Jo-Ann Armstrong gears up for her latest role in Mill Boys. 68447 Picture: KRISTIAN SCOTT
By Charlene Gatt
SEDDON actress Jo-Ann Armstrong is embracing her inner bogan for her latest role.
The problem is, she’s finding it much harder than she thought she would.
Ms Armstrong is playing a 40-something, rough-around-the-edges bogan with a tough exterior and a hidden vulnerable side in the play Mill Boys, which opens at the end of this month at the Collingwood Underground Theatre.
Her character finds herself in an unlikely fling with a 20-something man who gets into lots of fights and can’t hold a job down.
Somehow, the fling turns serious and Ms Armstrong’s character helps turn her partner’s life around.
“She’s a lot of fun (to play),” Ms Armstrong said.
“I grew up in the country, so I’ve got a bit of a bogan in me, but it’s been challenging, because the director’s always saying ‘you’re too refined, be more bogan’.
Ms Armstrong, who has lived in Melbourne for the past 15 years and is a regular actor at La Mama, embraced acting as a child.
“It just took off from there, and then I later did speech and drama classes, which probably explains why I’m finding it hard to be bogan,” she laughed.
“It’s a bit of an escape, you can forget about all the stuff that’s going on in your life and get on stage and become these characters and that’s kind of fun and addictive.”
She also works as a singer and respite carer.
Mill Boys opens on 27 August and runs until 10 September.
