Probably the turning point for me was when one evening at the Playhouse Theatre in Perth, we were doing a performance of a number from the Wizard of Oz, which I was playing Dorothy at the time. I was singing Somewhere Over the Rainbow right at the end of the night. And Dr Geoffrey Gibbs, who was running WAAPA at the time, said, "If that little girl that sang wants to come and have a chat to me, I'd like to talk to her about coming to the academy." And I just was like, "Wow, I'd never entertained the idea of that." I think I was 15. So, I was just kind of making decisions about what I wanted to do.
I think the things that have been really unique for me were Blue Heelers because you were creating a character that has never existed before. I think it was a really significant moment for me leaving Blue Heelers and doing The Sound of Music on stage because it was just so successful. But, of course, Julie Andrews had already trod that road and finding a unique way through that. But the reception of that show was so huge.
Fortunately in my career, I've crossed paths early with people like Ruth Cracknell and Helen Morse and I'm working with Peter Carroll at the moment and, oh gee, I could not have wished for a more significant group of people whose kindness and willingness to share their craft and their wisdom is extraordinary. And the higher up the tree they are the more they share and they did share freely.
I love working in theatre and I love working in film and television. They're both such different disciplines for a performer. Television and film is highly technical. You do much shorter bursts of work. Theatre, much more organic but just discipline that's a different one. You sustain performance for... [I] guess it could be a short burst to three hours. You know, you have to sustain performance and you've got to carry that audience who's in the room with you. And some nights when it's magical, it's such a great contract between an audience and a performer and you can feel it lift. And it's a really wonderful shared experience.
We’ll always be storytellers. I don’t believe we’ll ever lose that.
