There’s a moment in the fourth episode of Colin From Accounts where stars Patrick Brammall and Harriet Dyer appear to almost break character and laugh at the utter hilariousness that is Virginia Gay.
In the scene, Ashley (Harriet) and Gordon (Patrick) are having dinner with their friend Megan (Emma Harvie), who has brought along her new girlfriend Rumi (Virginia) – who promptly hijacks the entire evening with pompous anecdotes of her travels.
It’s a lightning-in-a-bottle scene – thanks in large part to Virginia’s performance – and one the actress admits best illustrates just how fun the show was to film.
“It’s the happiest set I’ve ever been on,” Virginia, 42, tells TV WEEK. “It’s probably my favourite show in the entire world, and you never, ever get to walk onto the set of your favourite show. It feels like my 14-year-old heart walking onto the set of Buffy [The Vampire Slayer].”
She attributes that “pure joy” to its cast and crew – in particular, the show’s “generous” creators Patrick and Harriet, who she calls “comedy geniuses”.
And the feeling is mutual, with Harriet revealing she and Patrick had Virginia in mind when writing the character of Rumi, and even allowed her the freedom to ad-lib much of her dialogue.
As experienced as Virginia is – she’s done everything from comedy to drama to reality TV – you’d think this is the type of thing that would happen all the time for her. The actress begs to differ.
“That’s extremely sweet, but no,” she says. I’m still very much auditioning [for roles]. The beautiful thing about auditioning is that 98 per cent of jobs you go for, you don’t get. So you have to be OK with that. It’s tough, especially when you’re starting out, but it’s good for the soul to be OK with it.”
While she may have missed out on a few roles, she’s landed some significant ones too, perhaps most notably nurse Gabrielle Jaeger in the early noughties hospital drama All Saints, which she landed when she was 24 and still studying.
“I had a pretty strong case of imposter syndrome for several years [in All Saints],” Virginia reveals. “It was very much like, ‘Why should it be me who got this [role] out of all the talented people in my class?’ I was ready for it to be taken away at any minute.”
She adds that the fact that she’s remained close to some of her All Saints co-stars – such as Wil Traval (who played Jack), Celeste Barber (Bree) and Andrew Supanz (Bartholomew) – “is testament to how close we were and how lucky we were to have each other in that time”.
Fast-forward nearly two decades and Virginia is booked and busy and shows no sign of slowing down. This year alone, she’s become artistic director for the Adelaide Cabaret Festival, will be taking her acclaimed gender-flipping play Cyrano to the Edinburgh Fringe Festival in Scotland, and has been busy developing a new dark comedy for TV.
And does she feel exhausted? Never.
“I feel so exhilarated by it all,” Virginia enthuses. “I feel so honoured and humbled. I just love what I do.”
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