Lisa McCune “I’ll live my life Iholiw ke ”

After time away from the spotlight, Australia's golden girl of the stage and screen is back brighter and braver than before. And, as she tells Sue Smethurst, she’s making no apologies for how she chooses to live her life.

Lisa McCune is tucked away in a cosy corner booth, sipping a latte in a bustling coffee shop on the edge of Melbourne’s picturesque Royal Botanic Gardens, savouring a rare moment of quiet in between juggling rehearsals for a new play and the demands of teenagers currently on school holidays.

Heads turn ever so subtly as patrons recognise the familiar face in their midst, but Lisa is oblivious to the fuss as she chats enthusiastically about the joys of spending much of the last year largely out of the limelight.

“I had a year of self-imposed retirement, my own gap year!” she grins. “I spent my time doing very ‘Nana-ish’ things like learning how to bake bread, reading books, I’ve cleaned out my cupboards, managed basketball teams and fallen in love with gardening,” she says, beaming broadly as she describes a late summer bloom of hellebores and stephanotis that have brought her garden to life.

“I’m happily erring on the side of becoming a recluse! I’m even reading books about reclusive people,” she jokes, “stuck in my garden conversing with the plants and birds and I loved it, I couldn’t be happier, I’ve been doing all of the things that I’ve wanted to do for a long time and not had time. It was heaven.”

After a year of taking life relatively slowly by her standards, the much- loved actor is about to return to the spotlight again, taking on two leading roles in the Melbourne Theatre Company’s performance of the Broadway hit Gloria.

Gloria, which was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize after its debut in 2016, is a very dark comedy with scenes of graphic mass murder, set inside the toxic office of a high paced Manhattan magazine; it has been described as “jaw-dropping”.

“It will challenge the audience,” Lisa says.“It’s violent and confronting and at the end of the first act, I’m not sure if anyone will move from their seats. I probably won’t be taking the kids along to see this one.”