Dan Spielman strikes gold in the SBS period drama New Gold Mountain.
Tell us about your role as Frederick in New Gold Mountain
Dan Spielman: It’s set in the 1850’s in the Victorian Goldfields, when the English were bringing in taxes to constrain the Chinese. Those administering the taxes were the protectorate and Frederick Standish was the ‘Chinese protector’. He was a real-life guy, from British aristocracy and an interesting character who escaped gambling debts back in England. He ended up becoming the Chief Police Commissioner in Victoria, and sort of started the Melbourne Cup. Even though he held these powerful positions, he was obsessed with a life of leisure and died alone in his fifties.
The show also features a lot of diverse characters
Yes, it makes me think of Deadwood which really made its mark on many viewers, including myself. It had this amazing treatment of the American dustbowl frontier and foregrounded its female characters. It also introduced, still problematically, the Chinese within the goldmining community and made many of us think, “Where is our Australian version of this?” We have an amazing gold mining history, but the Chinese involvement and various other layers of the time, have never been a part of the bigger story.
Dan Spielman as Frederick Standish in New Gold Mountain
Was there a particular part of production that stood out to you?
There was an awesome Chinese festival scene in the encampment, with the full festooning tiger and dragon dancing, with drums and lanterns. A huge crowd came together to shoot this wonderful sequence in the middle of the bush camp with the Chinese becoming the foreground characters. It changed the strata of the experience. I remember one of the actors, Mabel Li who plays Lei and is of Chinese heritage, was quite moved by the whole experience, and so was I.
You began your career back on Blue Heelers and moved onto shows like The Secret Life of Us and Offspring. Has there been a favourite?
New Gold Mountain is a highlight of recent years because there’s so much energy behind it. Plus, I got to ride a horse, hold a gun and wear a big fake beard! Also, The Code on the ABC. The creator Shelley Birse, managed to make a brilliant thriller at the heart of Australian social issues, and I had a fantastic role playing one of the leads.
Have you ever played a gay role?
My very first job was in a wonderfully weird show called Raw FM, about a youth radio station. I played a private schoolboy who came out, and I also played a rent boy in my second feature film Tom White. Then in Offspring I was the gay brother of Eddie Perfect’s character.
Have you been out partying with your gay mates?
I did back in the day when I was working on those shows. The Tom White gay character lived in that scene, so I spent a lot of time experiencing the clubs in Collingwood, Melbourne. The Peel was the one I focused on, and we shot there as well. But I’m not much of a clubber, so even if my gay mates invited me out, I probably wouldn’t go.
But if you did, what would be your dancefloor song?
I’ve Got to Use My Imagination by Gladys Knight and The Pips! It’s an absolute cracker and really gets me going! It’s great to listen to at any time, and it’s also great watching them sing it live.
Dan Spielman in a scene from New Gold Mountain
And your favourite music diva?
There are so many, but I recently spent the whole day listening to Nina Simone. I have an amazing series of her recordings made in New York in the mid-sixties, and quite often I’ll hear a song I’d never heard before.
If you were gay, who would be your celebrity hall pass?
John Turturro. He’s extraordinary and can do anything, and he’s also super attractive. Most people know him as Jesus Quintana in The Big Lebouski in that famous purple onesie. I’ve also considered Mark Ruffalo, but that would be for the cuddles while Turturro is for the whiz-bang!
“My very first job was in Raw FM, where I played a private schoolboy who came out.”
What do you do to keep fit?
I don’t! I’m not a mad fitness person, but I’ve worked in construction and have my own business building furniture, so I’m kind of working physically all the time. Every year, if I’m lucky, I’ll do a stage show which is always a lot of physical work too, so I’m in good nick for a forty-three-year-old!
So, you’re an actor, tradie and artist?
I’ve been working as a joiner for many years and have a business designing and building furniture. I also create bird drawings, which came about in the bleak depths of the COVID lockdown. I’d been wanting to draw birds for years as I’ve always loved them, so I started and didn’t stop for about ten weeks. Now I’m flogging them on Instagram and they’ve doing really well.
Dan Spielman with Asher Keddie and Matthew Dyktynskit in Offspring. Photo: Giovanni Lovisetto
Do you have a grooming tip?
At the prompting of my partner, I’ve been using hydroclonic acid on my face! You cleanse the face then put on the acid, which is an oil, and then go for a walk around the house to let it soak in. Afterwards you need to moisturise, and if you’re really fancy, you dab some caffeine extract onto your baggy old-man eyes and in the morning you’re magically gorgeous again! See, I have a lot to offer here!
Who’s been the biggest influence on your career?
By luck, and certainly by choice, a large part of my career has been sponsored by women, including directors, producers, my agent and different colleagues right down to those who looked after me backstage. A lot of the important creative relationships I’ve had, have been with women. Nadine Garner is up there. She was something of a deified figure I’d seen as a kid on The Henderson Kids and here I was working with her on Raw FM. She had a huge complexity of spirit that was so generous. There’s also Ariette Taylor, a Dutch director who started the Keene Taylor Theatre Project, which I was a founding member of at nineteen. She gave me things that will last my whole life! One of the big lessons she taught me was to identify what indulgence is in performance. Just because something feels like it’s really good, doesn’t mean it’s necessarily the best or most incisive thing. By being less performative and more honest, something more powerful can be discovered.
“I also played a rent boy in the film Tom White and in Offspring I was the gay brother of Eddie Perfect’s character.”
You were also a part of the ABC’s miniseries Fires. What was that experience like?
It was a very ambitious project with a range of diverse stories. The thing is, we were shooting a show about the hottest and most devastating summer in recent memory, all during a Melbourne winter! We were meant to be in a heatwave with a fire bearing down, but it was freezing cold and raining. We had to suck on ice blocks, so we didn’t have steam coming out of our mouths! It was bizarre, but they did an extraordinary job with the end-product. The emotional terrain was very interesting. I think all Australians can relate to it whether they’ve been in a bushfire or not.
And briefs, boxer briefs or freeballs?
In my early twenties I had a wardrobe malfunction that set my future path for wearing briefs! I was in a sort of hippie phase and bought what I thought were some wonderful suit pants from an opp shop. I then went to meet my new girlfriend and her best friend at the St Kilda Street Market, arriving barefoot and free-balling in these fabulous two-dollar pants. The girls were sitting on the ground with their homemade jewelry, so I crouched down into a squat, and the pants exploded from arsehole to breakfast! I was basically left with two chaps and my tackle, and the women staring at eye-level going, “What the fuck?” That changed my free-balling path forever!
New Gold Mountain screens on SBS TV & On Demand
Follow Dan @daniel_spielman_studio
