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The Twelve’s Amy Mathews finds a sense of belonging with stars she grew up watching

Two decades after gaining Home and Away fame on the arm of a young heart-throb, Amy Mathews says working with Sam Neill and Frances O’Connor on The Twelve has helped her find her voice.

Sam Neill kicks off new season of nailbiting drama ‘The Twelve’

Amy Mathews has lived a lifetime since that time she played Chris Hemsworth’s wife on Home and Away. Almost two decades later, motherhood and a move out of Sydney has left the actor in the heights of her career – one she has forged her way.

Mathews now stars in the second season of Binge’s acclaimed thrilled The Twelve, alongside the likes of Sam Neill and Frances O’Connor – and is still pinching herself.

“It was surreal, having Sam and Frances – two huge people I grew up watching – it was pretty great to work with them,” she says from her Perth home.

“And I guess it was a confidence boost too – it’s like, this is where I belong.

“It’s demystifying in a way and gave me a huge confidence boost in a sense of the performer.”

Binge’s The Twelve series two stars Erroll Shand, as Patrick and Amy Mathews, as Sasha. Picture: Daniel Asher Smith.
Binge’s The Twelve series two stars Erroll Shand, as Patrick and Amy Mathews, as Sasha. Picture: Daniel Asher Smith.

Season one was a critically acclaimed success and is one of the Foxtel Group’s most premium and awarded drama series. The next instalment is an eight-part series filmed in West Australia and features a new crime, a new jury and two ex-lovers accused of murder.

Enter Mathews, who plays Sasha Price, the daughter of Bernice Price, and Sasha is co-accused with her ex-lover of the murder of Bernice Price.

“It is very deep, and it was great working on that kind of mother and daughter relationship,” she says.

“I did lots of character behind-the-scenes work that wasn’t actually on the page, so lots of like putting together playlists and finding out who she was so I could live in her skin.

“This feels like a real career highlight for me.

“Aside from all the bells and whistles that it’s a really successful series, and Sam and Frances being involved – the character that they wrote on the page … I just fell in love with her as soon as I read her.

“And she came along at the right point in my life.

Amy Mathews (right), who played Rachel in Home and Away, in a scene from the popular soapie with Ada Nicodemou (Leah) and Chris Hemsworth (Kim).
Amy Mathews (right), who played Rachel in Home and Away, in a scene from the popular soapie with Ada Nicodemou (Leah) and Chris Hemsworth (Kim).

“I don’t know if I’ll ever have it that good again – it was such an incredible thing to take this character who is sort of this dichotomy of insecure and a little sheltered and a little unsure of herself and a dreamer and a romantic and unlucky in love – and at the same time, she’s incredibly physically strong and capable and works with her body every day.

“I just love that dichotomy, as a middle-aged, female woman – that we are not one single thing.

“And I loved holding those two really disparate ideas in a feminine space – I know it’s overused, but it was absolutely a gift as a performer.”

She says social media has made expectations – on ourselves and from other people – harder to manage, but curating lives for people to view online will do that. There are always two sides to perceived reality – much like the inner workings of a courtroom.

Amy Mathews and Jessica Tovey on the Home and Away set in 2006,
Amy Mathews and Jessica Tovey on the Home and Away set in 2006,
Amy Mathews on the red carpet for the premier of The Twelve.
Amy Mathews on the red carpet for the premier of The Twelve.

“I’m in a great place in my career, I feel really myself, I feel I have something to say, I feel grounded, I feel ready,” she says.

“And at the same time, I’m terrified and I’m not sure I can do it, I’m not sure that I belong … the shadow side is always there, I guess.”

Looking back almost two decades to where she started on the beaches of Summer Bay and opposite onscreen husband Hemsworth, feels like a different world.

“I’m a different person – and it took me a long time to unpack that time,” she says.

“And the things that have come out of that, for me, were the people that I met and the experiences that I had, but you go through three years of drama school and you learn how to craft the performance – and nobody prepares you for fame, or media, or your perception or your branding, or anything like that.

“And I was young and learning and making mistakes, and if I had my time over, I’d do it differently.

Amy Mathews (far left) in a scene from Home and Away. She played Chris Hemsworth’s wife.
Amy Mathews (far left) in a scene from Home and Away. She played Chris Hemsworth’s wife.

“I was just so surprised when I got Home and Away – I was like, ‘Are you sure about this? I don’t feel like this is where I belong, but I’m very grateful to be here.’

“And it was an incredible training ground, and I wouldn’t take it back … but I feel like I’m now at this point in my life where I’m starting to attract the work that really speaks to me and becoming my own artist, rather than just being, ‘Oh, is this what you need? Is this what you want?’ as a young woman.

“I look at young women now coming through and getting things that propel them into big spaces at a really young age and I think, I hope they’re okay, I hope they take care of their artistry and allow themselves to grow and change and be themselves.

“It’s a really tricky thing, no one holds your hand through that stuff.”

Amy Mathews in 2010.
Amy Mathews in 2010.
Amy Mathews, as Sasha Price, in The Twelve season two, Picture: David Dare Parker.
Amy Mathews, as Sasha Price, in The Twelve season two, Picture: David Dare Parker.

Being a good actor, some may think means being a blank canvas, open to any character. Mathews feels the opposite to be true.

“Some people would say, you have to be a blank canvas … to be this sort of neutral thing with no piercings, or tattoos, or don’t do anything with your hair, so that when they get you, they’ll do everything, and you’re just nothing – then you can be anyone,” she says.

“And it’s just not the case.

“Maybe the climate has changed over time.

“But it’s so much more about: ‘Show us yourself, show us you can be authentic’, and the work will find you.”

Born in Melbourne, Mathews went to drama school in Sydney and spent the first 15 years of her career here.

Today Perth is home – and she says her passion for the craft has kept her in the industry after all these years.

“If it wasn’t the only thing you wanted to do, you simply wouldn’t put yourself through the ups and downs,” she says.

“I was very shy (as a child), but I would just come to life in drama class or in a show.

“I don’t know why, and it’s very universal and cosmic – but it is what I was put here to do.

“And I know that, finally, I feel like I’m embracing it.

“And it’s very painful, and it’s very hard – and it can also be really wonderful.

“But I have no other choice but to give myself to it, 100 per cent.

“For the first 15 years, my career was in Sydney and my partner (Matt Edgerton) and I said Sydney just got a little bit ambitious and aggressive, and we needed a change.

Amy Mathews in The Twelve Picture: John Tsiavis.
Amy Mathews in The Twelve Picture: John Tsiavis.

“You can get sort of trapped sometimes as an actor, in Sydney or Melbourne – it’s like well, I can’t go anywhere else, because this is where the work is.

“We didn’t feel like we were making our own decisions.

“So we made the trip over here – and there’s space – and you can breathe.

“Really, I can’t speak highly enough of that.

“It was probably the right time of life for us too – we wouldn’t have come over here at 20 – but it’s empowering, because sometimes you feel like you’re just at the behest of the industry.”

They have a five-year-old son, Luka, who she loves being with, and there’s also good work on the way. She’s just shot a US Australian series, she’s got an upcoming US film shooting in Melbourne and a great interstate theatre show on the way.

“So I’m having a great year, and I feel very fortunate at the moment.”

The Twelve season two is now on Binge and available on Hubbl.

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Original URL: https://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/entertainment/it-was-surreal-the-twelve-star-finds-a-sense-of-belonging/news-story/54d3985a8eb2809d486a5557e52d8541