Hugh’s heart to heart on Hedwig, hope and humanity

It’s been a turbulent 12 months for beloved Adelaide actor and theatre star Hugh Sheridan. He talks about his new romance, fresh beginnings and his Fringe show.

Hugh Sheridan’s full of energy as he nimbly leaps around the pool at Eos by SkyCity.

Back home to promote his Fringe show Hughman, the talented triple threat looks relaxed, despite the searing sun and the fact he’s recovering from performing with Hot Dub Time Machine at the final Summer Sounds Festival in Bonython Park the previous night.

In fact, he’s positively loving life as he shares with the Sunday Mail he is seeing someone and it’s lovely. “He’s very kind and it’s just nice,” Sheridan says.

It’s a marked difference to the end of last year when the 35-year-old was hospitalised after an anxiety attack. It came after Sheridan was dropped from a production of Hedwig and the Angry Inch in which he was set to play the titular gender-queer character.

Sydney Festival producers made the shock decision to axe Sheridan after protests from advocates that the role should only be played by a trans performer.

The Queer Artist Alliance said the choice of Sheridan – a “cis-gender male” – was “offensive and damaging to the trans-community and continues to cause genuine stress and frustration among trans and gender- nonconforming performers all across Australia”.

Hugh Sheridan as Hedwig.

“It was one of the worst times in my life,” Sheridan reveals. “It was almost as bad as when my little brother (Zach) was missing in Nepal (after the devastating 2015 earthquake).

“It showed me that despite my (Stellar) essay there is still work to be done. To go through that … I’ve never been trolled before.”

It also didn’t feel like chance that it fell upon Sheridan to continue that important work. He’d just written a powerful and truly revealing piece for Stellar on not being labelled and yet was being labelled left, right and centre.

“You know, nobody bothered to call me and ask if I was trans?,” he says. “I mean, it’s just a question. They just labelled me as Cis male even though I clearly spelt out I didn’t identify as any gender, I identified as a human.”

Sheridan had to take step back to recover. The usually prolific poster took a break from his social media, noticing an influx of fake profiles following him and commenting to provoke a reaction.

“Why do people do that? It felt very personal,” he shares. “I know they didn’t necessarily hate me as such. It could have been anyone playing the role but following on from my essay, it was quite, quite difficult. It was like ‘wow, you really can’t sit anywhere in this world.

“They don’t know me at all and that’s the whole point of why I wrote that essay – you don’t know the true person behind the facade. And I tried to open up enough to say ‘this is who I am’. But obviously that wasn’t enough for some.”

Conversely, the outpouring of support the Packed to the Rafters star received after that essay was published was truly heartening.

“I wrote it thinking it was going to be for young people to help them know they are totally fine the way they are and they don’t need to explain anything. To anyone,” Sheridan explains. “They’re just humans growing and exploring as we do.

“But then, what surprised me was how many people much older than me wrote to me. Some of them had been married multiple times and been through these different situations where they felt really lost for words about their true feelings. And my article really resonated with them and that really moved me. That was worth everything.”

Sheridan confesses just how nervous he was ahead of its publication last October – filled with doubts, wondering why he was doing it, why he was going to expose himself in such a manner.

“But I knew in my heart it was the right thing to do – that’s the way we progress,” he says. “I wasn’t doing it to say ‘I’m separate from you’, I was writing it to say ‘I’m just like you’. I think we all hide behind labels that make us feel safe. I was just saying, for me, I embrace the fact that you don’t always know and it’s taken me a long time to realise that.”

Hot Dub Time Machine DJ Tom Loud. Picture: AAP/Bianca De Marchi

Like so many of us, Sheridan is so very glad 2020 is behind him. As he rang in the new year, singing with his favourite DJ Tom Loud from Hot Dub Time Machine in front of the iconic Sydney Opera House and Harbour Bridge he felt blessed.

“(That night) was supposed to be the first audience for Hedwig,” Sheridan shares.

“I had thought that on New Year’s Eve, I would be coming down from the ceiling dressed as Hedwig doing this role of a lifetime.

“Instead, to have my favourite DJ say ‘do you want to come and sing with me?’ was even better and way less stressful.

“It just felt like a nice blessing for 2021 before it had even started.

“It felt like this year will be better – I’m going to roll with that.”

A big subscriber to the things-always-happen-for-a-reason philosophy, Sheridan turned his focus to his huge Fringe production Hughman – the title coined in part because it’s been an affectionate nickname since he was young, but also flowing on from his revealing “I’m a human” essay.

“It really is way too big of a show to have created at the same time as doing Hedwig,” Sheridan shares.

“I don’t know how I’d be managing it.”

Hugh Sheridan will be hitting the decks for his new Fringe show Hughman. Picture: Naomi Jellicoe

It truly does seem a mammoth undertaking as he and a team of Australia’s most sought-after dancers get set to raise the roof in a “sensory spectacular”. Sheridan will spin beats from MJ to Calvin Harris, Guetta to Sinatra in a mash up of music, light shows, hip hop, tap and more.

So we know Sheridan was a talented ballet dancer with two years at the nation’s top dance academy – but how does his tap stack up, say to that other famous Australian Hugh? As in Jackman, who’s tapped his way through a variety of musicals and on stage in his 2019 tour with The Man. the Music. The Show.

“I mean, he didn’t go to the Australian Ballet School … I’m OK, let’s say,” Sheridan says with a cheeky smile, as his close friend local PR supremo Sarah Abbott adds with a laugh “wash your mouth out Lisa” .

We’re more accustomed to seeing Sheridan sing with his California Crooners mates come Fringe time, rather than working the decks. But he does come from a long line of DJs with sisters Meg and Zoe featuring in clubs across Adelaide.

“I’ve always fancied myself as a DJ at a party, but mixing is a different thing,” Sheridan shares.

He’s had plenty of time to master his mixing magic with some 23 days in quarantine last year. (“I’d go from writing my movie (The Dance) to mixing, to writing, to mixing …”).

There’ll be a collection of feelgood songs – Sheridan promises his audience will leave feeling the happiest we’ve felt since 2019.

“It’s a celebration of what humans can do,” he explains. "I just want it to be visually sensational, I want people to go ‘wow’. The whole plan is to make people feel good. And remind the audience why they go to shows.

“I think the reason we go to shows, especially at the moment, is to connect and feel unity.”

He’s also planning on developing his Hughman brand further – with a clothing line to be released mid-year. “It’s beautiful, sustainable, I guess you’d call it resortwear for men and women … all human beings,’ sheridan says.

“Again it’s about breaking down labels and how they start to hinder us. We need to be about unity and supporting each other and looking at people beyond skin colour, gender, ethnicity, job and financial status and just see people as human beings. It’s very much a passion project.”

When we last chatted at length, Sheridan was hanging out for a holiday, he was working between two productions – Rafters revival Back to the Rafters for Amazon Prime and Ten’s Five Bedrooms.

Hugh Sheridan and the rest of the cast including Rebecca Gibney Erik Thomson, Angus McLaren and Michael Caton on the final episode of Packed to the Rafters final episode.

Hugh Sheridan, Katie Robertson, Roy Joseph, Kat Stewart and Steve Peacocke in Five Bedrooms.

While he has not managed that break yet and jokes he’s slotted into 2022’s schedule, the shows are in the bag – no mean feat given they had to negotiate early COVID days – and Sheridan’s eagerly anticipating them hitting our screens.

It was surreal for Hugh to go back to Ben Rafter – the role he won in his final year of NIDA, propelling him to a household name, snaring four Logies along the way. But he loved reuniting with his first TV family – mum Rebecca Gibney, dad Erik Thomson and brother Angus McLaren. Interestingly he’s more excited for audiences to see him reprise his role as the hapless Lachlan in the second series of Five Bedrooms – also starring Kat Stewart, Doris Younane, Stephen Peacocke, Katie Robertson and Roy Joseph, hinting this second season, about five strangers who buy a house together, is even better than the first.

“It will blow your mind – I just want people to see it,” Sheridan says. “Also I play a real dick in it and I love where the writers have taken him this season.”

His movie – the semi-autobiographical The Dance – is in the development stages and he’s hoping he’ll get funding for it to be shot here in his home state.

Given he’s added DJing, penning a feature film and a clothing label to his already impressive suite of talents, are there any dreams left for Sheridan to pursue? “Maybe go to med school … or cage diving,” he jokes.

Hughman, March 5-7, 13-14, The Moa at Gluttony. Tickets via adelaidefringe.com.au