
Peter Weir, who directed Gulpilil in The Last Wave (1977), talks about his 'star quality':
David’s a very special case. As a director you don’t very often strike an actor with the qualities that he has. A kind of inner light. I didn’t really direct David; I just watched, and that as I say is rare. And [I] sometimes asked for a little more or a little less and he was truly inspired in that film and he gave a great deal of himself in that part. And as I was watching him I was asking myself, ‘What has he got?’ and it’s a very simple answer - it’s a star quality. David Gulpilil is a star. A film star.
Notes by Beth Taylor
The National Film and Sound Archive of Australia acknowledges Australia’s Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples as the Traditional Custodians of the land on which we work and live and gives respect to their Elders both past and present.