Colin Moody finds force in bold expression

WHEN Colin Moody was offered the role of modern art giant Mark Rothko, he didn't leap at the opportunity.

Colin Moody

WHEN Colin Moody was offered the role of modern art giant Mark Rothko in a Tony-award winning play, he didn't exactly leap at the opportunity. "I was scared and I still am," the seasoned actor explains. "I was scared in the sense that I thought, 'Christ almighty! I haven't been as exposed as this ever' ... I thought, 'This could be a monumental wank and boring as all batshit if I stuff it up.' "

Moody has a predilection for telling it like it is. In this, he has much in common with Colin Friels, who is also playing Rothko this year. Both Colins have been cast as the abstract expressionist in the Broadway hit Red: Friels is starring in a Melbourne Theatre Company production of the two-hander while Moody will perform in it at Sydney's Ensemble Theatre in September.

Before he accepted the role, Melbourne-based Moody pored over the script. "I read it and I read it," he says. "It's a potentially very exposing piece of work and he's a tough artist ... my impression is of someone who is meticulously investigating their own experience of whatever emotional state they're in and how to depict that on canvas."

He warmed to the part after "reading about Rothko, looking at his paintings and falling in awe with that level of discipline". He adds mischievously: "That, combined with spending several weeks touring (in a show) and being haunted by faux Rothkos in hotel rooms."

Moody and Friels last performed together in a 1999 production of Macbeth ; Moody was Macduff to Friels's Macbeth. "I used to chop his head off every night. I haven't seen him since, but that's life in our business," he deadpans. Both actors are National Institute of Dramatic Art graduates and both can be outspoken. In 2007 Moody quit the Sydney Theatre Company's actors ensemble and launched a scathing attack on the company's "office politics" and "hypocrisy".

He also questioned the appointment of Cate Blanchett as co-artistic director. Does he regret this outburst? "I don't regret it. I made an observation ... We're all adults." Asked if his frankness has cost him work, he laughs and replies: "I may have had to shift from one part of town to another, but I have still worked." He points out that in 2009 he scored a gig at the STC in the Martin Crimp play The City.

Poised to play Duncan in a touring Bell Shakespeare production of Macbeth, Moody has been an actor for more than 20 years, tackling everything in the repertoire from Brutus to John Proctor (in The Crucible). He played a neurotic ex-shock jock in the ABC drama Something in the Air for 18 months, but theatre has been his mainstay. Which is probably just as well, given his opinion of local TV.

"I've been spoiled with classical and good modern theatre scripts and, quite frankly, I find Australian television execrable," he says. "I think the scripts are execrable. I think it's a real shame that there's no way of breaking this same old, same old, usual-suspects rubbish."