Marta Dusseldorp on Jack Irish, Foreign Programming in the US, and the Tired Trope of Women in Peril

One of the best things about the proliferation of streaming services is that we can finally watch some of the best foreign programming in the US without needing it to be Americanized.

We had a chance to talk about that and a lot more with Marta Dusseldorp, who has had several programs airing on Acorn TV, where the final episode of the final season of Jack Irish, in which she costars with Guy Pierce, drops today.

Having watched as many of her shows as possible, it was such a pleasure to chat with Marta. Please read about her interesting viewpoint on the show and a lot more below.

How do you feel about Jack Irish coming to an end? You've been doing that for a long time now.

Yeah, I think a decade. Well, it was time, I think, for everyone, but I think they did a beautiful job with the story, to take it another distance and wrapped it up really nicely, without being overly sentimental, or it still had its punch and its drive and its humor.

It was beautiful to work during COVID. I hadn't done that.

I'm in Tasmania, and we haven't had a case for a year, so I feel very lucky, but in Melbourne, there were things going on. And to see everyone again, Guy, it's always lovely to see him and catch up with him. We're very good friends and all the team.

So bittersweet, but I think they did an excellent job. So I'm happy.

I thought so, too.

Yeah, good. Well, that's important.

What are your thoughts on where Linda and Jack leave their relationship as this series comes to an end?

It's like old slippers. I've actually got my Ugg boots on, which is an Australian thing. We wear these because it's freezing here. [laughs] He's like that. He's like, "Where are my Ugg boots?" And she puts them on and walks away.

So I think she takes a little piece of him with her always. And I'm not sure that they'll ever speak again, necessarily, because it always means destruction and chaos and usually physical injury somehow from some bad guy.

So I think it's really one of those... Yeah, it's someone she takes with her forever but might never see again.

And how did you feel about Linda's journey and where that came to an end? Were you satisfied with everything that you got to do with Linda, or would you have liked to have seen something else happen in her life?

I think we covered it. When I think back to the first telemovie, where she was this arrogant, on-the-make journo in her newspaper office, and pretty quickly, there was a physical attraction.

She didn't really care much about anything else. That was her language. Her language was that. So I don't judge her for that. And then she just kept getting in deeper and deeper trouble.

And I remember shooting in Manila, and then we shot in India the next season. And so this one, we couldn't go anywhere, thankfully. So I was like, "Just, boom, leave me in Melbourne."

So no, I absolutely loved it. I mean, I have to say, Andrew Knight, who's one of the creators, is a very dear friend of mine, and we're now collaborating on another project that we've built together.

And I just had such a connection with him, and how he wrote Linda, and what he wanted for her, that we... I loved every script I read. I very rarely had a suggestion. I just really went with the flow on this one.

You mentioned that Jack Irish started as movies. Did anything change for you as an actor or for your input at all into the series, from those earlier standalone movies to the series?

Just that you had more time, and therefore you had more life to live as Linda. I think that's what series has given us over telemovies, is that we get to spend hours with these people, not just the audience, but the actors.

And so, she just became more and more a part of me, and more and more I understood her, and more and more it just became instinctive when I worked with her.

And I think that that is such a gift, and all the shows I've ever done on television have gone for six seasons, four seasons, Janet King, A Place to Call Home.

So I've had this delicious, almost like a nervous system for each of them that sparks up when I start reading the scripts and starts actually going into my joints, I move differently, I sit differently, I have, hopefully, a slightly different voice that comes out. So you just get more soaking time.

Right. You can actually become the character, as opposed to rushing through the story.

Exactly, and also, the audience gets to spend so much more time with you. So their connection with you deepens and deepens, to the point where I walk in a supermarket, every day one person, if not more, will come up to me, still, and that's not just here, in America, whenever I go there, or in London. And they say, "Thank you."

And I kind of guess which of the three characters it is because of who they are, and I always get it wrong. [laughs] So I go, "This is a Janet King fan," and they go, "Linda!" I go, "Oh." "This is a Linda fan." "Sarah!"

So, what it gives you, it's like you become part of their life as well, and join their nervous system. So it's such an honor, such a privilege.

And you've mentioned some of those characters. What character, out of all the ones you've played, especially for the long-term characters, means the most to you?

Probably Janet King, because I suddenly had a spinoff show. What the what?! You know, I'd done Crownies for 22 eps, and I loved her, the character.

And then I got a call. Actually, I saw it in the media that the head of ABC drama announced, "We're going to do a spinoff show of Janet King."

And I rang the producers, and I was like, "Did you read this?" And they were going, "Oh yeah, they did mention that." So, for me, that was a moment where I had to go, "How do I do this? How do I satisfy people?" So probably her.

I would say it worked out well. You managed to satisfy people, I think. [laughs]

Well, that's our aim. We're there for you guys. It's not about us. I don't understand the actors who make it about them. And maybe that's rare, because actually, without you, there is no us. So I always try and do it for the audience.

I try and see it... I'll perform it as it needs to be, but I've always been mindful, and I think it's because I'm a theater actor, and I have a live audience all the time.

And if I don't give them something that they can connect to or absorb -- like, I bounce off them. So I try to do that with you in mind when I shoot TV as well.

I was going to ask you if you've ever walked away from a character and been unsatisfied with the way that things ended, but I want to amend that to not only your perspective but have you had any of those fans in grocery stores come up and just be upset over that or really had issues?

A really good question. I've never been asked that. I love that question. I think they are only upset because it's over. I've really had that every time. Janet finished first, then Place, and now Jack, and I really have this indignant, "Why? There was so much more."

And I love that. I love that people feel that connected to it. And certainly, with A Place to Call Home, there was a massive fan base; massive. And they are so dedicated and caring.

And I think, maybe in the early days, when I got roles where I was there to serve a man's story, I was running... Well, the way I put it, it's a metaphor. I've never done this, but it's the idea of running through a forest in your undies. You know, a lot of women have had to do that over the years, and something's chasing them, it's usually dogs or men. For me, that is very unsatisfying.

I find women being killed in shows very unsatisfying. I don't want to see it anymore. I don't want people to keep repeating this thing that we can be captured and put in things. I have daughters.

When I was younger, I certainly felt that that was always possible because that seemed to be the story that was being pushed out there as entertainment. So certainly, in my earlier days, I was usually being hunted. I hated all of that. So for me, that was very unsatisfying.

It seems like you got a lot farther away from that in Australia and elsewhere than we have here. We're still really into that women-as-victims mentality. It's depressing.

It is depressing. And I turn it off when that becomes the base of the thing. I just... I'm out, and I don't watch. And people go, "But it's so good. Push on." I go, "No." Because then I'm feeding this idea that that is where our role is.

So this new show that I've created, I shared with an American company that is extraordinary for creative feedback, and I just loved it. She said to me, this amazing woman, "Your show is so not exhausting."

Oh, that's a good way to put it.

I just went, "That's the best thing you could have said!" Because so often, I find it so exhausting. And I think in this day, certainly, after everything we've been through and are still going through, it's not over by any means.

We want to be challenged. We want to be surprised. It can be difficult, but we don't want it to be exhausting.

So yeah, that for me is when it doesn't work, is when it's exhausting. When you're playing it, and you feel exhausted.

Yeah. I can't imagine.

You know the audience is sitting there, going, "Really?"

Yeah, and gives that, "Oh, no."

Yeah. That's exactly it. Oh, no, not this again. I guess tropes are the thing. My favorite show of last year was I May Destroy You.

And even though it had these things we're talking about, it was done in such a beautiful way, and a POV that I completely understood and respected and adored, and she's there, and you can feel it running through her whole body. Then I'm not exhausted.

Right, because we didn't have to see her chased as much as we saw her processing.

Processing. Yeah. Processing and chasing back, like, "What is that. What is...?"

It was definitely very unique, a good perspective.

And I think unique is something Australians do really well.

For me, it's really important, and I often say this in writing rooms, "We don't want to be quirky. We want to be authentic, which makes us unique. It's why America watches us because we aren't them. And that's positive. That's good. Go for that." You know, all the time.

I know that American programs play around the world as they are, but up until these streaming networks, we've always had that mentality that you should take whatever was there and try to Americanize it, which always drove me nuts.

And now you have an actual audience around the world, thanks to these streaming networks. How different does that make the production feel? How do you feel about that? I assume that it's a great feeling.

Well, I have to say a shout-out to Acorn TV because I've known them for a long time now. I've been over in Washington with them and in LA, and they really are the ones who pushed us out to America on the PBS, and then as the streaming started up.

So Miguel and Don, and all the team there, are just extraordinary. So for us, and they say to us, when you talk to them in creative meetings, "Don't make it anything like America. We don't want it."

And hearing that for the last 10 years, really, from them, has given me, in writing rooms, the real purpose to say, "We are not trying to make this so they understand it or it's anything like what they have. We need to stick to our lane. That's why things sell over there, why people want to consume it."

So A Place to Call Home sold to, I think, 176 territories around the world, and Janet is on Netflix and Acorn, and Jack the same. And they're my shows, not to mention everyone else's shows that you would speak to.

There was a show shooting here, and it was an Australian production company, and the audition was in an American accent. And I said to my agent, "Why is this American?" "Oh, they're making it for America, making it for Americans." And I was going, "Right. Why?"

Right. How do you learn about a different culture if it's always your culture that you're looking at? There was an Australian production on Netflix, I believe, that's coming up called Clickbait, and it was filmed in Australia, I believe, and it's all Americans. I was so confused. I thought maybe they got it wrong, but it didn't look like here.

I think the message is interesting. So Stateless we did here in Australia, and it was deeply Australian, and it's an Australian story, and it's an Australian issue. And it's about putting it down on record that that's what happened here. And you get to see that and understand it from a different perspective.

And similarly, all the shows that I do here, the one I've just created, is in Tasmania. And you'll get to see the northwest of Tasmania, and most people in the world, let alone America, have never been there.

And when I was talking about it, and I went and did the recce and took all the photos, people were going, "I want to see this place."

I said, "And I'm going to show you. I'm going to take you there. While we're all locked down, and we can't travel for the next, however many years, come to the northwest of Tasmania, and we will take you through all the bits not even Australians have seen."

And that, I think, is so much a part of storytelling, where your place is also a character. And that's why A Place To Call Home, Ash Park, this iconic house with its grounds and the little cottages. And Jack is the graffiti-lined streets of Melbourne, and it's new, and it's exciting, and now it's old, and it's over. But we're going to take you places.

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For those of you who prefer to binge-watch your programming, now is the time to get into Jack Irish and Marta's other programs like A Place to Call Home, Crownies, and Janet King. Her talent is worth your time!

Jack Irish is streaming now on Acorn TV, and the series finale drops today.

Carissa Pavlica is the managing editor and a staff writer and critic for TV Fanatic. She's a member of the Critic's Choice Association, enjoys mentoring writers, conversing with cats, and passionately discussing the nuances of television and film with anyone who will listen. Follow her on X and email her here at TV Fanatic.