WEBVTT - Read This: Noni Hazlehurst Is Being Herself 0:00:00.120 --> 0:00:03.040 Hi, there, It's Daniel James here with the first read. 0:00:03.080 --> 0:00:07.400 This episode of twenty twenty five, Schwartz Media's Books Podcast 0:00:07.440 --> 0:00:10.479 is hosted by editor of The Monthly Michael Williams, and 0:00:10.520 --> 0:00:12.640 it's a show about the books we love and the 0:00:12.680 --> 0:00:17.040 stories behind them. In the first episode for the year, 0:00:17.600 --> 0:00:21.079 Michael's chatting with Noney Hazelhurst. Nonany has just released her 0:00:21.120 --> 0:00:24.680 first memoir called Dropping the Mask, which traces her career 0:00:24.720 --> 0:00:28.200 not only as an actor, but as a director, writer, teacher, 0:00:28.520 --> 0:00:32.920 and public speaker. Coming up in just a moment, Noney 0:00:32.960 --> 0:00:35.199 Hazelhurst is being herself. 0:00:42.560 --> 0:00:45.919 All right, So I accept that amongst our read this listeners, 0:00:46.240 --> 0:00:49.400 there may be many who aren't of my exact vintage 0:00:49.479 --> 0:00:53.400 and experience, people for whom Noney Hazelhurst is something other 0:00:53.479 --> 0:00:57.440 than the patron saint of early childhood nostalgia. She's had 0:00:57.480 --> 0:01:01.160 a long and storied career on stage screen in Australia. 0:01:01.640 --> 0:01:04.680 Maybe you're picturing her on Better Homes and Gardens or 0:01:04.959 --> 0:01:09.080 in Little Fish opposite Kate Blanchett. As I read this listener, 0:01:09.200 --> 0:01:12.120 there's a better than average chance you're remembering her starring 0:01:12.200 --> 0:01:15.600 role in the film adaptation of Hell Ganner's Monkey grip. 0:01:16.280 --> 0:01:19.360 But our excuse for having her on today is her 0:01:19.400 --> 0:01:22.959 new memoir. It's called Dropping the Mask, where she reclaims 0:01:23.000 --> 0:01:25.720 a lifetime in the public eye and shares it back 0:01:25.920 --> 0:01:30.520 on the page. This dedicated interpreter of other people's words 0:01:30.880 --> 0:01:33.840 has now shared her own, and it's a memoir very 0:01:33.959 --> 0:01:39.480 much concerned with performance in all its forms, NONI. I 0:01:39.560 --> 0:01:42.479 wanted to start with your mum because she is the 0:01:42.720 --> 0:01:46.319 force around which so much of this book circles, and 0:01:46.360 --> 0:01:49.760 so much of this story circles, not least in the 0:01:49.880 --> 0:01:52.720 quote that you offer from her very early on, in 0:01:52.800 --> 0:01:55.480 the piece that gives the book its name, where she says, 0:01:55.880 --> 0:01:58.320 don't let anyone know what you're really like. 0:01:58.840 --> 0:02:02.960 Yes, yeah, that was a doozy. It's interesting that people 0:02:03.040 --> 0:02:06.160 have seen that my mother was sort of the driving 0:02:06.200 --> 0:02:08.079 force when now I wasn't aware of that when I 0:02:08.160 --> 0:02:11.400 was writing it, obviously, but yeah, So from a very 0:02:11.400 --> 0:02:14.919 early age, I was taught that I had to act, 0:02:15.800 --> 0:02:19.560 and I was not really encouraged to just be other 0:02:19.639 --> 0:02:23.000 than the version of this nice, little, slightly English girl 0:02:23.000 --> 0:02:26.800 that my mother hoped I would be, and indeed groomed 0:02:26.840 --> 0:02:30.960 me as such. My parents were both in vaudeville before 0:02:31.000 --> 0:02:32.600 the Second World War they met when they're on the 0:02:32.600 --> 0:02:35.640 same bill. I'm a fourth generation performer, so I was 0:02:35.639 --> 0:02:38.440 sort of doomed from the start. But they made it 0:02:38.560 --> 0:02:40.440 very clear that I had to be able to do 0:02:40.480 --> 0:02:42.720 all these different things if I wanted to succeed in 0:02:42.760 --> 0:02:49.280 my career, So comedy, accents, piano, singing, dancing, ballet, blah 0:02:49.280 --> 0:02:53.600 blah blah. But I was never encouraged to just reach 0:02:53.639 --> 0:02:56.400 in and find out who NONI was. And so it 0:02:56.440 --> 0:02:59.760 took me a really long time to break free of 0:03:00.720 --> 0:03:04.040 the conditioning not only that they provided in this kind 0:03:04.040 --> 0:03:07.320 of don't be yourself, be someone else when you're out, 0:03:08.680 --> 0:03:11.320 but also then to hit the seventies as a seventeen 0:03:11.400 --> 0:03:15.160 year old university in feminism and whitlam and politics for 0:03:15.200 --> 0:03:18.280 the first time, and alcohol and drugs and all those 0:03:18.320 --> 0:03:21.280 things that the seventies kind of laid on in spades, 0:03:22.440 --> 0:03:24.760 and then to go into the kind of late seventies 0:03:24.840 --> 0:03:29.640 television world, which was very much your young blonde ergo, 0:03:29.840 --> 0:03:33.120 we know you, know how to cast you. And so 0:03:33.800 --> 0:03:35.840 it took me a really long time to sort of 0:03:35.880 --> 0:03:40.120 be recognized as having serious aspirations. It was only the 0:03:40.120 --> 0:03:43.520 Sullivans when I could cry on cue that they kind 0:03:43.520 --> 0:03:45.880 of went, oh, she's not going to be a blond bimbo. 0:03:46.000 --> 0:03:48.960 She wants to be a serious actress. That was sort 0:03:48.960 --> 0:03:50.680 of a turning point. I mean, no one ever said 0:03:50.720 --> 0:03:54.360 to me reality is a personal construct, and I really 0:03:54.440 --> 0:03:56.600 wish they had a lot earlier. 0:03:56.560 --> 0:04:01.080 That generational divide between you your mum, you know, being 0:04:01.120 --> 0:04:04.240 a fourth generation performer. On the one hand, as you say, 0:04:04.280 --> 0:04:07.520 there's a kind of expectation and an influence. But one 0:04:07.520 --> 0:04:09.560 of the things that struck me again and again reading 0:04:09.600 --> 0:04:12.480 this book is that the idea of dropping the mask. 0:04:12.600 --> 0:04:14.760 The thing that makes you such an indelible figure in 0:04:14.800 --> 0:04:18.200 our culture is that you have done this extraordinary job 0:04:18.680 --> 0:04:22.560 of making people feel close to you in your different incarnations. 0:04:23.080 --> 0:04:26.440 I can't think of many storytellers in our culture, many 0:04:26.480 --> 0:04:31.200 performers in our culture who are so giving of themselves 0:04:31.640 --> 0:04:34.520 in the way that they the way that they move 0:04:34.600 --> 0:04:38.359 through the world. Is that largely construct? Is that just 0:04:38.720 --> 0:04:39.960 a wonderful performance? 0:04:40.360 --> 0:04:42.880 Well, I think every time most of us leave the house, 0:04:43.360 --> 0:04:46.120 we have constructed the role that we want to play 0:04:46.160 --> 0:04:48.599 in our minds, whether we do it consciously or unconsciously. 0:04:49.240 --> 0:04:51.719 So you know, it's not just about me dropping my mask. 0:04:51.760 --> 0:04:55.280 It's about recognizing that you know, underneath we are all 0:04:55.360 --> 0:04:59.760 authentic human beings and unique human beings, not necessarily special, 0:05:00.240 --> 0:05:05.000 but unique. And so it's recognizing that authenticity that allows 0:05:05.040 --> 0:05:07.960 you to acknowledge that you're ordinary and you're vulnerable. And 0:05:08.000 --> 0:05:11.200 as my acting mentor Larry Moss, who I describe at 0:05:11.279 --> 0:05:12.920 length in the book and who changed my life at 0:05:12.920 --> 0:05:16.000 the age of sixty, said, they don't come to see you, 0:05:16.040 --> 0:05:19.640 they come to see themselves. And so that was really 0:05:19.720 --> 0:05:23.599 revelatory because it stopped being about me and it began 0:05:23.680 --> 0:05:25.240 to be all I have to do is tell the 0:05:25.320 --> 0:05:29.119 story to the best of my ability, using my only tool, 0:05:29.160 --> 0:05:33.160 which is myself and my experiences, to bring what I 0:05:33.200 --> 0:05:36.800 think are appropriate choices for this character. It was really 0:05:36.839 --> 0:05:39.760 play school, Michael. That was the turning point in teaching 0:05:39.800 --> 0:05:42.880 me to choose the version of myself that I wanted 0:05:42.920 --> 0:05:45.880 to put out there as me. You know, obviously, I'm 0:05:45.920 --> 0:05:49.039 not knownly from play school, nor am I knownly the 0:05:49.080 --> 0:05:51.800 serious actress, nor am I knownly the single mother. I'm 0:05:51.839 --> 0:05:54.440 all of these things, as are we all. But the 0:05:54.480 --> 0:05:57.680 real key for me was play school had to treat 0:05:57.680 --> 0:05:59.680 the camera as though, it were one pair of eyes, 0:06:00.520 --> 0:06:03.160 and that is the key to all great communicators. If 0:06:03.240 --> 0:06:06.719 you can make a person listening or watching feel like 0:06:06.800 --> 0:06:10.120 you're talking just to them, then you have connected. 0:06:10.800 --> 0:06:15.080 Also, as you outline in the book, episodes particularly then 0:06:15.520 --> 0:06:19.320 were shot as live as well, so it wasn't a 0:06:19.360 --> 0:06:24.120 packaged thing. It was about an organic kind of relationship 0:06:24.120 --> 0:06:26.960 between you and your co host, and a relationship between 0:06:27.279 --> 0:06:30.000 two of you and the audience who are watching. I mean, 0:06:30.040 --> 0:06:35.120 I am of the generation who grew up watching you. 0:06:35.120 --> 0:06:38.160 You and John Hamblin were my absolute favorites. It was 0:06:38.200 --> 0:06:40.520 the John A. Nony episode. Everything else had to stop, 0:06:40.560 --> 0:06:43.600 and that was essential. But the thing that I remember 0:06:43.640 --> 0:06:46.279 about that I was thinking about this coming into the 0:06:46.279 --> 0:06:50.080 interview today was the sense of cheekiness with the two 0:06:50.120 --> 0:06:53.800 of you, and the sense of barely contained chaos and 0:06:53.880 --> 0:06:59.799 mayhem felt deeply authentic. As a kid, even I understood, 0:07:00.080 --> 0:07:02.880 these grown ups are having fun, They're making jokes with 0:07:02.920 --> 0:07:05.960 each other, and I'm aware of that, and as a kid, 0:07:06.520 --> 0:07:09.120 feeling like a grown up is on the level with 0:07:09.160 --> 0:07:11.320 you is the thing that you want more than anything. 0:07:12.000 --> 0:07:14.880 Yeah, well, you know that was our aim to make 0:07:14.920 --> 0:07:17.080 it appear like we were doing it for the first time, 0:07:17.800 --> 0:07:20.640 even though we had rehearsed at five times. And as 0:07:20.680 --> 0:07:23.720 you say, John taught me the key, which was to 0:07:23.840 --> 0:07:28.800 not perform, but to be. And so occasionally he would 0:07:28.840 --> 0:07:31.680 get things wrong, and initially I thought that was him, 0:07:31.760 --> 0:07:33.520 you know, being a bit slack, and I tried to 0:07:33.560 --> 0:07:38.559 overcompensate by being like a schoolmistress. And then I watched 0:07:38.640 --> 0:07:40.760 us back on an episode and I couldn't take my 0:07:40.800 --> 0:07:44.560 eyes off him because he was thoroughly engaging. Even in rehearsal. 0:07:44.680 --> 0:07:47.480 We had an immense amount of fun because he just played. 0:07:47.960 --> 0:07:49.960 And so a lot of my experiences up to that 0:07:50.000 --> 0:07:53.280 point had not been about playing. They'd been about being 0:07:53.320 --> 0:07:56.560 frightened or being judged or whatever. But John didn't care. 0:07:57.040 --> 0:08:00.240 But he had this wonderful relationship with that child because 0:08:00.280 --> 0:08:03.360 he was alive to the child in himself. And so 0:08:03.560 --> 0:08:05.800 that's what I had to bring to the four was 0:08:05.880 --> 0:08:10.320 my child who had been edited so severely in real life. 0:08:10.320 --> 0:08:13.320 So I had to remember how confusing the world was 0:08:13.720 --> 0:08:15.560 to a three or four year old. We forget all 0:08:15.600 --> 0:08:18.600 that stuff about the things that traumatized us at an 0:08:18.640 --> 0:08:21.920 early age, like oh I'm lost, or oh why are 0:08:21.960 --> 0:08:24.040 they shouting? At me, you know, those things that were 0:08:24.200 --> 0:08:27.160 huge when we were little. So I was very aware 0:08:27.200 --> 0:08:30.680 of that responsibility that the world. And there's a section 0:08:30.720 --> 0:08:32.599 in the book where I put in an excerpt of 0:08:32.640 --> 0:08:36.560 speech I gave in nineteen ninety about my fears that 0:08:36.679 --> 0:08:40.000 children were being left behind with the ubiquity of screens. 0:08:40.000 --> 0:08:42.960 Well that was before the Internet, that was before any 0:08:43.000 --> 0:08:45.360 of the screens that are available to us all now, 0:08:46.280 --> 0:08:48.360 and so even then I could see that the world 0:08:48.400 --> 0:08:53.000 was incredibly confusing to very young children, and that if 0:08:53.040 --> 0:08:57.720 we didn't, you know, really take responsibility for contextualizing and 0:08:57.800 --> 0:09:01.360 protecting little children to some extent, then we were really 0:09:01.400 --> 0:09:03.200 doing them at a service. And it taught me that 0:09:03.240 --> 0:09:05.280 we're all responsible for all children. 0:09:05.760 --> 0:09:08.360 The legacy of that can be seen in the work 0:09:08.360 --> 0:09:11.560 that you've done, you know, through your entire career since then. 0:09:11.880 --> 0:09:14.760 But I want to ask you about a particular lesson 0:09:14.840 --> 0:09:18.079 from play School and how it applies to the writing 0:09:18.160 --> 0:09:20.720 of this book and the work that you continue to do, 0:09:20.960 --> 0:09:23.440 which is around the telling of stories. What were the 0:09:23.559 --> 0:09:26.120 articles of faith when it came to story time on 0:09:26.160 --> 0:09:29.760 play School in terms of reading a book to kids, 0:09:30.080 --> 0:09:33.280 sharing stories with kids, What are the disciplines of the 0:09:33.440 --> 0:09:36.199 storyteller that you got specifically from that context. 0:09:36.559 --> 0:09:41.960 Oh, good question. I think it was the pacing how 0:09:41.960 --> 0:09:43.880 we would rehearse. It was that the book would be 0:09:43.920 --> 0:09:48.480 carefully timed, and the page turns were camera timed to 0:09:48.559 --> 0:09:51.080 the close ups and all that, and so it was 0:09:51.160 --> 0:09:54.280 paced at a deliberate in a deliberate way, and occasionally 0:09:54.320 --> 0:09:57.080 you'd break out and ask a question or see what 0:09:57.120 --> 0:10:00.120 the response might be, or let's turn the pace. So 0:10:00.120 --> 0:10:02.680 it was very interactive. It was very I'm doing this 0:10:02.920 --> 0:10:07.040 with you. So I guess inadvertently I absorbed that pacing, 0:10:08.600 --> 0:10:12.439 and that was It was also important for me to 0:10:12.440 --> 0:10:15.920 reflect how people know me in terms of how I communicate. 0:10:16.000 --> 0:10:18.320 So when I went to read the audio book, which 0:10:18.440 --> 0:10:21.120 was tortureous listening to myself for five days in a row, 0:10:22.840 --> 0:10:25.760 I was pleased that it read like I was saying it, 0:10:26.880 --> 0:10:29.640 and I sort of wanted that because people know me 0:10:29.720 --> 0:10:30.400 as a talker. 0:10:31.040 --> 0:10:33.520 Your mum to return to her for a sec. She 0:10:33.640 --> 0:10:35.600 read to you a lot. She's a big storyteller, and 0:10:35.960 --> 0:10:37.680 she was your introduction to reading. 0:10:38.040 --> 0:10:39.880 Yeah. She taught me to read before I went to school, 0:10:40.400 --> 0:10:43.440 and fed me a steady diet of books, largely of 0:10:43.440 --> 0:10:47.520 the Enid Blyton variety, and indeed, you know, she never 0:10:47.559 --> 0:10:50.960 really felt at home in the Australian bush or it 0:10:51.000 --> 0:10:53.319 was always very much the forest. She would make stories 0:10:53.360 --> 0:10:55.880 up about Missus Brown, the old lady who lived in 0:10:55.880 --> 0:10:58.679 the forest with all the squirrels and you know, whatever 0:10:58.679 --> 0:11:01.880 you get in the forest in England. So yeah, she 0:11:02.120 --> 0:11:04.800 read to me a lot, and my favorite Christmas present 0:11:05.080 --> 0:11:07.640 was a box of books. I had my own library 0:11:07.640 --> 0:11:10.800 card at the age of four, so I'm so grateful 0:11:10.840 --> 0:11:13.640 to her for that because it really did you know, 0:11:13.840 --> 0:11:17.240 I'm a really good site reader, whether it's music or 0:11:17.360 --> 0:11:20.640 a script, so she really did give me a huge 0:11:20.640 --> 0:11:24.960 advantage there. The editing of the available literature was probably 0:11:25.000 --> 0:11:29.240 a little bit sus but you know, as was the 0:11:29.960 --> 0:11:32.960 kinds of things that were presented to me, as drama 0:11:33.720 --> 0:11:36.480 productions of things. I was in more plays than i'd seen. 0:11:36.559 --> 0:11:39.640 I'd only ever seen a couple of really ordinary, you know, 0:11:39.679 --> 0:11:44.319 Shakespeare matinees through school, so you know, I was very 0:11:44.600 --> 0:11:49.200 much limited in what I could absorb. But I think 0:11:49.200 --> 0:11:51.760 that was a distinct advantage being taught to read at 0:11:51.800 --> 0:11:53.640 an early age. 0:11:54.200 --> 0:11:57.040 When we returned and only discusses the influence of Australian 0:11:57.080 --> 0:12:01.880 literary legend, poet and playwright Dorothy Hewitt, and no only 0:12:01.960 --> 0:12:05.640 reveals what she plans to write about next. We'll be 0:12:05.720 --> 0:12:18.080 right back. I want to jump ahead a tiny bit 0:12:18.160 --> 0:12:21.000 to a particular writer who had an influence on your 0:12:21.000 --> 0:12:24.800 work more through theater than through her work on the page, 0:12:24.800 --> 0:12:27.560 and that's Dorothy Hewitt. Yeah, tell us a bit about 0:12:27.600 --> 0:12:29.160 your encounter with her. 0:12:29.800 --> 0:12:33.920 Yeah. I first met Dorothy. I was cast in the 0:12:33.960 --> 0:12:36.679 first production of The Man from muckin Uppen, which was 0:12:36.760 --> 0:12:42.040 commissioned in Wa to celebrate their s Sque centennial. And 0:12:42.080 --> 0:12:45.920 Dorothy had sort of been banished from Perth because she 0:12:45.960 --> 0:12:48.480 was a Communist, She'd had an affair with a married man. 0:12:48.679 --> 0:12:52.400 She was a woman, God forbid, and you know, a 0:12:52.440 --> 0:12:55.120 general all round person who didn't fit in with the 0:12:55.640 --> 0:13:01.080 Perth glitterati. And she had written this sixth straordinary play 0:13:01.600 --> 0:13:03.679 about the dark side and the light side of all 0:13:03.720 --> 0:13:07.319 of our natures. And we all went trooping off to Perth. 0:13:07.360 --> 0:13:12.160 Dorothy came with us and explored this beautiful, beautiful play, 0:13:12.400 --> 0:13:13.960 and so I got to know her a little bit. 0:13:14.040 --> 0:13:18.640 She was still a little bit mobile, but I just 0:13:18.679 --> 0:13:21.320 found her such a lot of contradictions in one person. 0:13:21.880 --> 0:13:24.760 You know, you would think she'd be this eiry, fairy, arty, farty, 0:13:25.600 --> 0:13:29.960 beautifully spoken person, but she had this high pitched voice 0:13:29.960 --> 0:13:34.240 that was kind of raucous, and she'd cackle like a maniac. 0:13:34.280 --> 0:13:37.440 And just to see her delight as her words came 0:13:37.480 --> 0:13:40.800 to life, I think it's her best play. And so 0:13:40.880 --> 0:13:42.880 we stayed in contact a little bit. I met the 0:13:42.920 --> 0:13:46.400 family and she was welcome back into Perth with I 0:13:46.400 --> 0:13:48.679 don't think she particularly cared, but you know, it was 0:13:48.679 --> 0:13:50.560 a bit of an up beauty that the play was 0:13:50.600 --> 0:13:53.120 so successful. And then we did it again in Sydney 0:13:53.160 --> 0:13:56.760 with the Sydney Theater Company. And when I came to 0:13:56.760 --> 0:13:58.880 to do the play Mother, when it was written for 0:13:58.960 --> 0:14:02.240 me by the wonderful Day Keene, we had a meeting 0:14:02.280 --> 0:14:04.880 to talk about themes that he might touch on that 0:14:05.000 --> 0:14:08.080 interested us, the main one of which I guess was judgment. 0:14:08.440 --> 0:14:11.840 But also we both talked about our reverence and admiration 0:14:12.240 --> 0:14:16.760 for Dorothy. And so the nod to Dorothy and Mother 0:14:16.840 --> 0:14:19.960 is that I wear a little blue bobby pin bluebird 0:14:20.000 --> 0:14:23.000 bobby pin in my hair and have my Dorothy hair. 0:14:24.320 --> 0:14:26.480 But it's very much about people who fall, women who 0:14:26.520 --> 0:14:31.320 fall through the cracks particularly, and the vulnerability of people. 0:14:31.400 --> 0:14:35.040 And I think Dorothy and Daniel both have the ability 0:14:35.360 --> 0:14:39.000 to focus our attention on walking a mile in someone 0:14:39.040 --> 0:14:42.680 else's shoes, and you know, doing what I think the 0:14:42.760 --> 0:14:44.760 arts are meant to do, which is connect us and 0:14:45.560 --> 0:14:47.760 recognize that they're but by the grace of God go 0:14:47.840 --> 0:14:51.040 all of us. And I think Dorothy really had that 0:14:52.040 --> 0:14:57.880 grasp of anarchy, if you like, and how theater can 0:14:57.920 --> 0:15:02.960 be political but also subtle to a very magical, special person. 0:15:04.160 --> 0:15:07.520 And I think underread and under remembered at the moment, 0:15:07.560 --> 0:15:11.400 which made me so pleased to read the affection with 0:15:11.480 --> 0:15:14.119 which you wrote about her hair. But it's also emblematic 0:15:14.200 --> 0:15:18.160 of something that has characterized your career, which is a 0:15:18.280 --> 0:15:22.720 relationship with writers and the writing behind the roles. And 0:15:22.800 --> 0:15:26.320 you know, Mother's an amazing production. Your performance is extraordinary. 0:15:26.720 --> 0:15:29.120 But one of the things I love about it is 0:15:29.200 --> 0:15:33.320 that Daniel wanted to write for you. You're an actor 0:15:34.400 --> 0:15:36.760 for whom writers you know, they want to fill that 0:15:36.840 --> 0:15:41.080 imaginative space and work with you on stuff. I'd love 0:15:41.120 --> 0:15:43.960 it if you could reflect on the role of writers 0:15:44.240 --> 0:15:45.080 through your career. 0:15:46.520 --> 0:15:48.880 Well, without the writers, I would have no career. So, 0:15:49.800 --> 0:15:52.040 you know, Larry Moss said, our job is to serve 0:15:52.080 --> 0:15:55.800 the great writers, and the great writers right to serve humanity. 0:15:56.960 --> 0:16:00.280 So as such, where is it the word supplicant? Were 0:16:00.320 --> 0:16:04.600 their servants? I mean, it's been really interesting to me 0:16:04.640 --> 0:16:07.840 to see how the increased participation of women in my 0:16:07.880 --> 0:16:13.240 industry has led to richer female roles, not just for 0:16:13.320 --> 0:16:16.600 young women, but for actual older women to have a 0:16:16.680 --> 0:16:20.440 role other than old nag or off your pop to 0:16:21.160 --> 0:16:24.320 pop your clogs. And I realized through Larry because he 0:16:24.360 --> 0:16:27.720 assigned when he did his masterclass, which turned me around. 0:16:28.160 --> 0:16:30.440 He put us in pairs and assigned us a scene 0:16:30.920 --> 0:16:34.680 from the great plays each and the scene I did 0:16:34.680 --> 0:16:38.520 with Mandy maclehenny was from George Bernard Shaw's Missus Warren's Profession. 0:16:39.080 --> 0:16:41.840 And I'd never read any short and indeed I had 0:16:41.880 --> 0:16:46.120 not read really any of the plays Tennessee Williams, Harold Pinter. 0:16:46.600 --> 0:16:50.760 I'd seen productions of them, and arrogantly I had made 0:16:50.760 --> 0:16:54.600 a judgment that that particular writer doesn't particularly interesting. Hadn't 0:16:54.680 --> 0:16:57.160 really gone into these works because I didn't like the 0:16:57.160 --> 0:17:02.440 productions that I saw. So he forced me to go 0:17:02.520 --> 0:17:04.880 and look at you know who the playwright was, when 0:17:04.880 --> 0:17:08.119 they lived, where they lived, what their personal life was like, 0:17:08.640 --> 0:17:11.440 what the political situation was, you know, the forenzy. Even 0:17:11.440 --> 0:17:14.480 though I'd been a university that wasn't part of it 0:17:14.840 --> 0:17:18.600 in the early seventies. Whereas Larry just said, every pause, 0:17:18.680 --> 0:17:23.120 every word, every comma has been thought about, and who 0:17:23.160 --> 0:17:26.439 are you to mess with that? Who are you to 0:17:26.560 --> 0:17:29.280 think that you can trail off the last three words 0:17:29.280 --> 0:17:31.960 of that sentence. If he hadn't wanted those three words, 0:17:31.960 --> 0:17:35.280 he wouldn't have fucking written them. So, you know, he 0:17:35.440 --> 0:17:41.639 was absolutely insistent that we slavishly devote ourselves to what 0:17:41.800 --> 0:17:45.560 the writer gave us. You know, when I first got Mother, 0:17:46.560 --> 0:17:48.240 I was petrofron because I thought, what if I don't 0:17:48.400 --> 0:17:51.879 like it? Yeah, you know, I'd never been in that 0:17:51.920 --> 0:17:56.080 situation before. And there's no punctuation in it, there's no 0:17:56.240 --> 0:17:59.560 stage directions. At the start of each section he might 0:17:59.600 --> 0:18:06.480 say something thing like smell of priest, you know. So, 0:18:06.480 --> 0:18:08.720 so it was quite daunting to start with. But then 0:18:09.400 --> 0:18:12.000 if I just said the words, said the words, said 0:18:12.040 --> 0:18:14.800 the words said the words, it eventually found its own 0:18:14.880 --> 0:18:16.880 music and its own rhythm, and it gave me such 0:18:16.920 --> 0:18:20.240 a framework to work from, and I wanted to get 0:18:20.280 --> 0:18:24.199 every single word right and to honor that writing, because 0:18:25.119 --> 0:18:29.760 every word had an image, you know, every phrase conjured 0:18:29.800 --> 0:18:32.639 up images for me and hopefully for the audience that 0:18:33.640 --> 0:18:37.200 you couldn't not see them. And that was so strong 0:18:37.240 --> 0:18:37.480 for me. 0:18:37.840 --> 0:18:40.440 Did I read somewhere that when you can't get to sleep, 0:18:40.640 --> 0:18:43.200 you recite the scriptive mother in your own head? 0:18:43.800 --> 0:18:46.760 Yes, yes I do. She's been in me for nine 0:18:46.840 --> 0:18:50.040 years now and she ain't going nowhere. But it's good 0:18:50.080 --> 0:18:52.520 to just say those words. But I don't usually get 0:18:52.600 --> 0:18:52.920 very far. 0:18:53.840 --> 0:18:58.320 That's a good thing, so give them that respect. For writers, 0:19:00.040 --> 0:19:03.239 Anxious was the process of telling your story on a 0:19:03.320 --> 0:19:05.159 page rather than through performance. 0:19:05.640 --> 0:19:10.560 Horrible. The inner critic had to be punched down, yep, 0:19:11.400 --> 0:19:14.640 all the time. But I got to the point where 0:19:14.680 --> 0:19:16.680 I thought, look, it's like a stage show. If one 0:19:16.760 --> 0:19:20.880 person sees this character or reads this book and avoids 0:19:20.880 --> 0:19:25.119 some of the mistakes I made, then fantastic. But it 0:19:25.160 --> 0:19:27.040 was a very drawn out process. It was meant to 0:19:27.040 --> 0:19:30.880 be a very different exercise. I bought a tiny cottage 0:19:30.880 --> 0:19:34.040 in France in late twenty nineteen, and the pitch for 0:19:34.080 --> 0:19:37.119 the book was that I write a memoir interspersed with 0:19:37.200 --> 0:19:40.480 my adventures in France, and of course I couldn't go 0:19:40.560 --> 0:19:43.000 back there for three years, so it just and I 0:19:43.000 --> 0:19:46.480 couldn't access any of my records or photos or diaries 0:19:46.520 --> 0:19:48.879 because my house was flooded twice during COVID and I 0:19:48.880 --> 0:19:52.000 couldn't live in eighteen months. Everyone's got a COVID horror 0:19:52.040 --> 0:19:55.239 story that was my Yeah, I couldn't access anything. So 0:19:55.640 --> 0:19:57.480 eventually I just thought, well, I've just got to do it. 0:19:58.240 --> 0:20:01.000 What kept me going on one level was that I 0:20:01.040 --> 0:20:03.600 think I want to read more women's stories, you know, 0:20:03.640 --> 0:20:07.600 when I finally escaped university and started having you know, 0:20:08.200 --> 0:20:12.160 feminist influence or not also at university, but reading books 0:20:12.160 --> 0:20:15.840 by women was incredible. For the first time, I actually 0:20:15.880 --> 0:20:20.120 resonated with what I was reading in a visceral way. 0:20:20.680 --> 0:20:24.879 Helen Ghana was one of the early influencers there, you know, 0:20:24.920 --> 0:20:29.119 writing about her her inner thoughts and the minutie of 0:20:29.200 --> 0:20:32.240 daily life. One of the ways she was criticized by 0:20:32.280 --> 0:20:34.919 some male critics early on in her career. But as 0:20:34.960 --> 0:20:39.679 a woman, I find her writing incredibly resonant, and so 0:20:40.359 --> 0:20:43.520 exposure to more and more women's stories I think can 0:20:43.560 --> 0:20:47.240 only be of interest to other women particularly, and hopefully 0:20:47.240 --> 0:20:49.639 to some men too, because you know, the truth is 0:20:49.680 --> 0:20:51.680 there are no two actors alike. There are no two 0:20:51.720 --> 0:20:53.520 women are like, there are no two men are like. 0:20:54.440 --> 0:20:59.080 But we all share more similar pilarities and differences underneath those, 0:20:59.480 --> 0:21:02.320 you know, those influences of environment and family. 0:21:03.560 --> 0:21:07.600 How much has been at the center of one of 0:21:07.640 --> 0:21:12.720 the great literary adaptations of Australian cinema informed your reading sense. 0:21:12.960 --> 0:21:16.520 Youre so indelible in Monkey Grip, and it's a film 0:21:16.560 --> 0:21:18.840 I returned to in a book I returned to a 0:21:18.880 --> 0:21:22.840 lot like it's extraordinary. Did you take on board that 0:21:23.040 --> 0:21:27.439 sensibility that came out of that book, that modern Australian voice, Well. 0:21:27.359 --> 0:21:30.880 Yeah, certainly. It was one of the first films of 0:21:30.920 --> 0:21:34.720 that period of the industry renaissance that didn't feature corsets 0:21:34.720 --> 0:21:37.840 and sheep and men on horses. To me, it's all 0:21:37.880 --> 0:21:41.119 bound up together, you know, the fact that it is 0:21:41.200 --> 0:21:44.280 about everyday life, and it is by a woman and 0:21:44.359 --> 0:21:47.919 contemporary I think there was a hunger for that. I 0:21:47.960 --> 0:21:50.000 think we were getting some of that coming from the 0:21:50.040 --> 0:21:53.680 States and a little bit from the UK, but it 0:21:53.720 --> 0:21:59.200 was time for I think a greater recognition of who 0:21:59.280 --> 0:22:04.760 we were, and that coincided with whitlam. It coincided with 0:22:05.920 --> 0:22:07.879 as I said that the film industry is starting to 0:22:08.440 --> 0:22:11.600 be more interesting in terms of content and a bit 0:22:11.640 --> 0:22:12.240 more daring. 0:22:12.960 --> 0:22:15.000 I do know that you're keen to do more writing 0:22:15.080 --> 0:22:18.160 after this book, and in particular writing for children. What 0:22:18.280 --> 0:22:19.960 kind of things do you want to write for kids 0:22:19.960 --> 0:22:22.440 and what kind of age are you interested in trying 0:22:22.520 --> 0:22:23.160 to talk to them. 0:22:23.720 --> 0:22:26.840 I'm particularly interested in this sort of mid to late 0:22:26.880 --> 0:22:31.240 primary school age, when you are very vulnerable, you know 0:22:31.280 --> 0:22:35.359 you're about to hit adolescence, and when you're feeling very 0:22:35.359 --> 0:22:38.679 insecure about how you look and how you whether you 0:22:38.840 --> 0:22:43.080 feel the right things, to try and alert them to 0:22:43.160 --> 0:22:47.440 their own power, I guess, to their own self confidence, 0:22:47.480 --> 0:22:50.960 to a core, to develop a solid core about who 0:22:51.000 --> 0:22:53.080 they are and how there is no one else like 0:22:53.119 --> 0:22:55.840 them and so they can make a unique contribution. And 0:22:55.920 --> 0:22:58.879 so that kind of affirmation done in a subtle way. 0:22:59.720 --> 0:23:03.080 I think that that age can be powerful because that's 0:23:03.080 --> 0:23:05.359