Private Detective

Catherine McClements can't quite conceal her unease. First she does a nervous little jitterbug and then offers a fluttery half-smile by way of greeting.

Although she so convincingly feigns toughness as "Goldie", the street-hardened Detective Senior Constable Rachel Goldstein in the television series Water Rats, McClements' paranoid preoccupation with privacy has delivered her to my front door. There is the sensitive matter of the stalker, a young woman allegedly so obsessed with this award-winning actor she has compelled McClements to move house repeatedly and to go to great lengths to cover her tracks. We've agreed to meet at my place for security reasons after a noisy cafe was deemed not conducive to an intimate chat.

Not when the subject concerned seldom allows access to that impenetrable fortress that is her private life. After settling down on a sofa with a mug of black tea she tries to make light of her chronic reticence. "I have this old-fashioned idea that actors shouldn't necessarily be personalities. You know what I mean? There are a lot of personalities around ... people who are brilliant at doing publicity. But I am slightly awkward with it."

With the popularity of Water Rats, McClements, 34, has had to learn the hard way there is a high price that comes with entering the public domain, even if it is by way of a feisty character such as Goldstein. It is her gritty portrayal of the police-woman which reportedly provoked an "unnatural obsession" by a 24-year-old security guard and led to an 18-month terror campaign.

McClements refuses to discuss the stalker or the resulting court case for fear it will exacerbate an already intolerable situation. Indeed, tension all but ricochets off her slim body. So, for a while, we diffidently skirt around Colin Friels' departure from the hit series. After three seasons they have forged a close working relationship and his exit foreshadows a challenging year ahead. "The parting has been quite difficult," says McClements. "Colin has been there since the beginning and we've built up this incredible rapport over the years."

Although she is still contracted to the series this year, she relishes the thought of a long break and tentatively alludes to bowing out. She is even toying with the idea of living abroad for a while, somewhere exotic like the Middle East. She recently spent some time there with her partner of 10 years, actor Jacek Koman, and hopes to return. "I think if I did leave Water Rats, I'd be able to totally forget my character. I suspect it would take a few months to let that go. That's why I'd love to go to a place where you can begin again. The appeal is not knowing what you'll end up doing. I think that would be a very interesting thing to do for yourself, to let go of everything you'd relied on, to find that everything you thought was you doesn't exist anymore. Everyone's searching for who they are and I still don't have a sense of who I am in the world. I reckon it's a good way of finding out."

During some of her more extended breaks from Water Rats, McClements has made a point of adventuring abroad. Together with Jacek, she has stayed with a family in the mountains of Lebanon, gone horse riding in the Egyptian desert and lived on a boat in Turkey. There were no flash hotels of luxurious indulgences, just an overwhelming desire to lose herself in foreign cultures.

Professionally, and maybe personally, McClements appears to have come to a crossroads. Water Rats has been her biggest television role, making her a household name and snaring her a Silver Logie last year for most outstanding actress. But she is curiously ambivalent about the medium which has catapulted her to stardom. "I have never had a love affair with television and when I was first approached to do the part (in Water Rats) there was a lot of to-ing and fro-ing," she says crisply. "I knew that taking something like that on would open a few doors and certainly shut others. Certainly you become known for a certain character. But then you spend so much time doing it you begin to wonder if you have anything else to drag out of the bag."

McClements came into her own on stage after graduating from NIDA. It was at the Sydney drama school that she met former boyfriend, the inimitable director Baz Luhrmann. She starred in the original stage production of Strictly Ballroom (later to become Luhrmann's hit film) which won critical acclaim. Getting into NIDA was, she confesses, a "slight mistake" as was her earliest introduction to acting. As a child, growing up in the leafy and somewhat alternative suburb of Eltham on the outskirts of Melbourne, she had not been particularly interested in acting. But as their parents worked (both teachers), Catherine and her three siblings attended after-school classes. She had opted to learn pottery, but when that was cancelled she had to tag along with her sister to drama class. The eight-year-old McClements found herself in a room full of primal screaming people, hardly an auspicious start to an acting career. "I thought it was quite mad," she recalls. "It certainly turned me off."

But the experience didn't stop her auditioning for NIDA nine years later in response to a dare from a friend. As things turned out, the friend chickened out at the last minute, leaving McClements to wing it alone. "I suppose my attitude helped in a way because everyone was so geared up for the audition ... I didn't know what it was all about. After that I just kind of drifted into acting because there was no strong urge to do anything else," she notes wryly.

Several movie roles followed, none of which she is particularly proud, despite the fact she won an AFI award in 1990 for her lead role opposite Friels in Weekend with Kate. In her characteristically frank manner, McClements has said she won that accolade because there wasn't much competition. "All the films I have done have been shocking," she says. "I find it all quite agonising because so much time and effort is spent on it. Every moment counts and everything matters so much."

Still, offers keep coming in. For now though she is content to concentrate on Water Rats. It leaves little time, or energy, for anything else. "If all you do is act that is all you can represent," she says. "So it's important to have a life that is a little bit more on the edge. There have been times that I haven't had work and I found that quite exciting. So long as you don't fall into that 'Who am I', 'No one cares about me', 'I'm nothing' trap."

When time permits McClements swims, preferably in the surf. She insists it is her only form of exercise. Her willowy frame, she says is the result of keeping shocking hours on set, from six in the morning until seven at night. "It's a hard slog," she says, laughing. "And sometimes I even get to do my own stunts. I nearly fell off the Gap once when there was a problem with the harness. I tripped over and it was pretty frightening. Water stunts are out because my suits are way too expensive for that. But I try to do as much driving as I can. I figure if you're in a police drama, you want to do all those screechy stops. I mean, why else would you do it?"