooked. His break came when he did an audition the day after a fairly heavy trial fight.
“There was a big time manager who wanted to sign me up, so he gave me a test fight against this really tough Mexican kid who had about 47 fights with not too many losses. I was really nervous, but we got in there and banged out six rounds.
“The next day at the audition, I was so beat up I could hardly breath. My jaw was sore, my ribs were sore, I couldn’t talk. So when I went in, I underplayed everything. They loved it, and I got the job.”
He’s been in Hollywood for over twenty years now, and has branched out from acting into creating his own production company, Krakatau. This means he is also able to work as a writer, director and producer, giving him the freedom to explore stories from his own past.
He is currently in post-production on a project called Elwood (named after the Melbourne suburb where he grew up) starring Ron Perlman, best known as the star of Hellboy and Sons of Anarchy.
“My latest project is my baby, something very close to me. It’s a high concept fantasy, a parallel universe; The Sopranos meets The Twilight Zone. I thought the title Elwood was appropriate for the genre of the picture. I’m posting right now and then going to present it to the networks in L.A in late February.”
Meanwhile, Saints and Sinners, a New Orleans cops and robbers story with both he and Costas involved, is about to be released world wide. He’s also just finished shooting One in the Chamber with Cuba Gooding Jr in Romania.
“We’ve done a couple of movies together, and I was fortunate to work with him again, and Dolph Lundgren. It’s a really high octane action movie which was a lot of fun to make. We blew up half of Bucharest. I played a Russian gangster.”
Mandylor says he sees a great deal of talent and love for film-making in Australia, and recently he’s decided he’d like to make about one film a year here if possible. So when work on How To Rob a Bank in 10 Easy Steps is complete, he has another waiting in the wings.
“My next project is going to be an homage to growing up and what I witnessed as a young boy in the seediest part of Melbourne, the lower esplanade in St Kilda. It’s called Bojangles Peter the Greek and it’s about a bouncer who worked by himself at Bojangles when it was the roughest place in town.”
It a nice reversal, having Australian technicians returning to Australia to make films here, bringing back with them the skills and experience that they have picked up overseas. Because as Mandylor knows, film making can be very hard work.
“It’s the bitter times that make the sweet ones sweeter. I’ve had some highs, but it can really get low as well. I love what I do and to make it something that can entertain people for two hours, that’s probably the best thing my life.”