‘I don't give a rat's arse': Rebecca Gibney's year of living dangerously
'I don't give a rat's arse about things that aren't important any more,' she says. 'I don't obsess over criticism. I don't obsess over much really because I've worked out that the most important things are your family, your friends, the people that love you, and finding your passion, finding what gives you joy.
'I was such a people pleaser for so long, so much imposter syndrome, but I've now gotten to an age where I think, 'How do I feel about that?' I was so hard on myself for such a long time. I was so vindictive towards myself. I had such self loathing in my late 20s and early 30s, just for choices that I'd made that hurt people.
'I really was in a bit of a bad state about myself. The great thing about being older is you actually start caring about yourself more and your self-worth and your self-care. Because if I can't look after myself, I can't look after anyone else.'
Gibney – New Zealand born and bred, an All Blacks supporter, but Australian TV royalty – is at STC in the throes of rehearsal for Circle Mirror Transformation, her return to the stage after 20 years and only her third time treading the boards.
Gibney is utterly delightful in person, chatty ('My mum says I can talk the leg off a tin pot') and sparky with ridiculously bright blue eyes (I normally wouldn't mention it, but when you spend a lifetime watching someone on screen, it's funny the things you don't notice). She is wearing a traditional Maori greenstone necklace and her Kiwi accent pops in and out of the conversation. She throws her head back when she laughs.
'I turned 60 last year, and for some reason, it dawned on me,' she says. 'And I think there's a lot of women when they get older, or people in general, when they get older, it's that realisation that, OK, I've got 20, 30, 40 years left, and knowing how quickly the last 20 went, I don't want to waste time being scared of things, or frightened of things or not doing things because I'm scared. And I know that if I don't keep changing and growing and challenging myself, I could just curl up in a ball. And I don't want that. I want to be around a lot longer.'
She's tackling an American accent for Circle Mirror Transformation, which is set in a small-town community centre in Vermont, and written by Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright Annie Baker. Gibney plays Marty, a hippie dippy drama teacher – 'she teaches pottery classes and she teaches jewellery classes, and she's probably got tattoos' – who is tackling an adult drama class for the first time.
'She's really giving it 150 per cent,' Gibney says. 'But layered underneath that, though, is a troubled marriage, which comes out over the course of the play. You start to realise that she may not be as happy and shiny as she appears.'
Her husband is played by 'possibly the nicest man on the planet', Cameron Daddo, who Gibney worked with on the TV travel show Luxury Escapes. 'When we're travelling, I always have the, 'What's next? What's next? When do we have to be here? [mindset]',' she says. 'I'm like, 'We have to be here at this time. We've got to do this.' I'm always thinking ahead, whereas Cameron's like, 'But wow, look at that table, isn't it great, man?''
Gibney never formally studied acting. She fell into it after an early modelling career – a fantastic snap on her Instagram page shows her wearing a sash that reads 'Ms Resilient Flooring' in the 1980s – and built a career that reads as the greatest hits of Australian TV: The Flying Doctors, All Together Now, Halifax f.p., Stingers, Packed to the Rafters and Halifax: Retribution. Last year, she was inducted into the Logies Hall of Fame, with her son Zac Bell doing the honours.
But it was this long history on the small screen that gave Gibney her biggest doubt: could she crack it on the stage? Especially a stage that has regularly featured some of the titans of Australian acting: Cate Blanchett, Hugo Weaving, Heather Mitchell, Pamela Rabe.
'There is that imposter syndrome thing that sort of has come flooding back a little bit,' Gibney says. 'Certainly, last week, in the first week of rehearsals, I was like, 'Oh, geez, what have I done? I'm not going to be good at this.' You know the little voice on the shoulder that just goes, 'You're out of your depth. You don't know what you're doing.'
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'But to have such an incredible, supportive cast around me and the director [Dean Bryant] who just went, 'Yes, you can.' And I think something clicked in me yesterday. My son said to me once, 'Mum, fear and excitement are the same feeling. You've just got to flip it.' And so I got home last night and I went, 'I'm going to turn this into excitement.'
'So I actually went, 'Today I'm going to smash it. I'm going to know my lines. I'm going to project [my voice], I'm going to really do incredibly well', and I'm just going to have to keep telling myself that until opening night.'
Gibney's 40-year TV career has given her an eagle-eyed view of a local industry that has undergone tremendous upheaval in the past couple of decades. Those cosy weekly family sitcoms, such as All Together Now and Packed to the Rafters, are gone, while police and crime dramas are more likely to be a limited series instead of a prime-time staple that runs for years.
'I think people want that [local dramas] now,' Gibney says. 'If you look at the demographics and the people that are watching regular [free-to-air] television, they're actually much older. And the younger generation, it's the streaming services and stuff. But people love a good drama.
'Look at The Survivors [on Netflix]. That's, like, No.2 globally at the moment or something, and made in Tasmania by the beautiful Tony Ayres and Cherie Nowlan and Andy Walker … It's just so fantastic that shows like that are being made [by Netflix], but it's like, 'OK, wait a second, that's Australian, you know? Why are we not investing more in our own product? Why are we waiting for someone else to make it?'
'And shows like Packed to the Rafters, there is a home for that. We don't have another show like that at the moment. I think there's a comfort to that, seeing a show about a family that's just like any other regular Australian family. That's why people loved it so much. It was a show that they could all watch with the whole family.'
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As for what Gibney has planned next, she can't say – well, she tells me, it's just that I can't tell you – but there is one thing she is certain of.
'I want to start being more raw and more real and not caring so much,' she says. 'I'm happy to play dress-ups, but the reality is, [today] I'm in a jean jacket and my hair's a bit all over the shop, and I don't have my wefts [hair extensions] in, and I don't really care.
'I would love to bring that to the screen as well, because I think women, particularly, want to see themselves reflected on screen, ageing normally, with crow's feet … I'm not opposed to [cosmetic procedures]. Go get your facelift, have your Botox – I've had Botox before, I've had all that stuff. I tried filler once, and it just looked really bad, so I went, 'I'm never doing that again' – but I just want to look like I'm ageing.
'I look like a 60-year-old that's looking after herself. I have no qualms about saying I'm 60. It's fine. It's great. Actually, it's better than being 55. Sixty is awesome, and I think 70 is going to be even better.'
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But McEwan is painfully aware that her success (and income) as an author is not guaranteed, even with one of the most powerful online communities behind her. Born and raised on the Gold Coast, McEwan spent 11 years in the classroom. She wrote fantasy novels on the side and tried getting a few published but was rejected again and again. "I didn't really know what I was doing," she admitted. McEwan spent years writing books and being rejected by publishers before her debut novel was picked up/ (Instagram/@staceymcewanbooks) The Australian publishing industry is highly competitive and the odds of a debut author's unsolicited submission actually being purchased for publication are low. Knowing that, McEwan focused on teaching until the COVID-19 pandemic hit. Like millions of Aussies, she downloaded TikTok as a way to pass the time during lockdown and was immediately sucked into BookTok, the app's reading community. There she racked up thousands of followers "almost overnight". 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"It was really just a case of perfect timing," McEwan said. Her first three novels became bestsellers, boosting her social profile even more. But in the age of online hate mobs and celebrity 'cancellations', being a big deal on social media doesn't always have a happy ending. All it takes is one move – legitimate, or perceived – for an author to get 'cancelled' these days. It can make the career feel precarious, especially for breakout authors like McEwan who owe so much of their fame to online popularity. McEwan signed her first book deal during the pandemic and is now a bestselling author. (Instagram/@staceymcewanbooks) "Being of any kind of public figure on social media feels a lot like putting your head on a chopping block and just hoping that no one swings the blade," she said. "It's the wild, wild west out there and one certainly does have to be careful." 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Sydney Morning Herald
2 hours ago
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Peter Carey says he's done writing novels: ‘You have to know when it's enough'
He folds it in quietly, mid-thought, somewhere between a lament about lost notes, a gentle defence of his landline, and reflections on readings. 'See … because I haven't … I've stopped writing novels,' he says, with a hint of hesitation – not quite reluctant, more aware the revelation won't go unremarked. No fuss, no fireworks. Just the quiet confirmation that there won't be another novel from Peter Carey – the only Australian to win the Booker Prize twice, and one of only a handful to win the Miles Franklin three times. 'I didn't think I'd stopped. I had a fear that I might have written all the novels I needed or should write,' Carey, 82, says. 'But I persisted, and tried various things, and threw things away … and in the end I thought, well, that's it.' The boy from Bacchus Marsh became a literary giant, showing Australians a funhouse mirror version of their own history – grotesque, funny, violent, and absurd – and carrying that vision to the world. 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It felt risky, and he was nervous about how it would land, particularly when he returned to Australia to tour the book. But he felt he pulled it off – or, as he puts it, 'I didn't make a dick of myself.' Carey isn't expecting an orchestra of tiny violins to start playing. There appears to be a straightforward, if perhaps melancholic, acceptance: the more you publish, the less of a fuss it makes. His good friend Tom Keneally once told him that when they were new, everyone thought they were brilliant – now, they're just part of the furniture. 'I think it's true. We all know that from our reading, and from how it feels to discover a writer,' Carey says. 'We tend to be less excited about the third or fourth book, but we were absolutely stunned by the first. That's the way it goes … You have to know when it's enough, too.' As we talk, a bookshelf packed with Carey's novels watches over us. This year marks 35 years since he left Australia for New York – much longer than he ever planned to stay away. He moved there with his second wife, Alison Summers, a theatre-maker and editor, and they had two sons. The marriage ended, but he stayed. Carey says Australians tend to get anxious or angry about those who leave, but he says his thinking and writing have always looked back to home. For years, his old novels were scattered around the Manhattan apartment he shares with his wife, Frances Coady, a book editor and publisher turned agent. After returning from the A Long Way from Home tour, he finally corralled them onto shelves. In front of them, Carey made several attempts at a new novel – two, maybe three, different starts, each hundreds of pages long – but nothing stuck. There was no urgency behind them, no force demanding the work into being. After A Long Way from Home, the compulsion just wasn't there. 'After a while, you develop a lot of skills – you can make things work. But the last thing you want to do is bullshit yourself,' he says. 'You have to ask, do you need to write this? Why are you rewriting and rewriting and rewriting? Because you're trying to find something that isn't there. And that's OK. I mean, I'm 82 years old, for f---'s sake.' There was no ceremonial uncapping of the pen, no dramatic farewell to fiction. Certainly no relief, he says he didn't feel happy about it. It's been about five years now, he guesses, since he called it a day. 'I'm one of those people – this is what I do. And when you can't do that any more… who are you?' he says. 'I mean, I can't even play golf. I'm certainly not going sailing. In the end, you're someone who could do one trick – and that's write.' And that one trick hasn't disappeared. Carey's now working on a non-fiction project – 'enough to keep me off the street,' as he puts it – and while it's a different muscle from fiction, it still scratches an itch. 'I'm engaged in making something and it's a little risky, and it's beyond what I think I know how to do, and that's exciting, right?' The past few years have brought other big changes, too. For nearly two decades, Carey was a distinguished professor and the executive director of the creative writing MFA at public university Hunter College, a program he helped build into one of the country's best, and most competitive courses. Former alumni include Susan Choi, Jennifer Egan, Paul Beatty and Adam Haslett. He left a few years ago. He laughs about the creeping signs of age: forgetting book titles when talking to students, stretching sentences to give himself time to remember. He won't be drawn on the details, but it doesn't sound as though it was the fondest farewell. 'There were ... let's call them administrative issues, shall we? That went on for a couple of years. I resolved them. But I didn't want to deal with any of that ever again,' he says. Those professional shifts come amid a milestone year for Carey: the 25th anniversary of True History of the Kelly Gang, the swaggering Booker-winning novel written in the unpunctuated voice of Australia's most infamous outlaw. Carey is one of five Australian artists commissioned by the State Library of Victoria to contribute to Creative Acts, a new exhibition showcasing 600 artefacts from the library's collection, all exploring the theme of creativity. His piece – a reflection on the 1000 days he spent writing True History of the Kelly Gang – draws on the personal archive he's contributed over the years, including 4000 pages of drafts, marked-up manuscripts, and the chunky 1990s Apple computer he used to write the novel. He's been selling archival material for some time – 'every time I need to pay the school fees,' he jokes. Some of it won't be unsealed until after his death. Asked if there's anything particularly juicy in there, he shoots back: 'Oh, I mean, if I was going to pay back somebody, I'd rather do it while I was alive.' The origin story of True History of the Kelly Gang is almost mythic in itself. Carey, whose parents ran a car dealership in Ballarat and scraped together the funds to send him to Geelong Grammar, flunked his first-year science exams at Monash University. He'd once imagined himself a chemist or a zoologist – until a car crash and some existential drift nudged him into advertising. There, among copywriters who harboured secret literary ambitions, he was introduced to James Joyce, Graham Greene, Jack Kerouac and William Faulkner. One day, his colleague Barry Oakley – a former schoolteacher and writer – took him to George's Art Gallery to see Sidney Nolan's Ned Kelly paintings. Carey was entranced. He sought out Ned Kelly: Australian Son by Max Brown, and became fixated on the Jerilderie letter, Kelly's 'manifesto', dictated as a defence against what he saw as the relentless persecution from the colonial establishment. Carey transcribed the letter by hand and carried it around 'like the relic of a martyred saint', certain he would one day do something with it. Years passed. There were false starts and failed novels, then critical successes. The letter was lost somewhere along the way. But in 1994, at the age of 51, Carey wandered into the Met in New York and stumbled across Nolan's full suite of 27 Kelly paintings. The vision returned – and this time, he started writing. 'It feels like yesterday really. Well, not quite, but 25 years is sort of shocking. I mean, shit,' he says. The novel was a critical and commercial success, winning the Booker Prize and the Commonwealth Writers' Prize and inspiring film adaptations. Yet Carey thinks the final product was very different from what the young man who first dreamt it expected. That writer wanted to go off the deep end of the avant-garde. 'That writer would have thought I was a total sellout. That writer was ridiculous, but charming in his way. But the Kelly Gang was not what he had in mind, and that came slowly over time.' Carey worked closely with high-profile American editor Gary Fisketjon, whom he's long credited for his passion about – and dedication to – the book. Looking back, though, there are a few decisions Carey says he might have made differently. Fisketjon had a view that all the abbreviations and contractions in the novel should follow a consistent pattern. Carey now thinks it should've been messier. Finding Kelly's voice was never difficult for Carey, and he says he could still slip into it now (but he politely declines giving a performance). 'He wanted there to be a rule for things and I agreed with him at the time, but I think it should have been more untidy,' Carey says. 'I mean, I don't think there's anything really many people are going to notice. You would have to be as mad as we were.' Loading Mad is how he thinks about his long history, the books behind him. 'When I think about the books and no I don't sit there pouring over the pages. I think, my god you did that. You were a mad person. You know what I mean? It's sort of like, if you're going to write, you have to move beyond yourself, and you really do have to build a ladder for yourself,' Carey says. 'And that's why writers are always so disappointing to me because when you meet the person, it's the person standing on the floor, not the person who lives up the ladder because the writer got up the ladder one step at a time and got to a place beyond who they are, in a way.' Loading Carey has twice been due to visit Australia recently – including for this year's Sydney Writers' Festival – but has had to cancel both trips. I ask him what a typical day looks like now – innocently, perhaps – and get the kind of answer that suggests I should've known better. 'Well, I clean my teeth. And I take my time with it. My dentist said, you know, don't be in a rush. So I clean my teeth properly. And I have some breakfast, and then I go to my desk and then I do what I'm not telling you about – despite my valiant attempts.' So, there will be another book. Just not a novel. And for those who might feel the absence of one, he offers a kind of gentle redirection. Go back, he says. Reopen what's already on the shelf. 'If you've read a book 10 years ago, when you go back to it, it's a different book. So I'd suggest it's time for them to go on that journey of discovery. I mean I know I'm being glib, on the one hand, but on the other hand, it is really true,' he says. 'And also, it's a real test because some of the things we thought we loved so much, we go back to, and they're not so great any more. And that's disappointing and we realise we've changed. The book hasn't changed – we've changed. And we hope, I would hope to have written a few books that when you go back to them are better than you thought, or at least as good.'
