Guy Pearce stepped into the role of “family dad” at the age of eight after his father’s death in a plane crash.
Guy Pearce has opened up about the family tragedy that changed his life
The 57-year-old Hollywood actor was left devastated when his test pilot dad Stuart Pearce was killed in an accident in 1976 and he’s now revealed he had to grow up quickly because he needed to care for his sister Tracy while his mum Anne was working.
He told the Wall Street Journal: “In August 1976, my father, the chief structural designer and the navigator took the plane up for a test. Ninety seconds into the flight, a large section of the tail fell off. The navigator, Pat Larcy, was the sole survivor.
“When I arrived home from school that day, Mum’s friends were there. She took me into her bedroom and told me what had happened. I don’t remember anything after that. I was eight.
“Years later, my mother said to me in her typical blunt fashion: ‘Well, you went really weird after your dad died. I thought about getting you a psychiatrist.’ That was probably her sarcastic way of showing sympathy.”
Guy went on to add: “My sister, Tracy, has an intellectual disability, so I became the family dad at a young age. Mum was very clever about easing me into the role. She didn’t say: ‘I need you to help me.’ She said: ‘It’s so wonderful that you’re being responsible.’
“We had a TV, and Tracy and I loved our time watching cartoons. I knew when to turn the TV off, do my homework, practice the clarinet and tenor saxophone and help with Tracy and get her to bed.”
Guy was born in the UK before his family moved to Australia and he now lives in the Netherlands, where his former partner Carice van Houten and their Monte are based.
He recently admitted he made a number of bad films to pay for his divorce after splitting from his wife of 18 years Kate Mestitz in 2015.
In an interview with The Times newspaper, he explained: “I did a bunch of s*** during my divorce because I needed the money.
“It was my divorce period, 2016, ’17 and ’18. I’d read scripts thinking, no, this is pretty good actually, I could do this … But a year earlier I would have said no. “You’re forced to expand your tolerance of things when you need dough, so it was a real relief once I paid off my divorce.
“But it blurred my vision. I’d read something that I felt was good and then question myself. Is it good? Or just in the camp of paying off my divorce?”
After divorcing Kate, the actor went on to find love with Game of Thrones star Carice, but they have since parted ways.
Carice explained the couple actually split “years” ago but they are committed to raising their little boy together.
