Great Scott

Down to earth ... Denise Scott. Photo: Simon Schluter

The Age reports

The Winners & Losers star tells Debi Enker she had to iron out a few issues before she mastered acting.

Trained as a teacher, Denise Scott decided in her 30s to pursue a career in comedy and subsequently spent decades on the stand-up circuit, performing solo and in group shows. In recent years she has been a regular guest on the ABC's Spicks and Specks, a radio host, a writer, has appeared on Agony Aunts talking about sex, romance and marriage, and this week features on Channel Seven's Pictures of You.

But perhaps the biggest leap came last year when she landed an ongoing role in Seven's drama series Winners & Losers. With her customarily self-deprecating humour, Scott says that the prospect of playing devoted, down-to-earth mum Trish Gross came as a surprise. ''I was 56. I have not had any work done - I know, hard to believe; I keep making a joke about that. But, you know, imperfect teeth, wrinkles, sun-damaged skin, not much acting experience. So to get a role on a commercial TV series was really fantastic.''

Scott credits the show's founding producer, Maryanne Carroll, with suggesting her for the part. She had met Carroll through the Melbourne International Comedy Festival and, given the kind of autobiographical material that she has made her own in her shows - wry, candid surveys of suburban life, sometimes performed wearing a terry-towelling bathrobe - it's not hard to see why she was thought to be a good fit for Trish.

The wife of Brian (Francis Greenslade) and mother of Jenny (Melissa Bergland), Patrick (Jack Pearson) and Bridget (Sarah Grace), Trish is the sort of welcoming woman who's always ready with a cuppa and a slice of homespun wisdom. Scott reckons the Grosses were conceived as ''a light-relief point of the show and to be a salt-of-the-earth loving family'', an adjunct to the central story of four female friends and their romantic and professional trials.

But it took an emergency call to Alan Brough, the director of Scott's stage shows, for a crash course in acting and four callbacks before she secured the part. She recalls that, initially on set, ''I felt like a goose. I had no idea what I was doing, even with simple things. I kept telling myself, 'Just look as though you care about this family,' and I did, so it wasn't like it was a big leap. But there were things, like ironing Jenny's shirt, where I'd want to go, 'No! I would never do this for my 27-year-old daughter,' and I'd have to think, 'Hang on, it's not actually my story. This is the story of another family.'''

Beyond possible creative differences regarding domestic issues there were the challenges of the craft. ''The first time a director came over and said, 'Can we have some tears?' my stomach just knotted,'' Scott says. ''It was the day that I'd dreaded. Maryanne told me when I got the gig that there would be a serious storyline and I'd said, 'Will I have to cry? Because I know that I cannot do that'. With all the other girls, you click your fingers and they can bawl; the guys too. It's amazing to watch, really humbling, actually. I'm gobsmacked at the art of acting.

''I'm definitely Method,'' she adds jokingly. ''So I was trying to think back to the last time I grieved and it was hopeless. I just panicked and then this lovely make-up artist said, 'I'll get you the tears stick', which I'd never heard of. She waved this thing under my eyes and whoosh! But it's shameful to call for the tears stick.''

Now, with the second season of the show safely under her belt, Scott says she's right into it. ''Working with Annie Phelan … was just awesome. There were scenes where she would bring me to tears and I was lovin' myself. Whoa, look at me, I'm an actress!''

However, the ironing does remain an issue. In a notable departure from Trish, Scott reckons she'd have a few choice words for adult kids who expect mum to iron their shirts: ''Wear it creased; get over it.''

Winners & Losers
Seven, Tuesdays, 8.30pm