there’s a different theme for each season.”
This year, it’s all about survival and looking
inward—both for the inmates and for Vera and
her co-workers on the other side of the bars.
“Everyone, ultimately, has to make decisions
about self-preservation,” Atkinson explains.
“And Jake and Will and Vera, they have this
moveable feast of allegiances, but they are all
constantly thinking, ‘How do I protect myself?
How do I protect my job?’ It all goes there
a little later on, in amongst the other
labyrinthine storylines this season—it’s great.”
For Atkinson, originally from Perth, filming
Wentworth has been a blessing. It’s allowed her
to remain in her new adopted hometown of
Melbourne, where the show is filmed.
Yet has she ever tired of playing Vera? “Every
time you think, ‘Am I treading water here and
pulling the same old tricks out of the bag?’, the
material on the page stops you from doing that,”
she says. “A new cast member will come in and
you think, ‘You have just lifted the level.’ So then
that brings us all up with them.”
Atkinson admits she never expectedIS THE FREAK REALLY DEAD?
That’s the million-dollar question for
fans—and one that Kate Jenkinson,
who plays Allie Novak, says her
character is just as obsessed with.
“It’s Wentworth, so who really
knows?” she says. “But if anyone is
going to be able to claw herself out
of a coffin underground, it’s Joan.
Until Ali knows one way or another
what happened to The Freak, she is
going to always have that emptiness;
that rage and desire for justice. She
feels she owes it to Bea.”
Kate Atkinson also refuses to be
drawn on the subject, but, from a
purely professional point of view, she
says she always loved appearing
opposite her on-screen nemesis,
played superbly by Pamela Rabe. “We
had a really terrific chemistry. She is
just the most extraordinary profes-
sional, and so much fun,” she says.WHERE IS SONIA?
It would have been a nice
happy ending for Liz to see
Sonia neatly finished off by
that poisoned tea at the end
of last season. But is she really
dead? Or will Liz have to
contend with the knowledge
that she didn’t finish the job?
We don’t want to give too
much away, but we will say
this—Sigrid Thornton was
one of the actors present at
the Season 6 launch a few
weeks ago. We might not
have seen the last of Sonia
after all!