At
24, Anna McGahan has tasted success in Underbelly: Razor and House
Husbands, and LA is ready for her reappearance. Photo: Getty Images
Paul Kalina, The Sydney Morning Herald, reports
There's more to Anna McGahan than her star turn with the Razor
gang.
Not that long ago, an actor from Down Under looking to break into TV would hop
on the next flight to Los Angeles, find an agent and wait for the phone to
ring.
Should their careers take off, we might be lucky to see his or her
name buried deep in the credits of an undistinguished TV series playing some
forgettable part as, say, the estranged sibling of a murder victim.
By contrast, Anna McGahan has been too busy establishing her
career at home to do the LA drill.
Earlier this year, the co-star of Underbelly: Razor was in
LA to accept a $10,000 scholarship for an up-and-coming actor, established in
honour of the late Heath Ledger.
But instead of enrolling at an acting school and doing the rounds
of LA casting agents, McGahan headed straight home for the filming of House Husbands.
And with a leading role in the Brisbane production of David
Williamson's stage play Managing
Carmen, and a second season of Channel Nine's successful ensemble
drama House Husbands
starting next year, her hopes of returning to LA in the immediate future have
been dashed.
For now, work is the 24-year-old's priority. ''If the time is
right, I have this open door to go over there and enter that system a lot more
smoothly than had I done it earlier,'' McGahan says on the phone from Brisbane,
her home town. ''It's just a question about the right time to do it.''
Writing rather than acting was McGahan's secret, unfulfilled
passion when she swapped university psychology studies for acting school. ''I
love science, but I knew when I stopped turning up to lectures to go to
short-film shoots that something was eating away at me and I really needed to
give it a shot. I auditioned for acting school as a test run and got in.''
This year, the first of three full-length plays she has written
was produced in Brisbane.
''You could say yes,'' McGahan replies hesitatingly to the
question of ambition. ''I do this ebb and flow with writing. If I'm acting I'm
usually writing as well, because I'm a bit ADHD and it helps balance it. I have
a lot of aspirations when it comes to combining my writing and acting; when it
comes to telling important stories and representing women and young people.
You're holding the flag for your generation.''
While her Logie-nominated turn as young prostitute Nellie Cameron
in Underbelly: Razor
was regarded as her arrival on the scene, McGahan credits Claudia Karvan and
the Foxtel drama she co-created and starred in, Spirited, for breaking her into TV. It was,
she says, the first job ''that really shook me up''.
''There were things we did in Spirited
that you'd never do in any other show. Someone's talking in your ear and you
have to ignore they're there and keep acting. It took it out of this domestic
or acting-school idea of what screen acting is for me.''
It was also a chance to overcome her nervousness. ''By the time we
got to Underbelly,
which was only a couple of weeks after, I still felt very new. I still am,''
she says. ''But I had this confidence, I had this enthusiasm and excitement for
Underbelly,
which I think would have been overshadowed if I hadn't done Spirited.''
Nudity and violence are hallmarks of the Underbelly franchise, but
McGahan insists her decision to appear in Razor,
arguably the most graphic of the series to date, wasn't taken lightly.
''I think to have played Nellie Cameron without [appearing nude]
would have been a misrepresentation,'' she says. ''I have no qualms about that
role or that shoot at all.''
She hasn't been asked to strip for roles since, and says her
values would be tested were she asked to.
''I question when nudity is written into a fictional story and why
and how it represents women … There's an interesting line where an audience
sees the actor as the character or as you. Anyone that means anything to me
looks at [Underbelly: Razor]
and sees Nellie Cameron. They don't see me. I feel very protected by the
character and the era. People can comment [on the nudity] as they wish and, to
be honest, it's none of my business.''
The appeal of House
Husbands is its complete departure from what she has done before.
She plays grounded, practical and sweet-natured Lucy, in her 20s, one of
several daughters of serial dad Lewis (Gary Sweet) and the girlfriend of
reformed bad-boy sports star Justin (Firass Dirani).
Unlike many up-and-coming actors who would prefer to keep their
options open than commit to a multiple-season show, McGahan finds the prospect
of playing a recurring character appealing.
''What happens to your character affects other characters, and
they affect you. There's an organic quality to it; it lives and breathes.
''I'm not sure what it will be like to go back to a second season
of anything, but I've a feeling it's this completely new creation, like the
idea that the cells in the body replace themselves every few years.''
Before then, McGahan appears, albeit briefly, in the
feature-length The Mystery
of a Hansom Cab, a period murder-mystery with a biting perspective
on Victorian-era values. She had been in line for one of two big young female
roles in the production. Having signed up for a job overseas, she let it pass.
By the time that job fell over, the other roles on Hansom Cab were cast, but a smaller one was
available. It required hours of burlesque training, as well as prosthetics.
Oddly, given her string of recent roles, McGahan professes to have
no radar for successful shows.
''I take those jobs day by day. I love my job, I go in with a good
attitude, but I react entirely to that day's shooting, to my character's
progression in the scene. Later I think, 'How did everyone else go?''' Anyway,
McGahan says, it's not about predicting how well a show will do.
''It's about what you're giving out to an audience and what that
creative process does to help you grow. If you get a lot out of what you do,
you can't really fail.''
