Meadows’ stroke of luck

Ian Meadows stars in new SBS crime drama Dead Lucky alongside a strong Australian cast including Rachel Griffiths. He tells DANIELLE MCGRANE why he enjoyed playing his character and what this show has to say.

Ian Meadows has played quite a few likable characters over the course of his acting career.

Most recently, he was Pete in Channel Ten’s The Wrong

Girl – a loyal friend to Jessica Marais’ character Lily. So his role in the new series

Dead Lucky may come as a bit of a surprise.

Meadows is certainly playing against type as narcissistic career criminal Corey Baxter in the four-part SBS crime drama, which came along at the right time.

“The sorts of roles I normally get offered have been quite similar over the past few years and I remember thinking, ‘It would be cool to get an opportunity to do something a bit different’ and this character popped up the next day,” Meadows said.

It’s a gritty part in a series dealing with the exploita- tion of migrant workers, violent crime and murder. Rachel Griffiths plays a detective who is trying to catch the armed robber who killed her colleague.

The story follows a group of international students who move to Australia in pursuit of an idyllic lifestyle, only to be exploited by convenience store owners who aren’t afraid to resort to deadly tactics to protect their business.

Without giving too much away, Meadows’ character has his part to play in the crime and the actor enjoyed his chance to explore this dark side.

“It’s certainly fun, in a twisted way, to play those darker characters,” he said.

“It’s always nice empathising with characters who you feel are doing generous things and are easier to empathise with, but it’s a fun challenge acting-wise to find ways to empathise with the much more troubled.”

The show examines the complexities of life in a multicultural city, which is represented in the realistic and diverse casting.

“It’s awesome to be part of a story and a crew that did feel like it was representing a much wider array of Australians, but also looking at the gap between rich and poor in Australia,” Meadows said.

“Often people are exploited within work places at the bottom end of the socio-economic ladder, people at the bottom end of employment in Australia can be manipulated and exploited. Especially people from overseas who are working on all sorts of visas, so I thought it was a really interesting way of interrogating all that stuff.”

Corey has fallen through the cracks and is a product of a bad situation. Meadows believes there’s a mes- sage there, something to be learned from his representation.

“Corey is at that extreme end of violent male culture, but we do have to look at the full spectrum of our behaviours and the things we walk past: from the little jokes and comments up to harassment, and then abuse and violence and sexual violence,” he said.

Having Griffiths in the cast was a real coup, particularly for Meadows, who saw her