Speaking in the August issue of GQ Australia, he said he began to rely on the drug as success of his acting career became too much.
“There was no conscious reason to my all-day, everyday pot smoking other than I was overworked and thought being high was great fun,” Pearce says in the interview.
“I loved the altered state marijuana brought me.”
The 46-year-old says that for most of 2002 he stayed at home in St Kilda playing “95 guitars” and ignoring calls from his agent until another famous Aussie, Nick Cave, got him out of it.
“The phone rang at home and of course I was stoned and didn’t answer. This big baritone voice started on the answering machine: ‘Look I’m sorry to be calling you at home, Guy. It’s Nick Cave. We’ve sent you a script and I dunno if you’re interested …’ By now I was giggling under the sofa going, ‘Faaaark man, it’s Nick Cave’,” he said.
He stopped giggling long enough to call him back and got a part in the film – 2005’s The Proposition – and it brought him out of his addition.
Pearce went onto star in films like The Hurt Locker, The King’s Speech, Animal Kingdom and Mildred Pierce. He most recently appeared in The Rover.
