“If I See a Red Carpet

“IF I SEE A RED CARPET, Nadine Garner reminisces about the years she and Kylie Minogue were just Kids, and reveals that acting for adults is equally rewarding... and no less treacherous Photography CAMERON GRAYSON Styling IRENE TSOLAKAS Interview SIOBHAN DUCK adine Garner has seen and heard plenty series – was a blow for the single mother of two. “It was the most during her three-plus decades in showbiz. I was ever going to be earning,” she says. “I thought, ‘Oh my god… When she was 14, co-star Kylie Minogue everything is going to turn around!’ But nothing is guaranteed. introduced her to the music of Prince, the “I think we are at the very beginning of a new way of behaving Violent Femmes and Donna Summer on across all industries. And ours needed to be looked at – no doubt. the set of their TV series The Henderson Kids It still does; nothing is fixed here. We still have a systemic and turned her on to fashion with regular vulnerability in our industry for people to be taken advantage of.” excursions to Melbourne’s Camberwell Sunday Market. Despite her disappointment over the show’s demise, Garner NFor her second movie, Disney’s Bushfire Moon, she worked is supportive of the changes that are starting to take place: alongside veteran actor Charles “If you’ve got a menace in the “Bud” Tingwell; she’d later star in workplace [it needs to be dealt with]. a nationwide production of Cabaret And I know many actresses who have for a year as it travelled Australia. had to work with menaces, and had But there are still plenty of tricks to continue to walk into work doing to be learnt – or even relearnt. Not nudity or love scenes with an actor long ago, Garner, 48, found herself who was harassing them – stalking attending workshops on how to them outside of the workplace, talking conduct love scenes onscreen. In about how turned-on they are when the turbulent and confusing wake of they do scenes… It’s very complex #MeToo, the actors’ union set them for actors, because we are putting up as part of a wider response to the ourselves in really vulnerable flood of harassment allegations in positions that other people aren’t.” the entertainment industry. “An Garner has a clear disinterest in extremely qualified woman was having people believe her life is brought out to run courses,” says glamorous just because she is on film Garner. “She told us, ‘Hey, these and TV screens, and she has steadfastly intimacy scenes, they are just like refused to play the fame game all fight scenes. We need to coordinate along. “I think there is a pressure on them and choreograph them – and us to present as though we are having set down rationally how we are the lifestyle of our American cohorts,” going to execute them.’” The she says. “And we are really not. I can point, she says, was “to demystify assure you my life is as complex and them – and create an open stressful as everyone else’s. In fact, dialogue around them, rather I don’t have the financial security of than them being something difficult or shameful”. most people; I have maybe bursts of income and then nothing. The workshops hit close to home for Garner. The ink was There’s a misconception that anyone in the public eye is having barely dry on her contract at the Seven Network for a new this easy life. That is not my experience – and it’s certainly not series of her hit TV show The Doctor Blake Mysteries last year the experience of all my peers in film and TV and theatre.” when allegations of sexual harassment were made against her Despite the financial pressure and difficulties juggling the co-star Craig McLachlan. (He is still fighting them in court.) needs of her sons Edan, 13, and Jem, 10, Garner doesn’t regret her Garner emphasises her remarks about #MeToo and the decision to be an actor – even if she never felt it was her calling. entertainment industry are not in direct reference to McLachlan. She landed the role of fresh-faced Tamara Henderson on But his departure – and Seven’s decision to walk away from the The Henderson Kids – her first major role – in 1985 after she AND HAIR ABC-TV. 10; NETWORK PHOTOGRAPHY: OTHER COSMETICA USING MECCA CRAIG BEAGLEHOLE MAKE-UP: 18 stellar STR02JUN19N018_001 18 27/5/19 11:08 am attended an open-casting call. The show would end up making her a household name. “Kylie seemed And it wasn’t just Garner who got her big break on The Henderson Kids. The show also featured Minogue, Ben Mendelsohn and Jane cool to me as Hall. “There were some very astute casting decisions made,” reflects Garner. “It was magic, she was three really. You can’t orchestrate that. Kylie seemed cool to me because she was three years older years older” – that’s a lot when you are a kid. She was very grown up, very worldly at that age already.” She has been reunited with another former co-star – Stephen Curry – on the set of her latest series, the Network 10 comedy Mr. Black. “I had a massive crush on Nadine when she was on The Henderson Kids,” Curry tells Stellar. “I used to fantasise about being on the show with her. We first worked together on The Secret Life Of Us. She played a paraplegic and I was her nurse. We had to kiss and, while I kept it professional on the exterior, my inner 10-year-old was doing backflips.” Series creator Adam Zwar says Garner – who plays Rowena, a woman with a new lease on life after her divorce from Curry’s embittered character – was an obvious choice for the role. Like her TV counterpart, Garner is finding her feet after splitting with the father of her boys. “For those who don’t know her, Nadine is a deep thinker,” says Zwar. “She’s an individual. She is not part of any social or intellectual clique. She makes her own mind up about things.” Zwar says a comedian who filmed a guest role on the show serenaded Garner with The Henderson Kids theme song – and she didn’t bat an eye. “I guess she’s been part of our lives for so long, she’s used to extreme and emotional reactions from people.” Garner has her own take on it. “I don’t think the fame that I had was ever really out of control,” she says. “I could still function and have a life. I wasn’t a celebrity. Really, really big stars like Macaulay Culkin – that kind of surreal, catapulting-you-into- another-stratosphere kind of fame, where the ego goes into crisis and you’re no longer sure where the ground is – I never had that. “I still had all the same issues as any person, with just a smattering of recognition here and there. I had a couple of pretty nasty experiences in public places where people tried to punch me up; kids who thought it was funny. It wasn’t like, ‘Wow, this is so glamorous.’ It was a bit scary. So I found the whole fame thing kind of confronting; I have never courted fame. “If there’s a red carpet and they try to get me on it, I run around the back!” Mr. Black airs 8.40pm Tuesdays on Network 10. NADINE WEARS Witchery shirt, witchery.com.au; Zara pants, zara.com/au; Sportmax shoes, (02) 8084 9113; (opposite) Country Road top, countryroad.com.au (from top) Nadine Garner in comedy series Mr. Black with castmates (from left) Paul Denny, Stephen Curry and Nick Russell; in The Doctor Blake Mysteries with Craig McLachlan in 2015; Garner and Kylie Minogue co-starred in hit ’80s show The Henderson Kids. OTHER PHOTOGRAPHY: NETWORK 10; ABC-TV. HAIR AND HAIR ABC-TV. 10; NETWORK PHOTOGRAPHY: OTHER COSMETICA USING MECCA CRAIG BEAGLEHOLE MAKE-UP: STR02JUN19N019 19 27/5/19 11:08 am.

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