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With a career in theatre, film and television spanning over 50 years, beloved Australian actor and director Robyn Nevin welcomed me backstage at the Sydney Opera House. In this quiet moment between performances, she reflects on duty, discipline, nature, and the lifelong importance of living with purpose.
In her own words…
On Realising Your Potential
All you have is yourself, so life is about realising your potential. It’s, of course, a very wide-ranging idea because one’s potential can cover your capacity to work, to love, for creativity, for ambition. I think you have a kind of duty, really — if you are given life — to do something with it.
I’ve found meaning in life through my work because I think my work is meaningful. That’s not to say that my close relationships aren’t meaningful, but I have such a strong sense of responsibility that I was imbued with as a child because I made an early commitment to this profession.
On Discipline and Influence
My mother and my headmistress instilled that in me. From the age of 11, I had a wonderful headmistress in Hobart. She was a fundamental influence on me and my approach to life and work. My mother also brought me up to be independent, well-mannered, honest, and hard-working. That’s been my main way forward, my support, and my inspiration.
On Home, Landscape, and Quiet Joy
I equally feel in my element at work and in my home in Sutton Forest in the Southern Highlands, where we bought eight acres. I feel a connection with the natural elements. I find the landscape calming, energising, and rejuvenating. It has life-affirming benefits.
We have sheep on the property and we go through the lambing cycle. The first time, we had about 16 lambs and I was watching them through binoculars for half an hour at a time. They just brought so much joy because they are so… adorable! They make you laugh and fill you with great delight.
The garden is also evolving under my unpractised guidance, but I derive a lot of pleasure from it.
On Acceptance and Letting Go
Discipline, persistence, and understanding that acceptance — and the inability to change somebody else — are keys to a better life. I’m not claiming I’m a success, but I’m aware of these things. ‘Live and let live’ is a beautiful way to be and a guiding principle of mine.
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“All you have is yourself, so life is about realising your potential.”
On the Emotional Cost of Acting
How acting feels depends on where I am in the cycle of the season. Rehearsing is uncomfortable because it requires you to dig into your own well of emotion and to reach into your understanding of life and to inhabit the characters that you play.
Before My Fair Lady, which was a joy and a delight, I was in All My Sons by Arthur Miller. That play really broke me. It was so devastatingly, heartbreakingly sad that it had a kind of crushing effect on me and I thought, “I can’t do this anymore.” I’d had 50 years of playing grief-stricken, tough, forceful women, all fighting their odds. It’s tough on you in all sorts of ways — on your emotional, physical and mental self.
Once you step from that into something like My Fair Lady, you realise life doesn’t have to be that difficult inside your art form. You can make different choices. I’ve always done serious theatre, but I think now I’ve drawn a line. It’s time to celebrate.
On Duality, Humour, and Balance
I’m like the clichéd image of the double mask — the comedy and the drama. On the one hand, I’m extremely playful with a highly developed sense of humour, but on the other hand, I’m quite earnest and serious, with an overdeveloped sense of responsibility.
Purpose is so important. But a sense of play is equally important.
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