Jack Thompson

Jack Thompson AM (b. 1940) is an actor with a career spanning five decades. The face of the 1970s Australian film renaissance, he appeared in the classic films Sunday Too Far Away, The Chant of Jimmy Blacksmith, The Man from Snowy River and Breaker Morant. In 1972 he was the first nude Cleo centrefold, and gained further notoriety for living in a ménage a trois with two sisters for fifteen years. Since The Sum of Us in 1994, Thompson has acted in many films including Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil, Star Wars Episode II – Attack of the Clones, The Good German, Australia and The Great Gatsby. Outside of acting he has been a goodwill ambassador for the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, and established his own foundation to support First Nations building programs in East Arnhem Land.

This photograph was created as part of Peter Brew-Bevan's 2020 MEN-tality Project, a series of portraits of prominent Australian men with experience of depression and anxiety. 'I wanted to start a conversation so that other men could look at these people and realise even those with big, successful careers and lives can go through tough times,' Brew-Bevan says. As Thompson noted, 'Being a part of this project that helps to demystify and de-stigmatize men's mental health issues while giving them the tools needed to navigate life's ups and downs has given me considerable satisfaction.'

Gift of the artist 2021
© Peter Brew-Bevan