Frances O’Connor On Life, Death And Menopause
When Frances O’Connor was researching her role for Foxtel series The End, she sat in on several meetings between palliative care doctors and terminal patients in their final weeks. “I hadn’t really contemplated death [so much], but that was really eye-opening – just to be in the room while they talked to these people who had maybe a month of their lives left, all those conversations with their families. Buddhists say it’s good to contemplate death because it makes you enjoy your life more, and I think that is true.”
O’Connor plays palliative care doctor Kate Brennan who negotiates the grey areas of death as part of her job – in episode one she is confronted by a patient who is determined to have agency over when she dies – but it’s also about the relationship she has with her bitter elderly mother, who botches a suicide attempt, and her two young daughters. It’s a rich, meaty role, the type that not so long ago barely existed for women over 50.
“There was a point, when I was acting in the ’90s, where we assumed things would never change and it was part of the landscape of being an actress. But after the Me Too movement happened, young women – not just in the acting profession – said, ‘No, you don’t have to actually put up with this’. And that was a moment when a lot of women of my generation went, ‘Oh yeah! We don’t, do we?’
“What’s great is that there are more interesting roles for women and that’s because women have a voice now. They’re saying, ‘I don’t want to see a clichéd woman being perfect and beautiful and having a guy; I want to see a woman who reflects what I do because I’m paying for it!’ Things have changed.”
She was drawn to The End because “the quality of the writing was so good and it had this great thing, that something very serious was next to something very funny in the same scene, and that’s great writing.
“Kate was a compelling character, quite dysfunctional in a lot of ways, yet I just loved her. You really want to root for her. I tried to play it as close to myself as I could.” One trick she employed when playing the role was carrying car keys with her whenever possible, indicating that Kate always had somewhere else she should be. “It’s something we women, we relate to … I don’t think we ask for our space, either. We feel guilty if we take time for ourselves, to go off and have a hot bath or get a massage or take time out. We get a lot of worth for doing things for other people rather than doing things for ourselves but I think that will change. There’s a balance, isn’t there?”
“This period of time for my mum’s generation was hard because there was no real literature on being perimenopausal and menopausal. Now, women who’ve had amazing lives, when they hit that point are writing about it, releasing books about it so there’s more support. ”
Filmed in Queensland and created and written by Gold Coast born, Samantha Strauss, The End also has international cred, being produced by See-Saw Films (The King’s Speech, Lion) and also starring Harriet Walter (The Crown, Succession). O’Connor has long cultivated an overseas career, with lead roles in movies and series including Mansfield Park, Madame Bovary, Steven Spielberg’s A.I. Artificial Intelligence and The Missing. She lives in the UK with her husband and their teenage son, and is reluctant to move back to Australia until son Luka is out of high school. Even Hollywood movies are no longer as appealing as they once were.
“With the big films, even though you get paid so much money, I find them less enjoyable as an actor because you’re so much a cog in the wheel, and so little is required of your acting. I much prefer to do something where there’s a really complicated character, something you can really get your teeth into.”
At 53, it also pleases her to act alongside someone like Walter, who gives her a glimpse into the future. “[Onscreen] we still see women in their 20s playing opposite guys in their 40s, and you don’t question it. Next to that is someone like Harriet – the way she’s playing her character has a sexuality to her. Things like that are happening for the first time.”
Getting older isn’t as scary for an actor – or a woman – as it once was. “This period of time for my mum’s generation was hard because there was no real literature on being perimenopausal and menopausal. Now, women who’ve had amazing lives, when they hit that point are writing about it, releasing books about it so there’s more support. You spend a lot of your life being sexualised – it’s part of being a woman and the culture – and [menopause] is a great period of reflection and transition … you’re working stuff out.
“You get to know yourself a lot more and work out what you like and what you don’t like, and you’re OK about voicing that opinion. You spend less time trying to seek approval from others and maybe think about what you really want to do. It’s an interesting time.”
See the double-episode premiere of The End on Fox Showcase or watch all episodes on demand.
Words_ Rachelle Unreich
Photos_ Nick Wilson/Foxtel