I basically sat around unemployed in Sydney for three years straight, and the two things that saved me were the rugby league and my dog.

It's a real marvel. You have some other guys in the league that are basically being saved for the playoffs. Cliff is able to play, wants to play and can log big minutes.

The rest of the band were basically friends, So it was me following them around and begging them to let me be in their band for two or three years. And they finally let me in on the harmonica, actually, and then the keyboards, and finally the guitar.

'Animal Kingdom' is a lot of things, but it's not heartwarming.

One of the things that I found very confronting in my early working life was that people thought I was some sensitive doe-eyed lovelorn boy, because they'd seen me do that a couple of times. What tends to happen is you get a run of similar roles.

If there is no blood on the line, it is not rugby league.