Paul Capsis

It's 3.30 PM on a Wednesday and I'm down the pub, The Shakespeare in the Surry Hills, with Paul Capsis. Head to toe in a Romance Was Born print suit and rainbow velvet books, he's owning the room, charming the regulars: whether white collar, blue collar, or in a leather jacket they can't stop themselves watching, sipping their pints while he poses for our camera - and that is the Capsis way, he just draws you in.

Jacket and trousers by ROMANCE WAS BORN, shirt by TRELISE COOPER, ring and cuff (worn throughout) model’s own

A myriad of outfit changes later his energy is not lagging, such is his performance background and dedication to character, even when acting as himself. It’s the same with our interview, peppered with stories, “35 years of shit, it’s a lot!” and not all about him, Capsis seems to remember everything and everyone he’s ever met and, the word obsession comes up a lot too.

Half Greek, half Maltese, Capsis is Surry Hills born and bred. Raised in his Maltese grandmother’s house till he left aged 20, he literally moved down the street and still lives in the neighbourhood. A gender-bender diva of stage and screen with an incredible voice and presence, Capsis has never shied away from challenging roles. Equally at home onstage as the MC in Cabaret or depicting his own grandmother in Angela’s Kitchen, he is still even now stopped in the street and recognised as Johnny/Tula, his co-starring role alongside Alex Dimitriades’ Ari in 1998’s Head On.

Described as a “gospel-shrieking force of nature” and “strong yet deceivingly fragile powerhouse”, he delights in interpreting his favourite offbeat divas including, of course, Janis Joplin, the one who for him started it all.

Now Capsis is soon to revisit another of his favourite roles, Quentin Crisp, touring across Australia next year in Resident Alien.

Lets start by talking about you as a child. What was growing up like?

I liked to be on my own as a kid, I used to talk to myself a lot, and I had a very vivid imagination. I loved my imaginary world and I was always there, never in present time. I thought everything was so boring and suburban so I’d have to imagine things. I also hated getting older. School forced me to engage with other kids, so I was woken up out of my imaginary world only to find I was in a brutal violent existence. Kids shattered my world really. I wasn’t prepared. I had a lot of fear as a kid; I was afraid of the dark, I used to wet the bed. Everything seemed so scary and I think it had to do with religion: “the devil’s going to grab you”. I’ve had a lot of religion in my life, unfortunately (laughs). Until my early teens, I had it forced on me, mainly from my Maltese grandmother because she was religious and we lived in her house. Something I remember about church was there was such little joy; instead there was guilt and control. And I was one of those kids that used to pray; I’d beg God for all sorts of things. I believed in prayer. Now I can’t ever call myself an atheist but what I do believe in is a spirit and a power, energy and what I don’t believe for one second is that a powerful creator hates me or disapproves of me.

And how did you discover acting?

When I saw theatre for the first time, it was with my Auntie and cousins. I was nine and we went to see a production of Rumpelstiltskin at the Sydney Opera House, which had just opened, so in late 1973. I remember being completely engrossed in the story and was really affected by it. A couple of years later I went with that same Auntie and cousins to see Jesus Christ Superstar at the Capitol Theatre. It was a revelation: music and people singing live, telling a story. Watching the performers, being intrigued by the idea that people sit in a room and watch something over there on the thing called a stage and when the lights went dark other people came out in costumes. Then age 16 I saw Colin Friels, Judy Davis and Annie Byron in Miss Julie and the Bear at the Nimrod Downstairs with a school group. It was a matinee, and I fell in love with theatre that afternoon. My proximity to their acting, to the three of them, this thing they did was beyond magic. It was a skill. And I wanted to do that. I’ve always loved costumes too… I was completely crazy for the nuns in their habits; I was obsessed with that, the mystery of what was underneath. I loved films and certain people on television, like Bette Davis. I was drawn to the strong female from a very young age.

Speaking of strong women in your life, you created an ode to your Maltese grandmother in your play Angela’s Kitchen. How did that come about?

I hadn’t done anything that personal before. I always had the veneer of the performer or character. A year after my grandmother’s death, I started to think about the idea and the politics of it started to get me, less about the person I’d been grieving and more about migration and immigrants and our story here. There were no plays about Maltese anything so this was the driving force in the end, that in Australia we still have this issue with who we really are. Migrants bring new things to Australian culture but there are there are huge groups of new Australians that are still outsiders. Some arrived in the 70s, some like my family from the 20s, but they still feel outside, not quite a part of the picture, whatever that picture is meant to be.

You also have a deep love for Janis Joplin, a major influence for you, how did you discover her?

I have no idea why a 12-year- old Catholic/Greek orthodox Maltese/ Greek Australian would become completely and utterly obsessed with Janis Joplin! I’ve thought about that a lot. Something about what I went through at school, something about her voice, her daring, her personality as a woman who didn’t give a flying fuck about anybody or anything. Her voice and the pain and the things she accessed, grabbed me as a kid and got me through. I was a fan of Suzi Quatro. I had a crush on her - a ballsy chick in rock’n’roll who wore leather outfits and played a big bass guitar. She’d stand with her legs apart in boots and chains. She was playing a character in an act: a glitter rock leather bike queen and I was fucking crazy for her. When I read about her, I’d often see the line “Suzi Quatro is the new Janis Joplin” and I wondered, “Who is Janis Joplin if Suzi Quatro is the new her?” Then one night my mother’s very worldly boyfriend was with my brother in the kitchen and he started talking about people in rock and roll. My brother was obsessed with KISS and Sam was trying to talk to him about other music. I was in my little room playing with my toys and then I heard him say “Janis Joplin”. Well! I didn’t even leave my room, my ears were pricked. He started describing her, “Janis Joplin used to walk onstage with a bottle in her hand and a tit sticking out. She used to swear and take drugs”. “She sounds so scary!” I thought as a little Catholic boy with Catholic guilt, “Who’s this wild crazy woman?” Later that week I went into the city. I was strictly allowed to go into the city for one hour, to catch the bus from Crown Street and come back home within that hour. I’d go to Gould’s in Pitt Street; a tiny secondhand bookshop with a distinct smell about it that also had old vinyl, looking for Suzi Quatro records cheap. That day in the window there was a book, Janis by David Dalton, with a picture of a woman like she was burning in Hell, all in red, red light and screaming into the microphone. I went into the shop and said to the lady, “Excuse me is that book about Janis Joplin?”. She handed it to me and I opened to the black and white photos in the middle and that was it, my life changed. I obsessed about this new world; Janis was only dead six years when I discovered her. And through her I learnt about Billie Holiday, Bessie Smith, blues and soul. I’ve still got that book. For a long time when I was a kid I use to have a reoccurring dream that I saved Janis, but at the moment I’m saving her I wake up. That went on for a long, long, long, long time. People have said, “You have to do a Janis Joplin show” for years. But no, it’s too special for me. It’s a bit like becoming my grandmother, I don’t want to just get up there now and do what other people do. It has to be something more theatrical. I’d imbue these stories with something else - like I’m praying at the back of the church but I’m actually reading my copy of Going Down With Janis, which was all about her sex and drugs, half of which I’m not sure I even believe!

I love that story. Nowadays you probably could have looked all that up online.

We didn’t have the Internet when I was a kid but we had those bookshops and the library and I loved old things and people that inspired me from different times. I was crazy for Gould’s, saving my pocket money and I also still have most of that vinyl that I bought there, though the covers are completely crumbling, the records are scratched. In a way I’m glad I’m not a kid now, I’d never be in present time. I’d be consuming new information constantly, down the rabbit hole. Now someone can access a voice from different time periods. They can discover a Quentin Crisp, someone from the 20s, or find someone from 500 years ago who was a painter, or a monk! So much great stuff that has now come to light that would have never ever have been seen otherwise. I can go down these rabbit holes though now. Maybe I’ll spend a whole day watching Jerry Lewis interviews. At the moment I’m obsessed with Jerry Lewis, just in interviews, because he was such a weird man.

You’re about to reprise your role as Quentin Crisp soon, how is he still interesting to you?

In my life Quentin was large in terms of me being a fan and being intrigued by him but never in a million years did I think I’d play him. You don’t imagine in your teens when you have an obsession about a person that you’ll do something that’ll be connected to him. The initial call came to play Quentin and I was like, “Really, me?!” I couldn’t see the connection; I thought we couldn’t be more different: I’m young to play him at age 90 (when he first became known he was already 57). I’m a wog and Quentin is Anglo. But the thing about him was that he was somebody that I looked up to and was so interesting. I questioned it then I read the script, and then when I said yes, I was in and the obsession started. Quentin is in my scrapbooks from my teens: magazine photos of him in a suit with makeup and hair scrolled up, quite an extraordinary man. The more I read about him the more I realised I have a lot of similarities with this man. Quentin is still a mentor, somebody I look up to. He teaches me how I can possibly be in my later life. In my 50s, or my 90s.

Lastly Paul, with so much under your belt already, what do you want to do next?

I like to think that my future is more writing and maybe a book. I like the idea of being solitary, of not performing, or perhaps directing. I want to deliberately set aside time not just to rest but to think and plan and hopefully use the fact that I’ve achieved some things to make other things happen, to be more of a person who creates and initiates and makes. How I am and how my grandmother raised me to be is when we work we work. I don’t do anything easy and I don’t do anything by halves, whatever the work is I throw myself in and I become immersed. My approach to it is work and every now and then it’s fun. And when it’s fun it’s amazing and you don’t want it to end. Being a performer is such a big thing in my life and it’s given me such beautiful gifts. I could never have imagined my life when all those dreadful things in the past were happening. You have to hang in there. Life does get better, that’s the truth.

Jacket and trousers by ROMANCE WAS BORN, slippers by BEAU COOPS X ROMANCE WAS BORN, bowtie stylist’s own

Shirt by KATE SYLVESTER, jacket by TRELISE COOPER

Words and Fashion CHRIS LORIMER

Photography DAVID K. SHIELDS

Make-up and Hair JESS BERG

Shot on location at THE SHAKESPEARE HOTEL, Surry Hills, Sydney, Australia