GRACIE OTTO

Hey Everyone, Go see ‘The Bet’ this weekend because it’s a great film. Plus they need good numbers so that an Australian film gets a decent run at the cinemas. (also my boyfriends in it!!)Directed by actor Mark Lee (Gallipoli) and starring Matthew Newton (Looking For Alibrandi, My Mother Frank, Changi), Aden Young (Black Robe, Cousin Bette, Metal Skin) and Sibylla Budd (The Bank, The Book of Revelation) THE BET is a tale of the perils of ambition and the true value of love.Desperate to prove himself, Will (Matthew Newton), a young Sydney stockbroker, makes a bet with his wealthy banker friend Angus (Aden Young) - with a significant stake each, who can make the most money in 90 days?Obsessed with winning, Will engages in illicit games - trading lies for money, until he realises that winning at all costs may mean losing more than he could ever imagine.What would you risk?DENDY NEWTOWN Friday 14th Sep 1:20pm, 5:10pm, 7:00pm Saturday 15th Sep 1:00pm, 4:50pm, 6:40pm Sunday 16th Sep 1:00pm, 4:50pm, 6:40pm Monday 17th Sep 1:00pm, 4:50pm, 6:40pm Tuesday 18th Sep 1:30pm, 5:20pm, 7:10pm Wednesday 19th Sep 1:00pm, 4:50pm, 6:40pmDENDY OPERA QUAYS Friday 14th Sep 12:20pm, 4:30pm, 6:30pm Saturday 15th Sep 12:20pm, 4:30pm, 6:30pm Sunday 16th Sep 12:20pm, 4:30pm, 6:30pm Monday 17th Sep 12:20pm, 4:30pm, 6:30pm Tuesday 18th Sep 12:20pm, 4:30pm, 6:30pm Wednesday 19th Sep 12:20pm, 4:30pm, 6:30pm SUNDAY AGE - 2nd JUNE 2007Barry Otto's youngest child proves both ambitious and resilient. She speaks with Simon Castles about the short film she's made, starring both her famous father and now infamous boyfriend.''Yeah, well she got there first, I guess," says Gracie Otto, laughing. She's talking about her best friend, Ashleigh McDonald, who in Otto's short film La Meme Nuit kisses and gropes Matthew Newton. The film was made last year, before Otto and Newton became a couple. On the set, the pair were just friends. So there was nothing odd about Otto directing her best friend to snog her future boyfriend, while her father (Barry Otto, who's also in the film) stood by.If this sounds a little farcical, then that's appropriate: La Meme Nuit (The Same Night), which screens as part of the St Kilda Film Festival, is a farce of sorts. Set in a stylish apartment building, it's about a dedicated but increasingly frazzled concierge (Barry Otto) who tries to manage the lives of the pretty-young-thing residents, even as they begin playing up behind each other's backs one warm evening. Doors open, elevators close, coincidences fly, everything is near miss, and the flirting is off the dial. It's tropical Sydney in need of a cold shower.It seems like the work of an older person than Gracie Otto, who only turned 20 this month. Meeting her in a hotel lobby, I am struck by how youthful she is. Everything from the slapdash over-application of her make-up, to her schoolgirlish way of racing between topics, to her telling of labyrinthine tales about schoolteachers and friends and nights out, is a reminder that adulthood is just beginning for Otto. Her conversation is littered with the California girl's gift to the world - the "like" qualifier - but her accent is broad, friendly Australian. She's attractive and smart, but not as attractive and smart as she's going to be.A publicist sits in on the interview, and I soon discover why when I ask Otto how it's been for her and Newton with all the media attention on them. "Gracie doesn't want to answer questions on that, sorry - we'd prefer you just stuck to talking about the film and her work," says the publicist. Otto is mighty glad for the backup, but looks uncomfortable, her long, thin legs twisting around each other, corkscrewing out of her short red dress.Since moving out of the house he shared with Satchwell in Sydney's Rozelle, Newton has spent some of the time living with Otto's family in Lewisham. Gracie says Newton and her dad are close. "I first met Matt because he did the play Boy Gets Girl with Miranda (Otto) and Dad in 2005. He's a friend of my dad, so I'd met him a few times. Then we worked together on the film."But their relationship didn't begin until later, because the day after Otto finished making La Meme Nuit, last July, she headed off to Paris for six months with her best friend, Ashleigh McDonald. The trip was an eye-opener. Within weeks of arriving, Otto met a charming man who took her to dinner, stole her credit card, and bought himself $5000 worth of Prada clothes. It seems the devil does indeed wear Prada.Otto almost returned to Australia immediately, tail between her legs. But instead she cried herself dry, hung in there, worked in bars ("I'm the worst bartender!"), babysat five boys ("I'm the worst babysitter, too!"), spotted Kevin Spacey in a restaurant and took in everything that Paris has to offer a wide-eyed girl seeking inspiration. She is now working some of her Paris experiences into a script for a feature film titled Rue de Tournon.Otto is interested in acting in the future, but her real passion is writing and directing. She admits that her yen for being behind the camera instead of in front of it may have something to do with wanting to stand out a bit - find her own path - in a family of actors. Her dad is a stage and screen veteran, the unforgettable star of Bliss and Strictly Ballroom. Her half-sister, Miranda Otto, has shone in low-budget Aussie winners (Love Serenade) and high-budget international blockbusters (Lord of the Rings, War of the Worlds). And her half-sister's husband is well-known TV actor Peter O'Brien (whose blond mullet you might remember from '80s appearances in soaps Neighbours and The Flying Doctors).At school (Sydney's Burwood Girls High) Gracie Otto was initially more interested in sport than the arts. And she became a champ, touring the world playing softball and representing Australia in indoor soccer. She still loves soccer, though she's been too busy to play much lately. Her team is Sydney City, an outfit so formidable it's been forced to play in the men's comp. "We always win, because all the girls are ex-Australian team players. And they all go out with each other. I was, like, the only non-lesbian on the team," Otto says. (Otto recently auditioned unsuccessfully for the lead role in an American version of soccer flick Bend it Like Beckham, which has the apt title Finding Gracie.)When Otto was in year 10, a teacher began taking the school's first film class, and Otto's interest in filmmaking slowly began to eclipse her passion for softball and football. She made videos of her teammates in action - sparky little movies that they could use in their applications for sports scholarships. Before long Otto was as skilful in the editing room as she was with a soccer ball dancing at her feet.In her final year of school, Otto made Kill Blondes, a short film that received a perfect score from the HSC examiners. The examiners, Otto proudly points out, knew her only as a number: in other words, she topped the state and it had nothing to do with her famous surname. For Otto, it was all the encouragement she needed. When she finished year 12 she headed to Sydney Film School and was on her way.Otto's father and her boyfriend are both very supportive of her career, and keen for her to write more roles for them. Matthew Newton - a culture vulture like father Bert -recently introduced Otto to the work of legendary American independent filmmaker John Cassavetes. While Otto was staying in Melbourne, accompanying Newton as he starred in The History Boys at the Arts Centre, she immersed herself in anything and everything Cassavetes, and was inspired anew as she worked on her script for Rue de Tournon.Her only interruption was the occasional call from her parents, wanting to catch up with their youngest child (Gracie has an older brother). Her father - who once said of Gracie that "she looks like Grace Kelly and she walks like John Wayne" - rang in from the set of Baz Luhrmann's latest epic, Australia."The budget on that film is massive," says Gracie Otto a little enviously - her own filmmaking plans somewhat hampered at the moment by having to pay off a large credit-card debt. "Dad's only got a small role, but he said he's got two parrots that sit on his shoulder, and they're worth $30,000 each. So my film was made for, like, a third of one of those parrots!"

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