‘I know what it’s like for any woman that juggles a lot’: Mary Coustas unveils new role

As she joins the case of Strife in a dramatic role, comedy star Mary Coustas – AKA Effie – explains the big problem with TV remakes. 

From the moment that Mary Coustas first stepped on stage in 1987 as Effie Stephanidis – a second-generation Greek woman with a personality as big as her wig – she knew she had struck a cultural chord.

“As soon as I opened my mouth, I felt something shift,” the actor tells The Binge Guide of introducing Australia to the proud dynamo, whose fierceness carried over to the hit 1989-1992 TV series Acropolis Now.

“I felt like I birthed the biggest baby in the hospital that year – hair and all.”

Now the actor known best for comedy is making a return to television in dramatic fashion. In the second season of Strife, the breakout Binge show about the messy but exhilarating life of digital publisher Evelyn Jones (Asher Keddie), Coustas plays psychologist Sylvie, whose ear Evelyn needs to bend, especially when friend Christine (Maria Angelico) decides to launch a rival website.

‘I know what it’s like for any woman that juggles a lot.’ Mary Coustas pictured in character as Sylvie in Strife. Picture: Binge

“I love that this [show] is about a woman trying to do something that hadn’t been done before on a very large scale,” Coustas says of Mia Freedman, the real-life Mamamia co-founder whose 2017 memoir, Work Strife Balance, became the jump-off point for the series, which offers an edgy examination of celebrity and popular culture in the early 2010s.

“I know Mia. I was around when that was all happening for her at the beginning,” Coustas recalls.

“I know what it’s like for any woman that juggles a lot. To just get through the day is a miracle, let alone pull off something miraculous, like an online platform with a million people working for you and getting into trouble a lot.”

Coustas, who says she was initially tapped to work with the writers on Strife, appreciates that the dramedy takes a potentially serious subject like financial strain and makes it funny and watchable.

Listen to the full interview with Tanya Hennessy on Something To Talk About below:

And when she considers the diversity of the cast and crew, she can’t help but reflect on how far Australian television has come since 1989, when Acropolis Now made its debut.

Created by Nick Giannopoulos, George Kapiniaris and Simon Palomares, the five-season comedy set in a fictional Melbourne cafe was a pioneering showcase of authentic Greek-Australian culture.

“I do feel very proud of the work that we did and we opened a big door, but I felt it took forever for more people to walk through it,” Coustas, 60, says now.

“Maybe if social media was around back then, it would have been different. We could have put more of us on the map.”

Growing up, Coustas recalls with a laugh, she would “make fun of my mum, who would watch the credits of everything and look for Greek names.

‘When you say the word ‘nostalgia’, you know it’s going to fail.’ Picture: David Clark

Strife is loosely based on the life of Mia Freedman – with Asher Keddie portraying a character inspired by her. Picture: Getty Images

Asher Keddie as Evelyn on set of the new series of Binge’s Strife. Picture: John Platt

“I was a bit like that, but with faces. I remember thinking, Oh, how am I going to succeed in an industry where there aren’t people that look like me in it, or certainly not in any significant way?”

The solution, she explains, was to become the role model she wanted to see.

“I was lucky to find the boys – Nick, George and Simon,” Coustas says.

“They had the same hunger that I did to do something impactful, to have a presence and a career. And the ’80s were good to us.”

Not all comedy has aged well, though. Even hit 2000s-era series such as Little Britain and Summer Heights High have been criticised for using racial stereotypes.

For her part, Coustas isn’t in a rush to see an Acropolis Now reboot.

“When you say the word ‘nostalgia’, you know it’s going to fail,” she offers with a shrug.

“I love it when it works. And Heartbreak High is a great example of that. But mostly, it doesn’t.”

But far from being cancelled, Effie still draws a crowd when Coustas performs as the character in sellout shows around Australia.

“Her hair might be a bit ’80s,” she says, “but her point of view is current.”

Season 2 of Strife premieres on Thursday on Binge. See the full interview and cover story with Mary in The Binge Guide today, via The Sunday Telegraph (NSW), Sunday Herald Sun (VIC), The Sunday Mail (QLD) and Sunday Mail (SA).

For more from Stellar and the podcast Something to Talk About, click here.