Why Rachel Griffiths left the US to come home to Australia

Australian actor Rachel Griffiths reveals the string of events that led to her decision to leave the US and return to Aus to “tell our own stories”.

Over the past year, as I checked in with Australian friends in the US, I kept hearing the same thing: “I just want to come home… I’ve never felt more Australian.”

It wasn’t just the pandemic – it was the exhaustion of trying to make sense of that country, of living between truths and lies. Then the murder of George Floyd crystallised for many – who have a home country to compare with – that “American freedom” lay (like its flag) in tatters on the streets, and that it was a poor substitute for collective responsibility.

“I was a grateful migrant, but I was also hungry to come home.” (Picture: David Swift)

They found themselves unable to understand how quickly things had changed because, perhaps more than others, they had bought into the American dream so uncritically, and with a shallow understanding of its history. I understood their bewilderment.

I spent a decade living and working in America at the beginning of the Iraq War, and saw the big lie take root. There was a deep attraction by so many to fabrication dressed as fact – a test of evidence that would fail a pub test.

Understanding America takes the greatest writers a lifetime, and many die trying.

But as I watched its best writers, filmmakers and TV creators reckon with its big ideas and history, I realised that while my years there were enormously satisfying and enriching, I always felt like the grateful migrant; like it wasn’t my place to criticise what was wrong.

“I was hungry to come home and tell our own Australian stories with humanity and vigour.” (Picture: Finding The Archibald)

I was hungry to come home and tell our own Australian stories with humanity and vigour.

So I did, and the years since have been the most satisfying of my career. But the sense that a nation can so deeply lie to itself about what it actually is – as judged by how it behaves toward its own citizens and neighbours – came back with me. I wonder if a nation can create a kind of national narcissism, an attachment to a false identity that halts its progression.

We live on Aboriginal land and we are a nation of migrants who have never reconciled with our First Nations people. And yet so much of our media is still enamoured by the cliché of a bronzed, buff Aussie on the beach – living the dream in a land of equal opportunity. It’s aspirational, but it’s also exclusionary, a self-image that leaves many people feeling un-Australian.

Surveying 100 years of The Archibald Prize [the portraiture competition first awarded in 1921] showed me how we see (and have seen) ourselves, and who we have allowed to be “distinguished” Australians.

Rachel Griffiths features in this Sunday’s Stellar.

As a stocktake of an Australian century, it’s certainly flawed, but it’s changing to better reflect who we are. Plus, it’s fun! The great thing about portraiture is that no-one feels uncomfortable judging it.

At certain art shows you might think, “I don’t know about this” or “My kid could have made that.” But the human face is so interesting. When it comes to a portrait, I think we are all fairly equal about whether or not it has been successful in capturing someone’s spirit.

Actor and producer Rachel Griffiths hosts Finding The Archibald, a three-part series, which premieres June 15 at 8.30pm on ABC and ABC iview.