THE MOTHER OF ALL ROLES

Helen Thomson makes the most of another juicy part in Colin From Accounts, writes Siobhan Duck

ALTHOUGH Helen Thomson has carved out a successful stage and screen career in Australian series such as Blue Heelers, Top Of The Lake and Rake, she was amused to hear herself being described in Hollywood circles as a fresh face. But much like fellow Aussie Jacki Weaver and the UK’s Olivia Colman and Dame Judi Dench, all it took was a key part in a big movie to make her the toast of Tinseltown seemingly overnight.

For Thomson, that movie was Baz Luhrmann’s Elvis, and that part was the king of rock ’n’ roll’s mum. “Apparently, when I was cast as Gladys, [the film’s studio] Warner Bros. was speaking to the casting agents and producers going, ‘Oh, my God. Where did you find her? She’s a great discovery!’” she laughs. “You know, I’ve actually been working for decades but in Australia, so it’s completely off their radar. So I’m an amazing discovery, a great new talent. It’s hilarious.”

But if Thomson’s work in Elvis had Hollywood insiders agog, they’ll be equally hit for six by her performance in Colin From Accounts, the Australianmade series created by and starring real-life spouses Patrick Brammall (Offspring, Glitch) and Harriet Dyer (Wakefield) as boutique beer brewer Gordon and medical student Ashley, strangers who meet when he runs over a dog.

In the eight-part series, Thomson plays Lynelle,

Ashley’s self-obsessed mother. Together with her smarmy partner Professor Lee (Darren Gilshenan), they make anything that Greg Focker (Ben Stiller) is put through by his fearsome future father-in-law Jack Byrnes (Robert De Niro) in the 2000 film Meet The Parents look like a walk in the park.

While the TV role of the mature mum was once a fairly boring and predictable proposition, Brammall says Lynelle – an amalgam of confident and eccentric women that he and Dyer know – is one of the best characters of the series, and Dyer adds that it was a conscious decision to make Lynelle stand out from the crowd.

“I have a brilliantly colourful mother who is so much more than a mum,” Dyer says. “And while Lynelle isn’t based on her, I know women don’t just fade into the background [as they age]. My mum would never fade. She refuses to. So that’s an aspect of Lynelle that we wanted, not just that nagging character.”

COLIN FROM ACCOUNTS

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