Exclusive Interview: Pop Culturalist Chats with Danger Close’s Luke Bracey

Luke Bracey is a rising star who’s leading the next generation of up-and-comers. He got his big break in the Australian soap opera Home and Away, where his commanding performance as bad boy Trey Palmer caught the eyes of many and made him an instant standout. It not only led to a starring role in the series but also helped him land a role in Monte Carlo, opposite Selena Gomez and Leighton Meester. Most recently, he was seen starring alongside Mel Gibson and Andrew Garfield in the award-winning film Hacksaw Ridge.

Luke continues to impress with each new performance. He’ll next be seen in the action-packed war drama Danger Close, where he plays Sergeant Bob Buick, one of the 108 Australian and New Zealand soldiers who fought for their lives against 2,500 North Vietnamese and Viet Cong soldiers during the Battle of Long Tan.

Pop Culturalist caught up with Luke ahead of the film’s release to chat about bringing light to an important moment in Australian history.

PC: What drew you to Danger Close? How did you get involved?
Luke: I was sent the script for Danger Close. After I read it, I thought it was incredibly well written. Stuart Beattie is one of Australia’s best screenwriters, if not one of the best in the world. It was going to be directed by Kriv Stenders and had this amazing cast attached. That was an easy starting point for me to say yes. Also, to get the opportunity to portray a guy like Bob Buick, who’s still with us and has a family and his own history, was a daunting task but a challenge that I really wanted. It’s been such a privilege to be a part of this film. It’s the first Australian story that I’ve made, and I couldn’t have dreamed for a more humbling, poignant, and important experience to be my first Australian film.

PC: Is there a different weight to a project like Danger Close, where you’re portraying an actual veteran and you’re bringing light to a battle that many are unaware of?
Luke: Absolutely! This is the first time that I’ve played a real person. There’s a real fear because you want to do him justice. You want to try and tell the story as accurately and as perfectly as possible. I think that leads everyone to really commit. Everyone on set was fully committed to doing justice to these guys’ stories. These were young men, twenty years old, fifty years ago, in a battle that lasted four hours but affected them for the rest of their lives. You don’t take that lightly.

I was lucky enough to meet Bob Buick and his family after they saw the film. For them to say thank you and that I did a good job, it was such a weight off my shoulders. All I wanted to do was respect the efforts of these ordinary men in this extraordinary situation.

PC: You did a lot of research to prepare to step into Bob’s shoes. Tell us about that process and what you learned.
Luke: There was a great tool for me to try and get to know Bob. That was the Australian War Memorial, which has a number of interviews with veterans from all the way back to World War II. They sit down in front of a camera for a couple of hours and tell you about their life. Bob did one. That was a great resource for me.

He talked about being born in South Africa and moving to Australia when he was a young child. He explained his upbringing, his teenage years, and how he got involved with the military. They had everything up to the moment of the battle. That’s what I based my portrayal on. I wanted to get the essence of who he was as a person. Bob was a career soldier. He joined the military when he was eighteen, and this is what he wanted to do with his life.

There was a real contrast between him and a lot of the other people in his platoon. They were young boys who didn’t have a choice. For Bob to trust these young men that he didn’t really see as equipped to deal with this, and then for them to go through this battle, and then for them to be even stronger than he thought, was a really poignant thing for me. Something that Bob told me when we met was about the brotherhood that manifested through these experiences.

PC: Brotherhood is one of the major themes that comes across in the film. How did you and the cast build that bond?
Luke: We were lucky enough to have a week of preparation. We learned about the weapon system and the whole battle. We had a fantastic military advisor, John Iles, who I worked with before on Hacksaw Ridge. We had a week together where we weren’t filming. We got to know each other. We went out for dinners and had a couple of beers. It was like being on a rugby team again. That was really great. It wasn’t hard to build that brotherhood on set. We were all so aware of the gravity of the story that we were telling and the fact that we were portraying real people that if anyone had an ego, it was completely left at the door. Everyone was committed to doing these guys justice and filming the story the right way.

After a hard day of work, we’d come back and have a laugh. We’d make fun of each other. That really brought us together. It’s really fun making a movie like this because of the relationships you build with everyone involved—not just the cast but the crew as well. When you’re on a location like that, it’s a real team atmosphere. That’s what I love about making movies.

PC: One of Bob’s main relationships is with his less experienced lieutenant. How did you approach that dynamic?
Luke: Working with Mojean [Aria] was fantastic. We got along really, really well. He’s such a talented, talented actor and someone to watch coming out of Australia. We really worked together to find that dynamic. Mojean’s character, Gordon Sharp, has a carefree nature, while Bob has a by-the-rules attitude. He’s a serious guy. We really wanted that contrast to be good because when we get into the battle, you see them really work well together. Bob is just looking out for him.

The extras in our films were all Iraq and Afghanistan veterans. We became mates with these guys, who were also a great resource. We got to ask them questions. We talked to them about what the dynamic between a lieutenant and a sergeant would be. It helped Mojean and I color this relationship we had. The lieutenant has the higher rank, but normally the sergeant has more experience.

So a good sergeant-lieutenant relationship is a lieutenant asking his sergeant what he thinks. The sergeant gives his advice. There’s a chain of command, but there’s also a chain of respect. We wanted to have that imbalance at the start and then through everything that happens.

To keep up with Luke, follow him on Twitter and Instagram. Danger Close is out now in theaters and on VOD.