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Pamela Rabe hitns people will suffer in Wentworth Season 8 Part 2 - coming 2021

Wentworth’s Joan star hints people will ‘suffer’ as villain’s memory finally returns

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EXCLUSIVE for dailystar.co.uk: Wentworth Prison fans watched as Joan Ferguson finally remembered who she was after spending much of the eighth season believing she was Kath Maxwell, and actress Pamela Rabe promises plenty of fall out in the final season

Wentworth star Pamela Rabe has promised some suffering for the other characters in the final season after her character Joan Ferguson finally remembered who she really was.

In the season eight finale, which aired on 5STAR on Wednesday night, Joan had a breakthrough with her memory after believing she was Kath Maxwell since her head injury, and glimpses of her past – including her time in prison and as the governor – all flooded back.

The Australian prison drama will return for its final season next year and, while she refused to give too many spoilers, Pamela made one thing clear: Joan’s recovery will affect everyone.

Speaking exclusively to Daily Star Online, the 61-year-old said: “Now that you’re carrying all those parts of yourself at the same time, which bits will win and, if they manifest, how will they? Who will recognise it and who will be affected by it?

“Who will suffer from it – or even benefit from it?

“That’s really the crux of the dilemma she has now, if and when the old Joan will resurface.”

Joan's memory returned after flashbacks from her childhood (Image: Freemantle)Joan’s memory returned after flashbacks from her childhood (Image: Freemantle)

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Pamela Rabe | Radiotimes.com interview about Wentworth Season 8 Part 1 and Part 2

Wentworth Prison star teases “pressure cooker” season 8 finale and 2021’s last ever episode

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Johnaton Hughes published an exclusive interview for radiotimes.com today:

Pamela Rabe also reveals how the hit Australian drama kept calm and carried on through two Melbourne lockdowns.

After weeks of violence, twists and tension, Wentworth Prison reaches its explosive eighth season finale on Wednesday 7th October on 5STAR, and stakes for the inmates could not be higher as the show edges towards the last ever episode in 2021.

The gritty Australian drama, a reboot of cult favourite Prisoner: Cell Block H, was saved from the axe in 2018 by campaigning fans who persuaded Foxtel network not to lock up the show and throw away the key as originally planned.

Committing to two more years to complete the story and bringing iconic villain Joan ‘The Freak’ Ferguson back from the dead, Wentworth Prison is now on the home stretch to its final season – so what can we expect from this week’s sign-off?

“There is a sense of pressure from the repression of Joan’s amnesia,” says Pamela Rabe, the award-winning actress who plays Joan, speaking exclusively to RadioTimes.com. Read More

Pamela Rabe | Interview for metro.co.uk about the final Wentworth season

Metro Interview: Wentworth Prison star Pamela Rabe only returned if Joan and Vera would have scenes

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Duncan Lindsay shared his latest exclusive interview with Pamela Rabe for Metro.co.uk earlier today:

Wentworth Prison star Pamela Rabe reveals what made her return and her favourite scene

No character’s journey in any recent TV show has been quite as complex and morbidly fascinating as that of Joan Ferguson in Australian prison drama hit Wentworth. And during the eighth season, we have seen a much more vulnerable and challenging side to the character, who has lost almost everything about her and is certain that she is Kath Maxwell.

It’s something that Pamela Rabe, the majorly talented star behind the icon (or is it the other way round?) found highly difficult as she returned – but it was a process she enthused to Metro.co.uk that she thoroughly enjoyed.

She smiled: ‘As I’ve said to you before, it’s always a joy with that group of people. It comes with all its challenges – when they push the character to extraordinary extremes and take away her memory, it’s hard to hold on to a character who is credibly the same person for the audience.

‘So we had to make decisions on which characteristics, qualities and appearance remained the same even if her memory of her actions had disappeared. It was a great challenge – I wouldn’t call it a joy but exciting and good, hard work!

Joan/Kath has been on an incredible journey (Picture: Channel 5)

‘We’re all like that here. As every season builds to a finale, there’s always someone going through high octane laundry press moments – Danielle (Cormack), Nicole (da Silva), Tammie (MacIntosh) – we all go through it. It was my turn for it to come round! Read More

Pamela Rabe | Back From The Dead | Sunday Mail Interview

Back From The Dead (The Binge Guide)

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PAMELA RABE WAS JUST AS SHOCKED AS ANYONE ABOUT HER RETURN TO WENTWORTH, WRITES CAMERON ADAMS

Pamela Rabe as Joan Ferguson / Kath Maxwell in Wentworth Season 8 RedemptionEven when Joan The Freak’ Ferguson was buried alive in Wentworth three years ago, fans of the hit Foxtel drama series still weren’t convinced she was dead. For Pamela Rabe, whose chilling performance of Ferguson saw her win a Logie for Most Outstanding Actress in 2018, she was certain she’d filmed her final scenes and The Freak had gone for good. While she came back “to haunt (nemesis) Will Jackson” a few times in flashback scenes in the next season, she decompressed from portraying one of Australian television’s darkest characters through comedy (starring in limited series Pitting Adelaide) and her beloved theatre work. But if anyone could cheat death, even when buried in the bush, it was The Freak. Not only was Wentworth saved from being axed in part after fans campaigned for its return, but Rabe got the call back too for the series’ final season, which started filming this year and will play out until 2021.

“I assumed Joan was gone, and she’d gone out with a bang,” Rabe tells The BINGE Guide.

“I was as surprised as anyone to get the phone call but I’m thrilled it happened. I didn’t expect to come back to Wentworth, and I don’t think many of my fellow cast members knew until I rocked up to the set again.

“The story wasn’t finished, not just the Joan Ferguson story but the whole arc of the show. The writing department at Wentworth lay seeds for a very long arc of stories. That long arc wasn’t finished yet. I’m thrilled for them they get to finish this off properly and I’m lucky they considered Joan Ferguson to be a part of that.” Read More

Pamela Rabe and Nadine Garner | Photograph 51 Interview

Photograph 51 interview with Pamela Rabe and Nadine Garner

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The woman who was cheated of DNA glory goes deeper for Pamela Rabe

It can be mesmerising to see the beauty of what is known, rather unimaginatively, as Photo 51. The photo – resembling a monochrome, mandala-like artwork – was crucial to the discovery of the structure of DNA. It is also a pivot around which Anna Ziegler’s 2008 play Photograph 51 revolves.

At one point the central character, English scientist Dr Rosalind Franklin, stands with the photo in front of her face, staring into its mysteries and potential revelations. Well might we all: as Pamela Rabe notes, this photo is about the secret of life – and the play, which Rabe is directing for the Melbourne Theatre Company, explores that secret at both the scientific and more personal, philosophical level.

The photo, taken in 1952 as part of Franklin’s investigations, is an X-ray “diffraction image” of crystallised DNA. It was vital evidence to identify the structure of DNA – but, in what remains a controversy, Photo 51 was shown without Franklin’s knowledge to another scientist.
The 1962 Nobel prize for medicine went to James Watson, Francis Crick and Rosalind Franklin’s colleague, Maurice Wilkins – the man who had shared the photo. The three men – and the play tells us a lot about men of those days – used the image to develop their prize-winning chemical model of DNA while Franklin, with quiet, professional dedication, had unknowingly persevered with her own meticulous work on the problem.

Pamela Rabe and Nadine Garner during a break in rehearsals. Photo: Eddie JimPamela Rabe and Nadine Garner during a break in rehearsals. Photo: Eddie Jim

Franklin died of ovarian cancer in 1958 when she was 37 – five years after Crick, Watson and Wilkins published their findings in Nature, and four years before they received the Nobel. In the play, these men and two others convene with Franklin to discuss “her place in history”. In one unbroken, energetic act, the play slips between locations and scenes; our imaginations conjure the worlds evoked by the words, especially Franklin’s. Read More

Pamela Rabe | Joan Ferguson returns to Wentworth for Season 8

Kate Atkinson interview about Pamela Rabe’s return to Wentworth

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There’s a new interview with Kate Atkinson about the Wentworth season finale on NT News. Here’s the part about Pam:

Apparently there is no coffin that can hold Joan ‘The Freak’ Ferguson. She is alive and well and living rough on the streets of Melbourne.

That’s how season seven of Wentworth ended, with The Freak surfacing just before the end credits, lurking around in a hoodie, keeping warm around a fire, no doubt plotting her revenge.

Fans of the show had closure on one of Australian TV’s most iconic characters of all time when what was believed to be Ferguson’s corpse was shown in this series.

Ferguson, played to perfection by Pamela Rabe (she joined the show in 2014), was being buried alive by prison guard Will Jackson (Robbie J Magasiva) in last season’s cliffhanger.

However Rabe will return to Wentworth for series eight, which starts filming in Melbourne in October.

Kate Atkinson, who plays The Freak’s one-time mentoree and full-time nemesis — prison governor Vera Bennett — is delighted.

She’s also delighted Vera, who spent the last episode of season seven pregnant and at gunpoint in a siege, made it out alive, with a daughter (born, of course, in the prison’s boiler room).

“I knew quite early on the writers had been strategizing to somehow work The Freak back into the story,” Atkinson says.

Pamela Rabe returns as Joan Ferguson for Wentworth Season 8 | Photo: FoxtelPamela Rabe returns as Joan Ferguson for Wentworth Season 8 | Photo: Foxtel

“Pam Rabe and I have a very happy collaborative relationship. I don’t quite know what’s in store for us, but the Vera and Ferguson story is not finished. We’ve stayed in contact since she left the show but to have her back in the prison is beyond exciting. I can’t say anything but the writers pull off the most implausible things. How do you literally bring someone back from the dead? But they will. They’ve got some cunning and clever storylines for The Freak. It’s fascinating stuff.”

While there’s been some fan backlash to The Freak’s return, Atkinson says viewers should wait until the new episodes air next year to judge.

“The Freak brought a different dimension to the show. Wentworth has never pretended to be a documentary or social realism, it’s heightened, heightened drama. She just brought a whole other kind of theatrical height to this show. The writers loved playing with it. They’re teetering on the edge of the logic of how you make these things work but it works because they’ve told me how they’re doing it. And I think people want to go for the ride. If that means having Pamela Rabe back on your screens we should all be very happy.”

Atkinson says that final scene, with The Freak’s return, was kept deliberately top secret.

“There’s a few other people in that scene, but they’re all crew or writers or staff, so that no one would know The Freak was coming back. All it takes is one loose cannon. That was a very closed set.”

The full interview is available at ntnews.com.au

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Joan Ferguson is alive! Will Pamela Rabe return for Wentworth Season 8 and 9

Wentworth – The Freak is Alive! Pamela Rabe Will Return For Season 8

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Almost had a heart attack after seeing the last few seconds of season 7! Best news 2019 so far! Check out this nowtolove.com.au article for everything about this fantastic Wentworth season finale + a short video of Joan’s return!

Jo Porter about the episode:

Jo, we need to know, was it always your intention to have The Freak re-appear at some point?
You might have noticed we never had DNA confirmation that it was actually her in the box – and if anyone could pull this off, well it would be Joan! I can’t wait for the audience theories on how this was possible. I will say [script producer] Marcia Gardner and her writing team have once again done an incredible job of earthing the Joan story – no pun intended!
We know it’s early days, but can you hint at what may be explored in the final 20 episodes?
The ending of series seven has left some tantalising story threads hanging. How will the prison rebuild after the trauma of the failed siege (Marie has been exposed to the women for her role in this)? How will Boomer and Ruby cope inside without the person who had their back? Rita is in police protection, we’ll see Vera coping as a mother, and who will take over the mantle of Top Dog? And, of course, the big one – just how DID Joan Ferguson survive?

Source: nowtolove.com.au

Wentworth season 7 finale bombshells revealed!

Deaths, shock returns and LOTS of tears… Everything that happened in that heartbreaking finale.

It’s shock, after shock, after shock in Wentworth’s explosive season finale!
And before you continue reading, we have to warn you:

MAJOR, MAJOR, MAJOR SPOILERS AHEAD

Fans have been left reeling after the death of two inmates… and the shock return of The Freak!
That’s right. The Wentworth season seven finale has just aired, and it ended with the mother of all cliffhangers: the return of The Freak!

Just when we thought we couldn’t be any more flabbergasted, along came a final scene, which showed Joan Ferguson (Pamela Rabe) alive and well, seemingly living rough and presumably quietly scheming her revenge.

We’ve got ACTUAL chills!

What this means for Will (Robbie Magasiva), Vera (Kate Atkinson) and Jake (Bernard Curry) is anyone’s guess. But all we can say is thank goodness this show got a last-minute reprieve and was picked up for another 20 episodes, because now we’ll actually get to find out!

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Pamela Rabe Interview about Wentworth and The Hunting

Pamela Rabe’s Big TV Comeback

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It’s been more than two years since Pamela Rabe’s Wentworth character, Joan “The Freak” Ferguson was buried alive in the season-five finale. That’s a long time to come to terms with The Freak’s death.

And yet even the most cynical Wentworth fan will admit that every time the lights get low and the music drops, they’re half-expecting the character to come back from the dead.

So haunting was Pamela’s portrayal of the governor-turned-prisoner that Wentworth fans remain convinced The Freak is unkillable. Turns out, maybe they’re right.

“Well, is she gone?” Pamela asks with a laugh on the phone to TV WEEK, her voice still carrying hints of the menace that made Joan so unforgettable.

“I have no idea. If I did, I wouldn’t be able to say anything about it or I’d have to kill you.”
Pamela is joking – we hope – but for now, secrets around the future of Wentworth remain tightly guarded. But if the acclaimed show has taught us anything, it’s never say never.

“She was buried alive in the box, and who knows what will become of her? Who knows if she’s really gone?” the 60-year-old teases.

It’s clear, just listening to the actress talk about Wentworth, that the TV WEEK Logie Award-winning show still holds a special place in her heart.

 

 

Pamela Rabe in “The Hunting”, Video by sbs.com.au

“It’s a once-in-a-lifetime job,” she says. “I know that – I think we all knew that.”
So even if The Freak is no more, she’s still very much alive in Pamela’s head, and the women she left behind remain in her thoughts.

“I have such admiration for the producers, directors and actors,” the actress says. “Particularly the writers for crafting with such care. And delivering narratives that place women front and centre – women of all shapes and sizes and moralities.”

With the season-seven finale having just aired, and another batch of episodes on the way next year, Pamela is tipping some familiar faces might bid farewell.

“People come, people go, people die, people get released – Wentworth is great because there’s a constant refreshing of characters and stories,” she explains.

“But there’s also a threat of constant danger for the few who’ve been there from the beginning.”