Essie Davis looks different in almost every role she plays, going from wearing a dark 1920s bob haircut as Phryne Fisher in the television series Miss Fisher Murder Mysteries, to a super-short blonde cut in The Matrix films, to a rather messy look with grey roots as the eccentric Helen in her current film Nitram.

It is not only different looks that the Australian actress is able to slip into. Her characters also differ immensely and that is exactly how she likes it. In The Justice of Bunny King, she plays a homeless woman battling social services to get her kids out of foster care; in The Babadook she is a tormented single mother, and she appeared as a flamboyant member of a theatrical group in Season 6 of the hugely popular HBO series Game of Thrones.

Now, she is to be seen in director Justin Kurzel’s Nitram, a film she was involved in from the beginning. Being married to Justin Kurzel, she was hesitant at first when he suggested the idea of making a film about a mass shooting in Tasmania in 1996 but was convinced when she read the script by Sean Grant. The script dealt with the shooting in a sensitive manner and did not directly show the tragic event, in which 35 people were killed and 23 others were wounded. Twelve days after the Port Arthur massacre, the Australian Government introduced tough new laws controlling gun sales and ordered weapons that were now illegal to be handed in. 650,000 guns were handed in: this has set a historical example that one might well remember today. We spoke to Essie Davis while she was in California to promote Nitram.

Nitram is a film that explores the events leading up to the mass shootings in Port Arthur in Australia in 1996. There has been some resistance from several people in Australia to this film’s getting made. What concerns did you and Justin have going into making it?

We live in Tasmania. I am a Tasmanian. We were already together, Justin and I, in 1996. In Tasmania, this particular event had repercussions both for the people on the island and on the mainland. What happened because of it, was our gun laws were changed radically and swiftly, and then it was essentially buried – no one wanted to talk about or acknowledge that this event had even happened. It is now more than 25 years ago, and so many people who were little at the time or who were not yet born have never heard about it. I know that it is brought up every time there is a mass shooting in America as, “Why can’t the American government act as swiftly as the Australian government did at the time?” We believed that it was more important that we examined this than to bury it.

As you say, it was important not to bury it. How did you go about dealing with such a sensitive subject?

It is a magnificent film and highly sensitive. Justin is a very sensitive filmmaker. Sean Grant’s script was an incredibly beautiful script that does not include the mass shooting but sort of examines how someone in that troubled state of mind could have access to weapons of mass destruction essentially. There was a lot of resistance to us making the film because no one wants this mass shooter to have any more notoriety than he already claimed at the time. However, the title of the film is his name backward and it is a bully’s nickname for him that he actually was given and wanted to escape from. The resistance was quite amazing – even the Prime Minister was talking about this film – at a time when no one had read the script or knew how sensitively it was going to be handled. The film is profoundly sensitive and empathetic to the people who were affected and their family members, and it is really an incredible family drama that moves people. The response to it has been of great admiration and warmth and profound understanding. The film has been so incredibly well-received. We were invited to the Cannes film festival and Caleb Landry Jones won the prize for best actor in Cannes.

The film won a lot of awards in Australia – a total of eight at the AACTA awards – and you were among the winners for Best Supporting Actress for your role as Helen, an heiress who sort of takes Nitram under her wing. Why was this an interesting role for you?

Primarily, I wanted to work with Justin. The whole script was amazing, and what we created with Helen was a wonderful pathway into someone who also does not fit into society in any particularly normal way. She is an eccentric woman who is on the outskirts of society, who recognizes someone who needs help and someone who can be her friend and that she can be a friend to. It was a delightful process because, although all of the characters are based on actual people, what we knew about her was that she had been in a production of The Mikado, and that was a key to going down a creative path that was quite delightful for me to enter – the world of Gilbert and Sullivan – and have those beautiful lyrics and explore someone who loves those lyrics so much. So, to have a partner in crime to enjoy her love of music and classical theatre and all classic movies and classic cars and clothing which was a delight. It was a character that we discovered as we went through the making of it, and it was a delightful thing to be a part of. 

You are married to the director of Nitram, Justin Kurzel, and you and he have worked together on many projects – how does this collaboration work? Does it strengthen both of your position in the business that you have each other as a constant tribe member, so to speak?

We are very, very lucky that we admire each other’s work so much, but neither of us just panders to the other. So, whenever I work with Justin, he always expects the highest work, and he always raises the bar, and he always helps me approach things in a way that are not just repeated: one of my favorite things in life is not repeating myself, and to be examining truth in a way that is maybe not obvious. I feel that as we grow old together, we can continue to make more and more profound work together, and I hope that we get to do more and more together.

You are going to be in Guillermo del Toro’s TV series Cabinet of Curiosities. Can you talk about which role you play here and what this TV series will look like?

It is an anthology of stories that each stand-alone. The episodes are all different lengths and by different directors. They are all in the world of horror or fantasy or anything that is spooky. I got to work with director Jennifer Kent, whom I worked with on The Babadook. She wrote this particular story based on Guillermo’s ideas. We were the first episode out of the block. I worked with the fantastic Andrew Lincoln on this beautiful story set in the 50s: I certainly loved working on it, and I hope that it is fantastic.

You are probably best known for Miss Fisher’s Murder Mysteries. In this series you play an independent woman who is very accomplished – she is a character from the popular books by Kerry Greenwood and is a fantastic hero and at the same time, she is a great mother. Why do you think this series is so popular?

Phryne Fisher is a woman ahead of her time. She is probably ahead of our time quite often because she really steps forward – she is brave and stands up for the underdog, and thus fights not only for women’s rights but also for the underdog’s rights. She is not scared of breaking the rules to make things better, and she is not frightened of talking about anything. It is a delightful role to play: she is also intensely optimistic and naughty, and what I have found through that series going out into the world is how many women it has helped emancipate themselves, and how many people have found their strength by being inspired by Phryne Fisher. They ask themselves, “What would Phryne do in this situation?” when they find themselves in similar situations to other characters in the story. Phryne is a particularly wonderful woman, and she appeals to both young and old, a broad spectrum of fans from children to 100-year-olds – families and men and women alike. I have to say that I’m struck by the number of women who write and talk about how this character has lifted them out of being stuck in a position of sadness or grief and led them on a path of adventure and braveness and kindness to themselves and to each other. Phryne is particularly kind. She is highly skilled in many areas, speaks many different languages, flies a plane and drives a car, and is independent and wealthy, but shares it with others and is incredibly generous. She is a rule-breaker as well, and says, “It does not have to be this way, things can be better.” She fights for justice.

Phryne Fisher is a feminist icon. Do you consider yourself a feminist?

Of course, I am a feminist. I am incredibly grateful to all women who stood up for womankind for centuries, and for the several past decades, I am so grateful that things continue to progressively change for the better. Although it is quite interesting that the series is set in 1928, and each episode is based on real events that happened in Melbourne in Australia in 1928, and yet many of those restrictions are still very much around today. The right of a woman to do what she wants to do with her own body, or to preserve it against anyone else, or share it with whom she wants to share it with – the fact that this is still questioned baffles me. Phryne also loves and adores men, and I adore men too, particularly men who respect women, and good men, and there are many of those in the world.

It is Women’s History Month. Do you celebrate, and if you do, how do you do so?

I am grateful that there is an international women’s day and women’s month. I think that is how it should be. I have another film that is releasing this month which is called The Justice of Bunny King, and it is also a story about another incredibly strong hopeful woman, who has no money and is working as a window washer at a car intersection and is fighting the system to get her children out of foster care and get them back into her own care. The challenges and hoops she has to go through are big, and this is a woman’s story that I hope reaches the world because a lot of women in her world don’t get their stories shared. So, I am incredibly proud of that and hope that this group of women will get their stories told, as this is incredibly important.

Is it important for you personally to tell those stories?

Absolutely. I love that at this point in my career and in film history I can tell women’s stories and that I don’t have to just be the wife or girlfriend of some superstar. I love that I am playing both childless women and mothers from completely different backgrounds. There are people writing riveting stories about women of all walks of life and their stories are shared. I think it is about time.