Feisty woman from Snowy River
The star of some much-loved Aussie classics is still driven by the urge to keep telling our trans-Tasman neighbour’s own stories, writes Kerrie O’Brien.
Things have come full circle for Sigrid Thornton. Appearing in Wentworth, a contemporary take on life behind bars, takes her back some 35 years to her work on Prisoner. It was her longest stint on a television series and she learnt much from older actors such as Sheila Florance.
Just as Prisoner developed a serious cult following, audiences today are obsessed with the show’s more recent incarnation. It is screened in more than 140 territories with productions in Dutch, German and Flemish.
‘‘The fanbase of Wentworth has become part of its personal identity in some ways,’’ says Thornton. ’’The fact that it has a cult following has informed the way people are on set. We are very aware of playing to an international audience.’’
The cast is a who’s who of Australian female talent. ‘‘It’s very unusual to see an all-women ensemble, in the same way that it was groundbreaking back in the day, under the Prisoner mantle.’’
As wonderful as it is, Thornton points out ‘‘it’s a little bit unfortunate that we’re still saying it’s groundbreaking. Nevertheless we have it and aren’t we lucky to be able to explore such a thing’’.
Having an all-female cast provides opportunities for many actors who wouldn’t necessarily find themselves playing leading characters to ‘‘really strut their stuff’’. The production cleverly reverses typecasts, with those best known for caring roles, for example, or as reserved, playing powerful or menacing characters.
‘‘It is very boldly cast. When a project like this takes off and gains its stripes, that gives the creatives licence to keep stretching. Not only that, but as the show goes on you’ve got to find new challenges and keep the stakes high. That’s one of the markers of Wentworth, it’s very high stakes. It’s a credit to the creators that they’ve managed to keep the stakes so high.’’
She can’t give away too much about what happens to her character as there are major confidentiality clauses around storylines. Such things are particularly important for shows like Wentworth. ‘‘It’s such a juggernaut and it’s got an extremely dedicated and seriously voracious fanbase internationally, who can pick out a sniff on the wind if you like, so the confidentiality needs to be quite strict.’’
Raised in Brisbane, Thornton proclaimed she wanted to be an actor at the age of 6. Although she first hit TV screens as a fresh-faced 18-year-old in The Getting of Wisdom, it was through All the Rivers Run and The Man from Snowy River that Thornton rose to prominence. She counts herself lucky to have won roles as feisty, independent women early in her career.
‘‘I played a good number of very strong female characters of this time, women who were in some ways ahead of their time, who were boldly treading where women hadn’t trod before,’’ she says.
That said, those roles weren’t without drawbacks. They firmly etched her on the public psyche but cast her firmly in the oldeworlde genre.
‘‘I was associated with crinolines for a very long time because most of the work was period stuff. And then we just decided it was completely sick- making to do period drama. Noone would touch period with a 50-foot pole.
‘‘That new wave that was coming up at that time when mainstream was not where you wanted to be. Being someone who was recognised in the street was anathema. That did have its downside for me at that time. [It’s] very different from the United States, the opposite trajectory almost.’’
A few factors were at play – budgets certainly contracted, but shows set in that era simply went out of fashion. ‘‘It was another kind of cringe. Only more recently have we started to mature and realise that there’s room for all of it – historical, futuristic, sciencefiction, contemporary. All of it. And that’s what’s so exciting. The strongest story can be set in any period.’’
Which brings us to Thornton’s current mission: championing writers. The shift away from film to television in recent years was in large part the result of writers moving away from the big screen. ‘‘Because the writing is where it all starts, the writing is the fundamental key to everything. If the writing is great, everything else flows from that.’’
Fresh back from a planning day in Sydney for Scripted Ink, a board she recently joined, she’s excited about the work ahead. Founded by Australian writer/producer Shane Brennan, best known for his work on the NCIS franchise, the not-forprofit organisation was set up to help scriptwriters. Part of that is ensuring writers get a bigger slice of the financial pie but it’s more about positioning them as the foundation of creative work.
It was fabulous writing that attracted her to the groundbreaking SeaChange. After some time ‘‘in the wilderness’’, Thornton reinvented herself in the late 1990s in the lead role of Laura Gibson; audiences fell in love with her neurotic, big-hearted city lawyer turned small-town judge. She was complex and messed up and honest about life being a struggle.
‘‘We found her at the threshold of something and we were able to explore this new world through her eyes and get a better look at it because she was a stranger.
‘‘I can’t think of very many things about SeaChange that weren’t completely joyful for me. Fundamentally, it was because the writing was so rich but also Andrew [Knight] and Deb [Cox] created something very unusual at the time – the fact of it being comedy/drama, that was very new in Australian television.’’
The show was pioneering in part because it reflected reality, especially the people who don’t fit stereotypes. ‘‘The alchemy of the cast was extraordinary. There was something about that group of people coming together with that material at that point in time that was very special,’’ Thornton says.
‘‘It showed you people that you knew... and there are lots of people out there like that. Even though those people were quirky and stranger than truth, they were people we could understand and relate to and empathise with.
‘‘They weren’t tacked on, they were genuinely embedded in that community. The beautiful thing the show was about was community interaction.’’ – Fairfax ❚ Wentworth returns 8.35pm, Monday, TVNZ2.