The Perfect Storm

It’s rare to find actors so in awe of the movie they’re making. In an Australian Women’s Weekly exclusive, Michael Sheather goes on location with the cast of Storm Boy and watches an Australian classic being brought gloriously back to life.

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There’s something undeniably special about Mr Percival. His pale, pinkish bill is enormous, even by pelican standards. More than that, he’s proving himself to be every bit the shameless showman. Perched on the edge of a rough wooden plank verandah outside a ramshackle fisherman’s hut, Mr Percival – an exhibitionist if there ever was one – is holding court on the set of Storm Boy, this year’s cinematic remake of the classic Australian coming-of-age story about a boy and his friendship with a pelican.

Mr Percival, of course, is the star of the show. Gathered about him in a wide circle is a breathless throng of fans, most of them cast and crew, all oohing and ahhing, and waiting eagerly for his next stunt.

His handler, a neat woman dressed in khakis and boots, tosses the pelican a small fillet of fish. He catches it in his vast beak, a tiny morsel disappearing down a suddenly yawning gullet. The audience cheers and Mr Percival spreads his wings out wide, much like an applause-starved actor taking a long-awaited bow.

It’s a rare thing to see a bird upstage actors on a film set. But here in the isolated sandhills of the South Australian coastline, a cold, strong wind whipping up the sand, that’s exactly what is happening. And, even more strangely, the actors don’t seem to mind a bit.

“The birds are absolutely incredible,” says Finn Little, the 11-year-old actor who stars as Mike Kingley, the title character in Storm Boy. “They are so funny and so good at everything they do. They understand so much and they can do things on cue, just like actors do. It’s amazing to say this but it’s almost like they are human. I had to spend a lot of time with them so we could bond, and they wouldn’t freak out when it came to filming. But now we are like best friends.”

The pelicans, of course, are crucial to the story of