Rebecca Gibney: ‘Here I am, 53 and a lesbian heartthrob!’
IN her most honest interview ever, actor Rebecca Gibney opens up about marriage proposals, menopause, “muffin tops” — and the day she almost ended it all.
Stellar
Don't miss out on the headlines from Stellar. Followed categories will be added to My News.
RECLINING in a leather chair with a cream trench coat slipping off her shoulders, Rebecca Gibney hoots with laughter at the notion that anyone would find her voluptuous figure appealing.
“I hate my breasts, I’m not a fan,” she reveals as she happily adjusts position to meet the instruction that she show off more cleavage. “They’re very out there, very undisciplined,” she notes, pointing out that she had a breast reduction in her 30s, but they grew back when she fell pregnant with her son and are now a 36DD.
In any case, she thinks her husband — who she hasn’t seen for several weeks — might like to see the image. “He texted me earlier with a picture of the banana cake he’d made,” she smiles coquettishly. “It’s only fair I send him a picture back.”
MORE STELLAR:
Why Julia Zemiro is more than ‘just a host’
Death threats a ‘lesson’ for Ash London
Gibney, at 53, is still everything we’ve come to expect — candid, insightful, generous, funny and relaxed. Nothing is off the table when she sits down to talk to Stellar. Breasts, muffin tops, ageing, Botox, friendships, marriage, motherhood, mental health, politics, sanitary protection, sexual assault, menopause, panic attacks, dancing, dagginess (hers) and, of course, work, are all up for discussion.
“I was once told I was too open and needed to learn to be a bit more mysterious if I was going to be a successful actor,” she confides. “It’s not me; I’m unfiltered and authentic. Besides, I’d much rather be a good person than a great actor.”
Fortunately, her career is proof she’s also the latter. And with editing on the third season of her Seven Network drama Wanted almost complete, she’s happily skewering the notion that work dries up for actresses once they reach middle age. Granted, she created the series and its central character Lola herself, but she’s been flush with work ever since she hung up Julie Rafter’s mumsy button-up shirts when the hit series Packed To The Rafters concluded its dream run five years ago.
In an era when scripted series struggle to rate against the reality juggernauts, Wanted is a critical and commercial success, earning an International Emmy Award nomination and establishing itself as the highest-rating Australian drama series when it launched in 2016. That the story pivots around two women occupying the traditional male action/adventure genre is further proof of Gibney’s nose for the business.
After Rafters, Gibney wanted to do something gutsy. “Lola was sitting in my head just waiting, so when Julie McGauran from Channel 7 [the network’s head of drama] called to say she wanted me to play a rough, tough character I got off the phone and typed up half a page about two women who share the same bus stop and then something happens that forces them on the run in a car full of drugs and money. The story never changed from that.”
Wanted has been hailed as inventive and progressive, an embodiment of Geena Davis’s notion that if you just changed the names of lead characters from male to female, you’d reduce sexism and make female characters more interesting.
“Most of the comments I’m getting back are from women saying that they want to be in the car and on the run with us because we’re so alive,” says Gibney. “It’s a rollicking ride of a show, but we don’t take ourselves too seriously and we’re not trying to be James Bond or Jason Bourne.”
Likewise, the pair aren’t looking for love. More important is the unlikely friendship that springs from two women having to rely on each other. Rob Carlton, Kerry Fox and Kate Box are due to join Lola and Chelsea, played by Geraldine Hakewill, for Season 3, and the series is gaining traction internationally via Netflix.
Gibney laughs: “We’ve got a huge fan base in Brazil and I’m getting wedding proposals from Colombian and Brazilian women. Here I am, 53 and a lesbian heartthrob! They love me. I’m like, ‘Wow, Richard, look out!’”
Just as Reese Witherspoon and Nicole Kidman are producing shows that showcase women, Gibney and her husband Richard Bell are doing likewise with their company R&R Productions.
“In the past the roles were always mother or grandmother or wife — it was like we implied that women weren’t that interesting between the age of 40 and 60,” sighs Gibney. “If anything, we’ve become more vital. I feel more dynamic and comfortable in my own skin, and I have so much more to offer because of that.”
Her contentment, she says, is anchored on two realisations: women have to take care of themselves if they’re going to take care of anyone else, and they have to stop worrying about how they’re viewed by others.
“I don’t give a toss what anyone else thinks,” she says, back in her jeans and sneakers and sipping a cup of tea. “I’ll dance round my lounge room if I want and I’ll put it up on Instagram if I want and if I want to do something to my face or hair or get fat or thin then it’s no-one else’s business. I don’t judge anyone else for their choices and I expect the same in return for myself. There’s such freedom in that.”
After more than 30 years in Australia, Gibney is back living in New Zealand at her son’s behest. The family moved to the South Island to film the second series of Wanted and Zac, now 14, loved it so much he wanted to stay. They bought a home with 30 acres overlooking the ocean and while Gibney enjoys their open fireplace and watching the storms roll in, Zac relishes walking barefoot without fear of snakes and spiders.
“He says he also feels safe because there are no terrorists,” she says, pointing out that he was affected by the Lindt Café siege which occurred just after her 50th birthday.
While work has seen her professional life soar — Gibney has received multiple Logie and AFI nominations and won the Gold Logie in 2009 — motherhood helped her put her personal demons to rest. “Motherhood doesn’t complete you, but being a mother to Zac did help me overcome some of my own issues because all of a sudden it became all about him. I was at a point in my life where I needed that.”
Having grown up with an alcoholic father and a mother who’d suffered sexual abuse at the hands of her own father, Gibney had what she calls an “emotional collapse” in her early 30s. She developed agoraphobia and was having hourly panic attacks, but told friends she had the flu. She started seeing a therapist but initially the self-confrontation was too painful to bear. “I’d built up a library of self-loathing which I covered up with make-up and roles and pretending, but deep down I was dying inside. I felt like a failure in my first marriage, I felt a failure as an actor because I was pretending and I felt like a failure in my friendships because they weren’t real. A lot about me felt fake and I hated it.”
There was one dark day in particular when she considered suicide, something she hasn’t talked in detail about before and does so now with slight hesitation.
“I’d been given prescription medication and on this particular day I put it all out on the coffee table and started writing a letter to my mum,” she says quietly, tears pooling in her eyes. “I got halfway through the letter and thought, ‘She’ll never understand. I can never do that to her.’ I started picturing my brothers and sisters and friends and I thought, ‘If I go through with this it will create way more pain for them than the pain I’m in now.’ I stopped, ripped up the letter and only told my mum years later. She was mortified and sad I didn’t tell her at the time.”
If life is a measure not of what happens to us but how we respond to it, then Gibney is the epitome of empathy and resilience. In the same way every emotion has played out on her face, whether in The Flying Doctors, or Halifax f.p. or Rafters, she now uses Instagram (109,000 followers) to tell stories, highlight causes and showcase the gratitude which has been pivotal in her return to sound mental health. She hopes her experiences might help others.
“Perhaps they’ll think, ‘If it can happen to her, maybe I can take that extra breath, maybe I can go to sleep tonight and wake up tomorrow and do something about it.’”
Gibney is also supportive of her Rafters’ co-star Jessica Marais being candid about her struggles: “We’re still in contact and she’s doing well and getting the care she needs, as well as being honest and open about it.”
Gibney credits her mother Shirley for teaching her resilience but advocates professional therapy for tackling depression.
“You recognise that in amongst the rocks and stones and mud are the diamonds, and you learn to focus on those. I had all this rage and my therapist encouraged me to go to op shops and get crockery, which I’d go outside and smash on the ground. It’s a relief to get that anger out.”
After years of panic attacks — she used to request a seat near the exit at the Logie Awards — Gibney now uses breathing techniques and focusing on her senses to calm herself down.
In the same way she’s reconciled her past, Gibney is also at ease with her body. She grabs what she claims is a “muffin top” and says she has learnt to embrace it, along with spider veins and cellulite. Menopause — “I’m nearly out the other side” — has been aided by a natural supplement, while wrinkles are treated with a low-fuss skincare routine and occasional Botox. She doesn’t diet, preferring an 80/20 approach to healthy eating, while daily dancing to “daggy” tunes including KC And The Sunshine Band keep her fit.
Love has also brought peace. She and Bell celebrate their 17th wedding anniversary this year, and when she’s away working they FaceTime up to three times a day.
“He’s my best friend; he’s incredibly funny, he can cook, fix anything and he’s one of the kindest humans I know,” she says. “He’s also a production designer so he can tell me which outfits work and which don’t. It’s like having your husband and best girlfriend rolled into one. I don’t want to grow old with anybody else.”
Wanted Season 3 starts 8.30pm, Monday October 15, on the Seven Network.
Lifeline: 13 11 14