I don't take roles I don't believe in

Famous for playing unconventional women since finding stardom in Muriel's Wedding and Six Feet Under, Rachel Griffiths is equally strict about the sort of work she takes, even if it means she is less well known than she deserves to be

- By Simon Button

RACHEL Griffiths would probably be as famous as the likes of fellow Australians Nicole Kidman, Cate Blanchett and Margot Robbie if she wasn’t so fussy. By her own admission, the 57-year-old Golden Globe winner, Oscar contender and four Primetime Emmy Award nominee has caveats when it comes to choosing projects.

“I’ve got a thing when I’m approached to do a movie or a show and that’s asking, ‘How long? And how far?’”

Famous for Muriel’s Wedding, Six Feet Under and Brothers & Sisters, it’s intriguing to imagine some of the roles she might have inhabited were she less particular.

Born and raised in Melbourne, where she is still based, she sighs: “What I’m offered is almost never in my hometown. I also ask, ‘How much?’ because that algorithm also has to work. I can’t go to France for one year to do an underground underpaid film set in a quarry.”

When we speak, Griffiths is almost in France — in the principality of Monaco — but only for a few days to serve on the fiction jury at the Monte-Carlo Television Festival. And as if she hasn’t given enough caveats already, she adds one more - about what will lure away from her homeland.

“I also want to know how good something is going to be because I don’t do things I don’t believe in,” she says.

“Last year I had to pass up a really amazing opportunity and it was something I would have loved to do but it just didn’t suit the algorithm. It was too long and it was too far away and, as a mum, you just kind of make those decisions.”

Rachel has been married to Australian artist Andrew Taylor since 2002. They have three children: Banjo, 21, Adelaide, 20, and Clementine, 16.