Hunter Page-Lochard, actor, 28: Q&A

Hunter Page-Lochard on his new TV drama Barons, popularising Indigenous roles — and why Play School is the hardest gig of all.

Ambitions: Hunter Page-Lochard. Picture: Sally Flegg

We know you from the acclaimed ABC co-productions Fires, Cleverman, Les Norton, Harrow… and Play School. Is it true the latter is the hardest gig of all? Oh, f…ing oath it is. If you can do Play School, you can do anything. You’re singing, you’re doing a five to six-minute take with no mistakes, you’re doing puppetry, you’re doing craft, you’re dancing, you’re remembering lyrics and lines. It’s like theatre and live TV rolled into one. Play School is a treat. But it’s also a slaughterhouse.

In the new drama series Barons we see a bare bum twice in the first episode, and both times it’s yours. Did you volunteer? [Laughs] My character Reg is a kind of free spirit. He’s a pot smoker, a thinker, a surfer, a creative… I think the nudity just came out of the character.

It’s the story of surfers who become rival entrepreneurs, and there’s lots of board action. Could you surf when you took the role? No, I had to learn. I skated as a kid so the balance was there. But my dancing experience [with Bangarra Dance Theatre] really helped a lot; I knew my core, my muscles. I was doing Fires at the time so I only had about two weeks to learn. But they only really needed us to be able to stand up on the board; we had amazing body doubles who were actually pro surfers and I don’t know if I want to tell everyone that secret!

What’s the project you’re doing with dad Stephen Page? Djali House is the production company we’ve started together – we’ve got a couple of projects, TV shows and films in development. Dad leaving Bangarra [as artistic director] has opened up new doors for what we can do together. But it was his second family. I’m sure he’s terrified – I don’t think he realises that his 30 years there has actually given him a really good résumé [laughs]. I think he’ll be fine.

What’s the most valuable thing he has taught you? Just to make sure you stay sacred… to read the room, to see both perspectives, to evaluate, to understand that sharing is OK if there’s respect given on both sides. I think I’m trying to do that with my culture. I’m tired of having to explain it, to prove something. Now I want to try to make it a realm where it’s not me slapping ochre on my forehead, it’s me just being me.

How would you like to see Indigenous stories popularised in film? We have such a vast and rich culture, filled with stories and deities and morals and teachings and all these things that can be easily put on a mainstream, Disney or Marvel-scale platform without it having to be educational or judgmental – like Encanto, or Moana. Like Cleverman without the political agenda. Just Cleverman being a f..king Spider-Man superhero.

You have a US passport thanks to your mum [former New York City Ballet dancer Cynthia Lochard]. Is it your dream to work in the US? Definitely. My goal is to put [Indigenous actors] on the main stage, and once we’re there everybody can stop walking on eggshells about it. And it needs to be optimistic and engaging and dramatic and fun, because I think that’s how we really take shit in. I know that any one of the Djali projects could take me there.

You have family in Queensland, Sydney and New York, and your wife Laura Thomas is from Wales. What’s your spiritual home? I think I’m trying to create it. We’ve just moved down the coast from Sydney to a place with a back yard and it’s close to the beach and a bit secluded… but I think we still don’t know what that place is, where it is.

There’s a lot of talk these days about colour-blind casting. What are your reservations? Only that people don’t necessarily get it right. It doesn’t mean that you write an ethnic character into your story so you can cast an ethnic actor. It’s casting an ethnic actor to play a character that you don’t need to change. Why can’t I just play a character [without an ethnic storyline]? I wanna play Spiderman! I don’t want to be David Gulpilil, I just want to be an actor. And if it’s an indigenous role, I can do that too.

You and wife Laura Thomas are about to have your second child. Boy or girl? It’s a girl, our second. I’m going to be ruled by women my whole life. Which isn’t a complaint!

Barons premieres on Sunday, April 24 at 8.30pm on ABC TV and ABC iview