Australian Story on ABC – Actor Heather Mitchell is hitting her stride. She’s landing some of the biggest roles of her career, on stage and screen, and finding the voice to speak out about the industry she’s worked in for 40 years.
In the wake of the #MeToo movement, and her performance of the role of equality pioneer, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Mitchell realizes she had minimized her negative experiences as a younger actor.
She didn’t always feel safe in the “testosterone fueled” industry of the 1980s and 90s. There was often lots of drugs and alcohol on set, and if she felt threatened, she didn’t feel able to speak out.
“As a young actor, I did not feel I had a voice when it came to being in situations where I felt threatened, in situations which were abusive,” she says today.
Mitchell is now riding a wave of success, landing the “role of a lifetime” in the Sydney Theatre Company production, RBG: Of Many, One.
Written for Mitchell by playwright Suzie Miller, the play charts the life of Ruth Bader Ginsburg, the late US Supreme Court justice, who fought for women’s rights in a patriarchal legal system.
Just as the play was about to be announced, Mitchell was diagnosed with breast cancer, for the second time.
She underwent a mastectomy and reconstruction and was back on the stage within six months.
The STC’s artistic director Kip Williams calls the role of RBG ‘a theatrical Everest’.
On stage for nearly two hours, Mitchell plays more than 20 different characters, including three US presidents.
“She’s indestructible,” says friend and actor Sam Neill. “I just trail in her wake with those clouds of positivity.”
Mitchell speaks exclusively to Australian Story as she releases her memoir, Everything and Nothing. Having faced her mortality twice, she says she’s not afraid of getting old.
“Everything gets more rarefied and exciting and tangible and just more possible.”
The episode includes actor Hugo Weaving, husband Martin McGrath, Sydney Theatre Company Artistic Director Kip Williams, playwright Suzie Miller and friend Joanne Corrigan.
Australian Story – 1 May, 2023 at 8:00pm on ABC and ABC iview
Media Release – ABC
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