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Gigi detects busy career

Michael Edgley’s daughter Gigi has discovered there is no business like show business, writes Katrina Witham.

IF AUSTRALIAN actor Gigi Edgley could be reincarnated, the petite, spirited and dreamy damsel should come back as a fairy.

She signs off from her online journal with the salutation “fairiest of kisses”, draws a signature fairy next to her autographs and gives an obscure, Tinkerbell-like description of what it is like to be Edgley and why not?

In summing up the best things about her life, the 26-year-old says: “I don’t think you can describe heart flutters and tears and smiles and giggles in words—but if I could I would.”

Daughter of entrepreneurs Michael and Jenny Edgley and star of former TV program Secret Life Of Us, Edgley grew up among show business—circuses, theatre, ballet, concerts and opera.

She says she is always most at home on stage but more recently she has become better known for her roles on the small screen including The Secret Life Of Us, Australian telemovie Black Jack and on the US sci-fi series Farscape.

Her latest gig is Stingers where she plays detective Katherine Marks, a role Edgley says was a welcome change from playing a promiscuous alien in Farscape.

“It was really nice to play a woman in a skirt with a French roll and high heels,” Edgley says.

“That was very different. And I think I was in shellshock for the first few days.”

After finishing up The Secret Life Of Us, Edgley put her creative energies into music and produced an EP called Poison with Brisbane DJ N8. [note: Gigi recorded Poison, a single, with Sydney Artist/Producer n8]

She returned to Australia after touring in the UK and has worked on the fourth series of Black Jack; travelled to the US to promote Farscape; filmed the sci-fi series for seven weeks, took part in a two-day film clip shoot with the Hoodoo Gurus; and then went straight on to the set of Stingers.

“It wasn’t until about Wednesday on the Stingers set that I went ‘oh, that’s right I’m a homicide detective now’.”

Now on a short break and battling the flu, Edgley says during the past few months she found it hard to remember which city she was living in.

“I was waking up in the middle of the night and walking into a wall and going ‘Aw, that’s not the bathroom’.

“But it is all so good, especially at this stage in my career, to experiment with as many things as possible.”

For any actor, Edgley’s work schedule would be a dream.

She gave a simple explanation for her increased workload: “I love it, I love it, I love it, I love it and I work, work, work, work.”

She adds that her parents’ advice and work ethic has also rubbed off on her.

“My dad said once, ‘you work and you work and you work, then you drop and you work some more’.

“And mum’s always like you know, ‘pursue your passions and follow your dreams and live in the now and surrender to the moment’.

“So a combination of those two philosophies has got me where I am and I think it’s also a matter of being in the right place at the right time and all that.”

Easily excitable, Edgley talks passionately and at a frantic pace about her acting ambitions and philosophies on life. She says the best thing about her job is the chance to play different people because it allows her to explore the meaning of life during the process of trying to understand her characters.

“I like going to a park bench and watching people cruising by and just seeing how life works,” she says.

Edgley’s mind seems to tick over a million times an hour and her thought patterns are frequent and erratic. Mid-conversation, she stops talking when she becomes distracted by a magpie perched on a branch outside.

“Oh look, look outside there’s a little magpie,” Edgley says.

Edgley’s character Katherine will feature on Stingers until the beginning of September.

Her next gig will be back in the US to promote Farscape.

And if the “fish don’t bite” back in Australia, Edgley says she will consider staying in the US to pursue acting opportunities.

“I might go and play over there for a while and see how I go,” she says. “There have been some nibbles over there before from agents and managers but they all say ‘look it is impossible to work from Australia’.”

Meanwhile, as long as she is “working my arse off and learning a bit and teaching a bit along the way”, then she will be quite happy.

“And if I can keep playing dress-ups and make-believe and get paid for it then that is fantastic,” she says.

By Katrina Witham
June 17, 2004
The Courier Mail