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TAKING NO PRISONERS

For a while, Madeleine Sami quietly slunk off to work behind the camera rather than in front of it. But she’s back. She tells Bridget Jones she’s taking charge and changing the game in her new international series.

Madeleine Sami think ss he ha ss et a world record. “I wan ts omeone t odoac…co unt .I t cou ldbea world record. Get me in the Guinness Book.” If you have delicate sensibilities, conside rt hisa warning. Sami’s new project is filthy. And hilarious. And Australian. She reckons it’s also one of the be st t hing ss he’s ever done.

In Deadloch, Sami plays detective Eddie Redcliffe, a renegade Darwin detectiv epa rachuted int oa small tow ninl utruwita (Tasmania) t ohelpab y-the-book local cop, play edb y Wentworth’s Kate Box ,finda killer keen on chopping out men ’st ongues. The lads keep dying and the women ar ein charge. It’s ala ugh a minute.

There’s no doubt ,a t first blush, Sami’s character could seem broad and brash. There’s a scene, in the third episode, where she uses packing tape and cardboard to make a temporary jandal, before storming off dow nacoa stal Tasmanian stree t to investigat eag rowing number of m urders.

Later, s hed runkenl y tr ie st o steal a boat and sail i tt o Cuba. She’s also the kind of characte rw ho calls community-wide DNA testing “Gobby Swabb yD ay”. And she swears. A lot. But behind the polar fleece, there’s depth. Sami ge tst o play for laughs, and for emotion and all eyes ar eonhe r, and the rest of the largely-female chorus. May be i t doesn ’t s ound like it ,o r maybe it absolutely does ,b ut t his is a subversive, feminist crime drama, wit hac racking whodunit at its heart, and a mandate to break all the rules and investigate the way we think about gender and sexuality and race a st he m yste ry u nravels.

“It feel sr evolutiona ryt obepa rt of tha ts ort of storytelling and be part of helping bring tha tt o life,” says Sami.

“Being part of something like that does make yo ut hink, oh what othe r st ories can we tell?”

Big machine

Deadloch was made fo rt he small screen, and a big platfor m–P rime Video, the streaming service of global juggerna ut A mazon.

When we speak, Sami, 43 , ha s commandeered a makeup room in Melbourne, where she has been flown to film “extra content ”fo rt he show – the type of thing tha tw ould be considered bonus material on an old-school DVD menu, and thes e da ys is more likel yt o end u pon various ,bl ue-ticked social media channels.

The scale of things – and t he b udgets – added a “layer of epicness” to making the show. At one point Sami snapped photos of the lights being used on set, because she’ d ne ve rs een one st hat big before.

“Even having a discussion about having a trailer …I was like, t o be honest ,I ’m used t o ge tting changed in public toilets on New Zealand jobs, s oI ’ mno t going t obef ussy about a trailer –p ut me in anything and tha tw ill feel really fanc yt o me.”

That make-do attitude ha ss erved he rw ell on Kiwi sets for everything from The Breaker Upperers, the hit film she made with Jackie van Beek, t ohe r hi ts elf-penned comed ys eries Super City .E ven Sione’s Wedding was made modestly , de spite what it achiev eda tt he box office. And working on The Great Kiwi Bake Off, mid-winter after mid-winter, was hardl yt he stu ffofl uxury (even if the food was good).

‘Our kind of dickhead’

Sami helped write Deadloch before she was one of the stars. She was lur edo ver b yt he show’s creators, the lauded comedy duo collectively know nac ro sst he Tasman as “The Kates”, and individually know na s Kate McCartney and Kate McLennan, who “had an inkling she was our kind of dickhead”. They had been talking fo ry ears ,b utt he trio only me tw hen Sami showed u pon set in Hobart.

“Mads is also tha tr ar eb reed of performe rw ho can swit chf r omf unn yto genuinely heartbreaking t of unny again on a dime. But mainl yw e’r ej ust impressed at her capaci tyt o clear a wooden railing in a single bound like a dressage horse,” they say ,an swering as a unit.

And yes, Sami does her own stunts in Deadloch. She had helped writ eap retty physical character, after all. But i tw asn’t until The Kates asked he rt oa udition that she realised thi sw as going to be one of the be str ole ss he had ever played.

“Which is a ma ssive neg t om yself, b yt he way, becaus eI writ e mo st of m y other characters!” she says.

Catching the bug

Mads is also that rare breed of performer who can switch from funny to genuinely heartbreaking to funny again on a dime.

THE KATES

Creating differen tw orld sst arted early for Sami. She and her siblings – two sisters ,oneb rother – wer ebo r nen tertainers ,g rowing u p in Auckland’s Onehunga. Sami and siste rsA nji and Priya still sometimes perfor ma s a singing trio, The Sami Sisters.

Her paren ts s eparated when she wa sy oung, and her mum’s extended Irish Catholic family – ther ea re 23 cousins – became he r su pport network and co-conspirators. She remembers one Christmas ,pe rforming a Kylie Mole routine t oana udience of unsuspecting local nuns enjoying the day at he ru ncle’s house.

“We wer eq uite poor a sw ell, s oi tw as a way of entertaining ourselves …M um’s got photos ofmea s a 3-year-old doing faces, and doing voices,” she says.

“I b umped into an old family friend a fe wy ears ago, and she said, ‘ ohI remembe ry ou Madeleine, yo uus ed to ru nin to the walls for

TE UIUI / THE INTERVIEW

en-nz

2023-05-28T07:00:00.0000000Z

2023-05-28T07:00:00.0000000Z

https://fairfaxmedia.pressreader.com/article/283265987185110

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