Virginia Gay plays mother hen to Aisha Dee in SBS drama Safe Home

The star of new SBS murder mystery Safe Home on why it’s her duty to give younger castmates, including Aisha Dee, the space to shine.

Versatile: Virginia Gay. Picture: Sarah Enticknap

You have played a nurse in All Saints, a lawyer in Winners & Losersand a cop in Savage River. So you’ve pulled off the TV trifecta? Yes. They are the three things, the three authorities. That’s it, I’ve done everything on television! All Saints was incredible because it was my first ever job. Winners & Losers I loved because it was a celebration of female friendships. And in Savage River I loved the sense of playing this woman who saw everything, but was connected to too many things to see them clearly. Also, let’s be frank – I loved the holster. I think I looked great with the holster. I want to start wearing it in real life.

From 2006 to 2009, for 138 episodes, you portrayed nurse Gabrielle Jaeger on All Saints. What was it like, winning a prime-time role before graduating from the Western Australian Academy of Performing Arts? The way that I was able to learn on the show was incredible. We made 44 episodes a year – television just isn’t made like that any more. Also incredible was the feeling of being in a team with some of the best actors working in Australia at the time, including John Howard and Tammy Macintosh.

Tell us how a physical feature you once fretted over helped you win your All Saints role. It was because of my chin. I tell that story now to young actors who are about to graduate, because this chin – which I always thought was too big – was the very thing that made me stand out enough. My uniqueness, not looking like everybody else, was the thing they employed me for.

In SBS’s new murder mystery, Safe Home, you play the director of an under-resourced legal centre opposite a range of young stars, including Aisha Dee. What was that like? Aisha Dee, our central character, is globally famous, but she’s so incredible. One of the most exciting things for me was using my time on screen to throw attention to these incredible young actors who are so damned good. It was a real honour to be like the roost mother hen for all these young performers.

Safe Home’s creator Anna Barnes tapped into her own experience to write the show. How? Anna, our incredible writer, worked for a family violence legal centre in Melbourne for a long time. Anna knew so deeply the insufficiencies of the system for helping people and that’s one of the show’s central cruxes.

In 2021, your adaptation of Cyrano for Melbourne Theatre Company was shut down by a Covid lockdown three hours before curtain up. How did you cope? That is a very particular kind of trauma. Because as theatre artists, you never disappoint the audience. So it was a pretty wild feeling to go, “Oh, the show actually can’t go on.”

The role of Calamity Jane in a reimagined version of the musical earned you a 2017 Sydney Theatre Award. What drew you to the pistol-packing, cross-dressing cowgirl? I had always loved the movie. I also loved the Deadwood series on HBO, which roughed up and queered up the character. There are these great historical photos of Calam – she’s got this massive jaw and she’s drinking pints of beer. She’s tall and hulking and I thought, “That’s me baby: that’s what I do. I’m a Viking – a song and dance Viking.’’

Safe Home premieres on SBS and SBS On Demand from Thursday May 11.