Guy Pearce has revealed that Rupert Murdoch is "very happy" about being portrayed by the Australian actor in the new film Ink, which chronicles the origins of the British tabloid the Sun. Speaking at the Venice film festival ahead of the premiere, Pearce said he had been in contact with the media tycoon's daughter, Elisabeth Murdoch, who conveyed her father's approval.
"And she did say 'Dad's very happy that you're playing him'," Pearce recounted. However, he added a note of caution: "But he hadn't seen the film at that point, so we'll see."
Film's Setting and Premise
Ink, directed by Danny Boyle of 28 Days Later fame, is set in 1969, the year Murdoch took over the ailing newspaper and installed Larry Lamb, played by Jack O'Connell, with a mission to outsell the Daily Mirror, then Britain's leading tabloid. Pearce, who had his breakout role in 1994's The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert, stars as the press baron.
The film is based on a script by playwright James Graham, who noted that Rupert Murdoch senior twice attended performances of the stage version in the West End and on Broadway. Graham recalled Murdoch's reaction to the play, saying, "I remember he was very good at sort of not really giving anything away."
Murdoch's Reaction and Boyle's Perspective
Graham said Murdoch "really enjoyed" a particular sequence that depicted the workings of the printing process—"the dirt and the steam and the filth that used to go into making a paper on a daily basis." Graham found this intriguing, noting, "He was really charmed by that, which I thought was interesting, because the end of the story is that he's the first to go digital, and Fleet Street is no longer what it was due to his decisions."
While the Murdoch clan's business travails and familial battles in the US are widely thought to have been portrayed in HBO's Succession, despite the programme-makers' denials, Boyle's film focuses solely on Murdoch's early years in Britain. Boyle said Murdoch "represented at the time a breath of fresh air in what was a very, very rigid British society."
Broader Impact on Media
Boyle, whose 28 Years Later: The Bone Temple was released this year, empathised with Murdoch's position, saying, "He was dealing with a lot of prejudice because he was Australian, which I can certainly understand – I can empathise with that. He particularly had a loathing for the British establishment, what's called the British establishment, which I personally share as well."
Graham also wanted his script to show the long-term knock-on effect that the Sun's disruption of the newspaper industry had on contemporary media. He explained, "The tradition of news and journalism in the UK was very much based on the BBC, which is meant to educate and inform, and then these guys just smashed through with an aggressive attempt at entertainment and fun."
Graham concluded, "The origins of this story, and the news philosophy that was about engagement, entertainment and destruction, that's never been more embedded in our discourse, with social media and now AI. It's all about power of engagement."
