Renowned actor David Ross Paterson is currently playing Professor Snape in the Australian production of Harry Potter and the Cursed Child. David, who has shared the screen with the likes of Brad Pitt and Colin Farrell, speaks to Matt Hewson about his journey from North Geelong to Hollywood.
When David Paterson went to join the Screen Actors Guild he was faced with something of a conundrum.
“I found there was an existing David Paterson with one ‘T’, so I had to change my name,” David said.
“So I considered what I was going to be and thought maybe I could be David R Patterson, but then I realised that would sound like I’d forgotten my own name; ‘hi, I’m David Ah Patterson’. No, that wasn’t right.
“Okay, what about DR Paterson? No, that looks like Dr Paterson. So I went with my first name, I thought that’ll be alright.
But the choice proved to have an unintended effect on the budding actor.
“The first time I went to an audition in LA after I’d made the change I was sitting in the waiting room and the monitor came to the door and called out ‘David Ross Paterson’, and I automatically thought I was in trouble with my mother,” David said.
“That’s what she would call me, that’s the only other time I’d heard it, when I was in trouble and had done something wrong.
“All of a sudden I had this realisation that maybe it wasn’t the best choice, that every time I was about to walk into an audition room I’d feel like I was in trouble with my mother.
“And I still always feel a little embarrassed; I had this suspicion that people would think, oh, he’s gone all Hollywood with the triple-barrelled name.”
As a youngster growing up in Geelong, David had little to no interest in acting, instead preferring to play footy and cricket with his mates.
“I was pretty much sports-obsessed, I loved the Cats,” he said.
“I went to North Geelong Primary School, then Bell Park High, and had not a skerrick of interest or participation in anything show business, or acting, even arts-related, really, until I got to teachers college.”
After a stint at Deakin Institute studying journalism for a year – “I realised, no, I’m not into journalism as much as I thought” –David transferred to teachers college, where he met a man whose words would ultimately change his life.
“When I was doing my teacher training I met a bloke called Ken Hemmens when I dabbled in a bit of drama through my course,” he said.
“You don’t have to go far in the Geelong theatre community and the name Ken Hemmens will resonate. He ran the drama department at teachers college, worked with local theatre groups a lot, with First Nations people.
“We lost him a couple of years ago, but he was the bloke who saw something in me; I certainly wasn’t aware of any aptitude for any form of acting. He suggested I go on and study somewhere like VCA or NIDA.
“And I said, no Ken, I’m going to go and get a job and buy a car. So I ended up teaching for 13 years.”
David worked across Victoria, teaching in primary schools, working with kids with specific learning difficulties, deaf children, and eventually making his way down to Melbourne to be closer to Geelong.
“But in the meantime, Ken’s words echoed in the background, and I found myself getting involved with amateur productions and taking a few classes,” he said.
“And then I pulled the pin on teaching and went over to New York to study acting. I was late 30s, early 40s, so it was a bit of a mid-life crisis, maybe. I didn’t get a sports car, I took acting classes.”
David studied at HB Studio in New York for a year under people like Uta Hagen and Carol Rosenfeld, then did a two year program at the New Actors Workshop under the likes of Mike Nichols and Paul Sills.
“I got exposed to a very interesting mix of people who weren’t necessarily philosophically aligned, but came at the whole performance and acting thing from different angles,” he said.
“So it was great to be exposed to that sort of variety of approaches.”
David can’t articulate exactly what drove him to pursue acting; in fact, to hear him talk about his early experiences, it seems even more unlikely that he followed the path he has.
“I’ve read stories of people who, the first time they get on stage, they feel like they’re home; the first time I got on stage I didn’t even know what my name was,” David said.
“I was so flummoxed and terrified by the whole thing, but for some reason I was compelled to keep going back to subject myself to this abject terror.
“I used to watch people on stage, back when Ken used to take us on these excursions when I was at teachers college, and I’d think, look how self-assured they are, look how relaxed they are.
“I don’t really know why I was compelled to pursue it. But I taught for 13 years and it just wasn’t the track for me. I had to find another track.”
David was packing his house to move from LA to Atlanta when he got the call about Harry Potter and the Cursed Child, and he said he was more surprised than anyone.
“I’d basically given up on it; I’d sent the audition tape over, I’d come back to Australia, did a callback, heard nothing,” he said.
“Then all of a sudden, I’m packing the boot to drive across the country when I got the email from my agent in Australia saying we got it. So the next three years were taken care of.
“It’s been really interesting. It’s been wonderful to work with such a well-resourced and well-prepared and diligently planned operation.I have never gone into a show feeling better prepared than this one.
“And we have to be, because it’s a demanding show and the expectations are very high from the public, particularly Harry Potter aficionados who’ve grown up with the books and films.”
David said if he had one piece of advice for aspiring actors, young or old, it would be to create and be proactive.
“The opportunity to get together with like-minded people and produce your own work has only been enhanced by modern technology,” he said.
“You can shoot stuff and edit, add music and effects; whatever you want to do, there’s plenty of platforms to do it on.
“People I studied with, like Mark Nichols, were very practical in terms of telling us, don’t sit around waiting for the phone to ring. That’s not how it works. You’ve got to be proactive, you’ve got to be creating your own opportunities to work by being on the front foot.”
Harry Potter and the Cursed Child is currently playing at the Princess Theatre, Melbourne.
