Growing up, Rachel Griffiths and her family didn’t have a lot of money. But art was a “massive” part of their lives.
“Because art was free,” Rachel explains to TV WEEK.
The actress is speaking from her home in Melbourne, which she shares with her husband, artist Andrew Taylor, and their three children. Her home is filled with art, and her work life has been recently too.
She’s currently on TV as the presenter of Great Southern Landscapes, which sees her travelling around Australia visiting the locations of iconic landscape paintings.
“I grew up culturally rich, but economically, my mother fought hard after my father left her with three kids,” Rachel, 53, says.
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Her artist mother Anna makes a guest appearance in the Melbourne episode.
“I grew up culturally rich, but economically, my mother fought hard after my father left her with three kids,” Rachel, 53, says.
“She had to go back to night school to get her teacher’s degree.
“We had a decade where we didn’t have a car or a television. If something broke, it didn’t get fixed.
“I painted the outside of our house when I was 14, I think, and I recall Mum giving me $400. I thought it was amazing.”
Anna was very good at making sure Rachel and her two brothers got to experience art, as well as music.
“The galleries were free, murals were free… anything that was free, my mum took us to, and very occasionally, things like the Sidney Myer Music Bowl, even if we were sitting on the outside of the cyclone fence,” Rachel remembers.
“We grew up, art on every wall, Mum always making stuff. And now of course, I’m married to a painter who’s always making stuff as well.”
Rachel isn’t just the presenter of Great Southern Landscapes, she’s the creator of the series too.
Having also co-created the successful drama Total Control, Rachel has now established herself as one of Australian TV’s most exciting content creators.
“When I left Melbourne Uni after the first year and went to a little college called Rusden, this is what I thought I’d be going to,” she says.
“I’d be like, ‘I’m really interested in politics and really interested in art, but not in sitting by myself writing an essay.'”
At college, Rachel did a bit of acting, along with other subjects like filmmaking.
“I loved the acting and I just thought, ‘I’m going to commit to acting first. Better do it while you’re young and poor and happy to be poor.’ So it’s just taken me a really long time.”
During that “long time”, Rachel starred in Aussie classic Muriel’s Wedding, was nominated for an Academy Award for Hilary And Jackie, and did five seasons each of hit American dramas Six Feet Under and Brothers And Sisters.
Rachel says: “I did it, but I really did shut down my voice for a long time.”
(Image: Supplied)“Working in America as an actor, particularly in television, really, the contract is, ‘We’ll pay you a lot of money to shut up, have no opinion on the writing and say your lines.
“Turn up on time, generally be a good sort, don’t be an a**ehole, take the money, and by the way, did we tell you we’re not really not interested in your opinion on the writing?'” she says with a laugh.
“Which, you can imagine, wasn’t the easiest thing for me to do. I did it, but I really did shut down my voice for a long time.”
Rachel makes it clear she’s not a victim, saying she “well and truly was privileged” within that system. But she eventually decided to come home to make Australian stories.
Of course, Rachel has kept up the acting since returning to Australia, and can currently be seen as winemaker Margot Duplass in Aftertaste, where she has an unconventional relationship with Erik Thomson’s character Easton West.
“After the responsibility of the others [shows], it’s lovely turning up to f*** up Erik Thomson,” she says with a laugh.
“It’s that great thing, when you have a high-status character, and you’ve got this other random character who can top them and put them off balance.”
She says Aftertaste, which Erik co-produced, is another great example of actor-driven content.
“I think actors can make content better – particularly if you’ve done theatre.
“You physically know what it is to die on stage, that terrible feeling. Even if you’re making TV or film, you’ll never forget that. We want everyone laughing, everyone crying, everyone tuning in.”
Along with creating shows and acting, Rachel is also kept busy with being mum to Banjo, now 18, Adelaide, 17, and Clementine, 13.
Of parenting teens, she says, “It’s really busy – I had no idea the vigilance would last this long.”
Although she doesn’t face the financial challenges her mother did when she was raising her children, she still has worries for them, like so many other parents do.
“I’m very aware my kids have a lot of privileges and resources, but they – and their friends – have a degree of gratitude and appreciation,” she says.
“They’re deeply appreciative of small things, which is beautiful. And I think we, as older world citizens, have to protect the hopes of young people.”
