Deborah Mailman on the new season of Total Control and the toxic culture in Parliament House

Deborah Mailman was thrilled to get back to her AACTA-winning role in Total Control and reveals why toxic politics made it strange filming in Parliament House.

If Deborah Mailman and her colleagues had any concerns that the first season of Total Control had put some noses out of joint at Parliament House, they needn’t have worried.

Apparently, despite the acclaimed political drama laying bare the wheeling, dealing and doublecrossing in the Canberra bubble and the sometimes toxic and shifty behaviour in the halls of power, the pollies loved it.

So, when the team returned earlier this year to film scenes for the second season, “there was definitely a welcoming mat out” according to Mailman, who won the Best Lead Actress AACTA Award for her role as indigenous Senator Alex Irving.

Rachel Griffiths, who snared the Best Supporting Actor for playing Prime Minister Rachel Anderson and producer Darren Dale, who collected the Best Drama trophy at the 2019 awards, sat down with Treasurer Josh Frydenberg ahead of the new episodes, and politicians of all persuasions – from government ministers to the President of the Senate – dropped by.

Deborah Mailman filming the second season of Total Control at Parliament House.

“I think they were quite excited that we were there – and I guess if they didn’t want us there we would have had to find a different location,” Mailman says with a laugh of the March shoot in Parliament House and Old Parliament House.

“You can’t make that work without being in that location – it really anchors it.”

But Mailman also admits it was a strange time to be filming in the capital given the revelations that have come out since Total Control first aired in 2019.

Political staffer Brittany Higgins’ allegation that she was raped in Parliament House turned the spotlight on to the workplace culture of the building and its inhabitants, painting an ugly picture of boozy nights, inappropriate behaviour and abuse of power.

“It was a very, very interesting feeling to be there,” says Mailman.

“I had thoughts of being in that actual space wondering what was known and what wasn’t known. What would that process of communication have been?”

Deborah Mailman and political junket Rachel Griffiths season two of the ABC political drama Total Control.

Mailman says part of the goal of Total Control co-creator and political junkie Griffiths was to “rip the Band-Aid off that world and actually see the warts-and-all and the dirtiness and the grittiness of politics in this country”.

And the reason the show was such a success in Australia and elsewhere (an American version is in the works) is in part that people are fascinated by the shenanigans of those who are supposed to represent them, as leaders are cut down and Machiavellian deals are struck.

“Government has been blown open with all the stories that are coming out and the veil has been lifted somewhat,” Mailman says.

“We’re not upholding it in the way that it maybe once was – for better or worse – and people are more and more aware that there is a toxicity there and of the games that are being played.

“I mean, how many prime ministers have we had in the last few years? Even if people are not political in any way, they are still quite aware of what’s going on at Parliament House, so a show like this just gets in a little bit deeper.”

Deborah Mailman and her AACTA Award for Best Lead Actress in a Television Drama at the 2019 AACTA Awards. Picture: AAP

Season two of Total Control picks up where last season left off, with Senator Irving having just ended the prime ministership of Anderson after she tried to cover up the deaths of two young Aboriginal women in custody and sold out Irving’s constituents.

Irving briefly switches to the opposition Labour Party, but finds them and their pig of a leader to be just as unpalatable and unreliable as the former Coalition colleagues who parachuted her into her Senate seat and instead announces her intentions to run as an independent in the Lower House.

Having researched what the life of a Senator looked like for the first season, Mailman turned her focus to the herculean task of what it takes for an independent to win in a system dominated by major parties.

While her portrayal is not based on any particular person in office, she discovered just how difficult it is for the Independents such as Victorian Helen Haines and Tasmanian Jacqui Lambie to raise their profiles and finances.

“I realised that for any independent coming into politics, it’s a hard road,” she says.

“When you look at your Jacqui Lambies and all those people who are coming in without any support, but they come in with a belief and an intention to change things. To really understand what they have had to do to get to that position, I have far more respect.”

Wayne Blair (director and star) and Deborah Mailman in a scene from Total Control.

The second season also leans into hot-button issues including online trolling, branch-stacking and drought, as well as turning the microscope on the difficulties of being a woman in politics and the double-standards to which they are often held.

After the success of the first season, Mailman knows the stakes are high but she says she was itching to get back to work after the pandemic.

Despite the additional protocols and ongoing border uncertainty forcing some scenes to be shifted from Queensland to NSW, Mailman says “it’s great for the industry to get that sunshine back”.

“It’s been pretty hard for that time we had in lockdown and there was the uncertainty of the recovery of our industry but you look around at how many productions are in play, it’s fabulous.”

But above all, she’s just glad to be back in the shoes of what has become one of her favourite characters.

“I love her,” Mailman says.

“Her complexity, her flaws, her fierceness, her vulnerability, her unhinged emotional state sometimes. She’s almost like my alter-ago. I wish I was Alex.”

Total Control, November 7, 8.30pm, ABC