Hey guys, my name's Benjamin Norris and this is my third pop up episode of TV Reload. I'm delighted to continue this spinoff podcast which will feature some of your favorite reality TV stars, presenters and actors from all of the major networks and streaming services. I'm just going to start featuring the occasional guest who are making the biggest waves on your TV screens. So expect to hear inside stories from the most loved, the most controversial, and the
most exciting names. We would all love to hear just that little bit more from. If you want to keep up to date with the latest goss and you enjoyed today's episode, please press subscribe on Spotify, iTunes or iHeartRadio and I'll keep you up to date and in the loop with contestants, actors, presenters that are currently on Australian television. Today, I have actress Katrina Molosovic from the award winning series
Wentworth before taking on the role of Boomer. Katrina graduated from Nider and has had an illustrious career in the genre of theater, film and television. Katrina is probably best known for her portrayal of Sue Boehmer Jenkins on Wentworth, but her other television credits include Sea Change, Seven Types of Ambiguity, Glitch Offspring, Winners and Losers, Neighbors, and even
Blue Healers, just to name a few. She was also nominated for a TV week LOGI for Best New Talent in two thousand and four for her role in the TV police series Stingers. Today, we'll be talking about the final series of Wentworth, The Final Sentence, which started on FOXTELD this week. We'll talk about the journey Boomer has been on and the way in which her character has
impacted the series. We have secrets from the set, stories about Katrina's relationship with the other actors and what exactly Bernard Curry told her one hour before he entered the Big Brother House. This chat will no doubt warm your heart and I hope you enjoy the inner workings of an amazing Australian actress. So let's get started with today's guest. I'd like to welcome Katrina Molossovic to TV Reload.
There's this sting. I'm going to be the startup director and it's cool went worths.
Week stil the load goes to Wentwork.
Spoiler alert doesn't actually take that much to look like Boomer. Hey, I'm Backsbaches Jenkins, and he said, are people afraid of you? Welcome to sam Along bit to our interrogation room. There was in series two there was another storyline planned for Boomer.
Since the very beginning went with has pride of itself on telling diverse stories with diverse characters.
I still I can't look anteal anywhere. It just is Wentworth to me that color.
How are you, mady, You're well, I am.
Look, I'm as well as can be expected given the current circumstances, which you probably hear all the time. And I still actually, yeah, can't get my head around the fact that we are living history right now. Yeah, and it's given me too much time to think. Look, I'm okay.
Well, good to hear, and congratulations on the success of the eighth season of Wentworth. This is pretty impressive stuff.
I know, it's unheard of. It it's unheard of. Oh man, it hasn't hit me. It'll probably hit me once the very last episode goes to air, and oh god, I wouldn't want to be anyone in my orbit then because there'll be tears, a lot of tears.
Well, as the show finishes up, you know, you must be going through a mixture of emotions.
I am, I was saying to someone the other day, because of the pandemic and because nothing, absolutely nothing is normal right now and hasn't been for almost two years. I actually don't think it's hit me. I don't think the you know what's happened has hit me because everything feels like it's hitting me and everyone else. So it's yeah, hard to kind of wade through all my emotions at the moment because I'm just up and down, up and down,
up and down all the time. So yeah, that's that's fair warning to anyone who's in my orbit on the last episode, because maybe I'll get this burst of clarity. Oh oh my god. It's at the moment, it just feels like I'm in between seasons.
It's like when you finish high school. You want high school to finish, and then when it does, you're like, okay, but is it going to start again?
Yeah? Exactly, yeah, exactly. It is that thing. I'm luweered into a false security because it's not unheard of for us to go a year in between series, and that's pretty much to the day, almost that it's been a year, so yeah, I reckon, in the next few months, I'll start getting antsy, going okay, what's up. Nothing. I'm not scared of Lou. I'm not scared of her. She's just a big angry boy. But don't just oh man, I
just wish everything was different. But most of all, I wish that Lou wouldn't cut me beautiful face, because then I never get a root.
Can we go back and see how this all started? You know, like, how did this role come about for you?
So I was working with Kevin Carlin, who's a director who I've worked with a lot over the years, like a lot, and I was working with him and he said, look, there's this thing. I'm going to be the startup director and it's cool. Went worth it. I think it's pretty good. I think we're going to start looking at casting in a couple of months. And I reckon, there'll be something in it for you, And I said, oh, really, okay cool?
And then the project I think got shifted back a bit for something, for whatever reason, as they do sometimes, and I in the meantime, was in between I'd just done a Sydney season of a show with a play with Kate Blotete for Sydney's Theater Company, and I was just in the hiatus before we were to take that show around Europe, and so in the meantime I hadn't
heard anything about Wentworth. And I got on the plane to go to Europe and you know, it was doing the shows all around, and I remember I was in London, and because I was with a whole bunch of actors from Australia, everyone's got the ear to the ground and I must have heard from someone that Wentworth had started casting.
And I remember finishing the show in London, you know, whatever time of night it was, and waiting in my hotel for a decent hour to call Australia and I just harassed my agent and over again and said, you know, what's happening with this? Is this something in it? And
then I didn't hear anything. And then I got back to Australia and pretty soon after that I got told that they want to meet an audition for Boomer and I read the character breakdown and it was Boomer is is built like a brickshit house, not the sharpest tool in the shed. Frankie's muscle and a few other things, and that was sort of it, and I was like, oh, well, okay, and then keV wanted to meet with me, and so I met with him and he said, look, here's the thing.
When you come in, don't wear any makeup. Can you make yourself taller and just do something with your hair because Amanda, who's the producer, is worried that you might be a bit, in her words, a bit too pretty for this role. And keV apparently turned to her and said, now, she'll be right. Spoiler alert spoiler alert, doesn't actually take that much to look like Boomer. I'll tell you that now.
Well that's not necessarily true either, because you know, I've seen you in other shows and you actually are quite pretty.
Nah.
I think there's something in all of us that we could rough up a little bit and we could all look like we were in prison.
Well I don't know. I don't know, because I look at some of the girls that I work with and just go, no, no, not buying it. I belong in prison. Let's face it.
Oh, come, there's heaps to trust with people.
Name fucking one, yeah, name one fucking person who can trust.
How would you say that Boomer has changed over the years.
That's a good question. I think she's grown up a lot. I think after Frankie left, she really had to try to find her own identity because I think being with Frankie in some ways was the most beautiful thing. In other ways, I think it held her back a bit, so she sort of I think she's grown up a bit. She's still Boomer, but she she's had so many horrific experiences over the years that it's changed her. And I think it's softened her up a bit. And she's met
amazing women who have taught her. They've kind of cracked her mind open a little bit to allow her to explore her own potential and to allow her to see herself in a more positive light. But yeah, I think that's how she's changed.
Do you think that or did the writers ever make Boomer do anything that you really didn't agree with?
They tried to. Sometimes you rang them you can't do this, I did. I think they hate my guts now. I was so tenacious. Look, you know, it's such a blessed them because you know, they didn't have to listen to me at all. But I you know, I think there was just it was just such a unique experience in that Boomer started off as a very much she was a guest character and she you know, there wasn't a
lot a lot there, you know, to go on. But I was allowed to grow her and create her, and you know, as well as the writer, so we kind of we did it in tandem. And you know, there's always I think in every script you sort of go, oh, what about this? What about that? But they were just
so open to me throwing ideas at them. And yeah, sometimes there were things that I because I lived her for all those years, I remembered making certain choices that if I'd done some other things, it might have jarred with an audience because it was completely against you know, her moral compass or her moral center or how I thought she might process that information. That was really tricky and weird. And I'm just so grateful to have been
able to collaborate like that because that is unusual. And my hat goes off to them for humoring me, allowing me to you know.
Well you kind of I don't know. The way in which I would describe it as a viewers perspective is it was probably the most real character throughout all of the show. For some reason, because the nuances that you put into her, and you know so much of that. I mean, I'm such a diehard fan, and I'm going to admit something to which you're going to be really probably as equally in bad as embarrassed as I am
about this. But I was actually driving down Chapel Street not that long ago, and my partner said, look, there's Boomer, and I had this reaction which I've never done before,
like never in my life. I managed to wind the window down and yell out, I love you, Boomer while I was on like while We're going down Chapel Street, and you know, like I know you are Katrina, like I don't know you, and you just turned around and went, oh yep, and you gave me the you acknowledged me even though I'm as an idiot in a car.
Can I tell you something, I don't find that embarrassing at all. What you do when you do something like that, you give me such a gift that I actually don't deserve. And I am aware of that. I'm so aware of what it costs someone to put themselves out there like that, and all you're doing is something beautiful. And I'm never ever ever going to judge anyone for that. In fact, I know I don't deserve it, and I'm just I should. I should be the one yelling at it people, I
love you, thank you? How you would actually?
Just I mean, it must be shocking to see the popularity of a character like this. I mean, does that kind of stuff happen to you a lot? I mean, I can't be the only one yelling at you out out of a car window.
No, you know, you know it does happens a lot, and it's funny. I think it's you know what, I'm pretty sure it's because of Boomer. I know it's because of Boomer in that someone was asking me the other day actually how they said, Oh, I was a driver. I was in a car going to work yesterday actually, and he said, oh love the show. And I said, oh, thank you. And he said, are people afraid of you or what do they do? You know? I said, you
know what they Actually I expected that. I expected people to be afraid of me, like they would be if they met Pam, for instance, or not Pam because Pam is actually a cutey batuity, but if they meant the freak, you know, but because Boomer is a bit lovable and really has a good heart. People. They yeah, they want to smack me in the arm and give me a cuddle. They want to cuddle a lot of there's a lot of cuddle offer him, which is hard during a pandemic.
And you know, apologize to anyone. I've sort of gone on. Yeah, it's never been I've never received I've never felt like anyone's frightened. They just, if anything, I think they feel comfortable approaching me, which I lot. I think that's amazing. And I always get worried that when I start talking to them they'll feel let down because they're like, oh, where is she? Why isn't You're not her? You're a nerd.
It's a strange experience because I think, you know, you don't want to let the fans down, but at the same time, you aren't. You know, you aren't Boomer. You're an actor, And I want to know, like, what what was it that made you want to get into acting? You know, how did that all start for you?
Oh that's interesting because I really don't know.
I do.
I can tell you one thing I'm going to this
is going to age me straight away. But when I was a kid, I moved around a lot as a kid because my dad had a building business and we followed sort of the boom of building all through Queensland, North Queensland, and so I was a new girl at a lot of schools, and I remember I remember being at one school and being in my English class and we had to come up with this speech and we had to do what we would consider to be the most boring speech ever, and I just love that challenge.
And I did a whole speech on a teapot and I just felt like a start afterwards because I had never felt so light, you know. I thought, oh, there's something in this. And then I was in love with a band called Bross that were big in the eighties. But I was obsessed with them because they just looked like they were having so much fun at what they were doing. And I used to read like I used to go and get all the English music papers and whatnot, read interviews and get all inspired and just wanted to
change the world that they maybe feel like that. And then I thought, well, I want to help people like they help with me, so I'll be a doctor. And then realize, no, it's actually all the doctor shows I watch that I want to be in I don't actually want to do the medicine. So that's I think that's the chain of thought that made me want to be
an actor. And then I remember at fourteen sixteen reading a Dolly magazine there we go and reading an article about someone who'd gotten into night at some young age, and I threw myself on the bed and started crying, and Mom said, that's wrong. I said, I'm too old. I'll never do this. I was only sixteen at the time, but that's when I sort of thought, oh, okay, maybe that's sort of what I need to do. And yeah, that look, I don't know, I don't just I'm an idiot.
I don't know why I chose profession.
Because you're good at it, you know. I think that you found that out out with the teapot in the classroom, because what it was that you were responding to was your innate ability to entertain an audience. And I think
that that is ultimately what makes a good actress. And I guess it now makes you want to tell more stories, I guess outside of prisons and away from teapots, and you know, look for other well, look for other women to play you know, there's going to be all these amazing characters for you to go and take on next, which I think is really exciting for you, but also for us as an audience.
Oh do you? I hope. So that's that's the dream, you know, you sort of I'll have to admit, like having just finished Spreadsheet yesterday, and you know I do like every other actor I know, actually I go, well, that could be it could be the one. What can I do? Now? That's okay? How can I Actually? I was having a chat with Diana Glenn, who's an actress. She's just the most divine human being, and she was saying that with the pandemic, every artists, you know, we're
not actually qualified to do anything else. So we we thought we might form like a sheltered workshop and try to upskill or at least try to you know, have you played a midwife? Great, there we go, you can do that. And you've played a plumber, fantastic, so we can you can go and like, we just I don't know how how we we can play all these parts, and surely some skill must have transferred. So unfortunately that just qualifies me to go to jail. I suppose, But
I have played other things. I don't know.
The interesting thing about that is, you know, I guess when you did your research for Boomer, I guess you would have had to have gone to the women's prisons and probably tried to do a bit of research that way. A bit of a double barreled question to this, But is that what you do for a lot of your roles. Will you spend a bit of time going into prison or spend a little bit of time doing whatever the character is doing.
I think yeah, if it's if it's essential to the tone of the work and essential to It's interesting because in Spreadsheet, I play a lawyer and I own a law firm. But it was kind of it would have been counter counterintuitive to have actually gone and sat in the law firm, which I couldn't do anyway because of the pandemic. But you know, because I think essentially the comedy comes from how opposite to a lawyer she actually is. So I think, you know that's yeah, you pick and choose,
but I like to be super prepared. And you know, it's so funny. I just when I met Steve Curry, I was doing a play at the NTC that got shut down prematurely, just not long ago, and Steve and I both went under spreadsheet after that play. But when I met Steve, it's so funny because we I've worked with his brother for you know, five or six years, and I've worked with his other brother, and we've never really been in each other We've been in each other's orbit,
but never really known each other. And then we started working on this play and he just went, she you do a lot of work, don't you like? You really have an approach to this sort of stuff? And so does he mind you. I don't know why I was picking on me. He's got his own thing that he does. But he said that. He went home and said to Bernie, Katrina likes to you know, she's she works. And apparently
Bernie said, yes, she's thorough. And I said to Steve, like I said, They've got their own, you know, way of working. I'm just a nerd. I am a nerd. I know I'm a nerd, so I probably do more than I have to. But I just love it so much. Research is actually my favorite bit of you know, the work that we do. I just love it. I love tearing something to bits and try and understand why And.
What do you think about Bernard going into Big Brother? Did you speak to him before he went in.
I actually spoke to him an hour before he went in. It just makes me laugh. It just makes me laugh. Bless Bernie. He's a braver man than I. And he what he said to me was, I just I don't want to I don't want to embarrass my family. I just want to make them proud. And I said, Bernie, you will done, and you'll make them proud. You know. Yeah, if anyone could do it from our Wentworth glass, it'd be Bernie.
Would you ever do something like this? Would you ever go into Big Brother?
I would rather lick my way to the center of the universe than have I'm such an introvert. I couldn't hangle it. I couldn't. I could not handle it. And then being voted in or voted out. No, I'm so insecure it would kill me. It would kill me. I would be in therapy forever.
I think that, you know from experience, I reckon that Big Brother is like prison, so I reckon they're quite similar.
Yes, I think you're right. How long were you in there for?
I did eighty seven days?
You wanted I did.
Yeah, eighty seven days, so I was in there for nearly three months.
Did it mess with your hair?
I'm nuts you can tell from talking to me, but when you're before you went in or pretty much pretty much? Look, I think it's an interesting experience. But anyway, but I don't think anyone wants to hear about me being on Big Brother. But you know what was interesting about you doing that research though? For your roles? I was wondering because Boomers had have started small and she sort of
grew as the series went on. Did you add some of those signature things yourself into the series, like the Monte Carlo or the love of Brendan for Vola and imagine you're someway An nice like at a day spar with your boyfriend Now.
I mean boy trained dumpy, So I wouldn't be at a day spar with you? Okay? Is there anyone else you'd find? High there? Ul So get naked with Fair, they go Fair. Imagine you're on a date with Fair, close your eyes and let Fair pampa.
You were some of those things that were added in? Were they from you? Or were they from the writers?
For Vola and Monte Carlo's were definitely the writers. Okay, yeah, so take that Brendan for Vola. It's not me that was lest after you. It was Boomer and the writers. The scratching and the nose picking was me, you know, I was just talking to someone else and the I will say that there was in series two there was another storyline planned for Boomer that had to had to not go ahead. They didn't want to go ahead of it, and they had found something else to replace it. And
I said, oh, I've got an idea. And then I said to Marcia, who's the script producer. I said, oh, all right, I've got an idea. What about if Boomer falls in love with the characters Maxine. What if Boomer falls in love with the man that Maxine was and they find their way towards each other and she went, I love it. And then after that, like so that sort of kicked off their friendship, and then the writers brought in the idea that she wanted to have a baby,
and then that just continued the whole way through. So yeah, it's real collaboration, which is great, which is heard of.
It's amazing actually working in the set of a prison though. I was wondering whether or not that made you think about what you'd take into prison, like you as a person, what would what would could Trina take into prison with it? Can you take anything?
I don't even know a lawyer a lawyer, No, you can't.
Not really, you can take yourself from the new TV show you're doing as a lawyer.
Do I want? I don't know about that elsewhere.
Has there ever been anything in your life that you've looked back and thought, gee, I could have landed up in the slammer myself?
Probably. I mean I'm pretty straight laced. I have to say, I'm a bit of a goody two shoes, and.
You've never.
But here's the thing I learned. Here's the thing I learned for a lot of women who ended up who've ended up in that situation, any one of us could have landed there, you know, just just making a different choice, making mistake, a small mistake. You know, things can take on a life of their own, and often the thing that really hit home was to that what they call criminality.
It's not black and white, it's not easily defined, it's not easily you only have to dig a little bit to see why why these things happen, and often society itself is to blame and the system is to blame, and you know, there's a whole heap of things that contribute that is not the fault of the person who's ended up paying the price. So yeah, it's it's a tricky area. Yeah, it terrifies me. It's actually talking about research. We met a whole lot of women who've just come
out of jail. I actually, after talking to them for a couple of hours, walked outside and promptly had a paynic attack that I don't want to go to jail. I just don't want who. I'm scared like, it's some terrifying, terrifying I.
Guess that's the other thing is the friendships that you must have made working with the other actresses, you know, and the similar experience that you've all had, you know, doing that research and finding out what it's like and then creating your own characters must have enforced this friendship with some of the other actresses. I mean, who have you walked away with as a lifelong friend have you? I'm sure lots of them, but like, who are some of the closer actresses that you've walked away with?
Gosh, definitely Celia Ireland most definitely she Yeah, she's like a sister or a mum or I don't know. I just love her. Gosh, who else Kate Box?
How good is that seen in episode two of the last season with Kate Box doing that crying and the snot coming out of her nose? Have you seen it? I don't know if you have, but episode two of the new series just some of the best acting I've ever seen.
Extraordinary and Celia too, They're both, yeah, two of my all time favorite Australian actresses. I just could watch them until the cows come home, and to work with them is just it's a dream, an absolute dream. They're amazed.
Did you get to pinch anything from the set? You know on Friends when they finished them? You know, Courtney Cocks managed to steal the clock or something. Were you able to steal anything that you could keep as a memento?
What did I steal? I think I might have nabbed a panic button. And I've got my teals. I've got my but I can't look at them. I've had to put them away in a cupboard because I steal. I can't look a teal anywhere in a shop. Anywhere without going what amazing branding? Because honestly, it just is went Worth to me, that color, and so you know, yeah, I have to just deliberately not look at it for a while.
Until I Katrina, I tried to wear some teal for today, but it's not real teal. It's green. I was like, But anyway, I.
Did do a double take. I thought that looks like a hood. No, it's but that combined with that streak of blue behind you, that blue behind you is very close and it's messing with my head.
Without giving too much away, what can you say is in store for Boomer for the final series?
A lot? I think Boomer is faced with some faced with some choices, and I'll just tell you that she chooses to be happy, and I'll let you discover whether that works for her or not.
If Boomer could have one more moment with a former character, dead or alive, who do you think Boomer would choose?
I actually think it would probably be Lee's, just to see if she's okay.
One of my questions, and I always ask my guests before they go, it's the last question, is what's an amazing story from behind the scenes of Wentworth that we as an audience might not have seen.
I can tell you that that behind the scenes, and I think, you know, we talk a lot about being like a big family, and you know most productions do, but this like for reals, you know, you do a show for that long, at that intensity and with that sort of object matter, and over that amount of time, we watched each other grow and change and grief and love and you know, have babies and all sorts of stuff.
We just watched each other grow up. And you actually, when you look at us, especially the four of us who're you know that we're there from the beginning week. You can see us age as well, and that is extraordinary. It's yeah, it's see. I don't know that that will come as a shock to anyone, but just just just that it really is a family.
Well, can I just say, Trina, you, my friend, have just blown us away. I can't wait to continue to watch you tell stories through the lens of other women or as a cat or as a mouse. But yeah, I don't wait to watch and see what you do. I'll always be in your audience. So thank you.
You're very very kind. That's going to make me tear. Thank you