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  Actress Susie Porter April 1, 2001 Reporter : Max Cullen Producer : Marianne Latham  For a while it seemed the only films that actress Susie Porter starred in were those with sex in the title. First there was Feeling Sexy, the semi-autobiographical film from artist Davida Allen, then Better than Sex, which was about a one-night stand that lasts three days. There was also Welcome to Woop Woop, where her character Angie lures an unsuspecting American with sex. And there was Idiot Box, in which she plays a sexually-obsessed girlfriend."I've made a few kinds of sex films," says Susie, "and, not that I have anything against sex — I mean that's why we're all here — I think it's completely natural and normal and that sort of stuff, but I'd just like to have the opportunity to play other kinds of characters which are maybe less earthed in their sexuality." Susie was born in Newcastle, but after university moved to Sydney, having been accepted into NIDA, the National Institute for Dramatic Art. She hadn't even completed her course before being snapped up by a talent scout for a role in the Nadia Tass and David Parker film Mr Reliable. Then, only six months out of drama school, Susie was playing a role in Paradise Road, next to Glen Close, Frances McDormand, Pauline Collins and Cate Blanchett.  The roles then started coming in thick and fast. Bootmen, set in her hometown of Newcastle, Welcome to Woop Woop, set in the hometown from hell, and the enormously popular Two Hands, set in her current hometown of Sydney."She's not your average, traditional-looking leading lady. She's very original and there's that scene in Better in Sex when she's at the piano. She's got the figure of a Rembrandt and the face of an Aussie larrikin and I think that blend, with the bit of dynamite she's got in her belly, is ... well, it really comes out on screen," says Tamblyn Lord, Susie's co-star in Feeling Sexy. "I think one of the great things about working with Susie, and particularly on the film that I did — it's kind of an obvious thing to say, but it takes incredible bravery to basically be naked and simulating sex scenes three weeks out of a four-week shoot. And to do it with such life and personality and humour and warmth and substance to the character!" says Jonathan Teplitzky, writer and director of Better than Sex. Late last year Susie performed in her first play since NIDA, a two-hander called Sweet Phoebe, as well as scoring a part in the Hollywood Star Wars movie Episode 2. "At the point I am now in my career, I suppose I've done a lot of films and I've got a certain profile within the Australian film industry, but I'd like to take that further, you know. I suppose I don't want to be 60 and say 'I could have done that or I should have done that'," Susie says. |
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