High Steaks: Screen Queensland boss Jacqui Feeney outlines plans for state’s most glamorous industry
Queensland screen darling Margot Robbie has been sounded out about making a movie in her home state in the lead-up to the 2032 Olympics. WELCOME TO HIGH STEAKS
Entertainment
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Move over Margot Robbie - Jacqui Feeney is Queensland’s other screen queen.
Gold Coaster Robbie might be the Sunshine State’s biggest name in films, but it’s Feeney who’s playing a leading role behind the scenes to make our movie and TV industry an economic and cultural powerhouse.
As the boss of Screen Queensland, the affable, bespectacled blonde is charged with ensuring the cameras keep rolling in film and TV productions across the state - and which, together with digital games, delivered an estimated $715m in Queensland-made content and helped support about 4000 jobs last financial year.
In her first sit-down interview since taking on the key role two years ago, Feeney spoke to High Steaks about her plans for Queensland’s most glamorous industry. They include hopefully persuading Robbie herself to make a movie here, while trying to keep the sector humming in the face of continual threats such as Donald Trump’s tariffs.
The now 60-year-old was appointed Screen Queensland CEO in July 2023 after a tumultuous period at the government agency, becoming its third chief in less than a year.
Her appointment also coincided with a turbulent time in the industry nationally, including the Hollywood writers strike and uncertainty over federal film subsidies which saw screen production in Australia plummet almost 30 per cent.
Screen production in Queensland in 2023-24 slumped 57 per cent, according to Screen Australia’s annual drama report, as the Covid-era boom in locally-shot, big-budget productions like Baz Luhrmann’s Elvis dissipated.
But Feeney, a former pay TV executive well-accustomed to disruption, saw the challenge as opportunity - particularly in the lead-up to the 2032 Olympics.
“In my career, I think I’ve been renowned for handling tough problems, growth turnarounds - I’m not a status quo person,” she says.
“So I don’t mind (a challenge). There was so much to do. I was energised by Queensland.There was a feeling to me that, while it was an established industry here, there was a huge opportunity to accelerate or strengthen pockets of it.”
We’re lunching at Fatcow in Fortitude Valley, not far from her Teneriffe office, and while she might be a born-and-bred Sydney girl, Feeney is eager to support her adopted state - scanning the menu for a Queensland-farmed wagyu fillet in preference to the NSW, Victorian and Western Australian cuts on offer.
Feeney grew up in western Sydney, the daughter of an insurance salesman father and hairdresser mother who split when she was young. She and her sister were raised largely by their mum, who had her own hairdressing business at 16 and imbued in Feeney a strong feminist ‘you can do whatever you want’ streak, along with a love of reading.
“She was a big reader, I was a big reader - we were always big on stories,” she says.
“I guess I was an artistic, creative child, but by the time I got to university, I actually found my talents outside of the things I loved doing. My talents were more in the business side of things, and no-one was more surprised than me.
“I feel like my career has straddled that understanding of the world of creativity, but actually being a business person.”
Feeney completed a film and literature degree at Macquarie University, while working jobs including waitressing and even writing cue cards for the hit 1980s TV dating show Perfect Match (on which this columnist may have once appeared, incidentally).
After uni (Feeney also earned business qualifications at University of Technology Sydney), she landed a job at the ABC, working in children’s TV.
A stint in London with the BBC followed, before Feeney returned to Australia to work for the ABC’s commercial arm, honing her skills in the business side of the screen industry.
She then spent three years with Screen NSW, helping bring some of the first Hollywood and Bollywood productions to Australia, before becoming channel manager and later CEO of SBS World Movies - one of Australia’s first pay TV channels.
Feeney, who also chaired the Sydney Film Festival from 2000-2007, later spent seven years with pay TV Foxtel in roles including director of video-on-demand movies. She then became managing director of Rupert Murdoch’s Fox Networks Group which oversaw the production, broadcasting and distribution of channels including Fox Sports and National Geographic - with career highlights including commissioning the critically-acclaimed Aussie crime-comedy, Mr Inbetween.
Queensland has emerged as something of a Hollywood Down Under in recent years, attracting a slew of big-budget US productions including Johnny Depp’s Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales, Chris Hemsworth’s Thor: Ragnarok and Elvis, while also the location for recent Aussie hits including Netflix’s Boy Swallows Universe based on Brisbane author Trent Dalton’s bestseller, Stan’s Black Snow starring Aussie heart-throb Travis Fimmel and the Paul Kelly-inspired Binge original How To Make Gravy.
The Gold Coast’s sprawling Village Roadshow studios, a new Coast-based headquarters and creative industries precinct for Luhrmann’s production company Bazmark and a $12.6m studio complex opened last year in Cairns by Screen Queensland have solidified the state as a TV and movie-making mecca.
Feeney says it was this energy and activity that tempted her to leave her beloved Bondi Beach base and relocate to Brisbane with husband, well-known journalist Christopher Zinn, to take the reins of Screen Queensland.
The mother of two adult sons - the youngest of whom is a popular social media content creator making science videos for the masses - Feeney says she was attracted to the role because of the ‘huge potential’ to grow the industry even further.
“Actually, when I took the role, some people in Sydney said to me ‘oh, Queensland, it only does Hollywood production. And I was like, ‘oh, only’,” she says with a hearty laugh.
“That’s a huge asset to leverage off. But I also think we can do more than just be a service to Hollywood. We want to be in partnership with Hollywood and that’s why we can see ourselves as being a real vital contributor to the work that they do, plus using the lessons of what we learned from that in our own work for the state.”
Work such as the new Bluey movie which, like the smash hit TV series, is being made right here in Brisbane.
“Bluey is such a great example of Queensland-owned IP (intellectual property) and we’d like more of that,” Feeney says.
“There are 120 animators hired from around the globe, many of them returning, Queenslanders who are working from a nondescript building in the West End on a two-year project for the Bluey feature film.
“The BBC said to me ‘do you realise when this film’s finished, Brisbane will be one of world’s leading animation powerhouses?’
“I’m always amazed about the great Queensland companies and small businesses that service the screen sector and are just quietly getting on with often confidential projects behind the scenes.
“For example, the BBC and Disney are on direct dial to cinematographers and companies in Cairns to film the (Great Barrier) Reef. In nondescript waterhouses on the Gold Coast, there are people doing action stunt design work for Hollywood films because of their relationships with Hollywood.”
Meanwhile, Queensland has continued to attract major Hollywood productions including Mortal Kombat 2, Godzilla x Kong: Supernova and Ron Howard’s Eden, with stars such Owen Wilson, Mark Wahlberg, Jack Black, Henry Cavill and Russell Crowe all in the state over the past 12 months filming movies.
Trump’s social media pronouncement in May that he would “make Hollywood great again” by slapping a 100 per cent tariff on “any and all movies” made outside the US sent shockwaves through the Queensland screen sector.
Things have gone quiet on that front and Feeney says she’s staying alert, but not alarmed.
“I just think from what I know, people in Hollywood are working with the (Trump) administration and the local sector in America on solving their issues domestically, and then we’ll see what that means internationally,” she says.
“I would say that the studios would all be saying that what they or any business wants is the freedom to make business decisions and not be dictated to.
“I’m trusting that there are good negotiators in Hollywood doing what they do best and in the meantime, we’re staying focused on what’s enduring and just doing good work.”
Feeney says it’s not just the relatively low cost of production that makes Queensland an attractive destination for Hollywood filmmakers; it’s the whole package including industry expertise, lifestyle and hospitality.
“One of the real strengths we have in attracting film production to Queensland is that we’ve been doing it for so long and we’ve got a really rich ecosystem around it,” she says.
“It’s the reputation of our crew, it’s the range of our locations, it’s the quality of the hotels that know how to look after A-list talent. And never underestimate the lifestyle - the good time that people (cast and crew) have in places like the Gold Coast. And so every time someone comes (for a film) and has a good time, they generally always say, ‘I want to bring something else back here’.”
Feeney says she’s a big fan of Robbie, not just for her acting talents but also her production prowess with films like Barbie, and has put a possible Queensland-made movie “on her agenda” - perhaps in the lead-up to the Olympics.
“Things like the LA Olympics baton handover to Brisbane in 2028 will offer huge opportunities and growth potential,” Feeney says.
“There’s a long history of having films commissioned around the Olympics, but there’s also the cultural Olympiad, and I see the Games as a big storytelling event for Queensland.
“in the lead up to the Olympics, we should be thinking about how we show more of Queensland, and tell more Queensland stories.”
Jacqui’s meal rating: 8/10
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