Richard Jinman

Richard Jinman writes character‑driven arts and entertainment features for The Sydney Morning Herald, focusing on the people behind films, music, visual art and performance. He favours interviews and scene‑based stories pegged to new releases, tours and exhibitions, using anecdotes and direct quotes to draw out his subjects’ personalities and preoccupations. Over time he has also taken on senior arts responsibilities at the masthead, including serving as its arts editor.

Screen actors and new film releases

Much of Jinman’s recent work centres on film actors and the campaigns around new releases.

He profiles performers across generations, from Joan Collins returning to the screen in The Time of Their Lives to Saoirse Ronan in the historical drama Mary Queen of Scots. His film pieces often foreground reinvention or transition: a headline on Emilia Clarke “hitting the reinvention jackpot” with Last Christmas underlines a focus on career pivots, while his coverage of Queen and Slim presents the film as a “modern‑day call to arms”, signalling an interest in projects with political or social weight as well as commercial appeal.

Jinman’s actor interviews frequently turn on a vivid, lightly comic detail. In his profile of Cillian Murphy he opens on the image of the star arriving by bike, using the scene to set a conversational tone before moving into a discussion of Murphy’s work and recurring roles. A feature built around the question “Can Willem Dafoe fart on demand?” uses the actor’s own deadpan answer as a hook into a broader look at his performance in The Lighthouse, illustrating Jinman’s willingness to let quirky exchanges lead the reader into the craft and context of a film.

Across these pieces, he writes as a features reporter rather than a pure critic, but he weaves in judgments about how roles sit within an actor’s body of work and within broader screen culture.

Musicians, performance and live events

Music and performance are another consistent thread.

Jinman has written at length about Stuart Murdoch of Belle and Sebastian, framing the story around Murdoch’s spirituality and his experience of living with weakness while fronting a long‑running band. In a feature on Joy Division’s music re‑imagined with orchestral strings under the title “Playing Hooky”, he leans into the controversy around turning post‑punk songs into a symphonic show, exploring fan reactions and the artistic rationale for the project. These stories tie interviews closely to specific tour dates and concert halls, treating live performance as both an artistic and an event‑driven beat.

He also covers dance and stage performance through profiles that emphasise change over time. A piece on “the wild boy of dance” Michael Clark describes how the choreographer has toned down his act, using that shift to reflect on ageing, reputation and the demands of sustaining a career in contemporary dance. A separate feature on Sir Ranulph Fiennes, pegged to an on‑stage speaking event billed as an evening with “the world’s greatest living explorer”, highlights rivalry, pain and even the logistics of storing amputated fingers, showing Jinman’s tendency to anchor performance previews in striking personal anecdotes.

Visual art, design and cultural debates

Beyond screen and stage, Jinman reports on visual art, design and controversies that sit at the edge of culture and news. His feature on William Kentridge presents the artist as erudite and “quietly angry”, focusing on an exhibition that tackles colonialism and historical memory; the story emphasises how large‑scale installations can confront national histories and the politics of forgetting. In another piece he writes about an artist who has covered a mansion in doodles and is embarking on a project involving a million more, treating the house as both an artwork and a glimpse into obsessive creative process.

Jinman’s background as an arts editor comes through in stories that link performance to questions of authenticity and national image.

A news‑feature on the Sydney Olympics’ use of pre‑recorded music examines how major ceremonies present themselves to the world, comparing that illusion to other staged moments in cultural life. A commentary on Clive James and “culture cringe” uses a high‑profile expatriate as a lens on how a country is seen by its own commentators overseas.

Together, these pieces show an interest in the way art, spectacle and criticism feed into debates about identity, reputation and cultural confidence.

Feature‑led reporting style

Across beats, Jinman works in a feature mode built around interviews, character and narrative detail. His headlines lean on memorable phrases or quotes, from Dafoe’s offhand remark about sound effects to the image of Cillian Murphy’s bike, signalling that the texture of the encounter matters as much as the project being promoted.

He tends to tie each story to a concrete hook - a film’s release date, a tour or exhibition season, a one‑off stage appearance - then uses that hook as a frame for a broader look at the subject’s career, influences and preoccupations.

Rather than offering densely technical criticism, his pieces give readers enough plot or project context to situate the work, then focus on what his subjects say and how they carry themselves. Actors, musicians and artists are presented in full sentences and anecdotes, not just as names attached to projects. The result is a body of work that treats entertainment and the arts as a set of ongoing conversations with creative people, where personality, history and public reception are as central as any individual film, album or performance.