Tina Bursill is an award-winning Australian actress whose fabulous career stretches across decades and genres. From working on projects such as Jilted (1987), for which she won the AFI Award for Best Supporting Actress in a film, Neighbours (2014), Doctor Doctor (2016-2021) and the musical Cinderella (2022), just to name a select few, Bursill has become a powerhouse of stage, television, and film. And she's used her extraordinary experience and influence to make real change in the Australian entertainment industry's workplace safety, both physical and psychological.
In her most recent project One Night, Bursill portrays Helen Owen, Tess’ mother. When Tess left Australia twenty years ago, their relationship was turbulent and fraught with disagreements that were, as Bursill states, caused by generational differences and a resistance to find middle ground. For a long time, Helen has felt disconnected from Tess, and that disconnection only intensified after her daughter's assault. So when Tess returned to Australia with her family in tow, Helen did everything she could to ensure it was clear that she wanted to do things differently this time.
During a late night Zoom, thanks to the time zone differences among the USA, UK, and Australia, we were fortunate enough to interview Bursill, who was generous both with her time and her insights, opening up about how productions approach intimacy, her point of view on Helen and Tess’ relationship, and the imposing landscape of the South Coast.
// Please be aware that, due to the themes represented in the TV series One Night such as sexual assault, PTSD and addiction, it was inevitable that some of those topics would be discussed in our interviews. //
Helena Emmanuel: We’re really thrilled and grateful to be talking with you. Thank you so much for giving us some of your time.
Tina Bursill: Oh, it's fabulous. I was thrilled to see that Harper (Simon) and Emily (Ballou) were also included in this [feature], and Lisa (Matthews). You know, I'd worked with Lisa before as a director on another TV show, a long running show, and it was great because she’s a documentary filmmaker. So it's great to see her going to drama. I thought the second half of the series was robust. The script is there and is robust, but I liked her take on it.
Céline Whitby: It's interesting actually that two parts, in the program, the first three and then the second three. Does that make sense?
Tina: Yes, absolutely. Yes, and I was surprised too. I mean logically that makes sense because it's two eyes, two versions, two people with different [views], even though there was a continuity in its flavour. I did see the difference with just shots, and we had a different cinematographer too. Mind you, you can't escape that incredible escarpment that just sits there and is like another person.
It depends on your perspective, but the escarpment in the Illawarra can also claim a very, very different mood as well but in this instance, it's just that additional component to the story where it just hangs. It's there and it waits.
I know the area very, very well because I lived there for a part of my life and by 3:00, 3:30 in the afternoon when the sun sets in the west, the escarpment is like one long cloud. Particularly in winter because the sun goes about 3:30 in the afternoon so it's quite dark and cold. Then you've got the excitement or the drama of the water which is the coastline. I thought it supported the story so well. Then of course you've got the actual story, and the people that live there. It's quite wonderful.
HE: We’re grateful to have talked to Lisa already and Emily as well, and we asked about the landscape and the scenery of the South Coast and the area you filmed in mostly. And its presence really is beautiful, but also imposing. And it really, really fits.
Tina: Absolutely. it's another voice, if you like, without it being overly shot either. It’s a wonderful area. The topography of the South Coast is absolutely wonderful. The south has a ruggedness about it. You can see the bottom of Australia, the tip of Tasmania sitting in the bottom of the cradle of it. You can almost see that it was once one. It's like a spine down the South Coast. It's really very, very strong and powerful.
You can feel it's broken away, and the coast of Tasmania has a similarity about its roughness as well. It's beautiful. So wonderful to see this being captured with a story such as this, which is quite oppressing in some ways as well as liberating.
CW: Cathartic is the word that comes to mind for me.
Tina: Yes. Cathartic. That story, bringing it back after 20 years, it's like a hand grenade. It explodes and all the aftermath of that explosion is picking up those people and pieces. Picking them up or tossing them around.
CW: The [event in One Night] is something that is very familiar to me, having gone through something similar myself, where it took me seven years to come to the realisation of what happened and be able to put it into words. Then it really was like something just imploded and then exploded. Then it was never the same. I was never the same once I came face to face with my truth, so to speak.
Tina: Face to face with your truth, does that mean that moving beyond that, when you say never the same, in a good way?
CW: Oh absolutely. This is obviously not an experience that I would wish on anyone, but ultimately, I've built on it. Despite it, not against it, if that makes sense.
Tina: Yes, yes. Well, it's too much. The energy to be against something is crippling. The combat is just not worth it. You might as well just surrender and then move past it. Which is why this piece is timeless. It's so important, isn't it? The thing is, it’s timely because rape, domestic violence, any abuse whatsoever is timeless. Because when hasn’t it been?
I think that’s what speaks to me as far as this piece is concerned and the fact that it is set 20 years earlier.
HE: We've spoken to Lisa Matthews, Kat Stewart, and some of the younger cast about the introductions of intimacy coordinators on set in recent years. You've had a very interesting and rich career as an actor yourself. Drawing from your own experiences, have you noticed a shift in behaviours and attitudes in how productions approach intimacy and consent?
Tina: Yes, very much so. In fact, I have this conversation a lot with my peers, my contemporaries, because 50 years is a long time in this industry. I started with that horrible expression called the "casting couch". It was frequent, with respect to myself - a tall, long, leggy, blonde girl keen as mustard to be a part of everything - actually having these subtle advances made to you. Subtle in some instances and not so subtle.
They're really grassroots responses that I'll be saying now, before I elaborate. I had a very good upbringing whereby I had a very forthright mother and I remember saying to her in instances at work, like doing a kiss on stage and someone's tongue rammed down my throat when in drama school I was told you kiss a certain way – you had to act it, belonging to that person, but certainly not get off on it. I said to mum, "I hate it. His hands are on me or somebody's touching me and leaning up against me" and all of that. I love my mother for this reason: she said, "Tell him to get lost." She said to my father, "You’re a man-" this is, remember, the fifties, the sixties. She said, "What should she do?" It was really simplistic, but it was like, "You’re a man. What should she do? How can we guide her?" It was a really primal response. It was like, "Knee him in the groin." That's what I was armed with.
We are now in a workplace environment where we now have, thank goodness, the #MeToo movement. It was so enlightening for so many people globally. In Australia, I belong to the union. I’m a very strong union person, because it's a community and it's a collaborative organisation to talk about things to improve conditions. We had a young woman come in – and this was recent – a young actress that was being fondled and abused on stage during a performance. And [on stage] you can't escape that; on set, you've got all sorts of things going on in subtle ways. We had to sit down and think, "What can we do?" It had already started in America, solutions of how we could come together. The greatest thing is people came together uncensored and we were able to disclose behaviour. We then had to use that behaviour. "How can we have a rule book? How can we manage this?" because people were coming into these meetings disclosing horrible things that had affected them. Not everybody's built in the headspace that you can turn around and tell someone to fuck off, you know? So we had to come together and find a template, a booklet because the response to so many people is one of aggression, if you get called out on it.
Cut to the chase, having gone through two and a half years of that, with one person who was driving it because it was this one person who was abused by an international actor on stage on a nightly basis. We were always told in a theatre production to go to your stage manager, and in film or television I'd go to a producer or a director to say, "Watch that one over there". So this all started to become a template, which then became a booklet, which then became a way to work. That incorporated bullying in the workplace as well and how subtle that can be, the variations of that. Then understanding what those variations may be.
Each job now in the last, say, 18 months, 12 months that I've joined, has two days of workshop at the beginning of a theatre production, certainly the big, large commercial ones like the massive musical I did [recently]. That means you've got very young people, people uncertain of their sexuality, people who are green and new to the business, full of joy and excitement for everything, and not having a rule book or knowing what to do or say. [With the workshop] everybody hears the language. Everybody hears what that may mean if someone says, "Why did you wear that today?" and then the response. So we workshop that. It's just been wonderful.
So my answer to that is, yes, it was not great [without intimacy coordinators]. This whole movement of making these changes…I think it's wonderful. I just think it makes for a much nicer environment and an environment where people are on the same page. You can call someone out in a language now that is not going to offend, or hopefully not offend. I think it's enabled us to be freer. I think it's wonderful. I mean, I remember being in a room years ago doing a bed scene and suddenly the entire crew was at the end of the bed. This is a long time ago, and I remember saying, "Excuse me, excuse me, I'm not comfortable here. I thought this was a closed set. Why are all of you suddenly here? No, I'm not comfortable!" The curious thing about speaking up for myself then was that it then, in turn, liberated me when they all left the room, because then I was able to feel more comfortable in the space and the environment.
We still have a long way to go because we're basically learning a new language of how to speak to people. Generally, you know, the acts of kindness. We really are learning new things. How liberating. How brilliant.
HE: One of the things that I resonated so much with in the show is the kind of relationship that the three main characters - and Helen and the supporting characters - have to their own womanhood and motherhood, whether it's being a mother themselves or having a mother - or not having one. I'm curious about your opinion on what Helen's relationship to her own motherhood is and how she views her relationship with Tess.
Tina: I think Emily Ballou’s writing is absolutely wonderful and I was drawn to this because it's so lean and it evokes so much more at a performance level. It's complex too, so looking at Helen, the environment with which she would have lived before motherhood, I believe coincided with a movement at that time, which was really on the ends of the peace movements, the world of love. I think it’s also challenging… the wars, the post wars, the Vietnam war specifically. So if you've got that history, that determines Helen’s take on the world.
I made a choice that she had a take on the world that was fairly easygoing, the coastal environment contributing to that easygoingness. Living near the water, by the water, being able to swim in the water each day, really affects the body and the rhythms of someone like Helen. That's just the temperament, I guess, and that I was what I was working on with Helen.
There's a good time girl in there, very much so, which was a reflection of the times. I think whatever the circumstances were with Helen, she was ultimately a single mother. The primal instinct of motherhood is to make that small child survive. The baby dwells in the womb, you have control and nurture over that, but not over the free spirit. When the baby's born, Tess is a different spirit to Helen.
CW: Was a different spirit of the mother in the first place.
Tina: Yes but she's also had a life event that has changed her. So I was looking for what happened, what was the relationship before that event? That's what I was trying to foster so that I could see the shift that the impact of the event had on Helen and the impact it had on Tess, and to try to understand Tess, but to also understand what that feeling was for Helen as well.
I'm not sure [Helen] had a profession as such. I think that that relationship would have been a typical mother daughter relationship of nourishment, of nurture, to feed, to provide, to school.
The crux of the change is post that event, the morning after. Because of the way Helen's equipped in life - the three love movement, the advent of the pill - all the things that were changing during that time which she was living in. To have that explanation to a daughter, to not read the room, but to, well, take a morning after pill. You know, if you'd come to me earlier, I could have done something. I thought, well, what would [Helen] have done?
CW: You were mentioning words and vocabulary and how that all changes now. I'm just thinking of something that Helen said to Tess that very morning, "Clock it up to experience and don't get too drunk in the future". Does that hint at the fact that Helen has gone through something similar, or does it come from her background of growing up in the love movement, the flower movement etc? Maybe Helen didn't have the right words, which means that Tess couldn't come to her mother because the vocabulary wasn't there?
Tina: That's a good point. That certainly was an element of what I was looking at in terms of playing it. I think pragmatism was one of the things that we decided on, certainly on the day that she was pragmatic because of maybe a previous experience of her own.
If I think in the past, had she fallen pregnant, she probably would have done something about it, because it was, politically, that was available then. There were [backyard] clinics and you could go and do that. That could be facilitated through a doctor or through various people. Of course there are downsides of that. I think given that scene, the way it panned out, the end result was pragmatism.
I think the advice given in that moment is all based on either a previous experience or based on a life lesson.
CW: Yeah, that's the type of instinct that's been chosen by her, you know, to provide for her daughter and for herself.
Tina: I think that's not a bad toolkit to have. Just now, when we were talking about the intimacy coordinator, you don't always know what and how a person's going to receive that.
HE: She’s clearly a very dynamic, nuanced, and complex character in the few scenes that we did see of her. There's a lot happening here that we're not being told. So it's great to hear from you but what your view on her is.
Tina: Well, thank you. Ultimately, it is the story of the three girls and their friendship over a period of time and also the reflection of that event. When I spoke with Emily before all this, I was fiercely wanting to contribute lots because I was so excited and loved being a part of it. I knew my role and I knew what I could do each time the camera would come around. I believed that I could contribute something to that. Emily had commented that Helen would have been at parties all the time, parties at the house, a vibrancy, a love. I think that that also reflects on her thirst for life.
Sheldon, who did my hair and makeup… I said, I want a woman that looks as if she goes for a swim in the morning and she comes back up the beach and puts on whatever. The sea is her shower, the ocean is her water. The hair, the face, the sun would reflect that, someone who lives for the elements and is part of the elements.
We actually had a product called Salt Spray. Wonderful that [the hair] could be the way that it looked like she'd come out of the surf. Get out of bed and throw yourself in the ocean. It's so cleansing and refreshing and then of course, the environment that she lives in.
I know Helen would have flown to England. Helen would have met those children, the grandchildren, and the partner. She would have met them all. So we worked out that when we first saw [Tess, Vicki and the family] that it was a reunion.
I asked myself what is Helen feeling about this and why is she no longer able to reach her? It wasn't just those comments of "take the morning after pill" and "don't drink that much." It's more than that. I think [Helen and Tess] were different spirits. Given the history of a woman of that age, in that age group, in that time, my generation, we were pushing down boundaries all the time because it was new. We wanted a voice so much and to poo poo all the static life.
HE: We were keen to hear your thoughts on who Helen was and what her relationship to her daughter and to her own family was, and you put it into words really well.
Tina: Oh, and also the girls, they would have always been coming in and out of the house. I think Helen's house was an open door. You could always feel relaxed and comfortable there, which is why the Tess component, certainly upon her return, [Tess] says she puts off seeing her mother when they return.
I think that that is an indication that they just don't see eye to eye. They're not on the same page. Maybe sprinkle in that inability to have compassion for her daughter. The thing that's really interesting about Helen is that Helen desires the daughter, her company, she desires having her there as a family, in that place, where that door is open. I wondered if she knew about Tess's eating disorder. I think that emerged when she went to London, but all those things, she's reaching out In her way, but I think there's a sense of being rejected.
I know there's a scene where she goes and sits with her on the beach on a bench and is saying just stay, stay. I think it's twofold. "I want you here. I miss you. I want to be part of you. I want to get to know you and you'll be safe," and yet you've got this looming element of these men. Helen's not privy to maybe all of that.
She's aware of things more so than we give her credit on screen, I think.
HE: Yeah. Even the way Helen talks to Tess about Lily, about her daughter, is really interesting, too. A few times you hear Helen say to her, "Well, you haven't told her," and Tess is like, leave me alone.
Tina: I remember that was quite a proactive thing from Helen. We didn't see that before. I think it was like eggshells all the time. Helen and Tess, it seems Helen couldn't quite put it there. So when she finally does ask her to stay and at the end, when she's helped folding up things, she's more proactive in seeing the distress that's occurred around this book.
HE: I was almost hesitant to ask you about Helen's relationship to motherhood because we didn't want to feel like we were kind of dismissing the rest of her life. Her relationship to Tess in this is really, really rich and has so much history. So it was something we really wanted to hear your perspective on.
Tina: It's just part of the puzzle or the tapestry, I guess, isn't it? The fabric of the piece of what’s made, why people do things and how they behave. It has to be that.
You can find Tina in the upcoming series Strife premiering on December 6th on Binge, and in the play called The Children, starting on February 2nd, 2024 at the Dunstan Playhouse, Adelaide Festival Centre.
Words: Candice Dupire & Alfie Whitby
Interview: Helena Emmanuel (HE) and Céline Whitby (CW) (with questions submitted by the RTR team)
You can watch One Night on Paramount+ UK & Ireland and Paramount+ Australia now.
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