Wentworth is intense to watch. For Tammy MacIntosh, who plays Karen “Kaz” Proctor in the prison drama, it became almost too much to film at one point.
“I found it really hard in season four,” she admits. “I would go home and fall apart into a million pieces.”
Tammy, 48, confessed to producer Pino Amenta that she wasn’t coping.
“I remember having tears,” she recalls. “I went, ‘I need a break! I can’t do it anymore.’
“He said, ‘You know what? Nicole [da Silva] went through a similar thing when she had the rape scene, Dan [Cormack, who played Bea] when she hanged herself. And they both went to see therapists.'”
Will (Robbie Magasiva) tries to keep Kaz in line.
Eventually, Tammy came up with her own way of coping.
“I worked out that I just had to run,” she says. “I had to wake up every morning at 4.30am and run. That was all I could do.
“Sometimes my husband and son would FaceTime me and I’d be running and crying at the same time, still releasing yesterday’s s**t.”
Wentworth is filmed in Melbourne and Tammy lives in Sydney. That means she has to spend time away from husband Mark Yeats and their 11-year-old son, Benjamin, during shooting. But it’s turned out to be a good thing.
“I couldn’t have done this from Sydney,” the actress explains. “I couldn’t have driven to work and come home and had the detoxing and the deconstruction.
“This way, I get to the airport, swig a glass of wine, go to sleep and arrive [home] happier.”
Kaz has had some extreme storylines over the years that have left many fans horrified.
“Not everyone loves her,” Tammy points out. “I get a lot of abuse in the street.”
But at least the actress has always been surrounded by supportive castmates.
“I’m more emotionally naked in front of these people than I have been in most of my relationships,” she says.
“Seriously, that is the gift we give each other, because we hold each other in this trust.”
Wentworth Season Six premieres Tuesday June 19, 8:30pm, on Showcase on Foxtel.
