Rachel Ward

World Screen Weekly, August 2, 2007

Actor

Her role in the groundbreaking 1983 miniseries The Thorn Birds as Meggie Cleary, and her doomed love for Father Ralph, played by Richard Chamberlain, gave her worldwide notoriety. But it is not the role Rachel Ward wants to be remembered for.

The Thorn Birds came early in Ward’s career. “At that time I was much more plugged into the approval of my peers and the critics, rather than the general public,” she explains. “It had such an extraordinary response and for my entire life I’ve seen how affected people were by that show and how much they loved it. And yet for me it was an embarrassment for many years. I never got to enjoy the success of The Thorn Birds. It was one of the first soap operas and they are hard to do—they are really hard to pull off. It was the commitment of all of the performers that made it work as well as it did.”

Ward left the Hollywood scene, married The Thorn Birds co-star Bryan Brown, moved to Australia and had three children. She carefully selected acting roles that had significance to her and dedicated herself to perfecting her skills as a screenwriter and director.

She went back to school initially to learn how to write. “I wanted to write a novel and get the discipline of writing, but I didn’t want to write screenplays,” explains Ward. “I actually found that my skill was dialogue. I do have a really good ear for dialogue, and I thought I shouldn’t throw that away unnecessarily.”

As a writer and director, Ward has not shied away from gritty and uncomfortable topics, including the shorts Blindman’s Bluff and The Big House, both of which were critically acclaimed. Despite her love of writing and directing, she has worked selectively in front of the camera for both film and television, including the feature The Good Wife; the Showtime mini-series remake of On The Beach; the USA Network TV movie, My Stepson, My Lover and the series of TV movies Twisted for Nine Network in Australia—a project initiated by her husband.

Recently, she starred in a TV drama series that had particular appeal to her, Rain Shadow, an ABC Australia/Southern Star Entertainment production, distributed by Southern Star International. Set in the harsh Australian outback, Rain Shadow is the story of country veterinarian Kate McDonald (Ward) who battles to keep her community afloat in the face of an unrelenting drought. Forced by necessity, Kate hires a new veterinary assistant, Jill (Victoria Thaine) who is feisty, defiant, and quite the opposite of Kate. “We come at life with quite different perspectives,” explains Ward. “Jill is a fresh graduate and comes with a lot of theory, while I come from experience and a very practical application of the rules and regulations and which ones you abide by and which ones you can navigate. This young girl is very different from me. She’s got a wonderful, open, na�ve and fresh enthusiasm about her, and my character is much more grumpy and sort of emotionally dysfunctional. And I carry a tragic secret throughout the series that Jill is determined to unravel, which is the reason for my emotional shutdown.”

Not only did the relationship between two strong women from different generations appeal to Ward, Rain Shadow also addresses serious topical issues like global warming, and the impact of environmental damage on communities. One of the backdrops to the series is farming in rural Australia and the crucial role that climate plays in the lives of its inhabitants. “It’s quite hard to talk about such serious topics in an entertainment way, and I think Rain Shadow does that very well,” says Ward.

—By Anna Carugati