“I’m terrible!” Jackie Woodburne radiates glamor for The Imposter | Television tonight

When it was agreed NeighborsJackie Woodburne would play hotel owner Helen O’Riley in the new 10 miniseries The deceiver, she was convinced a costume party was in order.

“I said, ‘Look, she has to look so different from Susan (Kennedy), because I can’t be on a show a few months later on the air and still look like Susan, because that just doesn’t work.’ Moreover, I felt that she was someone who spent her entire life in disappointment and resentment. She is just an angry woman,” she says Television tonight.

“I talked to costume designer Nick Wakeley about her buying most of her clothes second hand, because I think twenty years ago when the hotel was doing well, she probably bought quite expensive, good quality stuff. But she hasn’t replaced it because the hotel hasn’t done well for a long time. So she’s wearing clothes that are twenty years out of fashion.”

“We went online and looked at second-hand sites, and I went into a few stores looking for little treasures.”

Then there’s a wig, which, while far from flattering, is intended to enhance Helen’s deterioration.

“The haircut I had as Susan is quite recognizable to me as Susan. But I didn’t think she would be one to bother coloring her hair. She kept it neat and tidy, but she let it go gray. So again, I thought, she probably gets the same haircut every time,” she continues.

“So we found the wig, which I think is just gold. I mean, I look absolutely horrible, but I think I look exactly how she’s supposed to look! Her whole behavior… there was no attempt to make me look pretty with lighting.”

Woodburne also has very little makeup for the role.

“There’s very little make-up… no attempt to make me look glamorous in any way. I tried to make her feel heavier, walk more with flatter feet… her whole demeanor is older,” she claims.

“She’s not a young mind. She’s not a young heart. She’s got no humor in her. No sense of joy in life, or anything like that. That’s what makes a person older, I think.”

Woodburne was on board early The impostor to creator and Neighbors executive producer Jason Herbison wrote the role with her in mind.

“He said, ‘I have this story, and I have this character, and I want you to play her, and she is terrible.’

“And I thought, ‘Great, I’m terrible!’ So that’s where it started, but obviously that was a long time ago Neighbors packed,” she recalls.

“That sounds like music to an actor’s ears, right? Not an audition. He just said, ‘Would you do that?’ When he started telling me about her, I thought, ‘Oh my God,’ because she’s the opposite of Susan. She really couldn’t be more different. And what a gift that (role) was.

“So I really felt so part of his writing journey as someone who could listen to him throw ideas around.

“What was great was that I was able to create Helen’s backstory. I said to Jason, ‘It’s great when someone plays a complete asshole, but there has to be a reason why he or she is an asshole.’ That makes it so much more interesting.”

In The impostor matriarch Helen refuses to sell her sprawling seaside hotel, despite pressure from her three adult children.

Little do they know, Helen is hiding a secret, and suddenly a daughter she gave up for adoption decades ago, Amanda (Kym Marsh), appears. Helen welcomes her with open arms, but is Amanda who she says she is? It sets the tone for betrayal and ultimately murder.

The series has already been shown as an event in Britain for four consecutive nights.

“In Britain this time of year is a great viewing period because everyone is watching TV at home. It’s cold. It’s Christmas so people are at home,” she explains.

“It’s not the same as soap opera, but it’s definitely amplified that way. Episode one has a lot of who-who and the relationships with each other because there are different main characters involved… but I’ll tell you by the end of episode two, it just goes on and on.”

Her three adult children also include Jane Harber, Don Hany and Jackson Gallagher.

“What an ugly bunch of kids! Can I just say it?” she laughs. “I mean, you look at Helen and go, ‘How the hell did that happen?’ But it is clear that Reg, her late husband, was a very attractive man.

Also starring Dannii Minogue, in her first locally produced television drama in over three decades, Charlie Clausen (Prosperous, home and away), Chi Nguyen (Class of ’07, Fisk), Kabir Singh (Plum, the tourist) and newcomer, Adeline Williams.

Woodburne also plays the role with an Irish accent, which was obvious but may surprise some Neighbors fans.

“Jason has connections to Northern Ireland through his family, which I think is probably one of the things that put me in his mind. I was born in Northern Ireland. I was born in Northern Ireland.”

“I grew up with that accent my whole life,” she says. “My father and I always spoke to each other like that. Usually in jest, we did it to the extreme. My brothers have that accent. I hear it all the time. I was only three when we came to Australia, so mine is a bit tempered. And of course as an actor I had to find an Australian accent, which I always did, because I grew up here. So that’s very natural for me too. But the Irish accent is very instinctive.”

In Australia, the series will be shown over two nights as a thriller with a $30 million hotel company at stake, a “terrible mother” and a family dynamic thrown into chaos.

“People are willing to take extreme measures – about as extreme as they can get – to get the outcome they want,” Woodburne points out.

“If people want to watch four hours of a kind of fast-paced whodunnit – it’s not really a whodunnit, it’s a ‘whydunnit’ – a bit of a thriller, then I think they’ll love it.

“It’s very entertaining television.”

The Imposter Part 1 + 2 8:00 PM Sunday, December 21 at 8:00 PM / Part 3 + 4: Monday, December 22 at 8:30 PM at 10