Ryan Corr back treading the boards after Mel Gibson’s Hacksaw Ridge

He’s got film projects with Mel Gibson and Russell Crowe under his belt but Ryan Corr can’t resist the lure of the stage.

Before he had even reached adulthood, Ryan Corr had the kind of CV most actors spend years building.

There were key roles on kids’ shows The Sleepover Club and Silversun, followed by a bunch of guest appearances on adult shows. Then he ended up on Blue Water High where he met NIDA-educated actor Martin Lynes.

“He told me that if you want to take this seriously, you ought to go to drama school — it’s like a tradesman knowing his tools,” the now 27-year-old Corr recalls. “Respect where it’s come from, know Ovid and the Greeks and Shakespeare, learn the classics because that informs everything you do.”

A year later Corr was studying at NIDA, graduating in 2009 to carry on into adulthood what had been a stellar teen career and enlisting legions of fans across all ages with turns in Packed To The Rafters and big-screen outings Wolf Creek 2, Russell Crowe’s The Water Diviner and the much-acclaimed Holding The Man.

Ryan Corr with Sophie Luck on Blue Water High 2.

You’ll also see him back beside Rafters co-star Rebecca Gibney on the small screen in Seven’s anticipated miniseries Wanted next month, and on the silver screen in Mel Gibson’s Sydney-shot feature Hacksaw Ridge later this year.

But that NIDA training made Corr’s feet itchy to tread the boards, and in 2012 he made his stage debut in Sydney Theatre Company’s two-hander Sex With Strangers, opposite Jacqueline McKenzie.

It suited him.

“And after you’ve done a play, you find an audition room with just one person behind a camera not at all intimidating,” he notes with a laugh.

Ryan Corr with Jessica Marais and Jake Stewart in Packed To The Rafters.

Corr is speaking during a break in rehearsals for his second stage outing. It’s for STC again but this time in a cast of 12 in Tom Stoppard’s contemporary classic Arcadia, alongside Andrea Demetriades, Blazey Best, Glenn Hazeldine and old NIDA mate and STC stage stalwart Josh McConville.

Corr is right in the middle of all the action as the dashing Septimus Hodge, the 19th-century tutor to the aristocracy.

“Television is a producer’s medium, film’s a director’s medium and stage is an actor’s medium,” Corr says.

Ryan Corr in rehearsals for the Sydney Theatre Company production of Arcadia.

“There’s no cut, no one saving you and there’s no big score behind it, but there’s a lot more time in the rehearsal room to get it right, and Tom Stoppard is one of the greatest writers there is, so you’re going over and over it and finding more and more in it.”

The play unfolds in two time periods — the early 1800s of Corr’s character and 1993, when the play was written. Sets and props from both eras are on stage at once in a kind of chaotic mishmash.

Arcadia opens with Corr’s pedagogue giving his young charge a lesson, including a discourse on determinism. This sets the tone for a work that canvasses all manner of philosophical discourse around chaos theory, romanticism and classicism, high-end mathematics, the nature of the flesh’s desires and even the nature of truth in history. Amid all this, Septimus creates plenty of scandal with romantic pursuits.

“He’s the man stuck in the middle and facilitates much of the drama and comedy taking place throughout the play,” Corr explains.

If the lofty themes and subject matter are making your head spin, spare a thought for the performers, who are enduring similar challenges.

Russell Crowe and Ryan Corr on the set of The Water Diviner. Picture: Mark Rogers

“It is intimidating,” Corr says. “This writer is so huge, but it also depends on who your director is.”

In this case, it’s veteran Richard Cottrell, who most recently brought George Bernard Shaw’s Arms And The Man to the Opera House stage for STC.

“Every time someone doesn’t understand something, we stop and whether it’s me or someone else, we discuss it at the table then we go and research it, and Richard offers up ideas because he has this incredible encyclopaedic head, and then we go for a slow read after that and break it down,” Corr says.

In the past few years, he has been directed by fellow actors Russell Crowe and Mel Gibson on screen and by Geoffrey Rush’s longtime stage collaborator Neil Armfield in a rare film outing, Holding The Man. And he made his stage debut with film director Jocelyn Moorhouse (The Dressmaker) helming her first stage outing. Not bad.

“I really enjoy working in a room with actors and a fantastic director. So, whatever the medium, I try and pick a job based on something I haven’t done before or a script or a character.

“And tackling Stoppard is something I’ve wanted to do since drama school.”

● Arcadia, Drama Theatre, Sydney Opera House; February 8-April 2, $76-$104, 9250 1777, sydneytheatre.com.au