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…)

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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…)

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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…)

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Read more about the article Pamela Rabe indulges her nasty streak

Pamela Rabe indulges her nasty streak

SADISTIC: Pamela Rabe plays fearsome new prison governor, Joan “The Freak” Ferguson on Wentworth.

The characters had ripper nicknames like The Freak, Queen Bea, Boomer and Vinegar Tits.

The sets were cobbled together from hardboard so flimsy you could see the walls wobble if someone slammed a door.

To heighten the mood and disguise the low-budget sets, the lighting was dimmed down until everything looked as grey as an incoming storm cloud.

There were steamy lesbian liaisons in the prison laundry, heroin overdoses in the dunnies, pervy prison wardens, amorous electricians. There were drug-induced flashbacks, gratuitous cavity searches, riots, suicides, arsons, and alarming outbreaks of forced cunnilingus.

There were bashings for Africa; if a new inmate clashed with the tough old chick who was “top dog”, she might find her life leaking away on the shower-block linoleum, having been stabbed through the heart with a sharpened toothbrush.

A melodramatic soap opera that recalled a badass Neighbours, set behind bars, cult Aussie series Prisoner ran for a marathon 692 episodes between 1979 and 1986, its far-fetched stories derived from the power struggles of inmates and staff within a women’s prison in Melbourne. Viewers loved it. Like Acca Dacca, budgie smugglers and shark nets, the thing became an Australian institution.

“Oh, good god, yes,” says Pamela Rabe, one of Australia’s greatest actresses. “And not just here in Australia, either. It screened all over the world. I grew up in Canada, but my Australian husband got me watching it over there on late-night TV. When we moved out here in 1983, I discovered just how much people loved it and the huge effect it had on popular culture.” (more…)

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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 Wentworth Season 2’s New Governor Gets Sadistic

Wentworth Season 2’s New Governor Gets Sadistic

Cruelty, sadism – it’s all there in the new governor’s hairstyle.

“Give me the stuff of nightmares.”

That was Pamela Rabe’s suggestion to hair and make-up artist Troy Follington when it came to creating the hairdo of Wentworth Detention Centre’s formidable new governor, Joan Ferguson.

Pamela Rabe as Joan Ferguson in Wentworth‘The menace of quixotic tyranny’: Pamela Rabe (right) recreates Joan Ferguson in season two of Wentworth. | Photo by Ben King

They played around with a few different styles, before they realised that of all the Wentworth characters that owe their ancestry to the original Prisoner, Joan was the one whose accessorising bordered on the iconic.

The original Joan ”The Freak” Ferguson had a pair of black leather gloves, which she would ceremoniously don to conduct her infamous body searches.

It was a signature of the humiliating, cruel, yet random power that The Freak exercised over her minions.

(more…)

Continue ReadingWentworth Season 2’s New Governor Gets Sadistic