Everest star Jason Clarke ticks off all the best clichés of Australian actors. He’s effortlessly charming, incredibly friendly, swears like a sailor – and yes, he knows Hugh Jackman.
“Yeah, me and Hugh had our very first acting class together!” laughs the 46-year-old actor. “It was one of those afternoon classes, and literally ten or twelve people walked in off the street to take it, and he was one of them and I was one of them. So he’s a very good old friend, is Hugh, and such a gentleman.”
Clarke may have had to wait a little bit longer to break America than his old friend Wolverine – but he’s rapidly catching up. After working relentlessly for years, including a critically acclaimed role in Brotherhood, Clarke exploded into the common consciousness with Katheryn Bigelow’s award-winning 2012 film, Zero Dark Thirty. Clarke instantly knew that the film was going to transform his career.
“You have different moments as an actor – the first just being ‘Hey, I’m working!’” he laughs. “Then you realise you’re making a living and can support yourself and your family – and then comes the point where you can make choices. Zero Dark Thirty was definitely a moment. It was the exact type of film I wanted to make – it was important and about current events, but it was also just an adventure to travel for the film and be in those places, I loved it.”
His inkling that the thriller would change his life was on point, as Clarke has starred in a number of huge films since then – The Great Gatsby, Dawn of the Planet of the Apes, Terminator Genisys and now, Baltasar Kormakur’s adventure Everest, which is based on the 1996 climbing disaster. Clarke admits he’s still adjusting to his increasing profile and hectic schedule.
“We shot Everest in the Himalayas, in the Alps – and then four days later I came and started shooting Terminator Genisys! But shooting Everest was amazing, everyone should go to the Himalayas once in their life. They’re extraordinary.”
Clarke plays New Zealander Rob Hall, an incredibly well-regarded climber who climbed the Seven Summits in seven months with his climbing partner, Gary Ball. Hall then set up a high-altitude guiding business, taking climbers up Everest for a fee. In 1996, Hall was on his fifth summit up Everest when he and two clients entered serious difficulties, before being caught in a blizzard. Their fateful journey became the subject of worldwide media attention, as well as Jon Krakauer’s book, Into Thin Air.
Like so many, Clarke was keenly aware of the tragic events long before the filmmakers approached him to play Hall, and he was honoured to take on the role. “I knew the story. I remember where I was when I heard it was happening, and because it unfolded over a number of days, it gave people time to think about it and imagine the full horror. The story is so affecting, and I had a real emotional connection to it.”
Once Clarke was on board he approached the role wholeheartedly, embracing the responsibilities that come with playing a real person. He even went to New Zealand to meet Hall’s widow, Jan, and their daughter, Sarah. This meeting was the real cornerstone for him. “It was quite extraordinary,” says Clarke. “We had two or three days together, and I’d never heard their side of it, and this was 17 years later. During those couple of days, we shared a lot, even though there was a lot of nervousness to begin with on their part.”
But as they talked, their relationship developed, and Clarke began to see how to face the challenge ahead of him. “It was the beginning of me trying to work out how I could play this guy and understanding my level of responsibility in terms of doing justice to it. It had become a much more personal thing to make sure that I understood these events, because it’s one of the great mysteries of Everest. Anybody who climbs anywhere in the world knows about it and has theories and opinions on what happened and why it happened,” he says.
The role wasn’t just emotionally draining, but physically, as director Kormakur demanded that the actors film twelve hour days in -30 C in the Val Senales. Clarke admits that at first, the harsh conditions meant he could barely remember his lines.
“When you’re up in altitude, it does funny things to you. But you acclimatise and it’s just so beautiful, so it’s never a bad day when you can look out over the mountains and think, ‘I am up 16,000 feet on the most incredible terrain in the world – exactly where those men wanted to be.’ You just feel lucky.”