‘Ridicule and division’: How Sarah Roberts’ latest role is reclaiming the power for ethnic minorities
Ahead of her role in a new Australian movie, former Home and Away star Sarah Roberts has opened up about her experience with racial prejudice, and how Wog Boys Forever is reclaiming a controversial term.
Stellar
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Sarah Roberts knows the secret to pulling on a skin-tight Gucci bodysuit: “Yank it and suck it in – there was a lot of sucking in,” the actor jokes of her fashion shoot with Stellar.
“Kind of the same as getting into a pair of skinny jeans.”
In a mix of wide-legged pants and knee-high patent-leather boots, Roberts wouldn’t look out of place at a rave – which is fitting, given that she stars as Cleo, a DJ, in the upcoming comedy Wog Boys Forever.
“[The director] didn’t know that I was a DJ in real-life. I had to say, ‘Oh, it’s actually my profession – I’ve been doing it for over a decade now,’” Roberts says.
And this sartorial mood is worlds away from her last appearance in Stellar in 2020, in which she opened up about suffering two pregnancy losses in her first year of marriage to fellow actor James Stewart. “A lot of the time I’m dressed in florals – my shoot last time was about miscarriage, and grief and loss, so it was quite sombre,” she recalls. “This [shoot] was so much fun to work on.”
So, too, was working on Wog Boys Forever, the latest film in Nick Giannopoulos’ trilogy, which was shot during Melbourne’s fourth Covid lockdown in 2021.
“I grew up with the [Wog Boy] films,” explains Melbourne-raised Roberts, who moved back in with her mum during the production.
Otherwise, she’s usually at home in Sydney with Stewart – who she met in 2017 when they played a couple in Home And Away – and whose daughter, Scout, 10, she is co-raising. “Family life is going great; we’re both really proud of each other,” Roberts says. “We’re busy bringing up Scout. She’s in Grade 4 now [and] becoming a little lady.”
When it comes to the racially-charged word in the film’s title, Giannopoulos – the series’ writer, producer and star – tells Stellar, “From where [the use of ‘wog’] started, it has grown into something a lot bigger than that. Having said that, there are generations of us who suffered a lot of hurt off the back of that word … and ridicule, and division.”
Those are feelings that Roberts, who is of Sri Lankan-Australian heritage, knows well.
“I’m not of Greek or Italian background but I can relate to feeling excluded – growing up, I got called really hurtful names,” she recalls.
“This film brings back a sense of pride for people who have felt excluded.”
Wog Boys Forever is out October 6.
Originally published as ‘Ridicule and division’: How Sarah Roberts’ latest role is reclaiming the power for ethnic minorities
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