As a regular performer with the Bell Shakespeare and other important theatre companies, Chris Stollery is no stranger to period costumes and drama.

“I can do a waistcoat. I’ve done lots of mutton chop acting before. There’s actually a short course you can do at NIDA,” he laughs.

Jokes aside, it takes an actor with Stollery’s bona fides to bring out the complexities in Hopetoun’s duplicitous mayor, James Fife. And a handy bonus: Stollery, 46, (who is actually a NIDA graduate) was already engaged with 19th century Australian history when he landed the role.

“It’s an incredibly under-utilised period of history,” he says. “An amazing lot went on. I was researching a piece I am writing and I would go to the Dixon Library (in Sydney) and read these firsthand autobiographies from the time that have never been published. They are original manuscripts. And every one of these was rollicking tale. It’s a fascinating period.”

For Stollery, who’s well known for his TV recurring roles in Sea Patrol, State Coroner, Flying Doctors and Spirited, as well as many, many guest appearances, it’s been a busy time.

The short film he wrote and directed, DIK, won Australia’s Flickerfest before collecting the audience choice awards at the LA Comedy Shorts Festival and the Aspen ShortsFest, where it also won the award for best comedy.

“It’s about a six-year-old boy who brings home a piece of artwork from school which alarms his father as he seems to be turning out gay. And the father and his wife have a conversation which basically unravels their own relationship,” says Stollery, a Bondi resident.

It’s the fourth short film for an artist with many strings to his bow. In other areas of his career, Stollery is performing in the Sydney Theatre Company’s production (Gross und Klein) Big and Small which will tour to Europe in 2012.

But playing Fife is a career highlight that he relishes. “There is a tongue-in-cheek style to Wild Boys that is great,” he says. “And as Fife unfolds there’s a lot of fun to be had.”

Who’s your favourite Wild Boy?
Paul Newman in Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. And Robert Redford for that matter. Those two together. I wish they’d made a few more films together. I think they were so great together.