SERIOUSLY FUNNY
THE ACTRESS GETS TO KICK SOME SERIOUS BUTT IN HER NEW FILM ROLE
London’s lockdown has hit performers hard, but comedian Felicity Ward gets by with a receptive home audience – of one. “Having a baby is like doing a 12-hour stand-up show everyday,” she says with a laugh. “Sometimes, I’m really into that. Sometimes, I’m not really into that. But I can do the same joke over and over, and he loves it!”
The actress from NSW’s Central Coast came home last year, however, to work a different kind of gig. Ward, 41, plays everoptimistic nurse Collette on Wakefield, ABC’s new series set in a Blue Mountains mental health facility. “I just love how the show plays with real humour, real drama and real humanity,” she says, “and somehow everyone’s worked together so that they flip between those really seamlessly.”
What attracted you to Wakefield?
When I first read the script, it felt like a reading for a movie. I just couldn’t believe it was going to be made for TV in Australia and that we had been given the go-ahead because this show is complex. But for the audition, I had a 12-day-old baby, so I really wasn’t like, “Hm, I wonder what this character’s backstory is.” I’m like, “Can I remember lines? Do I have breast milk on my top on this call?”
Once I did the first read for Collette, I was like, “Oh, I know exactly who she is.”
Who is Collette?
She definitely is like some comic relief, but her story becomes more and more dramatic as the show goes on. I think Collette just sees the best in everyone, even sociopaths! How was working with Rudi Dharmalingam, who anchors the show as Nik?
He’s very much a screen actor. But his journey is so much bigger than mine; he’s learning tap, he’s doing an accent, he’s filming 12 hours every day. What’s amazing is watching the end product. It just highlights even more how talented he is. Series creator Kristen Dunphy says the show is about emotions and how we’re all a little crazy. Why is that message so timely? The conversation around mental health, publicly, has been bubbling under the surface for a little while now and this is an exploration of lots of different types of mental illness. If you’re in hospital, you’re in a pretty bad state, and what I like about this is that it’s showing the patient’s life beyond that and what’s important to them. What do I hope people get out of the show? I hope they’re as blown away as I am, to be honest. You’ve addressed mental health in your comedy before. Did that make filming more or less intense?
At the time, I also had postnatal depression, and one of the characters, Ivy, has postnatal depression. So it was a really wild, intense experience. I had a newborn baby, my husband was in a foreign country and we didn’t have family nearby. Kristen shared a lot of her stuff with me while I was going through it, and she really checked up on me. How are you doing now and how has it been to see your son grow?
Oh, it’s incredible. I’m the mum that I fantasised I would be. I feel about motherhood now the way I thought I would when I was pregnant. I wanted a baby for so long, and then I finally fell pregnant and then it was so dramatically different. Those first six months were so incredibly difficult for me. To not be flooded with oxytocin as soon as I saw my baby and to be at such a high anxiety for so long was really upsetting because I had visions of me being the fun mum, you know? I was going to do faces, I was going to do songs – this kid was going to love me. And now, because we’ve spent so much time together in lockdown, he is just my best mate. We both get excited to see each other every single day.
So you’ve become one of those parents, have you?
My husband’s like, “He’s so beautiful,” and we can’t get over it! So, I know I’m one of those awful, overwhelmingly in-love parents that I’m sure most people hate.
By Cynthia Wang
(Wakefield premieres Sun., Apr.18, 8.30pm on ABC; all episodes available to stream from Fri., Apr. 2, 7am on ABC iview)
“This show is complex” – WARD
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Best. the young sci-fi The environmentalist thriller Aussie as actress Aria Wolf, stars who a in wakes 120-floor up Shanghai in an elevator building in a after being kidnapped. With no memory of who she is or what her captors want, she’ll need to unlock her incredible powers
– and kick some butt – to save herself and her dad, who is also being held hostage.
“What drew me to Aria initially was her incredible inner strength,” the 27-year-old tells WHO. “As a young woman, she is severely underestimated and has to show the world what she’s made of. She’s a bad-ass heroine and who wouldn’t want to play that?” she explains.
Who do you think this film will appeal to and why?
Lots of people will love it. But it’s especially action twists. we’re different to the all cinema. films It’s after now very for or anyone something when movies unique, we who with and head a likes bit big Aria special If you needs could powers to have unlock to any save her power, the day. what I would would choose you super-healing choose? powers to help people and the earth. You recently returned to Australia after living in LA. What did you miss most? Definitely my family and friends. But I was living in West Hollywood, so I also really missed the wide-open green spaces and getting to swim in the ocean every day. What are you bingeing and reading at the moment? I’m currently watching Succession – Sarah Snook is phenomenal in it! I’m also reading Mythos by Stephen Fry, a retelling of Ancient Greek myths. They are like bedtime stories for adults.
(In cinemas from Thu., Apr. 8)