Confronting reality

From Ari in Head On, to Harry in The Slap, Alex Dimitriades tells Neos Kosmos why he chooses to play Christos Tsiolkas’ most controversial characters, and why he revels in the challenge


This is the second time Alex Dimitriades has tackled a Christos Tsiolkas character on the big screen. And like the role of Ari in Head On, this is the second time Dimitriades has chosen a strong, dynamic, and controversial character sure to divide the Greek community.

In 1998, Dimitriades watched, as did many, the younger second generation of Greek Australians stand up in defiance against the narrow-minded Greeks of the first generation. Although it wasn’t necessarily a uniformed protest as such, many found through author Christos Tsiolkas, they finally had a voice, and like it or not, their voice was going to be heard.

Head On was a movie that depicted the life of 19-year-old Ari who was forced to confront his sexuality in a traditional Greek family. What was shown may not be a representation of what is going on in every second generation Greek’s life, but it was a story that they had all experienced somehow and at some time. And it was a story that evoked a sudden urge to scream to the conservative first generation Greeks “open your eyes. This IS what is going on!” “It divided the community in two,” explains Dimitriades of the time when Head On first came out, to which he revelled in the aftermath. “It was great to be in the middle of it all and watch and hear all these different views,” he says.

“Conservatism is always going to be there but to see it being challenged by a younger or a different generation who are more open minded was something else. “Some people are living in denial, and others I say, wake up! This is how it is, and it might not necessarily be 100 per cent how everyone lives their lives, but it exists,” says Dimitriades of what life is like in not only in the Greek community but in modern Australian society. It’s this look at contemporary Australia that has put Tsiolkas at the top of his game in modern Australian literature. Tsiolkas is well-known for holding a mirror up to Australian society and forcing us, in a sense, to challenge ourselves.

As an actor, reader, entertainer and proud Greek Australian, Dimitriades searches for the alternative voice and the challenging in all forms of art and entertainment. He is quick to point out that, in today’s world, we are often spoon fed and conditioned into thinking a certain way through our entertainment choices. With Tsiolkas bringing a challenging voice, and Dimitriades bringing these characters to life, we are offered that all-important alternative way of thinking.

“I see it challenges society, and modern contemporary Australian society and the way we deal with things,” explains Dimitriades of the way The Slap offers a new way of looking at the world.

The Slap is an exposure and a reflection of us as a people and how we deal with certain things. I think it’s challenging to the public who read this and realise that it’s actually them [The Slap] is talking about.” No stranger to the book, Dimitriades was hand-picked by Tsiolkas to read out all 500 pages for the audio adaptation. But as an actor, he says it was important for him to remain objective to all the characters in the piece. “I feel empathy to every single character that is portrayed in the novel,” he says.

“It’s not a matter of who is right, it’s about dealing with things in a balance and when there is an imbalance, there’s trouble.”

In life, Dimitriades explains, you are forced into situations where you normally wouldn’t be in, not just culturally but socially. With marriage; families, friends, and colleagues are all thrust together in one situation. And the barbecue scene in The Slap represents this perfectly. In this scene, the eponymous slap occurs. Harry, played by Dimitriades, slaps four-year-old Hugo, and what happens has a ricocheting affect on the whole community, and therein lies the story. But by choosing another controversial character, is Dimitriades scared of more contempt shown towards him similar to 1998? “If you watch this and hate Harry, I would think you were really ignorant,” says Dimitriades matter-of-factly.

“Harry is just a catalyst for an event in this particular story and I feel it’s really more about the reactions of the other people and the way they deal with the situation. “Personally, I would never call the cops. I would deal with it myself but there’s a greater morality here and the message of the story is communicating, understanding each other. Maybe Harry shouldn’t have done what he did, and maybe they shouldn’t have reacted the way they did but it’s all about the way we treat each other,” he says.

The television adaptation of The Slap sees each main character have their own episode accordingly, so it feels like eight mini movies. And it’s these different scenarios, the way different people handle the same situation in the one book, and the way the story weaves together that astounds Dimitriades. It also “scares” him about Tsiolkas’ writing style. “He manages to get under the skin of all these different characters in a way that is scary,” Dimitriades says. “It’s like he’s lived the life of all these people and that’s going from a 17-year-old girl to a 70-year old man.”

They have worked together on many projects but Dimitriades still finds himself in awe of the 45-year-old author, who is credited for giving Dimitriades his acting stripes through the role of Ari. “I received a card from Christos following the announcement that Head On – which had already become a cult classic novel – was going to be screened in Cannes and it said “the life of Ari now lives through your performance” and I remember thinking that is huge, that is massive.” And the life of Harry will live on through another groundbreaking performance by Alex Dimitriades.

Harry’s episode of The Slap screens on ABC on Thursday 20 October at 8.30 pm.