Sarah Walker, you are an Australian author, screenwriter and script producer. You have written for several TV shows, including All Saints (2000 – 2003), Home and Away (2007– 2008), Neighbours (2013–). Speaking of the latter, there has been on and off relationship between Chloe Brennan (April Rose Pengilly) and Elly Conway (Jodi Anasta) on Neighbours this and last year. However, viewers are confused what is going on between them, is it friendship, more then friendship, will there ever going to be a real relationship? I wasn’t part of the creation of this storyline - I only wrote a couple of episodes involving these two characters before leaving Neighbours and I therefore am not aware of the full plans. I know that these things often depend on an actor’s availability (how long they are booked) and audience response. Were you perhaps part of the writing team that created the storyline between Charlie (Esther Anderson) and Joey Collins (Kate Bell) in Home and Away (2009)? If yes how did you come up with the idea for their relationship, what did you wish to portray with it and how come that that storyline did not last a bit longer and developed into a proper long-term relationship? I was the script producer and main plotter when this relationship was plotted. I had an eight week period, covering for someone else in this position and the producer at that time asked me if I would plot a lesbian love story for Charlie. He was keen to portray an interesting love story that spoke to the past of that character and he wanted it to be gay. He felt I was the right person to tell the story, so I came up with an 8-week storyline that I could tell while I was working in the main script producer position. The actress was asked if she would be happy to play the lesbian love story and she was very open and excited by the opportunity. We then had to get permission from the head of drama - I pitched him the story and he agreed. I chose the name Joey for the love interest so that it would surprise the character of Brax (and the audience) who would be expecting a man to arrive. This story was developed with an intention of bringing Joey back if the story worked... It did work - the actress had many many people contact her, thanking her and the show for helping them come to terms with their sexuality. However, the show had a G rating and many family groups began to complain about our portrayal of a lesbian love story - the newspapers, especially in Melbourne, began to run homophobic, sensational articles with headlines like “homo and away”. The head of the network got involved and we were banned from any further gay stories for some years after that. This is why Joey wasn’t brought back again. In 2016, you received an Australian Writers' Guild nomination for "Episode 6381" of Home and Away in the Best Script for a Television Serial category. What was jury most convinced about the story, where did you get the idea and how did you feel about the nomination? It’s always pleasing to be nominated for an award - it was a very good experience for me to go to the awards and when my name came up, my colleagues applauded… it's a nice feeling. The script was about breast cancer - with a character deciding to respond to a genetic test by having pre-emptive surgery - and it gathered together a number of the female cast for some scenes about surviving breast cancer and women’s issues around that. I enjoyed the opportunity to write scenes with some of the strongest women characters of the show - of different generations - coming together to discuss such an important issue. So it was great to get nominated for this Episode, as it had something important to say. You were script and story consultant for Season 1 and 4 of Wentworth (2013, 2015). One of the unusual hallmarks of women’s prison shows is that there is almost always a lesbian couple on the show, and often one or two other single lesbians around as well. What was your main role in providing for the TV series? My main role on Season 1 was as a Script Executive - and I was not part of the original formulation of the storylines or characters for the re-boot of the old Prisoner series. That was done by Lara Radulovich and David Hannam. But I came in to read over all the scene breakdowns and episodes as they were written, to facilitate changes that were requested by the network and executive producer. I sat in on all the script meetings on the latter drafts and suggested ways to fix or polish storylines. However, on Season 4 I joined the development team at an early stage. Sam Strauss and John Ridley had already devised an outline for the season. In the outline, Danielle Cormack’s character, Bea, was to explore a love relationship with a woman. I believe the actress had suggested this as growth for the character and everyone was in agreement that Bea needed to find love and reveal a new, softer more vulnerable side of her character, having been in an abusive relationship with a man prior to going to jail. Being the only lesbian on the plotting team, I was very much involved in the way that story would unfold - in the creation of the love story over the 12 episodes. Ali was originally conceived as a Muslim woman - who had been rejected by her family for her sexual choices but as time went on, this aspect of the story was not developed - and the casting removed it entirely. I loved being part of the team that brought this story to the screen. I stayed on to oversee the first four episodes of the Season while they were waiting for Marcia Gardener to return to the main position - and I am proud of the work I did during the early stages of this Season, which laid in place the foundations of the Bea and Allie story. Do you think that sexual orientation of the screenwriter in making TV series with lesbian storylines is important; i.e. that certain experience(s) add(s) to the quality of the storyline(s)? While I don’t think it’s essential for the writer to have personal experience of being gay to create believable and engaging lesbian characters - I do think it always helps to have personal connection to a love story or a sexual experience. It helps the authenticity of the execution of the storyline - and certainly, as a lesbian woman, I feel the responsibility of creating authentic characters. I think, in the past, lesbian characters were often included to create titillation or scandal for the viewers - and there was often no depth to the relationship beyond this - but this is diminishing now. No matter what the subject, it tends to help if the person writing it has personal experience —so my answer, technically, would be yes. But overall, I think good writers can describe all human experience in a quality way if they do research, and apply fundamental emotional truth. You also wrote seven novels, among them the coming out story The Year of Freaking Out in 1997. Can you tell us more about the novel, is it your coming out story and are there any other similar stories, for instance Water Colours which is also coming of age story? I read you also wrote book Lucky Three for children as well. You cover quite a different range of topics in your novels, how so? Writing the Year of Freaking Out was so long ago, I can hardly remember! It definitely wasn’t my coming out story - although I would’ve used memories of what it felt like to be a teenager and be challenged in that era with the prospect of coming out. I think I used the landscape of the world I grew up in, the suburbs and the tone of it. My coming out story was much more exciting and less “teenage”, although I was a teenager - but I was writing for the genre, as I had a friend — Jenny Pausacker — who had written a teenage coming out novel and I felt really strongly that had I been able to read books like that as a teenager, seeing myself reflected in books in the school library, it would have helped make me feel more acceptable and more normal. This is why I wrote a teenage novel about coming out. I actually started it as a single chapter for a class at university and my lecturer kept asking me for another chapter and another one… until she had made me write a whole book. What a gift!! As to the question about coming of age stories in my novel work… i guess if you’re writing in the young adult market, it seems like a fairly obvious territory to explore. I wrote another book called Camphor Laurel, which won the Children’s Honour Book of the Year - and it was also about two girls, as a kind of poetic love story. I wrote the children’s book because my publisher at the time was asking all their clients to write a short little story for a series they were publishing. I also wrote an adult novel called Tin Man. i stopped writing books once I started in TV because they don’t pay much and they take a long time compared to screen writing. Where/if any do you see similarities and differences in lesbian storytelling in Australian, American and European lesbian TV series? Do you think that television should promote certain progressive values, such as diversity, inclusiveness, human rights? I think the gaps between what all the Western cultures are writing about lesbians stories are closing. In Europe, it seems to me, lesbian representation was much more common for many years - but often as erotic and titillating - though there were some really great films made like Entre Nous. In England, I think the subject was pretty much ignored on TV (as far as I know) - though there was representation for gay men, as either a comic character (such as Mr Humphries in Are You Being Served, or Dick Emery’s characters that were camp)… or just the usual foppish man in court. I can’t think of many lesbian characters from England - but a character like Helen Mirren’s in Prime Suspect would now probably be a lesbian portrayal. Similarly, in the US, Cagney and Lacey could have been about two lesbians - but those things just didn’t happen regularly on prime time TV. It’s changing across the board… I think Australia is a little behind America - but less and less so. Of course I think TV should promote progressive values - diversity, inclusiveness and human rights. I believe that TV is a very influential medium and having representation of every type of culture, sexuality, religion, disability and humanity is necessary - and has the effect of creating a more tolerant and inclusive society — but only if the characters are complex and not cast as villains. We need to have our heroes and heroines be diverse — core roles need to be cast with an eye to representing a wide range of ethnicity and diversity of every kind. What is your biggest inspiration (television or not television career wise) and what are your plans for the future projects? What are you most proud of and what do you still wish to achieve in your successful career as a screenwriter, producer and an author? These are all big questions. I am inspired by a lot of things: a dream of winning an Oscar. I am inspired by the great work I see others doing — currently shows like FLEABAG — but always film and TV that is clever, new, emotional, funny and brilliantly executed. I am inspired by working with actresses I admire — talent is something that makes me excited. So a talented actress can make me want to write something for her — and this is often the way I originate material… like with a muse, which is an old-fashioned idea but it works for me. I’m not sure what I’m most proud of —technically I’m proud of the fact that I have never written anything that I didn’t put my whole effort and best work into, no matter what the show or genre, even if I didn’t feel the project was the best in itself, I would never do anything less than my best work. I am proud of certain scenes and storylines — things that may have affected other people, making them laugh or cry. What I wish to achieve is to have my next few projects produced and executed to a level of excellence; to create an original TV series that is received well by a global audience; to work with many other talented creatives on great material for feature films and TV; and to win that Oscar. Katarina Majerhold
0 Comments
Interviews with women in film industry, research institutes, art organizations ...Archives
July 2023
Categories |