Read more about the article YOU DON’T RUN THIS INTERVIEW, I DO: ‘Wentworth’ star Pamela Rabe on Joan “The Freak” Ferguson

YOU DON’T RUN THIS INTERVIEW, I DO: ‘Wentworth’ star Pamela Rabe on Joan “The Freak” Ferguson

by McKenzie Morrell on September 18, 2015

Every story needs a villain and man, we’ve hit the jackpot! Joan “The Freak” Ferguson is one of those anomalous creatures you hate the love and love to hate. The character, who is played by the incomparable Pamela Rabe, was introduced in season two of Foxtel’s reimagining of the prison drama and let’s just say that Wentworth will never be the same again.

Categorized as one of the meanest women on TV, Rabe sets the bar (extremely) high when it comes to all things freaky. Sporting her black leather gloves and ice cold stare, she might represent the law, but whether or not she upholds it (in a humane and ethical manner) is constantly up for interpretation. Ferguson, who is arguably the best psychopath we’ve seen on our screens in a long time, really brings the thunder with strategic planning, and her twisted sights set on complete and total revenge. Between her manipulative ways (RIP Jodie’s eye), or her struggle for power (all hail Queen Bea), this woman ain’t going down without a fight– and a fight you shall have. (more…)

Continue ReadingYOU DON’T RUN THIS INTERVIEW, I DO: ‘Wentworth’ star Pamela Rabe on Joan “The Freak” Ferguson
Read more about the article Pamela Rabe exclusive Wentworth interview – “I’ll say it, what the f**k, I’ll say it!”

Pamela Rabe exclusive Wentworth interview – “I’ll say it, what the f**k, I’ll say it!”

by Daniel Falconer |

In the third of our four Wentworth Prison interviews, Pamela Rabe talks all things freaky, her villainous character Joan Ferguson and more in a hilariously honest and refreshing interview. Read on to find out what she had to say.

First off, going back really to when you first joined the show, what drew you to Wentworth and the role of Joan Ferguson?

Oo, that’s a tricky one. I suppose, oh goodness. Many, many things. But the first part of it, I would say, I’ve often, because of the way I look really I suppose, and perhaps the way I act, I’ve often been given the opportunity to play some great, very strong women, and often wicked women. Although I wasn’t a huge watcher of the original Prisoner Cell Block H series, I was very aware of it and of its cultural impact. And also Maggie Kirkpatrick who originated the role of The Freak, Joan Ferguson, is a good mate of mine, and we’ve worked together onstage a number of times, so I was very aware of Maggie’s creation, more as a cultural icon than anything but also the impact that it’s had, and I’ve had lots of conversations around that. So I was very aware of what the role was, but not necessarily in its detail or complexity, but just kind of, as an archetype. (more…)

Continue ReadingPamela Rabe exclusive Wentworth interview – “I’ll say it, what the f**k, I’ll say it!”
Read more about the article Wentworth’s Pamela Rabe: ‘People squeal when they see me off set’

Wentworth’s Pamela Rabe: ‘People squeal when they see me off set’

EVEN though she’s technically on the right side of the law, Pamela Rabe who plays Wentworth’s Governor Joan Ferguson is arguably the biggest villain on TV.

EVEN though she’s technically on the right side of the law, Governor Joan Ferguson is arguably the biggest villain within the Wentworth walls.

And Pamela Rabe, the woman who portrays her in the third season of Wentworth, which won a Silver Logie for Most Outstanding Drama Series on May 3, says that it’s ‘a gift’ to play the meanest woman on TV.

“I can’t say I lick my lips when I read some of the stuff she’s going to do,” Rabe says of the despicable acts including torture and attempted murder her character undertakes.

“But there’s a professional pleasure in that, yes.”

(more…)

Continue ReadingWentworth’s Pamela Rabe: ‘People squeal when they see me off set’
Read more about the article FREAKOUT

FREAKOUT

‘Wentworth’, Foxtel’s reimaging of the iconic Australian series ‘Prisoner’ has been a ratings smash around the world and the third season is about to start soon. We caught up with actor Pamela Rabe, who plays Joan ‘The Freak’ Ferguson, the governor of Wentworth who joined the show last season inhabiting the role made famous by Maggie Kirkpatrick.

Despite our best interrogation, Pamela wouldn’t give much up about what will happen in Season 3.

Of all the characters in Wentworth, Joan Ferguson has to be the most iconic of them all. Did you have any trepidation before taking on the role?

No, just a lot of excitement. It’s a great role and when I got the phone call I squealed into the phone to my agent.
Maggie Kirkpatrick is someone I’ve admired for a very long time, and I’ve worked with, we played mother and daughter in a play with a very long extended theatrical nm. So I know her well and I’m so full of admiration and adoration for who she is, and what she brought to the creation of this character of Joan The Freak’ Ferguson.
When I found out N be playing this role, it’s like all your Christmases have come at once. (more…)

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Read more about the article Pamela Rabe on Wentworth and The Glass Menagerie

Pamela Rabe on Wentworth and The Glass Menagerie

Pamela Rabe has built a reputation for playing the “heavy” roles in the theatrical canon – The Wicked Witch of the West, even Richard III – but for sheer malevolence, nothing tops playing Joan “The Freak” Ferguson, the sadistic black-gloved jailer of the rebooted Prisoner series Wentworth, airing on Foxtel.

Rabe, who is preparing to play a monster of a different stripe in Belvoir’s coming production of The Glass Menagerie by Tennessee Williams, has recently finished filming the third season of the series in Melbourne.

“I’ve known Maggie Kirkpatrick [the original “Freak” from the ’80s soapie] for a long time now,” Rabe says. “We did a tour of The Beauty Queen of Leenane for the Sydney Theatre Company playing a mother and daughter. So there was some serendipity in me being asked to take up the gloves.”

On screen, Rabe lives up to Prison Officer Joan Ferguson’s unofficial title. “I felt like I had to earn that nickname,” Rabe says. “When the audience knows you’re going to get nasty, it’s all about working your way to that destination as interestingly as possible. It’s a great challenge.” (more…)

Continue ReadingPamela Rabe on Wentworth and The Glass Menagerie
Read more about the article Actor Pamela Rabe on playing character Governor Joan Ferguson on Foxtel’s TV drama Wentworth

Actor Pamela Rabe on playing character Governor Joan Ferguson on Foxtel’s TV drama Wentworth

WANTED: One prison governor who can disarm electrocution devices, efficiently kill an inmate and stage it as a suicide, steal a dying woman’s pain meds, and still peel off her black leather gloves with a satisfied snap at the end of the day.

Such is life for new Governor Joan Ferguson on Foxtel’s dark Prisoner remake, Wentworth. The manipulative prison boss finally showed her sociopathic depths in a shocking episode last week — pausing only to pat her hair bun into place after dispatching inmate Simmo (Ally Fowler), who was inadvertently about to ruin her schemes.

“She’s single-minded,” Pamela Rabe says of the puppet-master she plays with delicious cunning.

“Extraordinarily strong-willed, highly principled, very demanding, somebody who believes the ends justify the means — everyone is expendable.

“I think she’s utterly convinced she does things for the right reason, but she absolutely demands allegiance . . . and also enjoys extracting facts from people.

“As the scripts come in I’m like, ‘Oh my lord!’,” she says with a hearty cackle.

Rabe, 55, is sitting in a rickety chair at a rustic Northbridge cafe, sipping tea. Her long hair is swinging loose (not a bun in sight), her height is imposing, her movements fluid and feline. Rabe is the first to admit she’s hard to miss.

Wentworth star Pamela Rabe who plays Governor Joan Ferguson, aka The Freak. Credit: Foxtel, Foxtel/Ben KingWentworth star Pamela Rabe who plays Governor Joan Ferguson, aka The Freak. Credit: Foxtel, Foxtel/Ben King

“When you’re built the way I am and look the way I do you tend to get offered a lot of strong female roles and a lot of those roles are occasionally quite nasty,” she says.

“And they don’t come much stronger or nastier than this. So when the phone call came I was like, ‘Oh! That’s just great’.”

Ferguson is based on Prisoner’s predatory guard dubbed “The Freak”, played by Rabe’s friend Maggie Kirkpatrick.

Rabe says her version of the character, whose “work is her life”, hides many secrets behind her controlled mask.

“I suspect underneath water level, those legs are going rather fast,” she grins. “I think there’s room for unexpected things that can be revealed.”

So do these hidden depths include Ferguson being gay, as the original was?

“I’m not yet sure how completely in touch with all of that she is,” Rabe says after a pause.

“Maybe she is (gay) or she’s just pretending something else. She’s such a player. She gets a huge amount of sexual pleasure out of the games she plays.” (more…)

Continue ReadingActor Pamela Rabe on playing character Governor Joan Ferguson on Foxtel’s TV drama Wentworth
Read more about the article MAKE IT SNAPPY – Pamela Rabe & Philip Quast about “His Girl Friday”

MAKE IT SNAPPY – Pamela Rabe & Philip Quast about “His Girl Friday”

EXTRA, EXTRA: READ ALL ABOUT A NEW VERSION OF HIS GIRL FRIDAY, WRITES SIMON PLANT

NOBODY says “Stop the presses!” any more. But they do in the theatre. In His Girl Friday, hardboiled newspaper editor Walter Bums leans into an upright telephone and barks out the immortal words: “Listen to me, I want you to tear out the whole front page. That’s what I said, the whole front page!”

In the same play, ace reporter Hildy Johnson tells her boss: “The paper’ll have to learn to do without me . . . I’m through … peeking through keyholes, running after fire engines, waking people up in the middle of the night.”

“It is language from another era,” actor Pamela Rabe tells me, “but it is delicious.”

Rabe plays Johnson and Philip Quast is Burns in a new Melbourne Theatre Company production of His Girl Friday. And meeting these expert actors at Little Press, a bar on Flinders St, they look the part — as if they’ve just walked out of a Chicago newsroom in the 1930s.

Pamela Rabe & Philip Quast | Photos by Ben SwinnertonMore importantly, Rabe and Quast sound right They’re relishing the rapid-fire repartee penned by former Chicago journalists Ben Hecht and Charles MacArthur, and finding the pace that powered Cary Grant and Rosalind Russell in the celebrated 1940 Hollywood version.

Quast says of Howard Hawks’ famous screwball comedy: “Its fast, all right At the time of the movie, it must have been a bit shocking to audiences. They’d never really experienced that before.”

Rabe agrees: “I think what the writers wanted to replicate was the sound of a newsroom. That cacophony of typewriting and chatter. Today, of course, you’d say it goes at the speed of tweets.”

Sounds like verbal ping pong …
Rabe: “More like tennis, really.”
Quast: “Yeah. There are definite baseline rallies.
“Then we move to the net where there are volleys … and that’s a different rhythm. Boom, boom, boom.
“Someone scores a point. Next serve.”
Rabe: “Stretching the tennis analogy, there are times when there are almost 15 people on stage and then it’s not singles or doubles … its a very crowded court.” (more…)

Continue ReadingMAKE IT SNAPPY – Pamela Rabe & Philip Quast about “His Girl Friday”