If Noni Hazlehurst has any regrets in her life it has nothing to do with her acting.
While there were loads of things she might have done differently she was really grateful for her career and happy with what she had achieved. “May it continue,” Noni chuckles.
Speaking to Starts At 60 from her Gold Coast home, while on Easter break from filming A Place To Call Home, Noni said if there was something she could change from 30 years ago it would be personal. “I’d probably have a couple more kids,” she laughs.
Noni was born to be a star. Being a fourth generation performer the 63-year-old never knew another life. “It really didn’t occur to me to do anything else.”
When her parents realised her passion and talents they made sure she had all the skills she needed, providing her lessons in piano, ballet, calisthenics, accents and comedy timing. They also insisted she go to university to have something to fall back on. After doing a drama degree majoring in performance at the age of 20 Noni went straight to Crawfords to start work on police dramas such as Matlock and Division 4 before getting her big break in iconic Australian television shows The Box and The Sullivans.
In those early days Noni recalls Fred Betts and Bud Tingwell as being great mentors but said it was Judy Dench who was her idol, for being in the moment, truthful and believable. Those same traits you could say describe Noni.
Her early career was during the days of only four television channels, which seems so bizarre to Noni now. It was also an era where a lot of people watched television because there were far fewer things to watch, so after scoring a role in Playschool from 1979 Noni well and truly became a household name. “I became pretty much well known for my name, my first name, which was kind of unusual.”
The friendly face on Playschool is about as far removed as you can get from Noni’s current role as the steely matriarch Elizabeth Bligh in A Place to Call Home.
Noni said playing different characters is what keeps acting interesting. “People watch to see themselves, and we all know a person like her (Elizabeth), we all have some of those characteristics in ourselves. I think she is a really interesting character. I love her to bits.”
It was the layers of all the characters in the show she felt made them real to viewers. “ They’re not just the baddie or the old grump, they are rich characters with lots of flaws and weaknesses as well as successes; they are believable.” Sometimes too believable, Noni laughed, describing her transformation on set with hairstyle and costuming. “All of a sudden there is my nanna,’ she laughed. “It’s really weird”
Noni described the costumes, despite being uncomfortable to wear by modern standards, as being accurate in their detail to the era, and just beautiful. It’s something that follows through to the attention to detail on set. That’s what makes A Place To Call Home the success it is, Noni believes, with heads of department at the top of their game from set designers to costume designers to script writers and camera people. “All the detail is brilliant, everything you look at is beautiful.”
While the scripting was very good as well as the acting talent, she said the historical element also attracted a lot of attention because ‘we didn’t really know a lot about our history’.
Life on the set, Noni said, it a completely different world; 5am hair and make-up, work through to 6 or 7 at night, five days a week. “We often say we get paid for the waiting and we do the acting for nothing.” Even with all the waiting Noni says she is never bored on set. “I love fossicking around on the set, because I always find something to read that’s interesting, even if it is just the advertising in the old magazines.”
While season five is still being filmed and a sixth season is yet to be confirmed, the show is still very much in people’s hearts and minds. A Place to Call Home won the Logie for Most Outstanding Drama Series on Sunday night, up against Wentworth, Cleverman, The Code and Rake. “We are very grateful that we have had five years out of this, its extraordinary.” A Place to Call Home Season 4 is out on DVD from April 26.