‘Grown up’ Melissa George opens up after marriage break-up

MELISSA George likes what she sees in the mirror. There’s a smile staring back at her; a wide, youthful grin that speaks of newfound love and happiness.

It’s an expression George says she’s only recently mastered, admitting that the past year – specifically the end of her 11-year marriage – has proved emotionally arduous.

“I don’t know where to start, really,” George says from her New York apartment, reflecting on the end of her relationship with director Claudio Dabed.

“The lights went out. And you know how in love I’ve been. I’m not going to say what happened but I think it’s pretty obvious and I just couldn’t continue.”

News of the couple’s split came in July when 35-year-old George was spotted locking lips with multi-millionaire hip hop mogul and current beau Russell Simmons.

“You know what, I’m a really good person to be around the last month and very, very happy,” she says.

“I’ve grown up a lot, I’ve got a voice and an opinion, I know what I want a little more, not for others, but for me.

“I’m a very happy person and I won’t talk about ‘you know who’, but it’s just wonderful. I think I’ve got great taste. I have eclectic taste, sure, but I’ve got good taste and I think I’ve made myself proud.”

She has a similar sense of pride about the role that returns her to the small screen in Australia in the ABC’s much-anticipated adaptation of Christos Tsiolkas’ award-winning novel The Slap.

“After I was offered the role I went out looking for the book (in New York) and it was sold out, so I was, like: ‘Oh my God, what is this book?’” she says.

The Slap centres on a collection of friends and family who witness an assault on a mischievous three-year-old child. As Rosie, George plays the mother of Hugo, the little boy who is slapped.

“To be honest, there were a lot of things (in playing Rosie) that I was scared about – the nudity, the breastfeeding, the sadness, the fact that she was so sexual and then so violent and then so angry,” she says.

“And feeding her baby in front of all those people, you know, there was a lot that I had to overcome. But what’s lovely about acting is, anytime I felt insecure I’d hide behind Rosie because Rosie can do whatever she wants.”

So, too, can George.

After leaving Home and Away in the late ’90s, the Western Australian wandered into a US film and television career that boasts time with David Lynch (Mulholland Drive), a wealth of popular horror and thriller flicks (The Amityville Horror, 30 Days Of Night) and small screen appearances including Alias, Grey’s Anatomy, Friends and her Golden Globe-nominated work in In Treatment.

Typecast she is not.

“It’s funny, but sometimes I want to be typecast, because then you get a following,” she says. “My problem is, the people who watch In Treatment don’t know about my thrillers and horrors, and then my horror fans really didn’t watch In Treatment.”

Despite all George does – she has just snared a London-based “dream role” in TV thriller Nemesis, it is her tenure in Summer Bay for which she will always be fondly remembered.

As Angel Parish, George, along with on-screen husband Shane (Dieter Brummer) was the local small screen’s hottest couple. So what does she make of it today?

“When Shane died on that rock and Angel was by his side, you know that was some of my best acting. I’m being serious, watch it back, look at how young I was and look at my commitment at the death of my husband. They were real tears. I was so method in so many ways,” George says.

“But I also encourage people to live in the present and the recent past. Because it’s very hard to remind people around me what they were doing 20 years ago. I wouldn’t say: ‘God, do you remember when you had that dodgy job in the bar and look at you now’. I would never remind people of that. But at the same time I also appreciate how lucky I am to have a fan base that has been going 20 years.”

For now George is simply excited about a well-earned break in Perth ahead of her six-month London stint.

“I love going home. Mum and Dad really need to see me as they’ve been worried (about me) and they’re going to see me jumping around like a 12-year-old – that will surprise them,” she says candidly.

“They are desperate to see my happy face. I look different, I do look different, I look in the mirror and I’m, like, ‘YEAH’, because it changes your face when you are happy, it really does.

“If you want to be beautiful, or try and be beautiful, be happy, because it doesn’t matter what you put on your face, it’s what you feel inside and going after what you want.”

The Slap will air on ABC1 on October 6 at 8.30pm

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