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Something About Kerry

^{Sarah Saunders | APRIL 2008}

On the brink of 50, Kerry Armstrong has the world at her feet. Here’s an actress who’s funny, down-to-earth and very much a woman’s woman.

Despite winning legions of Australian hearts playing Heather Jelly in the hit ABC series Sea Change, there are several things you wouldn’t know about Kerry Armstrong.

She still speaks fluent Spanish after living in Spain for two years as a child - rustily, until I get with a bunch of Spaniards and then it comes back after a couple of hours over a good glass of red. She lives on a 28 acre farm on the outskirts of Melbourne – we grow grapes, grass and thistles. She’s a surfer - my favourite wave is really clear and glassy, two to three foot.

What’s well known is that she’s passionate, funny and somewhat prone to ruffling feathers. Most notoriously she questioned the talents of Australia’s two big international exports, Kylie Minogue and Nicole Kidman, in an interview with the Sunday Telegraph in 2004.

But she’s also a good actress. New York trained, Armstrong has come into her own in her forties, working alongside the likes of Geoffrey Rush and Anthony LaPaglia. And in 2001 she became the first person to win two AFI awards in one year for Sea Change and Lantana.

Now she’s set to take on a new role in the ABC series Bed of Roses. In it she plays the spoilt rotten Louisa Atherton who’s forced to return to her tiny home town after her wealthy husband drops dead in the arms of another woman.

Where did your desire to act come from?

My soul, my instincts and from seeing wonderful people like Greer Carson and Katherine Hepburn, and also from the writing. This first thing that I did in Spain was the Little Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry. It was about bringing those beautiful words to life.

The character you play in Bed of Roses, Louisa Atherton, is 49 and preparing to face the second half of her life. What did turning 50 mean to you?

We haven’t turned 50 yet but I’m looking forward to it… I’ll let you know in September!

You must have thought: oh no, why are they after me!

Not at all. This great big moan about getting older is ridiculous. It’s so much easier, it’s much more fun, you have more freedom, you have more peace, your spirit actually aligns itself with who you are. All the bullshit subsides. You’re much stronger with your friendships. You’re much stronger with your work. It’s glorious.

How similar is Louisa Atherton to you?

When my son Sam found out Louisa drives over the speed limit and gets lots of speeding tickets he laughed and said we sound like identical twins.

We’re very different in the sense that Louisa likes to dress up and I only do when I have to. When I’m walking around the streets of Eltham, I’m nothing short of Brittany Spears. I’m an older Britney. I love my trackkies and my Ugg boots. I often can be seen at the local Bakers Delight in my pyjama pants and Uggies. My children won’t get out of the car with me.

You have three children. If you could make the world a better place for them, what would you do?

I’d make sure that everyone got fed and I would take away anything that resembled a weapon.

What are you passionate about?

I am really passionate about Cure for Life. We are raising money with Charles Teo who’s a brilliant, brave and extremely generous neurosurgeon. He was brought to my attention seven years ago by a Perth woman whose son’s tumour he removed after other doctors said it couldn’t be done. Brain cancer is the largest killer amongst children because there’s no cure as such. The only thing you can do with brain cancer is to try and get it out. If we can put something into the research a lot of lives, young lives, can be saved.

You sat on the steps of the Victorian parliament in a purple bra to protest Iraq…

I want to qualify about the purple bra. It’s ironic that the purple bra got more press than what 300 women were doing that day. My children were very frightened about the war. So I rang people, wonderful people like Michael Leunig, Phillip Adams, Andrew Knight, Hugh Jackman and Deborah Lee to suggest we set up a website for peace. For weeks I tried to organize a rally but the press wouldn’t come. I’d ring and say: we’ve got Joan Kirner, Natasha Stott Despoja, Rebecca Gibney and women from all over the state. Finally, I rang them all back and said, oh and by the way, we’ll be wearing our bras on the outside of our shirts. There’s a great photo of those 300 women but the only one they’ve ever run is of me open-mouthed in a purple bra. The town went wild: there were traffic jams, people beeping and 60,000 people on the website. But the number of threats I got for it were extraordinary.

Do you think we’re in a different climate now with Rudd government?

I feel really deeply that we’re in a new era. We’ve got to really care and watch over Kevin Rudd because he’s going to get pulled to pieces. The last thing we need is to tire somebody who’s really interested in the spirit of what’s happening in Australia. He’s letting individuals know they’re not alone – that the country wants to empower them as citizens. His year isn’t going to be easy.

You’ve done a lot but it was Heather Jelly in Sea Change who really resonated with audiences. Why do you think that is?

Because she was such an innocent. She was lightly based on Dostoevsky's idiot, in the sense of somebody who has immense capacity to love other humans but very little ability to love and look after themselves. So often they’re taken advantage of, often they’re treated as fools when they’re really the heart and soul of what makes a community feel safe.

After returning to Australia you struggled to land roles in the 1990s to the point that you almost gave up acting. But you’ve come into your own in your 40s, a time when roles tend to drop off for women…

It’s fantastic. It’s a credit to writers like Andrew Bovell who, in Lantana, was able to bring to life people who were in the middle of their lives, who were not perfect, who were palpably in the middle of change. Watching how they go through that, sometimes with their hearts way out on their sleeves, is kind of terrifying.

I’m really happy to play women who are multifaceted. I’m really happy that women in Australia know that they matter to me a great deal. I’m really interested in my tribal members. I like that I’m a woman. I love my friends. I have many young friends and many old friends. I don’t really care what you look like. I really deeply care that you have a homecoming and you get to know who you are and instinctively surround yourself with people who’ll let you be.

How do you stay healthy?

More often than not I tend to eat well. I’m known at the local bakery for my love of chocolate éclairs and pasties. But I also love Japanese food and fresh juices which probably saves me. Exercise? I’m not a runner, a jogger or a walker… I’m more a dancer and I love yoga. And I love playing tennis and surfing. Surfing set me up for having a body that was fit for life because it’s so grueling paddling out through a set.

Do you make you own wine?

Yes. So far over the last three years we’ve had a couple of major triumphs but many more disasters. I was on the judging panel of the Byron Kennedy Awards, a year or so ago, and Sam Neill was joyously regaling how great it was to be a vigneron while I sat there sheepishly because I’ve tasted my white wine and wouldn’t let any human consume it.

What’s been your greatest achievement?

My children. I just can’t believe how lucky I am to be a mother. I thank god every single day.

What makes you happy?

The children – they’re all talking back now. They play guitar, they’re making up songs on the piano. What makes me happy is my family and friends. What makes me happy is kindness. And when people aren’t struggling to feed themselves or be housed. That’s what makes me happy. People looking after other people.

Any regrets?

Absolutely thousands. I really regret all the white bread I have eaten in the last three weeks… but I’ve got this new peach jam. I deeply regret some of the things I’ve said. I deeply regret not working out how to be quiet sometimes. And I deeply regret some of the blind dates I’ve had. I regret that on Bed of Roses, because we filmed so late every night I had to have a McOz Burger with the lot. I regret to say I enjoyed every single one of them. I regret that I’m not a vegetarian. I want to be one and I hope one day I will.

Bed of Roses airs on ABC television mid May.