Sigrid Thornton: From Snowy River, to Seachange, to household name

Virginia Trioli
Does one that got away, come to mind even all these years?

Sigrid Thornton
Raiders of the Lost Ark II. I could have married Steven, because that was Kate Capshaw, you see, who did that role.

Virginia Trioli
I know.

Sigrid Thornton
I could have married him and had 15 children by now.

Virginia Trioli
You could have at least got to kiss Harrison Ford.

Virginia Trioli
I'm Virginia Trioli and welcome to You Don't Know Me, the podcast in which I ask some of Australia's biggest names seven big questions.

Sigrid Thornton
This makes me laugh! I'm sorry, because this is the only way I can answer this.this is the only way I can answer this.

Virginia Trioli
From Snowy River to Seachange, from stage and screen, Sigrid Thornton, welcome.

Sigrid Thornton
Such a pleasure to be here, Virginia. I'm really delighted to talk to you, as always.

Virginia Trioli
It's never ended for you. I was just checking back in on what's Sigrid been up to absolutely recently, and there's been stage productions and there's always your ongoing work with the film and TV community as well in an advocacy role. It never, ever ends. This career has turned out to have all the legs and all the arms that you must have dreamed of when you were a young girl.

Sigrid Thornton
Yeah I suppose as a young girl, though, I didn't dream,probably at the early stage, didn't understand the value of a long legged career.I was just really taking it as it came. And that was probably the right approach, it turns out. But nevertheless, yes, I've managed to earn a crust out of something that I love for a really long time. And that makes me very happy.

Virginia Trioli
Is that young, wild-haired,relatively-inexperienced young actor who we see still glowing from the screen in Man From Snowy River, is she still in there somewhere? Do you have contact with her?

Sigrid Thornton
Of course. Don't you think we're all just about ... Maybe we're not too inside, we might be a little bit more advanced in age inside. I think we probably stay sort of in our teenage years. And some people argue that, for example, women always keep the haircut that they had when they were the happiest or when they were in their prime. I'm not sure about that one. Jury's out for me on that. But I definitely think that as we age, we don't age inside. We might mature. Yes, we do. We might make slightly better decisions and some worse ones too. But I think, of course, she's still there. And I like to bring her out to play every time I perform in any role really.

Virginia Trioli
Let's get to our questions. "You'd never know it, but I ... "

Sigrid Thornton
This makes me laugh. I'm sorry. Because this is the only way I can answer this. You'd never know it, but I actually really have an enormous amount of difficulty with these kinds of questions. Has anyone ever answered in that way?

Virginia Trioli
They will often suggest they don't like answering them, yes.

Sigrid Thornton
And the reason is because I feel an extreme need to not be boxed in. And that might be the performer in me. I want to keep moving. I want to be a chameleon. I want to keep moving forward and never backwards. And so I find that those Twenty Questions things, "What are your favourite films?" I can never answer that. I might change my mind next week and I reserve the right. So I suppose that's the only way I can answer that question, that I feel that it somehow makes me less flexible, less malleable to approach a question, approach an absolute in that way.

Virginia Trioli
There's also that part of it when are an iconic stage and screen actor like yourself where there's this person out there, Sigrid Thornton, that can appear over the top of a marquee and elicit an immediate response from the audience. And then there's you living your life there. Is it hard sometimes to square those two people?

Sigrid Thornton
Yes. But not. Because I have an extremely grounded, to the point of raw, grounded family who would always pull me up if I ever got too big for my boots, I know that for certain. But that said, I've always managed in some way, sometimes I articulate it by using pretend names and things, but I've always managed to keep that person on the marquee as a separate entity. That person is really not me. They're an aspect of me, but they're not who I am. So it's a bit like, you don't admonish a child for themselves. You don't say, "You are a naughty girl." You're saying, "That behaviour is not acceptable." So it's very similar kind of separation, you know?

Virginia Trioli
The behaviour of that Sigrid Thornton over there.

Sigrid Thornton
That Sigrid Thornton over there, she's behaving very badly, but she's not me. Watch out for her.

Virginia Trioli
Look, this has been your career for so long. So it'll be interesting to see how you answer this. "The fork in the road I almost took was ... "

Sigrid Thornton
Yeah, it's a really good question. Actually, it really made me think this question. When we were living in the States for some years, we went over to do a job that I was working on for about three and a half years. A Western, actually, as a matter of fact. And when the show got cancelled, we had the opportunity to stay in the States. By this time, I was pregnant with our second child. That was a real fork in the road. We could have stayed on and decided this is where we're going to make our home now. We're going to have our family life here. And make my career aspirations American ones. But we just made a very, very important, definitive decision for the family from which we've never looked back, which was to come back to Australia to raise our family here. It was not a difficult decision in those days ...

Virginia Trioli
But a significant one.

Sigrid Thornton
... but a significant one, yeah, absolutely. And we've never looked back, but I do regard that as a definite fork in the road.

Virginia Trioli
Look, it is. And I can't tell you the number, because I speak to a number of high-level performing artists like yourself on this program. And the American fork in the road comes up again and again.

Sigrid Thornton
Yeah, does it?

Virginia Trioli
Yes. Well, it has to. I mean, if you're plying your trade here, and if you decide not to, then you're making a conscious decision about what your acting world is going to be. Hey, you might be lucky enough to come to the attention of Hollywood and perhaps get those jobs, that's fine.

Sigrid Thornton
Sure.

Virginia Trioli
But if you're not there, you've consciously decided if it just stays here, I'm okay with that. And that must be a mental process to go through.

Sigrid Thornton
It was, but the focus was actually more about family rather than career. Even though, as I said earlier, and I don't resile from it, my career has been extremely important to me, but my family more so. And so it was a question of, "Do we want to raise two children in Los Angeles?" No, we didn't. And no sweat to people who do, but it wasn't the choice that we needed to make.

Virginia Trioli
It reminds me actually of what Neil Finn said years ago when he started to have kids, from Crowded House. And he was based here in Melbourne at the time. And he said, "No, I need those kids to grow up in New Zealand."

Sigrid Thornton
Yeah, yeah. Similar.

Virginia Trioli
"I want them barefoot on the grass and on the sand of New Zealand." And it's such a strong pull.

Sigrid Thornton
It is a strong pull. It is about being on native soil, as it were, or your own home soil. But it's also about the fact that both Australia and New Zealand are still amazingly wonderful places to raise children. Unlike certain other countries.

Virginia Trioli
Exactly. And if you were an actor confronting that today and you were having kids and you were emerging into your career in Australia, I would imagine that wouldn't even be a choice because you'd have to make peace with the fact that your kids are going off to a school every day where a gun could be brought in.

Sigrid Thornton
That's the thing. That's the thing. And it's so, so sad. Beyond. It's a big conversation.

Virginia Trioli
It's an astonishing reality that you'd have to make your peace with.

Sigrid Thornton
That's right.

Virginia Trioli
What about "I always ... "

Sigrid Thornton
I always ... See, I've got my notes because I knew I'd forget.

Virginia Trioli
That's all right. It's absolutely fine.

Sigrid Thornton
But these are from the heart. I always say I love you to members of my nuclear family at every possible occasion, especially when departing, if it's on the phone, if it's in person, whenever, because you never know where life's going to take you. You never know what's going to happen. Life's more unpredictable than it ever was before. Maybe with age I feel that more keenly, but I don't think so. I think the world is more fragile and vulnerable. And I think it's really, really important. I never want to leave on a note that's not full of love.

Virginia Trioli
That's a lovely story to tell. And, of course, it absolutely mirrors the famous Cate Blanchett story.

Sigrid Thornton
Really?

Virginia Trioli
Yeah. Well, she lost her father at a very young age and when he left the home and he left and had a heart attack and died and she didn't get to say goodbye to him. And she famously, for many years afterwards, said she could never leave the house without saying goodbye and a kiss to every single person in the house. But does it mean that you're living with a sense of a shadow hanging over you?

Sigrid Thornton
Oh, no. No, I don't think so. No, I think it's quite– I think it's just sensible, really. I just think it's sensible.

Virginia Trioli
And does the family get sick of it? Do they go, "Ah, stop it! Get away with your kiss-and-goodbye."

Sigrid Thornton
Oh, not at all. No, no, we all do it. We all do it, actually. We're all into it.

Virginia Trioli
That's so nice.

Sigrid Thornton
We've got a love and feeling, baby.

Virginia Trioli
Okay, what about, "I never ... "

Sigrid Thornton
I never allow for very long disappointment and disillusionment to get under my skin. I allow myself, if I missed out on something that I really wanted, a place I really wanted to go to in my creative work, it can be quite tricky and it can be very– but I've seen disillusionment make people's lives go really, really pear-shaped. And so what I do is I sort of allow myself, and I usually check in with my husband about this and my kids, a grieving period of maybe a couple of days. And then I just literally, I very consciously pick myself up, go for some long walks, take a deep breath and carry on.

Virginia Trioli
Snap out of it.

Sigrid Thornton
Yep, snap yourself out of it, baby. Life's too short.

Virginia Trioli
Does one particular one that got away come to mind even all these years later?

Sigrid Thornton
Not really, no, because again, I think it's really useful for actors not to talk about the ones that got away, certainly not to discuss them publicly. It just sounds like a whingy, whiny old fool. So even if they were in there somewhere, I'd probably put them– I'd put them really high on the shelf, those ones.

Virginia Trioli
But if you were, for example offered something like, oh, I don't know, Shiv Roy or whatever and said, "No," we just want to know about it, you know that.

Sigrid Thornton
Oh, I tell you what, no, I wasn't offered Shiv Roy, but I did get– this is actually probably the loudest I've ever screamed in response to a career opportunity. Yes. It's probably the only time I've screamed in response to a career opportunity. I did get– do you remember telegrams? Some of your listeners will remember telegrams. I'm joking. But I got a telegram which– you know the other thing is, that they sort of fade.

Virginia Trioli
Yes, they do.

Sigrid Thornton
I should have taken a photocopy at the time. Except they fade too.

Virginia Trioli
But what did it say?

Sigrid Thornton
Anyway, this telegram said, "Availability enquiry for Sigrid Thornton, Raiders of the Lost Ark II." And so Steven Spielberg, obvious idol. Not obvious, For me an idol as a filmmaker. So I did scream very, very loudly.

Virginia Trioli
And then what happened?

Sigrid Thornton
It just sort of dissipated. I did end up meeting Steven and having some lovely times with him, but I never got Raiders of the Lost Ark II. I could have married Steven because that was Kate Capshaw, you see, who did that role.

Virginia Trioli
I know. You could have at least kissed Harrison Ford.

Sigrid Thornton
I could have married him and had 15 children by now. And I could have kissed Harrison Ford.

Virginia Trioli
Exactly right.

Sigrid Thornton
Oh, my God! The possibilities are endless, aren't they? Which is why it's on a very high shelf.

Virginia Trioli
Fading, fading in the light. Share with us, "A time I got it terribly wrong ... "

Sigrid Thornton
Okay, terribly wrong. Okay, a couple of ones. A couple of ones. Oh, I get things terribly wrong a lot. I was coming back from LA many years ago on international flight pre-9/11 and, of course, pre-COVID. So, security systems were slightly laxer. And I was flying back and I had an appointment to get to in Melbourne. Was I going to the Logies or something like that? I might have been flying back for the Logies. It was weird. They invited me back to present or something. And I got on a plane from LA to Sydney, but I had to change. So, I ended up in the international terminus.And I raced on to the first flight. I said, "I've got to get on this flight! I've got to get on this flight! Here's my ticket, da-da-da-da."Well, I sat down on that flight and I got the announcement. It said, "Welcome everybody." It was probably Qantas. "Welcome to Qantas Airways flight to Brisbane, the 10.30 flight to Brisbane." So, I was on the flight. Instead of being on the flight to Melbourne, I was on the flight to Brisbane. And, of course, the flight was taxiing by then, so I couldn't– it was a bit like a movie scene. I couldn't run up to the hostie and say, "Please stop the plane! Let me off this flight. Stop the plane. I've got to go to the Logies, you don't understand!" They did not stop the plane. I flew to Brisbane, seriously jet-lagged, and then had to wait and do the double flight from Brisbane to Melbourne. That was terribly wrong.

Virginia Trioli
Did you make it in time?

Sigrid Thornton
I did make it in time because there was a little bit of a buffer, but it was tight.

Virginia Trioli
Did you like the Logies? Do you like going to the Logies?

Sigrid Thornton
They are a great catch-up opportunity for me. That's how I see them. And it's also, in a broader sense, it's a wonderful celebration of television. I mean, it has been the awards night that's taken off with the mainstream and become embedded with the mainstream. And we've got to celebrate that, I think, you know. And I think we need to celebrate television, Australian-made television, as often and as wholeheartedly as we can.

Virginia Trioli
Look, I agree with you. But having been to a number of Logies myself, I think what always dismayed me a bit was that absolute icons of TV who in their day were being festooned with Logies and gold Logies, but then, you know, the dogs bark and the caravan moves on. And you'd see them sort of adrift at far tables.

Sigrid Thornton
Right up the back.

Virginia Trioli
Right up the back, getting no attention, seated by the door, you know. And me thinking, "Oh, this is really awful." We're standing on their shoulders. And we seem to have such a short attention span when it comes to who we respect and who we love in the TV industry.

Sigrid Thornton
It's true, I think. I think we are the victims of that attention span of a gnat.

Virginia Trioli
I knew I'd rabbit on far too much with you Sigrid Thornton. We'll have to do a lightning round of the last couple of questions.

Sigrid Thornton
Oh, lightning round. What are we up to?

Virginia Trioli
"It's a small thing, but I'm still so proud of ... "

Sigrid Thornton
I can probably keep this fairly brief because it's – but this is a slightly sombre story. My father, who was really very much my heart, died many years ago now. And he died of a terrible pain condition which plagued him for very many years. So it was a very sad funeral. The only thing he ever asked for in his life was to be buried in a little bush cemetery in Denman where he grew up in the Hunter Valley. So, of course, we accommodated that. And we took him up there and we flew into Newcastle and we thought, "We've got to get some flowers!" We've got to find the only florist we could find closest by on the way. And in the florist, they had these buckets of rose petals. And I thought, "That's fantastic!" I'm going to buy five buckets of rose petals. What a brilliant thing.

Virginia Trioli
They're usually put aside for weddings.

Sigrid Thornton
For weddings! And I thought, "I'm going to take them for my funeral, my dad's funeral." And so we came armed with these vast buckets of petals. And it was brilliant because everybody got an opportunity to be connected to my father when he hit the ground. The kids and I went round with buckets of rose petals and everybody took vast quantities of rose petals. And we sprinkled Dad's coffin with the rose petals. It didn't quite reach the surface of the ground, but it was the most beautiful addition to that funeral. There was something about it that connected all of us to the love of my father through this very simple act that was completely impulsive on my part. And it was small but significant.

Virginia Trioli
That's a lovely story.

Sigrid Thornton
Thank you.

Virginia Trioli
We always finish with this question. "My secret pleasure or my guilty pleasure is ... "

Sigrid Thornton
I like to spoon with my dog. It is an extremely appealing prospect to me at any time of the day to lie down on the bed. It can be made up. It's all right. Or it can be, you know, I'm about to go to sleep. And what we call it is 'nooking'. It is spooning but 'nooking'. So one creates a…

Virginia Trioli
A few quick questions. What kind of dog are we talking about?

Sigrid Thornton
Labradoodle.

Virginia Trioli
Labradoodle. How old?

Sigrid Thornton
Three years old. Bodie is her name or Bo.

Virginia Trioli
Bo, okay.

Sigrid Thornton
And she's our third Labradoodle. And I am a dog tragic.Like a complete, as you can see, I mean, the whole tone of my voice has changed. My blood is rushing to my head. But you can't see that. But oh, maybe you can because we're filming this. Anyway, so I create a sort of what we call a nook with my legs. And that's sort of like they're on a sort of 45 degree angle which creates a perfect little nest.And Bo does a few rounds of this would-be nest. She goes round and round and round and round in circles and then she goes, "Fwump!" like that. And then she puts her head on my lower legs and the rest of her body is curled up like a little bird in a nest. And birds don't curl up. But it is very adorable and it makes me very happy.

Virginia Trioli
And that's a deep sense of comfort.

Sigrid Thornton
It is.

Virginia Trioli
Have you sought out Bodie and your other Labradoodles over the years when, you know, when life gets to you and you have those moments?

Sigrid Thornton
Oh, yeah.

Virginia Trioli
Is that where you go, to the dog?

Sigrid Thornton
I think so. I do.And they do have a sensitivity that, you know, runs to that. They really understand when things are, when you're feeling a bit low.

Virginia Trioli
Have your dogs sort of lifted you out and go, "Hang on, are you all right?"

Sigrid Thornton
Yeah, I think sometimes they come and see you and say, "Are you okay, Mum?" And also the fascinating thing about dog ownership when you're with a partner, I find, is that you're somehow expressing your love for your partner through your dog as well. You know what I mean? Your big affection for your dog is also, I love this dog and it's your dog too. And it's kind of our third child and the more I show this dog my love, the more I love you. Isn't that true? I know it sounds a bit abstract, but I think it's true.

Virginia Trioli
I think it's absolutely true. In the same way, sometimes you'll actually play out the arguments through the dog as well, "And what do we think Daddy's done today? And do we think that Daddy did that? Yes we do!"

Sigrid Thornton
That's exactly right. And I'm afraid I'm one of those people who does call Tom 'Daddy' to the dog. Guilty as charged. It is really bad. It's a really bad habit. But anyway, I love it.

Virginia Trioli
You Don't Know Me is presented by me, Virginia Trioli. It's produced by Joe Sullivan and Julz Hay with audio production by Michael Black. Next time, he's on our screens, he's in our kitchens and now he's in our podcast feeds.

Adam Liaw
I'm very proud that I make dinner at home each night. You know, I'll be in the studio cooking literally all day and then come home and make dinner each night. To me that's a very important thing to do.

Sigrid Thornton
Adam Liaw, an expert at making wholesome home dishes every night. And it won't surprise you that he's a pretty wholesome person too. Follow You Don't Know Me on the ABC listen app so you don't miss out.