Steve Peacocke: Star of new Channel 7 drama RFDS says he is Covid’s ‘most fortunate actor’

Aussie actor Stephen Peacocke is really three times lucky. But he has a confession to make as TV’s new doctor.

Work can be difficult to come by for actors in a pandemic, but Stephen Peacocke is three times lucky.

The former Home and Away hearththrob has a hat-trick of shows premiering on three different television platforms this month.

“I feel like one of Australia’s most fortunate actors for sure,” Peacocke says. “I was talking to my rep overseas and they were saying ‘My gosh, you are one of the few actors who’s worked solidly for twelve months in a pandemic’.

“I can’t complain especially when so many small businesses aren’t able to work. That’s what breaks my heart most, coming from a family of small businesses owners.”

Stephen Peacocke as Flight Nurse Pete Emerson in Channel 7's new drama RDFS. Picture: Supplied.

As larrikin Ben in the second series of Five Bedrooms (Paramount+), sports reporter Rob Rickards in The Newsreader (ABC) and flight nurse Pete Emerson in Seven’s new drama RFDS, he’s perfected the laid-back laconic Aussie bloke.

“I’m from regional Australia so playing these characters from the bush is something that’s really important to me,” Peacocke says. “I love watching them but sometime the brushstrokes can be broad and not like the blokes I grew up with.”

The gripping new eight-hour drama, based in Australia’s Red Heart, centres on the modern-day heroes of the Royal Flying Doctor Service as they navigate private lives as turbulent and profound as the heart stopping emergencies they attend.

Lincoln Younes, Stephen Peacocke and Dan Ewing, who call themselves the River Boys, make their debut in Home and Away.

The 39-year-old, who’s still fondly remembered as Daryl “Brax” Braxton in Home and Away, already had huge admiration for the RFDS. He spent a year, literally in the back of Bourke, jackarooing on a station after high school.

“You just realise how isolated you are,” Peacocke recalls. “The house was 100km from anywhere – if you get bitten by a snake or thrown off a bike you are just so isolated. But we had an airstrip so you knew you could radio for help. It’s the only way the Outback can function.

“I think the RDFS is such an incredible organisation – it’s like when in America you see the Flying Kangaroo and you feel that pinch of national pride. It’s kind of the same when you see those RFDS planes on the tarmac. What those people do is extraordinary. It makes you feel proud to do a show about them and there’s actually a bit of pressure to get it right. Thankfully I think we hit it for six.”

Senior medical officer Dr Eliza Harrod (Emma Hamilton) and Flight Nurse Pete Emerson (Stephen Peacocke) in Channel 7's new drama RDFS. Picture: Supplied.

In the first episode, the new senior medical officer Dr Eliza Harrod (Brit actor Emma Hamilton) has to perform an emergency craniotomy with instructions coming via a neurosurgeon on a dicey video link. Peacocke marvels at their real-life frontline responders’ composure.

“You realise how calm they are – they turn up when someone is having the worst moment of their life and they are just like a mechanic looking at a car that had to be fixed.

“But they’ll be doing that real Aussie thing of she’ll be right and trying to lighten the mood. I think the organisation exemplifies that.”

Peacocke much prefers acting, saying he’s never harboured a desire to be a doctor.

“I would be the last bloke you would want turning up to bloody put your leg in a splint let alone anything else,” he says.

“I tell you what when I do get this (Covid) jab, I won’t be able to look at the needle going in. I am that type of fella.”

It’s an impressive cast for the Channel 7's new drama RDFS. Picture: Supplied.

It’s an impressive cast including Justine Clarke, Rob Collins, Ash Ricardo and Kate Mulvaney. They formed close bonds on the four-month shoot in Broken Hill. Peacocke laughs as we ask was it a bit like school camp.

“Yes, in short,” he says. “It was nice. There’s a lot of musos in the cast and a lot of guitar playing. I gave that a swerve because I sound like a frog in a drain pipe.”

His jam-packed calendar shows no signs of freeing up soon, working on a project in Melbourne.

“I’m always happy to be on set – I never take that for granted,” Peacocke says. “There are a few exciting prospects but hopefully we’ll be heading out to Broken Hill again – that would be the dream for me.”

RDFS, Wednesday, 8.40pm, Seven