Leeanna Walsman holds back from acting tough for Human Error

She’s been acting on our screens for nearly 30 years but new Nine series Human Error is the biggest Free to Air role Leeanna Walsman has yet undertaken.

“Except for Jessica (2004), I’ve never played the lead of a series, especially one like this on a Free to Air network like Channel Nine,” she tells TV Tonight.

“I definitely think I’m a better actor now. But when I think about it, other than theatre, I’ve been part of ensembles as a lead, which is extraordinary. This role feels even bigger, because I guess I’m older and I’m more aware of what’s going on.”

Across six episodes, Walsman plays Detective Senior Sergeant Holly O’Rourke investigating a brutal murder and navigating drama in her personal life. Despite the weight of the role (Walsman is in almost every scene) her performance remains understated.

“That’s just my style but I guess it’s kind of deliberate, because it’s just not me to be that person. I was prepared to be, and I thought that people would ask me to be, a bit bigger, a bit more obvious, more in your face. Like, ‘let’s act tough’, whatever that is, because you’re a head detective,” she continues.

“I was prepared for the network to go, ‘No, we need you to be more like this, because this is what we imagined’. But they didn’t at all. They, in fact, encouraged my choices and seemed to gravitate towards them.

“She’s a homicide detective who’s a mother, a wife, and also a daughter and each of those parts of her character are intertwined in the narrative. Actually, I’d say she’s a very fair and impulsive boss. She leads with compassion, she treats everyone as equal, and she gives everyone the benefit of the doubt.

“The way that she uncovers and gains information has a lot to do with the way she interacts with people and being as authentic as possible. Anyway, that’s how I approached her. I also really like her, because she’s fallible.”

The cast also features Matt Day, Stephen Peacocke, Rob Collins, Steve Bisley, Rahel Romahn, Daniela Farinacci, Sachin Joab, Jane Allsop, Anthony J Sharpe and Rosie Mitchell.

The Roadshow Rough Diamond series, created by Greg Haddrick, Samantha Winston, Gregor Jordan & John Silvester, explores Melbourne’s underworld and policing, but while there are leagcy links to Underbelly (Haddrick & Silvester) it lands without quite the same tone of sensationalism.

“There’s definitely not as much skin as Underbelly!” Walsman insists. “Like, you can’t do any drinking games based on what you see on the TV!

“I didn’t watch all the Underbellys, to be honest, but I feel like it’s a lot different, and also it’s contemporary female-driven.

“I’m really interested in, obviously the case, but particularly in her personal life and how that interweaves with it, and what happens behind doors.”

Yet the “inspired by real events” crime is unmistakably drawn from Melbourne’s history. O’Rourke leads an investigation into the brazen execution of a mother in a suburban driveway, in front of her children. The series is ‘inspired by real events’ which bears an uncanny likeness to the unsolved 1997 murder of Jane Thurgood-Dove in Niddrie.

While Nine declines to comment on any parallels, carefully referring to any similarities as “coincidental”, Walsman points to other sub-plots which develop.

“I feel like, when it says ‘Inspired by’, it’s literally that. Like it’s inspired by, but then the narrative and the case becomes its own writing in this piece. There’s definitely a case that inspires the beginning and the onset of what happens, and also the concept of human mistakes. But that concept then leads into, and that’s the writer’s creativity, Holly’s life and things that Holly does,” she explains.

“That’s what the concept of human errors is about.

“It is to do with the case and then I guess, if we’re talking beyond the case, then the idea that humans are fallible, and how do we navigate things that are seen as mistakes? Can we turn them into something? How do we proceed beyond them? Do we allow them to consume us and do things that are worse, or do we utilise that and turn it into a better outcome? There’s a lot of metaphors in it as well.

“But you’d be pretty hard stretched to find any sort of procedural drama or anything that’s about investigation, that hasn’t been inspired by events that have happened.”

Human Error screens 8:40pm Wednesday on Nine.