Australian Story: Mar 26

Next week’s Australian Story, introduced by Zoe Carides, tells the story of actor, director and Tropfest creator John Polson.

The episode also features Simon Baker and Naomi Watts.

Geoffrey Rush, Nicole Kidman and Cate Blanchett were all together in Sydney recently for Polson’s ‘Tropfest’ event which has risen from unlikely origins in a corner cafe to become the biggest short film festival in the world.

Polson reveals that his teenage years were marked by delinquency, expulsions from school and several brushes with the law.

“I was probably a week away from going to jail,” he reflects.

But he caught the attention of a casting agent and suddenly emerged as a successful young actor, going on to direct some of the world’s best know TV dramas and becoming an all-round influence broker – a man of whom it is said “Everybody knows him, or wants to know him.”

Gia Carides, Mary Coustas, Alan Lovell and John Polson’s wife Amanda Harding also feature.

8pm Monday on ABC1.