It's in the news today, but it was actually on TV Reload the podcast last week Their Life. Welcome back to TV Reload. I want to thank you for clicking and downloading on today's episode with Rachel Griffiths. I know one of Australia's finest actors who is about to feature in the scripted drama series Madam on Channel nine as the protagonist but also as the producer. Rachel Griffiths, I'm going to say, is one of my all time favorite actors,
not only in Australia but all around the world. And I can tell you that I have loved her so much that back in the day I used to mimic the way that she spoke and would watch interviews of her on YouTube over and over again. So you can imagine how much fun I had today chatting with her about this new series Madam. The story of Madam follows an American character, Mackenzie otherwise known as Mack, who lives a regular life in a small town of New Zealand
with her husband, Rob and their two sons. When mack discovers that Rob has been seeing a sex worker, it comes as a confronting surprise, and rather than feel angry, which is quite surprising. Mack feels unexpectedly inspired, so with a wish and a prayer, she sets up her own ethical brothel. I know, it's kind of wild. It's like
nothing that you've seen on TV before. Rachel Griffiths will unpack the reasons why she chose this project and the interesting learnings that came from telling a story about sex work. We will chat about her relationship with the other actors, including Danniel McCormack, who you will know as b Smith from Wentworth. I find out about Rachel's experience on set
and how getting COVID nearly shut down production. You will get everything from some amazing insights into the character Ronda from Muriel's wedding, what she thinks about six feet under his finale all of these years later, and what Rachel thinks about the potential of a series two of Madam. There's actually a lot to unpack, and I'm telling you
we will get some fabulous inside revelations. So guys, sit back and relax as we unpack the wonderful world of Madam, which launches February fourth at nine pm on Channel nine and nine. Now Hi, then Hi, Rachel, I was just talking to our friend at Channel nine about my mild obsession with you. So if I sound like I need a Valium halfway through this chat because I'm a little bit excited, I'll do it. Sorry the borders, Yeah, that's okay, this is a podcast. We're all coming with you.
Oh no, I'm glad I didn't go in and put you on mute and a p.
Well, it kind of might have been iconic. I end up in the Daily Mail.
Had a pea. All right, I'm just sitting down there. I go really going around the block.
This is kind of what I was infecting, though, do you know what I mean? Like, this is the real Rachel Griffith. I'm here to do the LORRYHD. I've just been diagnosed with it. So look, I can tell you all about ADHD. It's like the price.
No, I do have ADHD and I always have had. And hey, welcome to the neuros fivety club. Perpetual chaots.
But don't you think that creatives It sort of works so well. Like I think about all the work that you have been able to achieve creatively, and I wonder whether or not you would have been able to do that if you didn't have the ADHD. It's kind of who you should think, you know, when you win your Oscar ADHD.
Definitely, I did find a place where you don't really have to multitask. You go full focus and immersion and then go down any rabbit hole like I'm sudden an expert in skin rejuvenation for burn victims and you go down that rabbit hole and it's like suddenly, I'll be an expert in being a madam. So it is very very suitable for those ADHD rabbit holes that find themselves, you know, getting locked down those rabbit holes, and you can say I'm working done, and I'm not going I'm actually working.
I'm hyper focusing. You know. It's funny. I was on Chapel Street once and you were You had someone pitching a TV show on the table next to me, like while I was having my lunch and I shouldn't have been listening, but it was very fascinating because they were approaching you about doing a story doing Telly Television back in Australigy. I think you'd been wrapping Brothers and Sisters around that time, and it was fascinating because I heard you say to the man you're not quite ready to
go yet, but you've got a great idea. And I remember thinking you were so honest with this person about what he was approaching you for. And I realized today talking to you signing up for something like Madam, what was it about this project that made you go, Oh, that's what I wanted. I want to hope a focus on that interesting.
So yeah, no, I definitely met where I was at in my life on kind of you know, for a lot of reasons, I've been offered a lot of Madams in my life, and the shows are usually creepy or pervy, or about the dark exploitation of women's bodies while smultaneously being pervy and creepy, if you know what I'm saying, Like it's even worse because you're making it dark and pretty and dirty, but you're also kind getting off on it.
And one of my favorite roles I've played was a sex worker in A Honey's QURESHI adaptation of one of his novellas, I'm called my Son a Fanatic, and it was just such a beautiful human, not pervy, really really about something trying of movie and every single matter m I've been offered since it's just been pervy's and always men showrunners and really circumspect, you know, And I guess I grew up in a time when it was kind of okay to have a twelve year old Jodie Foster
or a twelve year old Bookshield play child fastagues in movies that were actually just fucking pervy as far and would never be made now with particularly an underage actor
in a role. And even then, why would you so when a movie and that, you know, when this came along and I heard the background of a true story like you know, kind of middle aged woman living in rural New Zealand with a with the pound difical disabilities buye with this new side hospital after realizing that sex wort's the criminalize that she can open a brothl and do it better than the skanky brothels that she's on to visit. It just kind of really run through on
this kind of seminomics, effent i dot. This show actually gets into the really smart part and dried seminomic of when a woman, particularly a mother or any woman who's both independent and trying to sustain herself and or family, makes that decision like op at a job, how long, you know, how long does it take to get there? How long do I have to work for? And how
much money does it pay. She's you know, in a place where it's an hour and a half to get to a nursing home, where she's on minimum wage and she can never do drop off and pick up or do use design a life for this? And that's you know, every job I get is how long, how far? How much? How long does it go for, how far from home is it because you just have to leave home to you know, to provide, and how much money? And that's equation and then it's kind of how good is it?
So I really kind of loved the grounded nature of that decision making process and found it really universal to all women, especially with you know, cozy lives and everyone's on a hustle and how much it's for childcare, and it just kind of gave me a lot more respects for a decision making process. It's actually a really practical, kind of no brainer for a lot of women to do this. They've been mas sisters or they've been working in agekre and they're like, if I'm in agekre, I'm
wiping answers. I'm wiping shit, I'm wiping kiss, I'm cleaning old people and dealing with crazy clients and this is how much money I make or I'm kind of doing and I'm being caring and you know, making them feel good and they go, well, I could just see that six hours a week and actually have a much less stressful life and just just rewarding. Like many of the that I spoke to, you know, one girl said, we don't solve sex, we treat loneliness. And I thought that was so interesting.
It's kind of poetic here. I mean, I think that this show really works when it's because of the dynamics amongst these women. And they are unusual women, they're different in character. So when you see them come together to solve something maybe as ridiculous as putting a boombox up your.
Bum bar, up the up the.
Bar, that's when the story really sings, because watching these women come together and solve problems together is really powerful and really funny and interesting and not slutty whatever that word is, you know, not schmalming.
No, we've really taken this lot out of the sex worker. I mean, there's women are working hard, providing a really satisfying service. And I think we do get a good cross section of the type of people that the women I spoke to. You know, there's one girl I spoke to them like her top three clients are widow is in their late sixties seventies, and they just actually really really missed being kind of touched and hold and you know,
and looked at and told they're awesome and hot. And I think when you go into the date your dating market in the seventies, you know, it's really hard and hard to get to that point where you just kind of want your hair strokes or the three hairs left on your head stroke and just have a young girl say, how are you done? It's so good to see you,
and it just makes them feel good. And I spoke to women, you know, some of their clients had physical disabilities, some were you know, men in much larger bodies that also, you know, found this threshold of finding intimacy, you know, the normal way a bit more challenging, and just found the kind of generosity of going to the sex worker to see you know, just a lot a lot less other mind field than negotiating that in other ways. So that was like a really really interesting.
I loved my Life as Murder and I thought that Shashana had done such an amazing job with that story. Was working alongside the creative team behind that sort of giving you the confidence to dive into this world, that you could dive into this world in a way that may be sort of similar to My life as Murder.
Parry McNaughty and Shoshana definitely, you know, they really wanted this to be seen by women in the industry and not go oh my god, like how many times And they all said the same thing. Whenever we see it represented as a joke. You know, it's disrespectful. It's not like it is. They just don't get it. And I think, having you know, a queer and a female showrunner too, it's that thing that you know when when we talk
about sex, we're always laughing, like it's really funny. And when we have sex, you know that when we see two dogs at the past, you know, we're like, oh my god, you know you're well, you're right, Well, I think two dogs were at the puck ands or two humans fucking in the park that did the same thing, like oh god, put it away, Oh my god, and the dogs start fucking laughing at the two people, you know, dogging it in the park. They're probably like, oh please,
please come on, oh my god, and be laughing. But so often when we see sex portrade, I think because we're trying to get the audience's rocks off a little bit. So there's that erotic and it's always hot, traditionally hot people, not with a kind of inclusive body positive you know, lens over it all. So I think that they were both really rarely committed to the representation stuff. And then I think what I brought was just the menopause of it.
I'm like, this chick is in perimenopause. She's fucking had a gut pull. She's up to here, she's third yum a testop thrown and it does two things. That makes her cranky, gives her a rage and gives her the energy to maybe have one more push of changing her life to make it look like what she dream to
de beate. And she's a really educated woman. If you have told that girl had just graduated from Berkeley, that she'd be stuck in New Zealand with her husband, the not necessarily pulling its ways, and she's got the mental load and she's tired of it, and she's not a famous author, probably doesn't even have a publisher, and life just has not been full of the promise that this bright, young, probably ADHD girl you know, was promised or told she
could have because she was smart and she's beautiful and adventurous and spirited, but life had kind of other plans to her. And you know, I don't know a family with a child with special needs who isn't driving a twenty five year old car and really really struggling to have enough leftover after the you know, all the things that are required to kind of have the joint sparkling life joined sparkle as the last family holidays, because so that can be very difficult. And it's just she's lost
in drudgery. So she's got this idea of this business that might you know, be good for her family and give her something make her days a bit more unpredictable and fun and surprising, and you know, also give her a workplace of really quirky, passionate women instead of being alone and half bound.
You really want her to succeed, mac like as in you just she's very relatable in lots of ways. I mean, my favorite scene of the whole thing was when one of the clients turns up and none of the other women are there, and he says, come on, can you just give me a hand job? And she goes no, And you kind of did that Rachel Griffith thing where you did that look into the sky as if to think, why the fuck did that man just ask me that and just kept walking.
Five second season, she'd probably go, all right, come on, but I'm on Madam, so it's double I think by then, I think those boundaries might break down a little bit.
Well, I'm up to episode five and I'm Daniel McCormack, who is just so brilliant. I was obsessed with her. Isn't she great in this as well? Like there's some you know, she's very different from be that we saw and went worth texis.
Fuck. Her body is like rock and so the thing you want and I know this because I'm normally in the supporting actor role, I know what you need to bring to your lead actor is really you need an a game person to grow bombs in the path to your happiness, and the bomb have to land and they've got to hurt, and you know that's kind of what I think for deb on total control, and the better the actor is in that supporting role, the more kind of grateful the lead us, because thank you giving me
some like real shit to deal with. And Mac is not really an alpha girl. She's a kind of girl with some ideas and she's probably really out of a debt even running a business. So when an actual apex predator alpha girl comes in, like terrified. Fuck. These are the girls that I didn't manage at school. These are the kind of women in the mothers club that fucking judge me, that terrify me, that I've never said the right thing, to have never got the upper hand on.
And then I'm dealing with Daniel McCormack just growing shit in my bed.
I just think she's so fantastic and the contrast of your two characters is just delicious. I'm up to episode five, so I can't wait to see I feel like she's coming into the series a little bit more so I'm
looking for to that. I want anyone listening to this podcast right now to really go into this show with an open mind, because it is something we haven't really seen before, and it is really delicious, and I think you've got to sit down with your partners and watch it, because it makes you want to have a conversation about sex in a different way, and it makes you want to talk about I don't know your body in a different way. Something quite amazing about what this show does to the viewer.
I think that's right. Look, I think we have folks and women will go coosely bred ignite it, and I think the straight men will be on the touch, going, well, you actually just couldn't think about sex that way when we're not around. Is that what it's like when we're not there? Yeah, you know the girl on the couch be like, oh no, darling, No, no, this is very no, this must be this. Me and the girls would never
talk about our partners lie. But it is that just honey, Like, I think we see the funny and the absurd inness that I think men might you know, straight men I think might find a little wee bit shocking.
It's a peek into a world that they don't necessarily understand. Like I was watching even the detail of you sitting around a table full of cheesels and all this food, and I was thinking about how straight men would even not even think that women would be eating that kind of food. Like, I know that that sounds like a strange thing to say, but yeah, they don't see if.
They go to the bathroom and eat cheesel yes, they're like what, no on the fantasy for them?
Right, Yeah, that's exactly right. And I think that that's why I'm saying that partners should sit down and watch it, because I think men sitting there with their wives are going to look at it very differently. And it's and that's what TV, that's what contents should do, is make us think and make us have conversation.
You know, well, I think the long term can the long form televisions and really, you know, it's just got the time to go off his and often it's when you're not just hitting the story, be hit in the slot beats where I think those really funny moments are in the unexpected moments where the plot can just go into a little rabbit hole of whatever. And I think they're the kind of the least or eggs, the joy bombs of the show.
I love that the way in which you approach characters and the way that you explore your themes feel so real, and we're seeing more of that. I think in this day and age, but you've been doing that for so long. Like Ronda and Muriel's Wedding, you gave that person so much reality that most of Australia thinks of Ronda as a real person. You know, what is she doing now? You know what I mean? Like that's the magic of you and your commitment to the art. I guess look, I think.
I just got really lucky that I came into the industry. And even that was late. I think I was twenty four twenty five maybe when I made Mereel's Wedding, and literally up until that time, every single script, you know, every audition I didn't get and it was still the you know, she's beautiful but accessible, but you know it was luminous and there was not a whole lot of rooms for quirky girls. There was a bit of room for the quirky men, I think in Australian cinema, but
not so much the girls. You know, like I remember loving this side character Snowing Gallipoly, you know those kind of there's always these quirky, funny men and even Ben Mendelssohn, you know, you could you had your kind of leading men, but you had these more character women, but we just kind of didn't really have a history of our female characters, you know, and very white and very same same and very kind of, you know, middle class, and I just
didn't really think that role. I would find roles on television particilarly, which was still very much network and there was a networked type of beauty and a network like essibility. And the girls that did well had that audience love them, you know, and they were beautiful, but they were also not intimidating kind of beauty, and I'm like, well, I'm not that, So that was fine. I thought, I'll do Shakespeare, I'll do I'll do the Cannon, I'll do modern Australian
plays and international plays. And then Muriels came along, and that was the first time I thought I ever recognized a character I knew, you know, in a urban, smart, not neurotic, kind of can do fun girl who's also you know, total wing wing man girl, you know, pick you up when you down, take you out, and give you a good time when you're brooding, laugh about shit that happened instead of stewing on it. And they're you know,
I had girls like that in my circle. In fact, one of the mine very much based under on who's Italian. And some people do occasionally ask me if Ronda was Greek or Italian because there is this kind of like, really, you know, there's just this like oldie vibe that is a that kind of migrant, take no prisoners, work hard, play hard kind of girl.
Well, I went to donas Hi, and I think all the girls that I went to school with were Ronda lake Is in Donnie.
High, the laugh of autpectation, right, and I kind of show up sturdy, fucking reliable girl that's got your back and isn't a bit Yeah, and growing up to me, they were also the Italian freak. But yeah, occasionally they're like, can I just ask you a weird question? Is Ronda freak or with Ronder Italian? And I'm like, actually, it was bad and they're like, oh, makes sense. I always
I always thought that. And then to kind of be in such a juggernaut film in that kind of iconic redefining young women and how they behave and how they dress and what they look like, and a girl that's driven by charisma rather than kind of beauty positiveting charisma, and I think that, you know, was a real game changer, and they were definitely you know, someone Louise was happening. You know, they're both got dead women. So I think that just opened up a few things that it wasn't
really until I got Six Feet Under. I think that I got the next incarnation of that, and that was like a good five years after, and I played a lot of amazing roles like Philerine, Hillary and Jackie, but they weren't quite that re defining feminine archetypes in cinema. And you know, Six Feet Under redefined the mother archetype in the American you know screen, and it redefined the
daughter and a girlfriend. Now were the three leads femi oles, and he knew their archetypes because he's a kind of Southern Gothic writer, you know, and they're all in the Cat from the Hot Tin Roofs. They're all in those Southern Gothic novels and plays, and he is bringing that redefinition of the all American mother, you know, all American daughter, and also the done the oldest son who's openly gay, and the other one who's a bit of a shit show.
So that kind of just went so far to crack open the possibility of female representation on American television from a white, middle class point of view, and of course there was a lot, you know, a lot of work to be done breaking breaking down stereotypes for women in color, and America's just waking up to the fascinations represent now as Australia's been really at the bank guard internationally for quite long time, and it really is a found an amazing way.
I have watched Six Been Under by the Way so many times, and I know that this sounds like maybe a sick thing to reveal, but I've rewatched the last five minutes of that show so many times after a few red Wines on a Friday or Saturday night, because it's so compelling, like that last five minutes of six Been Under It.
I think it's the best five minutes of television ever ever. And I think it's one of those that's how you finish the show because it's afterly right to the DNA of the show, but it's also so human human.
I've got goosebumps you're talking about it because it's so true, like.
People were bawling, and then you know, the Sopranos finished after us and everyone I'm sure that writer's room was like and everyone's like yeah, and everyone's like, what are we going to do? And everyone's like, I don't know where.
Fuck people hold it up now they must finish writing series. When they find out you're on your last series, we've got it tied up. They must hold that up as a test you know, test case or whatever. They must go. That's the benchmark that's been set. You know, how do you've.
Absolutely because it didn't leave the shark delivered. It delivered the shark in the way that was always swimming, because death was always the predator in the show. Yeah, but it just delivered it in this extraordinary, extraordinary way. It was breathtaking. And then see the song that no one had ever heard.
Never heard of it. Yeah, but it became iconic. And see a really overnight, overnight iconic. Like honestly, you can't hear that. I can't hear that song without seeing it like in real time, Like you know, it's a song that you can play while you're driving your car and you just think of that final scene with a car driving. I don't know, there's just something about the progression of life and and I don't know, it's very we could literally podcast that.
I've been bought to death by my brother.
It was always going to happen. Yeah, of course, always happen. It's always going to happen. It was the most well written piece of television anyway. Well, before you go, just one last thing. I have to finish the podcast with I finish every time. What is something behind the scenes, something that the audience won't see, but kind of a behind the scene secret about your involvement with this show.
Madam God. Okay, so funny story. First day shooting, we are in a brothel and we are shooting the scene where I go to the brothel to watch basically go what is this brothel business? And can I do it better? And it's hilarious. It's the first time we meet Danniel mccormax. She's got her sick, very fluffy, oversize cat in the rooms.
It is the smallest room ever. We have a semi naked John, an intimacy coordinator, a dop, a sound side, three actors on a room that's fairly bigger than a cat in a real brothel that can I tell you, has no windows. And I just started to not feel great,
like it's a bit funny. At lunch my make my makeup artist is like, it seems gone really weird, and she said, I don't know what's wrong, Like it's just something that's like it's a makeup st sitting properly or put more flush on, and she goes, I'm I'm gonna have to do the eye.
Like.
Anyway, I got home and I really really really don't feel well. I wake up at midnight and I'm like by that stage, I'm like, I really don't feel well. And I thought I'll do a COVID test. I'm fucking I have OVID, and so the direct so the director was in this room. So there's three actors, a cat.
Probably the cat is still alive, no cats for her making this pou Anyway, I called them and they stood everybody down because they just assumed that everybody and were in a strombot eight hours is doing the sex thing, which I am maybe thirty centimeters from Daddy's face, breathing and talking to her while she's on a while she's Anyway, they stood everybody down because they assumed it would be ripe.
Then they gave everybody they took proper blood. Then they put everybody back on in marks that used the swing dop anyway, nobody, nobody got COVID from that brothels and everybody. Everybody was saying, it's a fucking miracle.
It is a fucking miracle. I'm surprised. I thought the story was going to end with and we went a lot. We're not allowed to go back to set for six weeks because everyone had COVID and they're like, you know, that's what.
Happened in some of these actions, and we had no insurance. It was an out foot shot show. Anyway, we were all the same. It was a fucking miracle and it's Ironman.
Wow, people to watch Rachel. I can't wait for people to watch this show. It is so much fun. I want to thank you so much for your generosity with your time. This has actually thanks being the best half an hour of twenty twenty five. I can tell you that right now. Loved it. Loved it. I'm going to go and have a scream in the lound term hie by now