An Interview with Greta Scacchi from ‘Darby and Joan’

Greta Scacchi is a highly accomplished, Emmy Winning Actor, that has graced the stage, the small and silver screen throughout her incredible career. Currently… she is starring as Joan Kirkhope in the new Acorn TV series, Darby and Joan, and we here at NTG had the distinct honor of speaking with Greta about her new role and show.
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John Betancourt: What was it that attracted you to this project?

Greta Scacchi: Well, first of all, it was just lovely to get offered a lead role, opposite Bryan Brown, who I love, he's become a friend. And we've worked together a couple of times before and work together very easily and joyfully. And to play all the characters who are in the center of the story, whose desires, whose troubles, whose thoughts, whose response to things, is the main thrust of the story is quite rare. You know, it's been a long time. As I've gotten older, you're offered roles that are just an extension of a younger character in some way. The focus is on the younger, the younger roles, and you find yourself limited by the fact that you are playing older as you are sort of playing something that is observed from a younger gaze. And so, to be in the shoes of the characters whose gaze, we get to see, is rare, and it was very appealing to me. And it was very liberating as well because it meant that I could explore all facets of the personality and express how she is in different situations, you know, she's not just there as a two-dimensional tool for somebody, for somebody else's character, she's very much a driving force. And that's, that's rare.

And I think, with these two characters for, for me and Bryan playing Jack and Joan, they both have troubles, they both have actually quite extreme trauma that they have just suffered. They're both in a post-traumatic state emotionally. But they've had enough years of experience to know that they must keep going. And they find their ways to keep themselves driven and optimistic. And they use each other as well to help them along. And they both share a spirit of adventure and energy, a drive to pursue the truth and to see that justice is done. And through that, we get to see a very, very fully rounded character for each of them. And we get to see this as they learn to trust each other more and enjoy each other's company. We get… we develop a very nice, enjoyable banter between us, and I think that's one of the key attractions to the writing into this series.

John Betancourt: What was it about Joan that jumped off the page for you?

Greta Scacchi: I like the range of emotions. I mean, she can be angry, she can be stroppy, she can be tearful, she can be outraged. She can be excited about her environment; she can be surprised by how things even in a crisis will appeal to her, will warm the cockles of her heart. And she has a lot of warmth and spirit and humor. I think that's it; I think the youthful spirit that they both have, it's nice to see. Because that is true and very often in playing an older character, you are restrained by the need to, to be performing an older character. And so, you're restricting the expression and the spirit that older people do have, regardless of what younger people might think.

John Betancourt: Now if I could, I’m going to circle back on something you said a moment ago. About how they kind of soldier on and push ahead. Because that’s a very different take on grief, especially in popular media these days. So, what I’m wondering, is what you hope audiences take away from Joan’s approach to how she is dealing with her grief?

Greta Scacchi: I think that she's… she's ready to throw herself in. I mean, the premise is that her husband has mysteriously died in Australia. She didn't even know; he was in Australia. They were a happy couple living in London with a grown-up daughter. And he was going off on a trip to Spain as usual. And then she gets the message that he’s died suddenly. And she has to go and identify the body, and it's… it's in Queensland. And she… she does that, she takes him home; they bury him. And then it becomes the questions of what? What it was that he was doing? Why was he lying to her? How bad? How, how much was he hiding? And how, how bad could it have been? Was he a criminal? Was he a murderer? Or was he murdered? All these questions, she throws herself in against her daughter's wishes. And she goes out there fearlessly driven by her need to know what happened. And so, she will, in her early 60s, go off to a country she doesn't know and drive out into the bush in a camper van. It's really very bold. And I think it's not unusual for this to happen, because I can tell you I've got friends who've done that. One actress who's in the piece. Karen Fairfax, who's in the first episode.

She's a girl that I knew in Melbourne in our youth. And she now travels around in a little van, by herself, all over Australia. And a lot of people once they're in their late 60s, early 70s. Once they retire, they do the circuit, they do the whole circumference of Australia, and of course they're called grey nomads, there's plenty of them, you have them in the States as well. And it's a feeling that once you've retired, you can actually be useful again and you can actually do the things that you'd always dreamed of doing. And if you don't do them now, then it's not gonna happen. So, you do them and I think that there's a lot of older people who have tapped into this realization and that they still have the strength. They're still healthy enough that they can go on crazy adventures, and they do.

John Betancourt: That is so true. My parents love to hop in their camper and head to Yellowstone in the summer months.

Greta Scacchi: Of course. They're enjoying nature, they're enjoying the spontaneity of changing plans, staying a day or two longer or moving on to the next place. It's a wonderful, liberating feeling. And I guess this is this is what we see with Darby and Joan, they, they have that possibility of doing things impulsively. And sometimes they share the same instinct, the same trigger to do something, even their conversation sometimes crosses over where not everything has to be said because they understand each other. And that's a sign of, of two very lively spirits.

John Betancourt: Would you say it’s a bit of a chance for them to heal, while they’re on the road?

Greta Scacchi: Yes, of course, sometimes… sometimes their focus on what they stumble upon, the new characters, the new mysteries, and what's going on around them is a distraction. It's a way that they can put something right, they can weed somebody else's garden, if they can't weed their own, you know, and that's a good message too, I suppose… is, you know, when you're in the doldrums, and you have a few problems, and it's frustrating, and you don't know how to get out of it, it's a good idea to look out of outside yourself at other things that are going on around you. Where there's actions that you can choose to make that could help. Help a situation get better.

John Betancourt: Last question I have for you today. What would you say you’re most proud of when it comes to your time on this show?

Greta Scacchi: Well, it was a very different sort of thing to what I'm used to as a type of working situation. You know, when you're doing TV, it's much faster, you get a lot more minutes done each day of the final film than, than you would normally on a film. And where a film might take seven weeks or nine weeks to make a feature film, this was more like four months, non-stop consistently, working every day. And I just love that. I love going to work with the crew and being part of you know, the hard labor of a crew, of a film crew. It's a wonderful team, they're very supportive of each other, particularly in Australia, where there's not the same hierarchical feeling that there is, the closer you get to Hollywood, where it seems, they condone this idea that some people are of more value than others.

Whereas in Australia, it's much more, every man is equal. And it's a good atmosphere to work in. So, we got through it, we got through it sometimes with you know, all sorts of weather problems and those sorts of difficulties, but also, scripts coming at the last minute and lots of lines to learn on the hop. And that contributed to a sort of different style than I'm used to. Where there was a lot of spontaneity and last-minute creativity in throwing ourselves into embodying the characters, and that makes it in a way less, less crafted, less manicured, and closer to something that is your own form of expression, your own spirit and wit.

This interview has been lightly edited and condensed for clarity.

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