Deborah Mailman on the Voice heartbreak, Boy Swallows Universe and farewelling Total Control

Despite being “absolutely” heartbroken by the result of the Voice referendum, Logie-winning Deborah Mailman is more determined than ever to tell First Nations stories.

More than two months after the Voice referendum, Deborah Mailman says she’s still “absolutely devastated” by the result.

The national vote on whether to change the Australian constitution to recognise First Nations peoples by introducing an Aboriginal and Torres Strait Island Voice to Parliament was soundly defeated in every state in October, after months of fierce and often divisive debate. The result left the award-winning actor, who has both Indigenous Australian and Maori heritage, reeling.

“Personally, I was devastated,” says a still emotional Mailman, who describes the preceding campaigns and resounding result as “two steps forward, ten steps back” for many Indigenous Australians.

Deborah Mailman as Alex Irving in the third and final season of Total Control.

“I was incredibly overwhelmed by how quickly the results came in and what that result ended up being. It’s still raw. And unfortunately it didn’t seem to be a respectful conversation that was happening around it. That was more than disappointing to see.”

But the star of movies including The Sapphires, Bran Nue Day, Rabbit Proof Fence and this year’s The New Boy – which took her to the Cannes Film Festival for the second time – says that has made her only more determined to keep sharing Indigenous Australian stories with her compatriots and the wider world.

“In terms of my role as an artist, we keep going forward,” she says. “We keep telling our stories. We keep telling the things that are important to us. We keep showing ourselves on screen. We keep celebrating our culture and how proud we all should be in that.”

“What’s really great about what we do is that we can show possibilities that people may not have thought of. So here we are – we have got a show with the first Indigenous prime minister. How about that?”

The show Mailman is referring to is the political drama Total Control, produced by Blackfella Films, which specialises in creating First Nations-driven programming such as the docudrama Mabo, AACTA-Award-winning drama Redfern Now and last year’s Logie-winning documentary, The Australian Wars. Mailman also won the 2019 AACTA Award for Best Actress in a TV drama for her starring role in Total Control, playing Senator Alex Irving.

With the third and final season of Total Control airing next month, Mailman says it’s a bittersweet time for her. Roles like Irving – a fiercely independent, complex single mother from Outback Queensland who begins her political career full of passion and idealism only to find that the halls of power are beset with traps on all sides – don’t come along often.

Deborah Mailman and her Total Control co-star – and political junkie – Rachel Griffiths.

Mailman says she’s one of the highlights in a career than has also brought her five Logies and included stints on hits including The Secret Life of Us and Offspring and she knows she will miss the “light and shade” of her favourite character when she’s gone.

“She’s been written so beautifully and, as an actor, it’s been a real gift to tackle someone with such complexity as a character,” she says. “And they’ve thrown everything at her in regards to personal challenges and political challenges. I love that she was incredibly vulnerable, but at times fierce and unapologetic.”

“It’s one of those things like I can feel like I can put my feet up now and whatever comes after this that’s OK because I feel like Alex for me is definitely the benchmark.”

Mailman says she has put more and more of herself into the character over the course of the three seasons and says that, even though she is not a political junkie like her co-star and co-creator of the show Rachel Griffiths, she recognises Irving’s “frustration and vulnerability”. And as the character has been doublecrossed, lied to, abused, physically attacked and faces serious health issues in the new season, Mailman says that she admires the fact that Irving just “keeps getting up”.

“I think I would have bailed out a long time ago,” she says with a laugh. “That tenacity, that strength, that courage and that determination is so admirable, and that’s what I take away from her as a character. What I really admire about her is just that shit happens but the she takes it on and she comes back with real force.”

Deborah Mailman, Wayne Blair and Rob Collins in a scene from Season 3 of Total Control.

Since the first season was filmed in 2019 with the Morrison Government in power, Total Control has enjoyed extraordinary access to Parliament House in Canberra and been embraced and assisted by politicians across the political spectrum. Mailman says that co-operation has continued under the Albanese Government and the writers of the show work hard to keep it as contemporary as possible.

While it struck out into speculative territory by anointing Wayne Blair’s canny Labor politician as Australia’s first Indigenous prime minister at the end of season two, this season has included real-life inspired events such as mass flooding, Indigenous health and the rise of independent members of parliament. The timing of the writing and shooting meant the Voice was “too uncertain” to include as a major plot point, but Mailman says “there’s equally strong issues that play out in this final season”.

“I think where we we’ve finished is fantastic,” she says. “It’s really satisfactory and throws things up in the air for all of us to consider.”

Australian actor Deborah Mailman, Australian actor Aswan Reid, Australian actor Cate Blanchett, Australian director Warwick Thornton and Australian actor Wayne Blair promoting The New Boy at this year’s Cannes Film Festival. Picture: Loic Venance/ AFP

Mailman is also looking forward to the release next month of the TV adaptation of Trent Dalton’s best-selling book, Boy Swallows Universe, in which she plays the kindly high-school counsellor, Poppy Birkbeck. Not only was she excited to work with established actors such as Simon Baker and rising stars Felix Cameron and Lee Tiger Halley, who play the young Bell boys, she also loved filming in Brisbane, where she’d trained in acting at university in the early ‘90s.

“I think Trent is so respected, particularly in Queensland, because he is such a Queensland boy,” Mailman says.

“Even though I didn’t grow up in Brisbane in the ‘80s, he tapped into that detail so easily. I was reading it going ‘Oh yeah, I know this’. There was such a familiarity with it. I am a Mount Isa girl – but there was so much of it that was incredibly relatable.

“The book is gorgeous … that imagination that he gives these boys to allow them to elevate themselves above the not very nice situation that life is thrown at them. I just love that bit of magic realism and that sense of wonder and imagination he gave these boys to keep surviving.”

Total Control, ABC, January 14, 8.30pm.

Boy Swallows Universe, Netflix, January 11

Originally published as Deborah Mailman on the Voice heartbreak, Boy Swallows Universe and farewelling Total Control