Press release from ABC
Guy Pearce, one of Australia’s most high profile and successful actors, will play Jack Irish – former criminal lawyer now part-time private investigator and debt collector – in ABC1’s two telemovies, adapted from the award-winning novels by Peter Temple.
Pearce returns to Australia after recently completing production on Ridley Scott’s Prometheus and is known for his roles in the Oscar-winning film The King’s Speech, the Oscar-winning film The Hurt Locker, and the highly-acclaimed Australian movie Animal Kingdom, for which he received an Australian Film Institute nomination for Best Supporting Actor.
Guy is currently nominated for a 2011 Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Miniseries for his outstanding performance as Monty Beragon in Mildred Pierce.
Ian Collie of Essential Media and Entertainment, the producer behind ABC1’s highly acclaimed series Rake and documentary series The Making of Modern Australia, will produce the two telemovies – Jack Irish: Bad Debts and Jack Irish: Black Tide.
Peter Temple, the 2007 winner of the prestigious UK Crime Writer Award for The Broken Shore and last year’s winner of the Miles Franklin Award for Truth, has created this complex character Jack Irish, who is an expert at finding people that don’t want to be found and discovering people’s dark and deadly secrets, as well as having to face his own demons.
Highly credentialed screenwriters Andrew Knight (Rake, After the Deluge, Seachange) and Matt Cameron (Crashburn, Seachange) have adapted the novels for both telemovies and Jeffrey Walker (Rake, Angry Boys, Small Time Gangster) will direct both.
Both will be produced in Melbourne going into production in October and will air on ABC1 in 2012.
Carole Sklan, ABC TV’s Head of Fiction said, “ABC TV is bringing to the screen one of Australia’s finest contemporary writers, Peter Temple, and to bring one of his most famous characters to life, we are thrilled to have one of Australia’s leading actors, Guy Pearce.”
Ian Collie, Essential Media, said “It's a perfect match to have one of Australia's finest actors, Guy Pearce, to play the lead in the two telemovies based on the books by one of Australia's finest writers, Peter Temple. Not only is Guy perfect for the role of Jack Irish, but his participation reflects the growing international reputation and respect for Australian television drama".
Jack Irish is financed with the support of Film Victoria, Screen Australia, ABC Commercial and ZDF Enterprises.
ZDF Enterprises is co-producer of the telemovies for the German-speaking territories and holds the worldwide distribution rights outside of Australia and New Zealand.
Susanne Müller, head of co-productions at ZDF Enterprises, said “We have a long and very successful history of co-productions with Australia in the kids genre, and we look forward to continuing this now in the drama genre. Peter Temple's Jack Irish has a great international potential, and we are thrilled that Guy Pearce will play this interesting character. We look forward to working with the ABC and Essential Media on a truly promising project.”