This is the existential question posed not by me, across the table from actor and mental health advocate Nick Bracks at the chicIn an episode on overcoming adversity, Bracks – son of Steve Bracks, the third-longest-serving Labor premier in Victorian history – interviewed Sean Brosnan, the son of James Bond star Pierce Brosnan.Bracks had cold-called Brosnan after reading an article about his life and discovering it had uncanny parallels to his own.
“We became close friends through it, because you are bonding over this thing that very few other people in your life can understand.” Steve Bracks and Nick, then 14, before swimming training at Williamstown Beach in preparation for the Lorne Pier to Pub swim.On the podcast, Bracks and Brosnan delve into some of their shared experiences growing up in the shadow of their famous fathers: the comparisons, the battle to forge your own identity, the envy of friends, navigating childhood in the spotlight when there isn’t a playbook to follow.
Bracks’ parents became worried. He responded by hiding bricks under his bed that he used as weights. He would get up early and train in secret.
It was a knee injury that killed Bracks’ dream of becoming an elite athlete. “When I finished up in high school I had to stop because I had literally just run myself into the ground. And that’s really when my mental health issues took off.”His life reached a nadir on a cold, rainy night in July 2007. Bracks, who had been drinking with friends at the nightclub Seven, crashed the family Saab after drink-driving, injuring his friend Huw.
Bracks would stand in front of the class, mumbling, and reading off a sheet of paper. Half the time he says people probably couldn’t understand what he was talking about.