There was a time when Stephen Peacocke found acting so stressful, it took a physical toll.
“When I started work in Home And Away, I was so nervous for the first two or three months – I was certain I was going to lose my job,” he tells TV WEEK.
“When I came home from work, I could taste blood in my mouth just from talking at the back of my throat, which is the first thing you do when you’re nervous. Everything constricts.
“I was like a ball of tension until the first episodes went to air and I realised that the audience kind of liked it and it was OK.”
Thirteen years after the audience decided they “kind of liked” his Home And Away performance as Brax, Stephen, now 42, is one of Australian television’s most in-demand actors. He’s currently starring in three of the biggest dramas on free-to-air: RFDS, The Newsreader and new crime thriller Human Error. But the nerves are still there.
“Oh look, I’m endlessly insecure about what I do,” he admits with a laugh. “But with acting, you can never be too comfortable in what you’re doing. I find I’ve got to be thinking, ‘Is this really good enough?’ to get good stuff out of myself.”
Human Error follows the investigation into the shooting death of a suburban mum-to-be, a murder that baffles police. Stephen first heard about the series from director Fiona Banks when he was shooting comedy drama Five Bedrooms.
“She mentioned she was about to work on this project,” he says. “I looked into it a bit, and the story it’s inspired by was so tragic and shocking. And to play a character who’s a bit different to those I’ve done in the past couple of years was exciting.”
For Stephen, researching the role of Detective Dylan McKenzie wasn’t too hard. He just spoke to his “good mate”, who’s a retired police officer.
“That was the extent of my research – just annoying my mate with lots of conversations and lots of questions,” he explains.
More difficult was getting inside Dylan’s head. He’s a well-respected cop, head of the gangs unit, but he’s done something he shouldn’t have done. Stephen says he had to do “a bit of digging” to be able to understand why Dylan did what he did.
“This whole situation would be like the worst thing I could ever imagine being in myself,” he admits. “But I thought, ‘Well, you’ve got to justify it.’”
Not that Stephen minds being cast as a flawed character.
“The more flaws you can have in a character, the more interesting they are to play,” he says.
Publicity material for the show describes Dylan as “tough and sexy”, although Stephen laughs off the “sexy” tag.
“That was the one part of the casting that I really scratched my head about – why they got me!”
Stephen might deny he’s sexy, but there’s no doubt he’s popular. He already has three TV WEEK Logie Awards to his name and, at this year’s awards, was a presenter, alongside Michelle Lim Davidson, his co-star in The Newsreader.
“Whenever I have to speak publicly, I can’t eat or drink,” he explains. “So I was sitting there with my heart thumping. I’m getting a little better at it, but I still get so nervous.”
Later, when RFDS took out the Logie for Best Drama Program, Stephen had a reason to celebrate.
“It was genuinely a massive surprise and it made the whole night excellent for us [the cast and creators],” he says.
Stephen, who’s married to actress Bridgette Sneddon and has a young daughter, will soon be filming the third season of RFDS, in which he plays flight nurse Pete Emerson. This season will be shot in South Australia instead of Broken Hill, with locations including Adelaide and the Flinders Ranges.
“I’ve only been to Adelaide briefly, but we’re looking forward to exploring that,” Stephen says. “Then when we’re shooting on location, it should be really good.”
Having been born and raised in Dubbo, in regional New South Wales, Stephen says moving back to the country to live is “probably the goal at some point”.
“The good thing about this line of work is that, in between jobs, you can be anywhere, really,” he explains. “So as much as I enjoy short bursts of Sydney and Melbourne, I like the open spaces and particularly that red country out around Broken Hill, and even Dubbo. It’s what feels like home to me.”
If the TV roles should dry up, Stephen isn’t worried. It took him more than six years from the time he decided to become an actor until he scored his breakthrough role in Home And Away.
“I’ve done my share of sitting around and not getting really cool jobs,” he says. “I like the adventure of that. I chose a job that’s a bit risky, with a chance of unemployment, but the rewards are great. If you’re lucky enough to get a job, it’s so much fun. And it’s what I want to do.”