Australian actress finds confidence to play Judy Garland

Portraying the talented but deeply troubled Judy Garland required more than Judy Davis’ remarkable acting ability.

Actress Judy Davis says she was nervous while attempting to capture the essence of Judy Garland for the four-hour ABC miniseries. Associated Press

"I’d go into the makeup trailer feeling like me and I’d come out feeling like Garland," Davis said. "It was a miraculous thing."

She stars in "Life With Judy Garland: Me and My Shadows," a four-hour miniseries airing on ABC tonight and tomorrow.

"I was baffled as to why they had approached me," the 45-year-old Australian actress said in an interview. "I seemed to make perfect sense to them, but I couldn’t see it at all. But then one can’t see oneself objectively, which is just as well."

The script is based on the memoir of Garland’s daughter Lorna Luft, one of the executive producers of the Alliance Atlantis production.

Peter Sussman, president of Alliance Atlantis, said he knew from the first moment of filming that Davis had convincingly grasped Garland’s distinctive style.

"All the nuances are there; the way she captured the movement of her hands was almost mind-blowing," he said.

Luft agrees. "Judy has said that she tried to inhabit my mother, but I think mom inhabited Judy Davis."

Davis was transformed, using chest padding, into the more curvaceous Garland who, though short, had beautiful, long legs.

"Nobody could do much about my short legs, but, oh, boy, with those breasts I felt really quite a different person, which was an enormous help," she said.

Before taking on the project, Davis had known only the basic facts about Garland, most relating to her professional career and not her private life, which included five marriages, drug dependency, several nervous breakdowns and her death in 1969 at age 47.

"Trying to come to grips with her psychology - that was the biggest challenge. . . . So that I could do her, in some small way, justice. . . . The only journey really for an actor into a character is to get under the skin," Davis said.

She studied film and video footage and photographs, and listened to Garland’s recordings. There were also personal audio tapes in which Garland discussed her intimate feelings about one of her troubled marriages.

"How that didn’t remain private, I don’t know," Davis said. "Of course, it was terribly helpful to me to be able to hear it, but it was disturbing how little privacy she had."

Several of Garland’s concert performances, including a rendition of "Over the Rainbow" sung at the Palace Theater on Broadway in 1951, as well as "The Trolley Song," from her 1944 MGM musical "Meet Me in St. Louis," are re-created by Davis, who lip-synched each song to the actual recordings.

"They were fantastic to do. I was very nervous before we did them, but it was really a once-in-a-lifetime experience. It sounds ridiculous. I got to pretend to be Judy Garland at Carnegie Hall."

She rehearsed the choreography and lip-syncing for three weeks to gain the confidence during filming to forget the blueprint of movement. She just wanted to enjoy it as Garland did. "She loved performing and that was the key to me. I had to just love it, too. And I must say it was fantastic fun to do it."

‘Life With Judy Garland: Me and My Shadows’ 8 p.m. tonight and tomorrow, ABC, KITV-4 (6 on Oceanic)

Davis was interviewed at a Los Angeles hotel while on her way back to Australia. As she spoke, her 3-year-old daughter, Charlotte, peeped out from behind the curtains of the hotel suite. Davis, who is married to actor Colin Friels, also has a 13-year-old son, Jack.

Her humor is so low-key, it’s almost underground. She’s both brazen and distant, able to somehow stare you down with a sidelong glance.

Davis first came to international attention with the 1979 Australian movie "My Brilliant Career." Her work since has ranged from the spectacle of David Lean’s "A Passage to India" to the quirks of Woody Allen’s "Husbands and Wives." Both earned her Oscar nominations.

While tackling her role as Garland, Davis thought about Allen’s tendency to try to "wrong-foot" her to see what she’d do.

"Every day presented a new set of challenges, which were just as enormous as the day before and in a way that’s off-centering," she recalled. "I got nervous every morning and that’s really unusual for me. I was nervous about what was in store, whether I’d be able to do her justice. . . . I didn’t want to sell her short."

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