The final interview Bob Hawke gave before his death in May 2019 will air in the second season of the Netflix series Untold in an episode focusing on Australia’s unlikely come-from-behind victory in the 1983 America’s Cup.
Chapman Way, the 35-year-old who co-created the series with his 31-year-old brother Maclain, insists the victory by the Alan Bond-financed Australia II in the best-of-seven yacht race after being 3-1 down “truly is the greatest underdog story in the history of sports”.
Former Prime Minister Bob Hawke is interviewed in his home office for Untold. Credit:The Way Brothers/Netflix
It’s a big call, but Maclain backs it up. “It’s almost astounding how much of an advantage the New York Yacht Club had in this race,” he says. “Technologically, the winning streak, the funding, the money is mind-boggling, which is why they won for 132 years.”
The America’s Cup episode will be the third of five standalone films in the second season of Untold, in which the brothers – who created the Emmy Award-winning series Wild, Wild Country about the Rajneesh commune in Oregon, and who count the actor Kurt Russell as an uncle– go deep into stories from the sports world that we may think we know already, but more often than not really don’t.
Typical is their season-one film on Mardy Fish, the American tennis pro who went public in 2015 with his mental health struggles. The deep-dive interviews with Fish and his friend and sometime rival Andy Roddick are the antithesis of the post-match “I gave it 110 per cent” press conference that constitutes so much of modern sports content.
“We don’t just show up with a camera and say, ‘Hey, give us a one-hour interview’,” says Chapman. “We spend days getting dinners and spending time together to really work with athletes. We’re there more to help shape a story than we are to grill.”
John Bertrand, who skippered the Australian boat, was the main conduit through which they chose to tell the story of how “the longest winning streak in the history of sport” was brought to an end. But as they sifted through reams of archival footage the brothers knew they needed to speak with the Prime Minister who declared on the morning of victory that “any boss who sacks anyone for not turning up today is a bum”. If they could get him.
“And Bertrand was like, ‘I’ll call him right now. Let’s make it happen’,” Chapman recalls. “And we’re like, ‘Wait, what?’ ‘Yeah, I’ll get him on the phone right now. Let’s do it’.”
Hawke picked up, Bertrand put the brothers on speaker, and the former PM said he wasn’t really doing interviews anymore. But, he added, “to speak one more time about this event that brings me and the country a lot of pride, let’s do it’.”
The brothers and their crew went to the five-storey Northbridge home Hawke shared with his wife Blanche d’Alpuget, entered via the garage, and spent half an hour or so setting up. Then in came Hawke – sadly not in a bathrobe – to spend 45 minutes or so recalling with great detail the events of those days.
“He jokingly introduced himself, which made me laugh. ‘Of course I know who you are’,” says Maclain. “He was engaged. He said, ‘everyone likes to beat the Americans at something’, which we felt too; yeah, it’s nice to see the Americans lose every now and then.
“It was a moment of pride and joy [for us], no doubt, and it was just a real honourable experience.”
As they demonstrated so magnificently in Wild, Wild Country, the Way brothers have a way not just with interviews but also with bringing archival footage to life.
“We talk a lot about these things being time travel,” says Maclain. “It’s a lofty goal of ours, but that’s really how we edit them, how we make them. We don’t like them being these past-tense stories. We really push our interview subjects to bring the audience on the journey that they were on, and then we use all the tools we have – archive footage being number one – to bring audiences on that journey.”
Chapman (left) and Maclain Way.Credit:Getty
And how would they describe the journey Australia went on back in 1983?
“I’m not exaggerating, it looks like World War II just came to an end,” Maclain says. “One of the first things that drew us to the project was the scenes of people stumbling out of bars and having the time of their lives.
“I would give anything to go back to 1983 and be in Australia on that day,” he adds. “It just seems like the funnest day ever.”
Untold season 2 will screen on Netflix later this year. The Way brothers are guest speakers at the Australian international Documentary Conference at ACMI on Monday, March 7. Details: aidc.com.au
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