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With Tom Williams and Sally Obermeder:
Tom: (introduction) Catherine McClements has been a detective, a politician's wife, a prison guard, and now she's a priest! The Aussie actress got her big break as Detective Rachel Goldstein on Water Rats, where she starred in one of TV's all time saddest death scenes!
[footage of Rachel's death on Water Rats and scenes from Tangle play]
Sally: Catherine also played Kerry on Rush before playing long-suffering senator's wife Christine Williams on Tangle. Now Catherine's preparing to take the stage in one of the most intense roles of her career. She'll star in The Events, a theatre production about the painful aftermath of a mass shooting. Catherine McClements joins us live at the desk, Catherine welcome to the show.
Catherine: Thank you.
Sally: An intense topic this play!
Catherine: Yes, it is. It is!
Sally: So it's about someone who joins a choir and then shoots most of the people in that choir?
Catherine: Well, the play was based on the Anders Breivik situation that happened in Norway. And a Norwegian theatre company and an English theatre company got together and created this show. And it's sort of a fictional idea of a priest who runs this choir, and a boy comes in and perpetrates this mass shooting event, and it's the aftermath of that.
Tom: An enormous theme. And a theme which runs throughout our society from time to time, and so tragically. A lot of actors, Catherine, would draw upon their real life tragedies when entering a role. Is there anything in your life that you could draw upon with this particular character?
Catherine: Ah, well, fortunately something like this hasn't happened to me. But I think the very thing of being an actor is being able to research, being able to meet people, talk to people that this sort of thing has happened to and then being able to interpret it. And you do sort of clutch at certain things that have happened in your life, but certainly nothing like this has happened to me.
Sally: There's one other actor who features in the play, Johnny Moore...
Catherine: Johnny Carr!
Sally: Johnny Carr, sorry! He plays more roles; the killer, your husband, the killer's father... Is it tough for you to get your head around, that he's all these different things?
Catherine: Ah, no! He's a brilliant actor, so he has been able to bring all sorts of different nuances to all the different characters. And it's really enjoyable to watch, an actor transform like that in front of your eyes. And thematically as well... the play is about this woman who is trying to come to terms with who is this person, who is the boy that did this, and through all these different characters, she's trying to get this picture of the boy. And so, thematically in a way, the same actor playing all those facets works in that complete picture.
Tom: Catherine, for three years you starred in Water Rats.
Catherine: Yeah!
Tom: One of my favourite shows of all time.
Catherine: Oh, good on you! Thank you!
Tom: Is is true that you never actually watched the show because you were quite self-conscious? Do you find it hard looking back at your work?
Catherine: Yeah, I don't watch my work full stop really! Except when I go on something like this, and they have a little clip!
Sally: Yeah!
Catherine: My eyes wander over! I think one of the things that is a danger when you're an actor is self-consciousness when you're acting. You imagine in your head that you're doing all sorts of things, you look like this... I always get surprised when someone recognises me in the street in a way, because I think I look completely different! I sort of become that character! Rather than just go, oh my god, that's me!
Tom: Such a fantastic show. The chemistry between you and Colin Friels was the big thing.
Catherine: Yeah, well, he's amazing!
Sally: You were on Rush and Tangle... now, both of those shows were axed unexpectedly. Do you come to expect that when you work in the industry or is it always a surprise?
Catherine: Um, I think when a show goes past three series, sometimes it's really lucky to get a fourth. But there's also some good things about shows ending on a high so that it doesn't fade away. And certainly with Rush and Tangle the standard was really quite high when they finished, so you might kind of think, oh we've got more to say. But there's also something great about that.
Sally: Do the viewers ever come up to you and go, I wanted to know! I wasn't finished with it!
Catherine: Yes! Particularly with Tangle! Because I think Tangle has got a bit of life, because it was on Foxtel and not everyone's got Foxtel. So people were watching it on the DVD, so now, everybody comes up to me, oh I've just watched Tangle, when's there going to be another one? And I think, well, it was a few years ago now!
[laughs]
Sally: Where were you when we needed you!?
[laughs]
Tom: Catherine, you're a mum of two and your husband is an actor as well.
Catherine: Yeah.
Tom: Are your kids showing signs of following in your footsteps?
Catherine: Ah, not at the moment, no! They're both actually quite shy, which is a lovely quality. I mean, a lot of actors are shy too. But they don't have that desperation for a stage presence. And we haven't really pushed it. We've pushed the maths! We've pushed the science!
[laughs]
Sally: Would you like them... if they showed signs, would you let them and say, you know what, do it?
Catherine: Of course! You want everyone to pursue what's inside of them. And my parents certainly... I think now I look back, there was a real panic that they suppressed when I went to drama school and left home and all that sort of stuff. And certainly now it's even harder than it was then. And the drive to go overseas, to go to America, wasn't there as much as it is now. So, I think... I'll be encouraging them to go to university!
Sally: Catherine, lovely to have you with us! Thank you so much.
Tom: Thank you.
Catherine: Thank you!
Sally: Catherine McClements' new play The Events is on in Sydney now, and it's on in Melbourne next month.
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