Claudia’s Way

She sits comfortably in Australia’s pantheon of actors, but Claudia Karvan’s career is taking a new direction

WORDS HUGH BALDWIN

In Love My Way, a TV series about the lives and loves of a group of 30-somethings, Claudia Karvan plays budding artist and bereaved mum Frankie Paige with Best-Actress-winning skill. She also shines in her other role in the series – as its creative producer. Although the two hats mean regularly working a 60-hour week when Love My Way is in production, Karvan admits she’s relishing the opportunity.

Claudia Karvan as Frankie
Paige“I could never have predicted I’d have such a creative role in a really successful production,” says Karvan. “I do have to pinch myself because there’s still – like there is in everyone, I suppose – that doubting 16-year-old who doesn’t yet feel like an adult. And then, another part of me has been allowed to operate among extremely professional and talented industry adults. It’s something I definitely don’t take for granted or believe is a kind of natural progression – it’s been quite an extraordinary one.”

Karvan sharing a tender
moment with on-screen
husband, Louis, played by
Ben MendelsohnKarvan first graced Australian screens as a pre-teen, after a childhood in Sydney’s Kings Cross, where her parents ran a popular boho nightclub. As a 14-year-old, Karvan took on her first major role staring opposite Judy Davis in High Tide, the story of a mother trying to establish a friendship with the daughter she effectively abandoned as a baby. Karvan credits her time working on the film with Davis with her decision to pursue acting as a career, despite her doubts: “‘I could never be as good as her,’ was one thought! The other thought was, ‘Oh wow, this is really inspiring and so exciting.’”

Karvan in a relaxed
momentListening to Karvan talk about her life to date, it’s clear that embodying a character is a real passion for her. “It’s an addiction, an adrenaline rush,” she says of the acting process. “That strange kind of channelling-emotions-thing that goes on is kind of addictive.” And it’s certainly led her on an enviable career path. Her early work included popular Australian movies such as The Big Steal andThe Heartbreak Kid, which centred on the controversial topic of love between a high-school student, played by Alex Dimitriades, and his teacher, Karvan.

By the mid-1990s, she was firmly established as one of Australia’s most familiar film actors and worked with the likes of Hugh Jackman (Paperback Hero) and Naomi Watts (Strange Planet). Still, Karvan doesn’t describe herself as a career-driven person. “There’s nothing Machiavellian about me whatsoever,” she says. “There is no order … no rationale. It’s completely opportunistic, pragmatic and emotion-based. And luck. A shitload of luck and hard work.”

Karvan with
Brendan Cowell
on the set of
Love My WayWhich brings us to Love My Way. Karvan had been working in another successful television series, The Secret Life of Us, in which she had something of a cult following as Dr Alex Christensen. The series, however, was shot in Melbourne, and life and her young family (daughter Audrey, 5, and son Albee, 1), were tugging her back to her hometown, Sydney.

It was then that serendipity, via The Secret Life of Us producer John Edwards, pushed a new career opportunity her way. “The financing of The Secret Life of Us had become difficult, because we were out of phase with the English broadcast of the show,” Edwards says. “What the network did at the time, as a kind of a quid pro quo, is say, ‘Why don’t you do another show?’ Claudia was going to be leaving the show, as juggling family life and Secret Life had become too difficult – so I just put the two circumstances together and thought, why don’t I do a new show with Claudia? Because she’s very bright, she does want to have control of her career, so she may want to develop into other areas. We had the conversation, and that’s exactly what she did want. We’d always got along very well and worked together very well, and we thought this was a collaboration we could have at a different level. And it was perfect.”

Karvan hard at work as
working mum, Frankie
PaigeFor her part, Karvan credits it as a turning point in her career. “I would say, John Edwards seeing something in me on Secret Life of Us and approaching me to develop a show with him was incredibly fortuitous,” Karvan says. “There’s a lot of luck in that. He could have been busy doing other things. He may not have been generous enough to want to include me at that level.”

Part of the success of Love My Way was that it was created for subscription television, and so it was allowed to be a “slow burner” and they were actively encouraged to break new ground.

Karvan’s desire for edgy acting projects hasn’t waned, if her role in the upcoming stop-motion animated feature $9.99 is anything to go by. Currently in production, $9.99 follows the stories of a group of people living in a Sydney apartment block, and claims to offer “slightly less than $10 worth of wisdom about the meaning of life”. With a script from Israeli writer Etgar Keret, it’s the first ever co-production between Israel and Australia, and Karvan stars alongside Anthony LaPaglia, Joel Edgerton, Ben Mendelsohn and Barry Otto, among others.

A scene from Love My
Way with Ben MendelsohnBut with the third series of Love My Way in the can and other projects on the boil, Karvan is also looking for opportunities to extend as a creative producer. “Developing ideas for stories with other writers is something that really appeals to me,” Karvan says. “Working with writers, full stop, is really an exciting place to work.”

Love My Way series 3 broadcasts in Asia on the Australia Network every Thu at 20.00, 23.00 and Fri 12.00 (HK time) until 2 Aug, and returns to Showtime Australia in Aug.

Claudia on travel

I used to be an intrepid traveller. My idea of a fantastic holiday used to be to go to Thailand, go to a bungalow on a beach with no electricity, eat the local fish and all that kind of stuff, but now I do go for luxuries that you do find at home, just to make things easier with kids. I don’t really like staying in hotels. I like staying in rented houses, or if we’re going to Bali, hiring a villa or something like that. But generally I just love travelling. I love going to Asia and I need to do a lot more travelling there, because I’ve hardly touched the sides. I travel by my stomach, definitely – I always go to the places that have the best food, like Thailand or Italy. It’s the first thing I think of when I land – how to find the best meal!

Hugh Baldwin says:

Claudia Karvan was on a driving holiday with her family in the US when I interviewed her, and the only window of opportunity I had to talk to her happened to be during my sister’s 21st. I had to use my father’s phone and a makeshift recorder for the interview. My dad’s speakerphone was so soft I could hardly hear Claudia, but luckily the MP3 player I was using picked up everything – I found out what she actually said to me later, when I played it back!