Having just missed out on the grand finale round, Lucy Durack has no regrets about her time on The Masked Singer Australia.
And despite lending her formidable voice to some of the most popular musicals in the country, such as Wicked and Legally Blonde, the singer now known as Cactus says she’s never had more fun on a set than she did playing the prickly plant.
On last night’s episode, the Doctor Doctor actress’ energetic rendition of Bonnie Tyler’s Total Eclipse Of The Heart just wasn’t enough to spike the fancy of the judging panel and voters and she was ultimately unmasked.
Fresh from her big reveal, Now To Love caught up with Lucy, 37, to chat about how hard it was lying to her five-year-old daughter Polly about starring on the show, her compelling theory as to who the Bushranger is and if there’ll ever be a third season of the cult comedy The Letdown.
Congratulations on your amazing performances on the show. How does it feel now it’s all out in the open?
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It’s a massive relief! I’m not really good at keeping secrets. It’s really nice to share it with my daughter Polly because I’ve been keeping it from her. She loved the show but I just couldn’t tell her in case she told somebody.
My husband has been away for all of The Masked Singer, so she and I have been staying up and watching it together and she was really into it. Her favourites were Wizard and Kitten!
She scrolled through my phone one day and I had some photos of me [as Cactus] and she goes: “What! Have you met Cactus?” And I was like, “Actually I have Polly.” So that’s all I told her so she was super surprised.
I was just so relieved to be able to share it with her!
Do you have any guesses on who the remaining Masked Singers are?
I don’t think Puppet is Mark Holden, that would be too obvious. My daughter thinks it Lachy Wiggle but I think maybe it’s Simon Wiggle because of the beautiful, classical voice.
[As for Bushranger,] I thought Jessica Mauboy originally but now I’m thinking [singer and actress] Bonnie Anderson.
But I thought maybe it’s Bonnie because I was signing in Carols By Candlelight a couple of years ago and I heard a voice and I thought it was Jessica Mauboy… but it was Bonnie! So that’s why I thought, maybe it’s her. Whoever it is an excellent singer!
Fans are convinced the Bushranger is Jessica Mauboy but Lucy thinks otherwise.
(Image: Channel 10)Can you tell us about your Masked Singer experience? It’s a wild show to begin with and now it’s being filmed during COVID.
It was so much fun! It was an excellent, excellent thing to do during a lockdown. You pretty much got told, ‘This is your costume, you’re the Cactus, these are your song you get to sing.’ If you really didn’t like it, you could talk about it and try change it.
Being out of your comfort zone and singing some pop songs that I have never sung before, I really, really enjoyed it. I didn’t speak to anyone apart from a couple of the producers and the people who dressed me.
I also quite liked it because my husband was away, it meant that I could get a babysitter in to look after Polly and I could have some time on my own.
They kept saying ‘sorry these are such long days and you’re on your own for hours at a time.’ And I was like ‘this is amazing! You don’t understand how much I’m enjoying this.’ I could just get some of my life admin done, pay some bills and watch TV – it was great!
“It was so much fun!” Lucy says of her Masked Singer experience.
(Image: Channel 10)Obviously the show was shutdown just before the finale due to a COVID outbreak. Do you have any thoughts on how they can bring a new-look finale to life?
The Masked Singers are very COVID safe… As long as they keep everyone away from each other, which we are, it would just be more the crew that would need some extra measures.
Having said that, they were very safe it’s just such a crazy time. I think they should do it!
I’ve been working on Neighbours as well and they do it very well. Nobody touches the same prop, nobody touches the same anything. They always say ‘if you touch it, you bought it.’ And they have clever camera angles to make it look like we’re closer together. So perhaps they’ll have to do that as well!
Congrats on joining Neighbours! Can you tell us a bit about your character Rose?
My character’s name is Rose Walker and she comes in as an assistant to Toadie at Rebecchi Law. But she’s not just there to be his assistant, she’s there to get some information. So she appears a little bit dodgy but we start to realise she’s got good intentions, she’s just going about things in a weird way. She has quite a connection with Toadie.
Lucy with her husband, director Christopher Horsey, and their two children, ten-month-old son Teddy and five-year-old daughter Polly.
(Image: @lucydurack/Instagram)What’s it been like joining such an iconic soapie?
It’s pretty fun! In my first week I worked widely with Ryan, who plays Toadie, and Georgie, who plays Mackenzie, and they were super nice to me.
A few days in I got to work with Karl and Susan, I was very excited.
Everybody’s very friendly and they work so fast at Neighbours. I’ve worked on quite a lot of television shows over my life and this is by far the quickest. I’ve never worked a soap before but I think they work so quickly as they have five episodes a week to get out.
We also have to ask on behalf of sleep-deprived parents around Australia, will there ever be a third season of the Letdown?
I really hope so, I really do. Never say never.
Obviously not this year cause it’s not the year for that but maybe… you never know. I hope in my heart.
When we did the pilot, my daughter Polly was three months old and so she plays my baby in the first episode in mother’s group!
Lucy’s real-life daughter Polly made a surprise cameo in the pilot episode of The Letdown.
(Image: The Letdown/ABC)
