Filmmaker Gracie Otto jokes that her mum Sue sometimes wishes there was a builder in the family instead of a long list of illustrious overachievers in the arts, including Gracie, her older sister, TV WEEK Logie Award-winning actress Miranda, and her legendary stage and screen star dad Barry Otto.
It’s her beloved dad who’s at the centre of her most personal project yet, Revealed: Otto By Otto. Originally, Gracie, 37, whose own film credits include Netflix’s Heartbreak High and the ABC series Ladies In Black, set out to tell the story of her ageing father preparing for a new production of a play he first did in his thirties.
It was a way to help him out of the depression, which had settled in after his nervous breakdown following previews of another one-man show in 2013. Instead, intertwined with his physical limitations, Gracie noticed Barry was struggling to learn his lines.
“Like many good documentaries, it became clear that it wasn’t going to be the story I set out to tell,” she tells TV WEEK.
Midway through filming, Barry was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease, and Gracie contemplated shelving the project as her own career took off. But she’s so very grateful her team convinced her to continue.
“My whole relationship with Dad had always been about fun, so I didn’t want to go down the dark corridor his life was taking. But in order to be truthful to the film, I did,” Gracie explains.
Famous names such as Cate Blanchett and Baz Luhrmann sharing their memories of the now 83-year-old, who’s perhaps best remembered for his roles in Strictly Ballroom and The Dressmaker, helped Gracie realise just how universally loved her dad is.
“Especially when I’m travelling around now on set and there’ll be people who are now big producers, who were maybe runners back in the day and Dad would give them paintings he’d done,” she says.
“Everyone says how kind he was to everyone. It makes me feel so good to not hear one bad thing said about him – it makes me aspire to be like that.”
The result is much more than a poignant celebration of Barry’s 50-year career, which began in amateur theatre in Brisbane. He’s worked for most Australian theatre companies, and with many of our most famous actors, including Cate, Nicole Kidman, Mel Gibson, Toni Collette, Jacki Weaver, Ben Mendelsohn and David Wenham.
“It was important for me to not make this film sad, even though it’s heartbreaking, Gracie shares. “At times, I found that filming was almost like a therapy I needed – the person is slowly dying in the most painful way to everyone around them, but I found beauty in that Dad just painlessly slipped into this new creative realm.”
Barry’s condition has deteriorated since filming finished in 2022, but Gracie says he’s happy with his beloved Burmese cats, Bella and Bogart, and pottering around his garden, or the public park, yanking out plants and making beautiful bouquets.
“I may have started this film for Dad, wanting him to be celebrated and deserving of recognition. But now, I don’t think I’ll ever show him the film, and I don’t think I need to.”
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