Susie Porter knows her time at ‘top dog’ in Wentworth is limited
Susie Porter can now add her name to the list of actors who have embodied one of Aussie television’s most coveted roles — that of prison ‘top dog’ in Prisoner and its smash-hit re-imagining Wentworth — and she’s loving every second although she knows her character has a target on her back.
Actor Susie Porter is a brave woman.
Not just for tackling some of the edgiest roles on TV and film or for stripping back to bare-knuckle brutality to play the monstrous sex-trafficking kingpin Marie Winter, currently wreaking havoc on Foxtel’s cult prison drama Wentworth.
What makes Porter particularly gutsy is that as Wentworth’s top dog, the role has an ominous history.
All but two of Wentworth previous cell-block supremos have met the grisliest of ends, from being stabbed or buried alive to the recent murder of audience favourite Kaz (played by Tammy MacIntosh) left to die on the jail floor with her throat slashed.
Admitting the role brings little long-term job security, Porter said: “They were almost all brutally murdered. It is bittersweet in that sense.
“It’s a fun journey getting there. It’s fun that your character rises to top dog. But staying there is the problem. Bit of a time limit on it.”
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Porter insists that even she is in the dark about her character’s long-term fate. And she refuses to give even a hint of her immediate future in the final two episodes of the current season being aired now on Showcase.
“They would kill me,” she said, referring to the show’s production team, who famously keeps the Wentworth plot lines under “state secret” type security.
“I haven’t even seen the end of this season, seriously. I haven’t watched it,” she said.
But her character’s evolution has been one of the most talked-about in the show’s history — up there with the best of her predecessors including Danielle McCormack’s ferocious embodiment of Bea Smith or Pamela Rabe’s psychotic turn as Joan “The Freak” Ferguson.
But almost 40 years after being mesmerised by Val Lehmann’s Queen Bea Smith in Prisoner Cell Block H, Porter is relishing her time as top dog.
“It was a fantasy of mine when I was a kid, growing up watching Prisoner on TV and seeing this stuff play out week in week out. I loved it,” she said.
“And to think that would one day be me — it is incredible really.”
Porter’s screen character could not be further from the vegetarian animal lover she is in real life. Next month she will go to Thailand with World Animal Protection to help end elephant-ride tourism.
She is also an advocate of rescue dogs, especially Monika’s Doggie rescue, the Sydney charity where she got her beloved terrier Gracie.
* Wentworth airs on Tuesdays at 8.30pm on Foxtel
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