‘Love story’: Underbelly Files captures Chopper’s softer side

ACTOR Aaron Jeffery is set to bring Australia’s most infamous crime figure to life. But he says the Channel 9 telemovie will show a different side to underworld gangster Mark “Chopper” Read.

BULKING up quickly for a role came at a cost for Aaron Jeffery who is set to portray colourful underworld crime figure Mark “Chopper” Read in the Channel 9 telemovie Underbelly Files: Chopper.

The naturally athletic Jeffery was required to stack on the kilos for the role, something that came easily to the 48-year-old.

“It was very easy to put on weight — sugars, cakes, beers, it was a party — and it happens very quickly, within a matter of weeks,” he said. But the extra weight resulted in injury.

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Aaron Jeffery as Mark 'Chopper' Read. Picture: Channel 9

Mark ‘Chopper’ Read.

“There was a scene were I was chopping wood and I was banging away on a couple of logs and then my back goes,” he said.

“I had the same syndrome that pregnant women get, when your hips splay, I had a food baby, not a real baby, and my back went.”

Jeffery, who starred in McLeod’s Daughters and Wentworth, is prepared for not everyone to warm to his version of Chopper and admitted it was a gamble taking on such a well-known character.

“It is probably the most polarising character you could play in Australia, I think,” he said.

“It seems to me, especially in Melbourne, that this character is so embedded in the Australian psyche. Everyone has a Chopper story, so some people might love it, some people might hate it.”

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Aaron Jeffery plays Mark `Chopper' Read in the new Channel Nine telemovie Underbelly Files: Chopper. Picture: Channel Nine/Greg Noakes

However, he hoped he was able to show a different side to Read.

“What was really important to me was that this is really an enduring love story against all odds,” Jeffery said.

“The love between Margaret (Read’s second wife) and Mark is the spine between the two (telemovie) stories and in my opinion we really had to get that right, because that was the most important thing.

“It is a very emotional portrayal of Chopper.”