‘Franky’ fans go to extremes

“Franky had the most positive, warm reception I’ve ever experienced. She was just so loved and made a big splash,” says Wentworth’s Nicole da Silva.

“I got a few marriage proposals!”

Indeed, both male and female viewers have shown their enthusiasm for da Silva’s performance as lesbian Franky Doyle in Foxtel’s acclaimed drama.

“A woman, I think in Queensland, got a Franky-esque tattoo on her right arm. And someone else had #TeamFrankie tattooed on them.

“This is a recent development of how dedicated Franky fans are. It’s pretty amazing!”

But there were no guarantees for the series ambitiously rebooting the iconic Prisoner. It was a deal secured on a handshake between Foxtel’s Executive Director of Television Brian Walsh and FremantleMedia Australia boss Ian Hogg -but it paid off.

“All of us as a team, in front and behind the cameras, wondered if we were going to get the dynamic right and if we would do justice to the original,” da Silva explains.

“There were all those questions the whole way along. It was totally nerve-wracking.

“I hadn’t watched Prisoner when it went to air but stuff permeated in mainstream culture so I knew about Vinegar Tits, The Freak, the steam press. I knew about these iconic things from the show but they had no personal relevance to me because I wasn’t exposed to it.

“But once I started auditioning for the show I watched the first episode and started doing a little bit of research with (originator) Carol Burns’ Franky.

“What I loved about what I saw was that they were making really interesting choices about females and how they were portrayed on telly.

“I remember the closing scene of that first episode where a character buys off a ‘screw’ (warden) at the gate, and sneaks into a new inmate’s cell. The last shot is just her entering the cell and standing over her bed.

“The tension really excited me and I liked that we hadn’t seen these type of women before.

“So I wanted to continue that legacy and bring it into 2013 and keep it contemporary.”

Da Silva says the work done by writers recreating the series laid down the foundations for Wentworth‘s success.

“It was pretty collaborative but I have to say it was all there. Lara (Radulovich, writer) and her team had it all there, so it was just some finessing that came from us,” she says.

“I think they did a marvellous job at weaving in the original. More so than I even knew.

“It was only after it aired and fans of the original saw it that then I realised the resonance it had. Because that was lost on me, previous to that.”

Now the show has spawned two European remakes in Germany and The Netherlands, using Australian scripts as their prototype.

For da Silva, her research visiting local prisons made her realise that prison environments lend themselves perfectly to the intensity of TV drama storytelling.

“It’s a little pressure cooker. And even speaking to people in real world prisons, they kind of say the same thing. It’s this closed off little world, that mainstream society doesn’t have access to,” she notes.

“It was pretty intense. I visited a couple of prisons and then we had some really fresh inmates come to visit us and it was pretty eye-opening to know that they had been separated from society for the last 6, 7, 15 years. To hear their stories was pretty humbling.

“They had some reservations about certain experiences but on the other hand they were keen to be heard, because they hadn’t been heard for a very long time. So they were nothing but generous with us.”

Earlier this year da Silva won an ASTRA Award for her debut as Franky Doyle. She promises another rollercoaster ride in Season Two.

“It’s a pretty different Franky for Season Two. Between seasons she goes through some pretty big stuff. So when we come back to her she’s quite a bit darker.”

Wentworth airs 8:30pm Tuesdays on SoHo.