Ever since she farewelled period drama A Place To Call Home last year, Aussie actress Jenni Baird has been inundated with job offers. Surprisingly, she hasn’t accepted any of them.
Most actors would be grateful for the opportunities, but not Jenni.
“It’s really important what I do now,” she says of her next career move.
“I’m looking for a character that’s interesting. I’m not going to take a job where the most outstanding thing about the character is she’s female. It has to be more than that.”
This year, Jenni received a TV WEEK Logie Award nomination for Most Outstanding Supporting Actress for her portrayal of Regina Standish in APTCH.
The actress says that while scripts have been “floating in”, nothing has grabbed her.
“Even today, in the ‘hashtag gender matters’ world we live in, interesting female characters are still hard to come by,” she explains.
Jenni as wicked Regina in A Place To Call Home.
Keen to make a difference, Jenni has decided to take matters into her own hands. The Logie nominee reveals she’s currently working on a secret project.
“I’m writing my own thing,” the 42-year-old teases.
And it’s Hollywood actress and producer Reese Witherspoon who has inspired her.
“That’s what Reese did with Big Little Lies,” Jenni says. “She realised there weren’t enough female roles out there, so she grabbed that property and went, ‘Let’s do this!'”
Based on Australian author Liane Moriarty’s bestseller, Big Little Lies is an Emmy Award-winning series that also stars Nicole Kidman, Laura Dern, Shailene Woodley and Zoë Kravitz.
Logie nominee Jenni says women are ‘still fighting’ to play strong female characters.
“We’re still fighting a battle in Australia for strong female characters, so I’m going to do something similar,” Jenni says.
“I might as well just create the character I’m looking for.”
She even has a cast in mind for her project.
“It’s early days, but I’m thinking of some of my best friends,” she teases.
“I know amazing female actresses, some of whom are underappreciated.”
Could Jenni’s APTCH co-star Sara Wiseman appear in her new project?
For more on Jenni’s next step, and her plans for the future, pick up a copy of this week’s issue of TV WEEK.
