Tassie actor Tegan Stimson enjoys fairytale screen debut in new SBS mystery series The Tailings
Winning the lead role in her first TV performance in SBS drama The Tailings has been a life-changing moment for Howden teen Tegan Stimson. Read her incredible story and how she got the spot >>
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UPCOMING TV series The Tailings was Hobart actor Tegan Stimson’s first screen role but not her first professional acting gig.
That debut came to her through the Cooper Screen Academy, where she learnt her craft, but there was no screen involved.
“Through the Academy I landed a job with UTAS and La Trobe University to be part of role-play sessions for training teachers,” she says.
“Each of us was given a character brief and then a teacher had to enter the classroom and, basically, we made it difficult for them!
“My role was a ‘disengaged youth’ and we were throwing things, being horrible, someone put a hole in a wall. It was interesting!”
Stimson, 18, is the star of The Tailings, created by Tasmanian writer Caitlin Richardson and shot entirely on the state’s West Coast. It is expected to premiere on SBS On Demand later this year.
And, funnily enough, her co-star Mabel Li plays the role of a teacher. But we don’t know yet whether Stimson had to throw anything at her.
Telling its story in six 10-minute episodes, The Tailings invites audiences to a remote community to follow a daughter’s investigation into her father’s death.
Stimson stars as the lead character, Jas.
The funeral of Jas’s father coincides with the arrival of a newly graduated schoolteacher, Ruby (Li), who must also deal with her own unresolved issues.
As the mystery unfolds, secrets are exposed and the two are challenged to confront the strange and paradoxical layers of grief.
The Tailings ensemble cast includes established Tasmanian actor Kris McQuade (Rosehaven, Wentworth), joined by Victoria Haralabidou (Deep Water), Nic English (Reckoning) and an array of local Tasmanian talent including Shaun Martindale, Harry Prior, Tai Nguyen, Michael Earnshaw, Jane Hamilton-Foster and Sara Cooper.
Filming was supposed to take place in May last year but when the COVID-19 outbreak shut everything down, The Tailings was shelved like myriad other creative projects and Stimson was left wondering if her big shot would even happen.
Fortunately production was able to commence late last year, just catching the end of the gloomy winter months that were essential to the story’s look and feel, and Stimson’s dream came true.
Born in South Africa to a French mother and English father, Stimson and her family moved to Hobart when she was three. While sad that she has no memories of South Africa, she has loved being able to grow up in Tasmania, attending Taroona Primary School and then the Fahan School.
“I studied drama in high school but as much as I do love theatre and musicals, which was what we focused on at school, what I really wanted to do was screen acting,” she says.
“But I decided I wanted to follow that outside of school. I wanted to use school time to focus on studying design. So I joined the Cooper Screen Academy.
“I was studying there for five years, going to lessons once a week for two hours after school.
“Sara Cooper is who I learnt everything from, she’s amazing. She’s such a strong presence in so many kids’ lives in Tassie who want to act and she allows students to gain actual experience in front of the camera.
“And I got my audition for The Tailings through her as well. She’s part of the cast, too, playing my mother!”
Stimson got an email from the Academy saying an SBS series was holding auditions in Tasmania and encouraging students to try out. Stimson had done other auditions but had no luck, so she says she tried not to have very high expectations.
“I didn’t think much of it at the time, I had done lots before and heard nothing back, that’s just how it is. Getting an audition in itself was a big step and if that was the end of the story, I would have been happy,” she says.
“Then COVID hit and everything stopped. I remember watching the news and they mentioned something about the Tailings, and how filming was going to happen in Queenstown later in the year and I thought OK, I mustn’t have got it, so I forgot about it.
“Then, a couple of months later I got an email from Sara saying I was the lead runner for the role. I couldn’t believe it, it didn’t feel real, I’d convinced myself I didn’t have it.”
When shooting started in mid-October last year, Stimson was studying for her Grade 12 exams, and production wrapped the week before exams started.
But, despite the obvious stress and juggling this entailed, Stimson was determined to give it her all, and do her best at both.
And while happy with her performance in her exams, it is the experience of acting on camera for the first time that is most memorable.
“It was so surreal, it didn’t really hit me for a while what was going on,” she says. “It definitely didn’t feel real until I went to Queenstown. I was there a week before filming started so I could meet everyone and we could start to bond and so forth but it still kinda felt like a dream.
“It really only sunk in after a couple of days of filming. Once I realised I was actually living it – it was crazy.
“You can prepare for what you think it is going to be like and I’d been studying screen acting. But when you’re actually on set, nothing can quite prepare you for it.
“There are people holding umbrellas for you in the rain, people running over to fix your make-up all the time; you can’t prepare yourself for that, being constantly looked after.
“I didn’t think of it in terms of I was the lead, I was just there to act, I was just having fun!”
The show’s producers and creators were extremely impressed with Stimson’s performance and attitude as well.
Producer Liz Doran – whose TV credits include Please Like Me, Molly, The Secret Life of Us and McLeod’s Daughters – says Richardson’s background as a teacher gave her a unique ability to write authentically for teenage characters, and Stimson proved to be the perfect fit for the role.
“The moment we saw Tegan in our first batch of auditions, we knew we had found our Jas; she looks just like Jas, she was perfect,” Doran says.
“We were excited for Tegan in getting that opportunity and she gave us so much as well, she pulled out this beautiful performance every day, she was such a delight on set.”
Similarly, Stimson is deeply grateful for the way the more senior members of the cast and crew took her under their respective wings and helped her find her feet on set.
“We even discussed things like reading each other’s scripts ahead of time: We decided we wanted to keep a more genuine element of surprise so Mabel and I didn’t read each other’s scenes if we weren’t in them together,” Stimson says.
“It allowed me to have these raw reactions to the things she said, it made it more realistic.
And reading a script is never the same as actually acting it out with other people.
“And working with someone like Kris McQuade, I could read her script but her delivery was always amazing, something else. She kind of walks into a room and everyone stops what they’re doing, I was so nervous.
“She has such talent and authority, it was really daunting. But she was truly the most generous human with her talents and taking the time to help me.”
Stimson still hasn’t seen the finished series, saying the final story will be almost as much of a surprise to her as it will be to everyone else watching it.
And while her own future is just as much of a mystery, she now hopes it will include much more work in front of a camera.
“If you’d asked me last year, I would have told you I’d be studying my Bachelor of Design this year but now I’m taking a gap year,” Stimson says. “After getting that role in The Tailings, it opened up a lot of doors for me that I never thought possible for me as a Tasmanian actor.
“I’m in the process of getting an agent. With The Tailings coming out soon, it’s all picking up speed.
“I want to focus on acting anywhere I can; if I get the chance I would love to spend some time on the mainland for a couple of months, it all depends on what’s happening, what opportunities are available.
“Acting is my absolute dream, I’ve wanted to do since I was a little girl, but it’s not a job where you can put all your eggs in one basket. And I’m always open to the idea of going back to study.”
Ultimately, though, Stimson is just thrilled to have been able to have that big chance right here at home in Tassie, something the thinks should give hope to other aspiring actors in the island state.
“It really opens your eyes. I always wanted to act and now I’m able to, right here.
“ I’ve even picked up a part in a short film that’s being made here,” she says.
“I really hope that if other young kids have that dream to make a career of acting and to stay in Tassie to do it, that maybe this can help them to realise that they actually can. It’s possible.” ●
The Tailings will premiere on SBS On Demand next week, on April 2.
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