Take a look at Sherry-Lee Watson’s screen work to date: all different expressions of young, powerful, energetic women on the precipice of adult life and everything that might mean. The 27-year-old actor has a short but powerful list of credits to her name. Deliberate choice? Happy accident? It probably doesn’t matter.
Her first on-screen acting job was playing high school student Missy on the Netflix reboot of Heartbreak High – a quick-paced, high-energy ensemble project Watson describes as “unapologetically Aussie”.
In the 2024 Stan eight-part miniseries Thou Shalt Not Steal, she played Robyn, a juvenile delinquent making her way across the outback in a stolen taxi in a role that garnered her an AACTA Award nomination for Best Lead Actress in a Drama.
Her latest role is young drover and horse wrangler Nell on Netflix’s big-budget miniseries My Brilliant Career, the most recent interpretation of Miles Franklin’s 1901 novel. Filmed around Adelaide on the traditional land of the Kaurna people, it’s the most expensive television show ever made in South Australia, with a budget of roughly $17 million.
It’s also a real smorgasbord of luscious costuming, perfect lighting and broad South Australian vistas, set in a time of buttoned-up Victorian primness, but with just a hint of wild bohemian fancy creeping in. It’s deeply evocative and deliciously escapist.
Watson describes the story arc of her character as working in parallel to the main character of Sybylla, played by Philippa Northeast (The Family Next Door, The Newsreader, Paper Dolls). “They’re both women who are very modern and they don’t want to be defined by the boundaries of their time.”
She says the process of working on such a large-scale production taught her to stay humble, open and curious. “I feel like this industry [requires] so many different types of vulnerability,” she says, referencing how easy it can be to shut down and go into self-protection mode when it feels the world is closing in.
“You have to keep your heart really open to act, or to share things with people, or to be on a red carpet or in a photo studio capturing parts of you that perhaps you don’t necessarily love about yourself,” she adds. “But I think being around other actors like that has [made me feel] safe and passionately creative.”
A proud Arrernte woman, born and raised in Alice Springs, Watson trained in music theatre at Victorian College of the Arts. Having worked on back-to-back screen performances for the last few years, she’s excited to be returning to the stage on August 7 in Break of Day at Malthouse Theatre in Melbourne, co-starring with Kat Stewart (Underbelly, Tangle, Offspring).
“Screen is amazing, and I’m so grateful for everything I’ve gotten out of it, but I’m not satisfying that hunger to interrogate text and to go deep into characters,” she says. “I’m really grateful for all the screen work I’ve had, and the people I’ve gotten to meet, but I want to come home to the stage for a little while.”
The play focuses on an intense mother-daughter relationship and is set over the course of a single night shift at the world’s largest online retail warehouse. “It’s a really heavy one,” says Watson, “but it’s beautiful.”
Shaping that relationship with Stewart, she says, required a lot of trust. “Theatre’s so different from film. You’ve really got to go so deeply into the text, and you need to be able to go there every night. I love negotiating the boundary between what’s safe enough and what sells the story as much as possible.”
Watson describes her own upbringing – she was raised by a single mother on an outstation – as working class. But, thanks to a scholarship from the Smith Family, she left the Northern Territory to attend The Geelong College for years 10, 11 and 12. Moving from family and friends and the red sands of Alice Springs to an elite boarding school with its green, manicured grounds was a massive culture shock.
“It’s hard if you’re not brought up in the same environment,” she says. “I wasn’t prepared for how different it was. I wasn’t ready for it. It took its toll, but ultimately it had an amazing outcome.”
She says it’s where the idea of pursuing a career in acting first seemed feasible. “I’ve always wanted to be a performer, but it never became something attainable until I’d gotten into a space like that, where I actually could see it becoming a realistic thing. My confidence, even my ability to articulate myself, grew so much just by going there.”
The other reason acting seemed unattainable as a career was the lack of theatre in Alice Springs. “There’s one play a year, and it’s for one night,” she says. “You know, you can’t do something that you don’t see as possible. I can’t describe to you a colour I’ve never seen before.”
For Watson, who often gets homesick, there’s a split between who she is in Melbourne and who she is when she goes home to the Northern Territory. “It’s two different worlds, a big culture change,” she says. “Different ways of speaking, different ways of being and doing, different values. Different cultures value different things, and adjusting from one to the other takes a toll on your body sometimes.”
Working on Thou Shalt Not Steal, which was filmed in the NT, gave Watson the rare opportunity of experiencing a meeting of her two worlds, even if it did bring some mixed feelings.
“It’s always going to feel a little bit more secure and a little bit more relaxed – I know this place, this place knows me,” she says. She adds, though, that she felt a little too relaxed at times. “I’m used to the certain tension at work, I guess. A certain way that I hold myself. It was a bit confusing to be honest.”
Looking into the future, Watson would like to return home to teach. “I just want to be happy telling my stories, doing my plays, and showing a lot of younger mob that we’re allowed to be happy, and that we’re allowed to like to reach for things we might not think we deserve, but we do. And it’s OK.”
It’s a positive message she wants to convey to that younger mob: “You know, it might not feel like it, but we are loved. The more you get out there, the more you meet people and the more you realise, maybe we’re gonna be OK.”
Of all the women in her life, Watson draws the most inspiration from her mother. “Her strength and her resolve is just incredible. She shows me that you can just handle so many things with so much class and grace.
“There are a lot of women in the industry who really hold me down, and Shari Sebbens is one of them,” says Watson, referring to the actor whose credits include The Sapphires, Redfern Now, The Office and Top End Bub.
“I had the privilege of working with her on My Brilliant Career – she was an associate producer on it – and learnt so much from her as someone who comes from the Territory and has gone into performing arts. Knowing that cultural shock, knowing what it’s like to exist in two worlds – she’s been a really amazing mentor to me.”
Getting back to Country as often as possible is vital for Watson. “Sometimes I’m just like, ‘What am I giving up for this? What’s the exchange that’s happening here?’ I’m remembering to be grateful for things. It makes you grow up very quickly.”
After Break of Day finishes its run, Watson will enjoy a long spell at home with her mother. “It’s been over 10 years of being away,” she reflects. “I haven’t sat down there for a long time. I need to go back and ground myself and be with my family on Country, and see what comes out of that.”
My Brilliant Career is on Netflix from August 13.
Fashion editor: Penny McCarthy. Hair: Brad Mullins using O&M: Make-up: Aimie Fiebig. Fashion assistant: Jade Myriam. Stockists: Leo Lin; Levante; Max Mara; Misha; Prada; Roger Vivier; Zara.
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