Brooke Satchwell on bringing ‘truth to a screen’

After taking home the AACTA for Best Supporting Actress, The Twelve star is turning her attention to new projects, after a year that ‘asked a lot, and gave a lot back.’

Brooke Satchwell jokingly dubs her Covid lockdown experience “50 shades of brown” given she spent a large portion of the pandemic baking (and eating) biscuits.

“I baked a hell of a lot of biscuits, and they worked to varying degrees of success,” she tells Stellar In Summer, laughing at the memory. “And I ate them all on the couch in front of Game Of Thrones.”

When she emerged at the end of it all a little rounder and with her hair showing a touch more grey, Satchwell – who gave a searing performance as a wife and mother grappling with coercive control from her abusive husband on the Foxtel series The Twelve this year – says she found it a relief rather than a source of angst, and quickly chose to lean into those changes.

“I love that in The Twelve they left me with grey hair, and they barely put any make-up on me. It was great to be able to bring that truth to a screen, which is ultimately a market – and markets need to sell.

“Things went a little bit extreme in the other way for a long time with [an] aspirational sales pitch of: watch this because you want to be like this, or you want to look like this.”

Brooke Satchwell: ‘I’m very comfortable with my decisions, and feeling very confident in choosing where I put my energy’ Picture: Steven Chee for Stellar

Satchwell will follow her Best Supporting Actress AACTA Award-winning performance in The Twelve with a new role as the grieving best friend of a murdered girl in Stan’s new six-part mystery Black Snow, which was filmed in the Whitsundays.

“I got to drive to work through beautiful cane fields as the sun rose,” she recalls, “and work with incredible people on something that matters and was beautiful. And then I actually finished early [and] got to watch my footy team [Melbourne Football Club] win.”

Now back in Sydney, Satchwell is gearing up to make her debut at the Sydney Theatre Company next year in Oil, a play about the bond between a mother and her child. .

“These past 18 months asked a lot, and gave a lot back,” Satchwell reflects. “I certainly found myself really being able to take ownership of my work – and learning to ask for what I want and what I need.

“That has been huge,” she continues. “Having started as a 16-year-old without a full comprehension of what this industry is, I’ve reached a point where I’m very comfortable with my decisions, and feeling very confident in choosing where I put my energy.”

Having spent the better part of this year –and indeed her entire career – moving from pillar to post for work, Satchwell is spending her summer break embarking on “a complete Marie Kondo” overhaul.

“It’s time to clear the cobwebs,” she says.

“I think it’s a sentiment that is fairly universally shared at the moment: relinquishing anything extraneous that drains your energy and doesn’t serve you living the best possible life.”

Black Snow starts streaming on January 1 on Stan.