Brendan Cowell bares all in new series, Plum

Brendan Cowell is apprehensive. He’s got that last-night-of-the-holidays-before-term-starts feeling — he’s feeling excited, but also a bit scared.

“It’s turning up to school without any trousers on and everyone is watching,” he says of his current state of mind.

“Or it’s mufti day, and you’ve turned up wearing a toga — and everyone is staring at you.”

The thing that’s causing all his unrest? The TV adaptation of his novel, Plum, which is making its way to screens this Sunday night.

He’s the show’s creator, showrunner, and he also stars as the central character, the titular Peter ‘the Plum’ Lum, an ex-rugby league superstar who’s undergoing something of a turning point in his life.

Cowell can relate.

“This is a very personal tale,” says the actor, who is speaking with PLAY from Sydney.

“I wrote the book, I adapted the book, I played the lead and I’m the showrunner — it’s Brendan Cowell in capital letters … and you see my bum within about a minute of the show starting.

“It’s very exposing.”

You’d think for someone who’s spent the better part of their adult life in the spotlight thanks to roles in film and TV he’d be used to this feeling.

He made his breakthrough in the lauded early-noughties TV series Love My Way and has worked consistently since on film and TV as well as performing in award-winning theatre roles in the UK (his latest project is a lead role in James Cameron’s enormously popular Avatar film franchise).

But this time it’s different. This time Cowell is morphing from actor to All-Of-The-Things — and it’s a big deal.

“But at the same time, I dreamt of this,” he explains.

“I dreamt of having my own show one day — and I tried to, for 20 years, and got knocked back at the final, so I am just so glad that this is the first show I have ever made myself.”

It might be the first of many more — it’s good.

And topical.

And sure, it’s essentially about a retired professional athlete who’s made a name for himself playing rugby league (a game which, let’s face it, us here on the West side have struggled to embrace over the years) it’s likely to find a broad audience.

In short: it’s something to feel proud about.

“I struggle to give myself a pat on the back,” Cowell admits.

“But seeing Alexa Leary, the paralympic swimmer go, ‘I’m proud of myself’, I’m trying to take that from her and be like, ‘Yeah, I AM proud of myself’.”

In Plum, Cowell plays a man who is struggling to admit he’s … struggling.

His character is busily living the suburban idyll post-league glory — he’s living in Sydney’s Cronulla, enjoying the spoils of a life covered in glory.

As official notes from his show explain, Plum is a living legend, who “can’t walk down Cronulla Street without a selfie — and on radio when he talks footy everyone listens up”, but strange things are happening in his life.

He’s starting to forget things, his vision is blurring, and when he suffers a seizure on the tarmac of the airport where he works as a tug driver and careens into the path of an active runway, he’s forced to face reality that something is very, very, wrong.

A trip to the doctors reveals Plum almost certainly has the degenerative brain disorder chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE) — it’s time to switch things up or dementia and death are imminent.

Cowell’s story picks up here and explores what happens next, and how his character comes to terms with his diagnosis and finds an unlikely saving grace in the form of a new-found connection to poetry.

It sounds improbable, but confessed wordsmith Cowell admits he drew much from his own journey towards beating an over-reliance on alcohol, pouring a lot of himself into the book and the series.

Cowell cast a lot of his mates, many of them rugby league greats, including Andrew “Joey” Johns, Mark “Spudd” Carroll, Paul Gallen and James Graham, in the series.

Long a mad Cronulla Sharks fan, Cowell had grown close to many of them over the years.

“I’ve been around these blokes for a while now,” he explains, noting the work he’s done hosting league shows for radio and TV.

“And because I’m a rugby league fanatic — and Plum is a celebration of the two greatest things on earth: Rugby League and the written word — I kind of smashed the two things together and constructed the perfect male, which is Peter Lum the poet.

“Andrew Johns, who is the 8th Immortal and probably the best ever to have done it, he’s a great friend of mine, and he gave me a lot of access to his experience in post-football life,” he adds,

“Including his seizures.

“And Spud Carroll, he has been really erudite …

“They are guys who have spoken about CTE concussion and head knocks very publicly and I thought it would be great to have them in the show as cameos.

“A lot of actors fancy themselves as athletes, and a lot of athletes fancy themselves as movie stars, so it kind of works quite nicely.

“I also thought it’s symbolically quite nice to have these players in it who are so open about the issue.”

Though Plum centres around the world of sport, at its heart it is a family drama, exploring what Plum’s diagnosis means for those closest to him (his Love My Way co-star Asher Keddie pops up playing his ex-wife, and Plum’s girlfriend and son are central to the story).

Cowell says he thinks the story will be relevant to all audiences — not just those with an interest in rugby league.

It’s about confronting the tough bits in life, and doing what’s needed to move through the hard times.

“Once we get over 40, you get in the sniper zone, and you can find out something that might get ya,” Cowell explains.

“And suddenly, you became very aware of your health.

“One of the reasons I stopped drinking five years ago — and, you know, I had a fair crack at it — was that I wasn’t very good at the quiet night, and, essentially, I decided I wanted to live forever.

“I want to feel good in my body, and I want to be careful, you know? Because life is precious.”

Choosing to base his story in the male-dominated world of league made sense on a number of levels, though he notes Plum’s struggle is not exclusively a male one.

“But I think that’s where the (issues of) toxic masculinity come into it: it’s to do with what men tell other men they have to do in order to be men — that bullshit is dangerous,” he muses.

“But other than that, this is a human issue: that we fear pain, and pain can make us behave in ways that are hurtful.

“And suddenly Peter Lum is faced with something he’s never been faced with before, which is fear.

“He’s never been afraid of f...ing anything. And now he’s like, ‘I could die. And I don’t understand what’s going on. And I can’t share it because I’m too embarrassed’.

“So that’s what he’s dealing with — but I think women will get just as much out of it as men and that was the case with the book: it was actually aimed towards men, but female readers loved it because it was about family and the ripple effects of a brain injury on a family.”

It all adds up to an immensely resonant series, and one that Cowell is right to be proud of.

“And bloody hell, I loved (making it),” he says.

“I learnt so much, and I am really, really happy with the story we told, and all the artists that came on board — it was special.

“There was so much magic and luck that came our way that made me really sure that we were making something that could help people.”

Plum is on ABC and ABC iview on Sunday, October 20 at 8.30pm.