'It's never felt like a big risk to say no to things - I am really good at not working'

‘Chopper’ and ‘Troy’ star Eric Bana speaks to Adam White about his new Netflix mystery ‘Untamed’, the failures of ‘Hulk’, and the controversy over his Spielberg film ‘Munich’

- Adam White

There are Aussie actors so enveloped in British and American pop culture that you might need to be reminded that they're from the land down under. These are your “secret Australians”, your Margot Robbies and Rose Byrnes or your Jacob Elordis. Eric Bana, the strong-of-jaw star of Troy, Munich, and Ang Lee's Hulk, is not a secret Australian. His accent is thick. His skin is sun-kissed. His surname sounds as if it needs to be shouted, rowdily, across the length of a busy pub. “Oy, Baa-naa!” some Crocodile Hunter type might blare.

So it feels wrong to find him sitting in a checked button-up shirt in a New York office, where he's been promoting his new Netflix drama, rather than on a beach somewhere in Melbourne, feet up, tinnie in hand, boasting about his remarkable sense of chill.

“I’m really good at not working,” the 56-year-old jokes. “It’s never felt like a big risk to say no to things. I’ve never panicked about work. It’s just not how I operate.”

Fire up the barbie, Bana’s here.

There was a period, nearly 25 years ago now, where Bana was positioned for a kind of stardom that he never found particularly appealing. “He has the face and musculature of the ideal action-oriented leading man,” went Vanity Fair back then. “But Bana has taken a tougher route.”

After putting on two stone of weight to play the notorious Aussie criminal Mark Read in 2000’s Chopper, then losing it to reveal a sculpted face and physique that Hollywood could hardly say no to, Bana went rogue. Yes, he played to “romantic pinup” type in