Ambassador Damon Gameau is an Australian director and actor – and huge Crows fan!
As an actor, Damon has starred in several feature films including Rolf de Heer’s critically acclaimed ‘The Tracker’, ‘Thunderstruck’, ‘Balibo’ opposite Anthony LaPaglia, and ‘Save Your Legs!’ with Stephen Curry and Brendan Cowell. As a director he wrote, directed and performed the vocals for the 2011 winning Tropfest short film, ‘Animal Beatbox’. He also had a small role in the US smash ‘How I Met Your Mother’ and recently starred in the Aussie mini-series, ‘Secrets and Lies’ and 'Howzat!'. Damon’s partner, Zoe Tuckwell-Smith of ‘Winners and Losers’ fame, is also in the acting business.
1. How and why did you start supporting the Crows?
I was a broke 16-year-old in 1993 and was offered a job as a ‘red coat’ at Football Park, helping people to their seats. It happened to be the year Tony Modra kicked 129 goals. Watching him sit on opponent’s heads and kick bags of 13 goals had me hooked. Later that year, I went to Melbourne to watch the Crows win an elimination final against Hawthorn. I was sitting with the Hawthorn cheer squad. When we won, I stood up and cheered and was hit in the back of the head with a Granny Smith apple. As I regained consciousness, I knew I was a Crow for life. (I never got to congratulate the thrower of that apple, clearly a magnificent arm. I hope he is winning lots of fluffy toys for his children at Royal Shows).
2. How often do you watch Crows games?
I haven’t missed a game for three years. My wonderful girlfriend has just accepted that every weekend I ‘disappear’ for 3 hours. Even when working overseas I watch the games online. I watched the 2012 Preliminary final from Dublin at three in the morning. The site crashed right after Graham Johncock kicked the goal to put us in front with five minutes to go and only came back online when Buddy Franklin was being interviewed after the game. It was a horrible way to find out our season was over. I still have scars.
3. Where is the quirkiest place you’ve watched a Crows game online or on TV?
Much to my girlfriend’s horror I was caught watching the last quarter of a match in 2011 on my phone in the back of a boat as we went down the Amazon River in Peru. The reception cut out though and probably saved me a few hours of relationship pain.
4. Do you have any Crows memorabilia?
I have a back-to-back premiership scarf from 1998, which I snuck onto the set of the Channel Ten show ‘Secrets and Lies’ earlier this year. Keith Conlon then coined the phrase ‘Crowbombing’, which I really hope catches on.
5. Tell us what you’re up to at the moment …
My girlfriend and I have just had our first child, which has been magical. I have just finished shooting the Gallipoli television series for Channel 9 playing Keith Murdoch, who was Rupert Murdoch’s father. It is going to be a very special show and I am very proud to be a part of it.
I have also just finished directing my first feature film ‘That Sugar Film’, which is a feature length documentary exploring the effects of sugar on the human body. It included me doing a ‘Super Size Me’ experiment of eating 40 teaspoons of hidden sugars a day for 60 days to see what it does to the body. We have some terrific international celebrities in the film and lots of animations and are aiming to get into schools around the world. We also spent some time in the APY lands and have started an organisation to help lower sugar consumption in the Aboriginal communities to match the World Health Organisation’s recent recommendations.
6. Best Crows or footy story?
I went to the 1997 Preliminary Final with some friends to see the Crows beat the Western Bulldogs after being 22 points down with 15 minutes to go (thank you Darren Jarman). We were sitting with a group of Bulldogs supporters, who were in their late 80s. We were carrying on like idiots when we won, but the elderly men started crying. We felt so bad that we took them out to dinner, bought them some shandies and had a terrific night.
