STRAIGHT MATE: RODGER CORSER
HE’S BAD-BOY HEART SURGEON DR HUGH ON DOCTOR DOCTOR BUT, SAYS RODGER CORSER, HIS ZOMBIE WITH NO UNDERPANTS WAS A MEMORBALE ROLE WE’LL NEVER SEE! INTERVIEW BY MATT MYERS.
DNA: Okay, here’s just some of your CV: McLeod’s Daughters, Last Man Standing, Home And Away, Underbelly, Rush, Puberty Blues, Dr Blake, Glitch, Doctor Doctor… Would you consider yourself a seasoned actor?
Rodger Corser: An old actor? Sure! I guess if you hang around long enough you pop up everywhere. I’ve been lucky over the past five years to be in a good variety of shows. It started with Rush. I’d been in a few cop shows so I was sort of typecast but then Claudia Karvan gave me the opportunity to be in Spirited, which was a real gear change. It was quite a comedic role as my character was a bit of a doofus. Then I started to get more character-based roles rather than procedural stuff and I moved onto things like Puberty Blues where I played the abusive father. Then Emma Freeman, the director of Glitch, gave me the opportunity to play another very different character, and here on Doctor Doctor, even though we’re a drama, there’s a lot of comedy in our scripts. I get to build on my comedy chops as we work on comic timing and make it bounce. You’re like an Australian version of Six Degrees Of Kevin Bacon! For instance, there are two degrees between you and Johnny Depp, Natalie Portman and Hugh Jackman.
[Laughing] None of them would ever work with me! They like to keep at least two degrees of separation! Sometimes when I get a job I think the audience must collectively roll their eyes thinking, “Oh my God, it’s this bloke again!”
Well, there’s that Hyundai commercial! Actually, I haven’t been on TV with that for a while but I still do all the voice-overs. I’ve been doing that for ten years now. Ninety five percent of those voice-overs are mine, and the only time I don’t do them is when I’m stuck on set.
And to think it all started back in 1998 when you were cast as Roger in RENT!
Yeah, I remember fronting up to the open call auditions. There were three imports and the rest of the cast, of 20, came from the 6,000 who turned up to strange casting venues. Mine was at the Prince Of Wales Hotel in St Kilda. It was more rock and roll than the usual auditions.
If you were gay, who would be the one?
Rob Collins who I worked with on Glitch. I say that, hoping that he would turn for me. But I know I’m not pretty enough for him because he expects people to be as good-looking as he is! He stated recently in another interview that I’m not hot enough for him.
Well… he recently did our Straight Mate interview and said he’d turn for Ian Meadows from The Wrong Girl.
See… He’s enough for me but obviously I’m not enough for him!
When DNA interviewed you back in 2005 you
Cut! Put some underwear on Rodger!
were watching Queer As Folk and said it worked well on SBS but was too racy for the other networks. Do you think it’s a different story these days?
It’s probably still not for the commercial networks because the streaming services and cable audiences are always going to be a bit more genre. The ABC and SBS can afford to be a bit more like that, with broader appeal. And that’s with everything, not necessarily just the gay content in Queer As Folk. Those sex scenes were quite graphic… mind you, Underbelly had some sex, too. I recently re-watched the English version of Queer As Folk and it’s a little dated but stands the test of time. It intended to shock but nowadays that door’s been broken down because of those very shows like Queer As Folk.
Doctor Doctor has been a ratings winner. What’s the show’s secret?
It’s always hard to put your finger on it. If we knew the formula we’d repeat it every time. Audiences are a moving beast and it goes in cycles. Maybe it was time for another show like this. Around 15 years ago we had McLeod’s Daughters and SeaChange and further back The Flying Doctors. They all had that rural town thing. But Doctor Doctor has dry humour mixed in with that bad-boy element. I think that’s part of the secret.
Yes, Dr Hugh is a gifted heart surgeon and a bit of a bad boy. Did that require much research?
As far as the bad boy part, we all have a past, I suppose! But I did speak to some surgeons, not necessarily ones like Hugh. When we talked about his character they said there are a couple like him around. It’s funny – the heart surgeons we spoke to blamed the brain surgeons for being the party boys, and the brain surgeons blamed the heart surgeons!
Where is Dr Hugh headed this season?
He moves into the hospital and the prototype artificial heart he’s been working on is about to go into a human. So he’s reinvigorated thinking about life outside Whyhope, and how it’s going to be successful. But we’ll see if that’s a success or failure. He’s biding his time and making a joke about it with a countdown clock. He thinks he’ll do his time, not get involved in work politics and get out of there. That’s his intention but obviously as time passes things will happen to make him more invested.
In some ways his situation is similar to Dr Joel Fleischman on Northern Exposure.
I’ve heard that quite a bit, and also Californication. They have those different bad boy and fish-out-ofwater scenarios.
Nicole da Silva, who plays Charlie, also co-stared with you on Rush and has had great success playing Frankie on Wentworth. Do you get a chance to watch that show?
I’ve seen bits of Wentworth, but whenever anything happens on that show we see how popular Nicole is through her social media. She’ll get 40,000 responses because she has an amazing Twitter following from Wentworth. It’s so great that it’s doing well internationally. What shows do you watch?
I’m not into Game Of Thrones as yet but I’m definitely a House Of Cards fan. I’ve got a two-yearold and it was the period before she was born where I’d watch shows more regularly. Mad Men and
The Wire, for instance, but now it all depends on a combination of work and children. I watch less and less television.
When it comes to music, who’s your diva?
My 14-year-old daughter influences me and she’s a mad Beyoncé fan. It’s Queen Bey this and Queen Bey that. If I didn’t say her I’d be in trouble. I also like a bit of Adele, but when I’m driving with my daughter we have a battle of the iTunes!
Have you ever had an on-set wardrobe malfunction?
I ripped my pants while filming Glitch. I can’t give too much away but my character finally has flashbacks about who he was. So… I’m wearing these ye olde pants that button up at the front, with no stretch in them whatsoever, and they sat so low that I didn’t want my Calvin’s poking out the top, so I took them off. So I had no underwear on, which I never, ever do. In the scene, I had to be submerged in water. The pants tripled in weight and then I had to run and the things just split! It was like, “Cut! Put some underwear on Rodger!” They left it out of the scene but I definitely gave the wardrobe people a shock.
Okay, we know you don’t usually free ball – what sort of underwear do you prefer?
I’m definitely not a freeballer and never will be again after that experience. I used to be boxers but I’ve gone back to briefs. My wife started buying them and I’ve stayed with them.
MORE: Doctor Doctor screens on Channel Nine.