A golden age

At 50, A Place to Call Home star Marta Dusseldorp is glowing with creativity. Motherhood has made her a better actor, while moving to Tasmania has sparked her greatest challenge yet.

- GENEVIEVE GANNON

After our long day with Marta Dusseldorp has ended and the tape recorder is turned off, the actress tucks her legs under herself on the soft white banquette and continues to talk about work, life, acting, and the wicked paradox of raising fearless young women – wanting to protect her daughters from having to go through what she went through, while understanding that adversity builds resilience.

A flickering fire warms our backs, and to our left, a two-storey window looks out onto Tasmania’s Mount Hazard underneath a sky that sparkles like thousands of tiny diamonds spilled on a sheet of midnight-blue velvet. Marta speaks eloquently and thoughtfully about these big subjects, and the responsibility she feels to the industry that has shaped and fulfilled her.

“I want to continue to perform, but also create and nurture and mentor. I see my role as that now. As a 50-year-old woman, I’m ready to do what was done for me, which is identify and support and encourage young women,” she says.

The Weekly’s photoshoot lasted all day against the chilled beauty of Tasmania’s Coles Bay. With daughters Grace, 16, and Maggie, 13, in tow, Marta gamely clambered over pink granite, swished through tall grass, and posed on the rocks turned orange by lichen.

I’ve cried, triggered by Marta talking about being separated from her girls while filming amid COVID, Marta has cried, speaking about the woman who helped her forge her career, and she’s let our team glimpse the close bond she shares with her daughters, of whom she is prodigiously proud. Now, her voice is hoarse, but she’s eager to talk more. She’s on the cusp of a new grand adventure. She is about to launch Bay of Fires, a drama she stars in, produced and co-created from scratch with Jack Irish collaborator Andrew Knight and AFI-winning screenwriter Max Dann.