Aden Young

Aden Young
Born	1972 Toronto, Canada
Years active	1991-present
Partner	Loene Carmen (¿? - present)
Children	Chester Van Young (2011) Dutch Bon Young (2007)

Aden Young (born 1972) is an Australian actor. In recent years he has also turned his hand to filmmaking, directing and writing short films The Rose of Ba Ziz (2007) and The Order (1998).

Life and career

Young was born in Toronto, Canada. Young's first role was in Bruce Beresford's acclaimed film Black Robe (1991) and they recently teamed up for the third time with Mao's Last Dancer, based on the best selling autobiography of Chinese ballet dancer Li Cunxin. Young portrays the Texan playboy who helps Li's defection to the West. Beresford states "He hasn’t changed that much, he is a very accomplished actor...We picked up just where we left off. We always got along well; he’s a very cooperative and thoughtful actor. Most of the actors who are well known and do lots of roles are incredibly good to work with. " Young appears as Charlotte Gainsbourg's husband on French/Australian/Italian co-production from director Julie Bertucelli The Tree (2010) – the story of eight-year-old Simone who believes her dead father's spirit has taken up residence in a Moreton Bay fig tree on the family property. The film is adapted from the book Our Father Who Art In The Tree, by Australian author Judy Pascoe and made its premiere on the closing night of the 2010 Cannes Film Festival.

In Kriv Stender's period western Lucky Country, released 2009, Young "spent a lot of time...chained inside a little wood locker" as unlucky landholder Nat, who as the film begins has suffered the recent loss of his wife in childbirth and must attempt to protect his home and children and survive the arrival of three gold hungry strangers, while fighting the debilitating onset of tetanus.

Young played Cate Blanchett's tortured lover Ejlert Lovborg in Andrew Upton's adaptation of Hedda Gabler by Henrik Ibsen. After a 2005 debut season at the Sydney Theatre Company the production was invited to Brooklyn Academy of Music in New York. The process of restaging the production in New York was filmed for the acclaimed documentary In the Company of Actors (2007).

Metal Skin, Geoffrey Wright's 1994 examination of suburban hopelessness and revhead subculture saw Young win an Australian Film Institute nomination for Best Performance by an Actor in a Leading Role for a 'powerful, brooding performance' as social misfit Psycho Joe whose 'edgy, simmering personality threatens to boil over into madness ... Young's depiction of this unsettling metamorphosis is central to the film's success.'

Directing was a 'natural progression' for Young. Acclaimed short film The Rose of Ba Ziz, "a beautifully simple fable narrated by Hugo Weaving" (Andrew Urban), is about a much-loved king who leaves his kingdom because he has an allergy and doesn't want the flowers that set it off to be destroyed. The film was made over five days on a shoestring budget of $700. "It's basically like a folk-fairytale parable," says St Kilda Film Festival director Paul Harris, "a series of stills that look like coloured postcards from the turn of the century... It has a very haunting quality to it. Conceptually, it's very unique and very endearing. I think it's got the ability to inspire filmmakers who are suffering from some kind of block about 'How do I go out and make films, how do I go out and compete with the big guys?' If you think just outside of the square you can really surprise and delight audiences.

Young describes his first film "The Order" as being "about a soldier who returns from the Vietnam War with the news that his best friend has died during the war and he chooses to inform the man's widow. By doing this onerous task he becomes haunted by an action that happened in his childhood and he believes that it might have started the course towards his friend's death."

"I'd definitely like to continue making films. Paul Cox constantly talks about getting this terrible disease called film making. It takes over your life and destroys every relationship and does all these terrible things to you...l. I think I've got that hideous disease. Film making is just a different commitment that I love – why just sit on the wings when you can really get in and sculpt something."

Young has assisted veteran independent Australian filmmaker, Dutch born Paul Cox in various capacities since starring in Cox's film Exile in 1994.

A portrait of Young by artist James Powditch (entitled Once Upon A Time in the Inner West) was an Archibald Prize 2008 finalist.

Personal Life

Aden has two sons, Chester Van (b. 2011) and Dutch Bon (b. 2007) by his longtime partner, actress/singer Loene Carmen.

Young adapted The Rose of Ba Ziz from the children's book written by his father Chip Young, a well known CBC broadcaster in Canada and a children's author. "I was about to have my first son and thought that it would be a wonderful love letter from his grandfather."

Young's family left Toronto for Australia in 1981 when Young was nine. The next decade was spent moving from town to town in NSW in search of the best medical care for Chip, who had contracted a mysterious lupus-like disease. "My mother is from Newcastle," says the actor, who still has a Canadian accent but can easily switch to an Australian drawl. "She had trained as a nurse there and maybe she thought that was where she would find the answer to my father's illness." Young attended Galston High and Australian Theatre For Young People as a teenager.

Filmography

• East West 101 (TV series) (2007)
• Killer Elite (2011)
• The Tree (2010) ... Peter
• Beneath Hill 60 (2010) ... Major North
• Mao's Last Dancer (2009) ... Dilworth
• Lucky Country (2009) ... Nat Doole
• In the Company of Actors (2007) .... Himself/Ejlert Lovburg
• The Goat That Ate Time (2007) (voice) .... Narrator
• The Starter Wife (2007) (TV mini-series) .... Jorge Stewart
• Two Twisted- Soft Boiled Luck (2006) (TV episode) .... Patrick Dempsey
• The Bet (2006) .... Angus
• Human Touch (2004) .... George
• After the Deluge (2003) (TV mini-series) .... Young Cliff
• The Crocodile Hunter: Collision Course (2002) .... Ron Buckwhiler
• Serenades (2001) .... Johann
• The War Bride (2001) .... Charlie
• Molokai: The Story of Father Damien (1999) .... Dr. Kalewis
• Cousin Bette (1998) .... Count Wenceslas Steinbach
• Under Heaven (1998) .... Buck
• Paradise Road (1997) .... Bill Seary
• Hotel de Love (1996) .... Rick Dunne
• River Street (1996) .... Ben
• Cosi (1996) .... Nick
• Audacious (1995) .... Stanley
• Metal Skin (1994) .... Joe
• Exile (1994) .... Peter Costello
• Shotgun Wedding (1993) .... Jimmy Becker
• Broken Highway (1993) .... Angel
• Love in Limbo (1993) .... Barry McJannet
• Sniper (1993) .... Doug Papich
• Over the Hill (1992) .... Nick
• Black Robe (1991) .... Daniel

Filmography as director

• The Rose of Ba Ziz (2007) Writer/Director/Editor...

Featuring Roy Billing. Narrated by Hugo Weaving

• Loene Carmen: Nashville High music video (2007)

• The Order (1998) Writer/Director...

Filmography as editor

• Waste Not (2011) documentary Dir: Ruth Hessey
• Kalaupapa Heaven (2009) documentary Dir: Paul Cox
• Salvation (2009) feature film Dir: Paul Cox
• "Mimic The Rain" (2009) Loene Carmen music video
• "Nashville High" (2007) Loene Carmen music video

Awards and nominations

• Australian Film Institute Awards Nomination for Best Actor in a Lead Role for River Street (1996)
• Australian Film Institute Awards Nomination for Best Actor in a Lead Role for Metal Skin (1995)
• Australian Film Critics Circle Award for Best Actor for Metal Skin (1995)

External links

• Aden Young at the Internet Movie Database
• Aden Young Biography – Yahoo.com
• Aden Young article, SMH 2009
• Lucky Country review
• Triple J Interview 2009

Sources

• http://www.moviehole.net/201024729-purcell-dirani-young-de-niro-join-killer-elite
• "Lights Brighter Behind Camera" The Australian by Sandy George, Film writer | August 14, 2007
• www.thearchibaldprize.com.au/__data/page/11351/archibald08_Sect3.pdf
• "Making A Short Film – Aden Young" by Dov Kornits, Film Writer 05/16/99