Abi Tucker's Secret Life

Tuesday, 18 November  2003 

Reporter: (online story) Jane Cowan

Presenter: Chris Coleman

Abi Tucker and friends, touring the country with her new album "Dreamworld".

Abi Tucker is in a playful mood.

Waiting for her interview, she dramatically pronounces the latin names of pot plants in the ABC foyer.

The reason for her good humour? She's on the Gold Coast doing what she loves best: singing her own music to new audiences.

You probably remember her best from her acting roles but it was singing that first thrust Tucker into the spotlight. Performing since the age of nine, she won the 1992 final of TV talent show "New Faces" with a selection of classic cover versions.

Then came a series of TV roles, beginning with the lead role in 1994's "Heartbreak High". In a classic case of art imitating life, the then 21-year-old Tucker played Jodie, a high school student trying to crack into the music industry. "My character was a rapper in the beginning but they turned me into a singer because I wasn't that great a rapper." 65 episodes and a spot on the soundtrack later, Tucker had become one of the show's favourites. Her character's relationship with Nick Poulos (played by Alex Dimitriades) gave rise to some of the steamiest teenage love scenes on Australian TV at the time.

Following Heartbreak High, Tucker took a break from acting and went to the UK to concentrate on her music. But acting would not let her go that easily. A guest appearance on "Water Rats" was followed by a permanent role on ABC TV's "Wildside". Tucker played Detective Kate Holbeck, who eventually married the character Charlie, played by - you guessed it - Alex Dimitriades.

The year 2000 saw Tucker make the leap to film with roles in the comedy "The Wogboy" and then "Angst", for the soundtrack of which Tucker also recorded two tracks. 2001 witnessed the arrival of another groundbreaking Australian drama, the hugely successful "The Secret Life of Us". Tucker was among the core cast, playing struggling actor Miranda.

With all this mixing of reality and fiction - an actor playing a musician, an actor playing an actor, a singer on film soundtracks - you'd be hard pressed to pin Tucker down. But which is her real passion, singing or acting?

While she was a singer first and foremost, Tucker is loathe to choose between her two loves. To her, it's all performance and there are strong parallels between performing behind a microphone and in front of a camera. "Coming from a performance-based background, with singing, it's being realistic on stage. If you familiarise yourself with a character from a show you get the same feeling. I did singing first but I certainly did a lot of acting in the process."

"I've been really lucky with the roles I've played but they certainly don't take up every day of week and every minute of the day. It's interesting because I feel that the music actually helps me with the characters. A lot of the time I go home and write music and then go back to work." Tucker's most acting-influenced song is perhaps one of the pieces she wrote for the soundtrack of the movie "Angst", inspired by her character May. But right back to her rapping days on "Heartbreak High", acting has been feeding into her music. "And it's funny, you know, because you sort of build up your repertoire and your dynamic and so forth."

These days 30-year-old Tucker describes her musical style as eclectic. "There's a lot of ambience in there, coming from a background of acting and musical theatre." Her song "Stargazer" was inspired by her experiences in the fickle performance industry. "Because it's such a fade and rise industry, you know."

The title of her album, "Dreamworld", also has personal significance. "You're surrounded by a lot of things that you want to do and achieve and it's just like jumping off a precipice. That was how the album felt in a lot of ways so it really made sense."