‘I don’t give a rat’s arse’: Rebecca Gibney’s year of living dangerously

This is Rebecca Gibney’s year of living dangerously. She is stepping on stage for the Sydney Theatre Company (“Me on stage, in general, terrifies me”) and she’s been waltzing her away through the TV show Dancing with the Stars (“It’s really hard, and you hurt”). But, most importantly, she recently turned 60 and discovered something profound.

“I don’t give a rat’s arse about things that aren’t important any more,” she says. “I don’t obsess over criticism. I don’t obsess over much really because I’ve worked out that the most important things are your family, your friends, the people that love you, and finding your passion, finding what gives you joy.

“I was such a people pleaser for so long, so much imposter syndrome, but I’ve now gotten to an age where I think, ‘How do I feel about that?’ I was so hard on myself for such a long time. I was so vindictive towards myself. I had such self loathing in my late 20s and early 30s, just for choices that I’d made that hurt people.

Rebecca Gibney during rehearsals for Circle Mirror Transformation with Jessie Lawrence (left) and Nicholas Brown. Credit: Daniel Boud

“I really was in a bit of a bad state about myself. The great thing about being older is you actually start caring about yourself more and your self-worth and your self-care. Because if I can’t look after myself, I can’t look after anyone else.”

Gibney – New Zealand born and bred, an All Blacks supporter, but Australian TV royalty – is at STC in the throes of rehearsal for Circle Mirror Transformation, her return to the stage after 20 years and only her third time treading the boards.

Gibney is utterly delightful in person, chatty (“My mum says I can talk the leg off a tin pot”) and sparky with ridiculously bright blue eyes (I normally wouldn’t mention it, but when you spend a lifetime watching someone on screen, it’s funny the things you don’t notice). She is wearing a traditional Maori greenstone necklace and her Kiwi accent pops in and out of the conversation. She throws her head back when she laughs.

“I turned 60 last year, and for some reason, it dawned on me,” she says. “And I think there’s a lot of women when they get older, or people in general, when they get older, it’s that realisation that, OK, I’ve got 20, 30, 40 years left, and knowing how quickly the last 20 went, I don’t want to waste time being scared of things, or frightened of things or not doing things because I’m scared. And I know that if I don’t keep changing and growing and challenging myself, I could just curl up in a ball. And I don’t want that. I want to be around a lot longer.”

Rebecca Gibney and dance partner Ian Waite on Dancing With the Stars. 

She’s tackling an American accent for Circle Mirror Transformation, which is set in a small-town community centre in Vermont, and written by Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright Annie Baker. Gibney plays Marty, a hippie dippy drama teacher – “she teaches pottery classes and she teaches jewellery classes, and she’s probably got tattoos” – who is tackling an adult drama class for the first time.

“She’s really giving it 150 per cent,” Gibney says. “But layered underneath that, though, is a troubled marriage, which comes out over the course of the play. You start to realise that she may not be as happy and shiny as she appears.”

Her husband is played by “possibly the nicest man on the planet”, Cameron Daddo, who Gibney worked with on the TV travel show Luxury Escapes. “When we’re travelling, I always have the, ‘What’s next? What’s next? When do we have to be here? [mindset]’,” she says. “I’m like, ‘We have to be here at this time. We’ve got to do this.’ I’m always thinking ahead, whereas Cameron’s like, ‘But wow, look at that table, isn’t it great, man?’”

Rebecca Gibney poses with the Hall of Fame Award at last year’s 64th Logie Awards. Credit: Getty Images

Gibney never formally studied acting. She fell into it after an early modelling career – a fantastic snap on her Instagram page shows her wearing a sash that reads “Ms Resilient Flooring” in the 1980s – and built a career that reads as the greatest hits of Australian TV: The Flying Doctors, All Together Now, Halifax f.p., Stingers, Packed to the Rafters and Halifax: Retribution. Last year, she was inducted into the Logies Hall of Fame, with her son Zac Bell doing the honours.

But it was this long history on the small screen that gave Gibney her biggest doubt: could she crack it on the stage? Especially a stage that has regularly featured some of the titans of Australian acting: Cate Blanchett, Hugo Weaving, Heather Mitchell, Pamela Rabe.

Rebecca Gibney watches Cameron Daddo during rehearsals for Circle Mirror Transformation.

“There is that imposter syndrome thing that sort of has come flooding back a little bit,” Gibney says. “Certainly, last week, in the first week of rehearsals, I was like, ‘Oh, geez, what have I done? I’m not going to be good at this.’ You know the little voice on the shoulder that just goes, ‘You’re out of your depth. You don’t know what you’re doing.’

“But to have such an incredible, supportive cast around me and the director [Dean Bryant] who just went, ‘Yes, you can.’ And I think something clicked in me yesterday. My son said to me once, ‘Mum, fear and excitement are the same feeling. You’ve just got to flip it.’ And so I got home last night and I went, ‘I’m going to turn this into excitement.’

“So I actually went, ‘Today I’m going to smash it. I’m going to know my lines. I’m going to project [my voice], I’m going to really do incredibly well’, and I’m just going to have to keep telling myself that until opening night.”

Gibney’s 40-year TV career has given her an eagle-eyed view of a local industry that has undergone tremendous upheaval in the past couple of decades. Those cosy weekly family sitcoms, such as All Together Now and Packed to the Rafters, are gone, while police and crime dramas are more likely to be a limited series instead of a prime-time staple that runs for years.

“I think people want that [local dramas] now,” Gibney says. “If you look at the demographics and the people that are watching regular [free-to-air] television, they’re actually much older. And the younger generation, it’s the streaming services and stuff. But people love a good drama.

“Look at The Survivors [on Netflix]. That’s, like, No.2 globally at the moment or something, and made in Tasmania by the beautiful Tony Ayres and Cherie Nowlan and Andy Walker … It’s just so fantastic that shows like that are being made [by Netflix], but it’s like, ‘OK, wait a second, that’s Australian, you know? Why are we not investing more in our own product? Why are we waiting for someone else to make it?’

Gibney and Cameron Daddo on Packed to the Rafters. The friends are to star in Circle Mirror Transformation.

“And shows like Packed to the Rafters, there is a home for that. We don’t have another show like that at the moment. I think there’s a comfort to that, seeing a show about a family that’s just like any other regular Australian family. That’s why people loved it so much. It was a show that they could all watch with the whole family.”

As for what Gibney has planned next, she can’t say – well, she tells me, it’s just that I can’t tell you – but there is one thing she is certain of.

“I want to start being more raw and more real and not caring so much,” she says. “I’m happy to play dress-ups, but the reality is, [today] I’m in a jean jacket and my hair’s a bit all over the shop, and I don’t have my wefts [hair extensions] in, and I don’t really care.

“I would love to bring that to the screen as well, because I think women, particularly, want to see themselves reflected on screen, ageing normally, with crow’s feet … I’m not opposed to [cosmetic procedures]. Go get your facelift, have your Botox – I’ve had Botox before, I’ve had all that stuff. I tried filler once, and it just looked really bad, so I went, ‘I’m never doing that again’ – but I just want to look like I’m ageing.

“I look like a 60-year-old that’s looking after herself. I have no qualms about saying I’m 60. It’s fine. It’s great. Actually, it’s better than being 55. Sixty is awesome, and I think 70 is going to be even better.”

Circle Mirror Transformation is at Sydney Theatre Company’s Wharf Theatre until September 7.

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