Rodger Corser knows how unpredictable the TV industry can be. Back in 2001, he was set to take on a leading role in a hit Aussie cop show – or so he thought.
“So I’d been cast in Water Rats to take over the next year, because Steve Bisley was leaving and Dee Smart was pregnant, so she wasn’t going to be on,” Rodger, 53, tells TV WEEK. “They brought me in the last four episodes [of season six]. It was going to be me and Aaron Pedersen. And obviously they saw what the next season was going to be like and they canned the show!”
Twenty-five years later, Rodger is in a very different position. He’s about to be seen fronting the second season of hugely successful game show The Floor. Originally a Dutch format, making an Australian version of The Floor was a bit of a gamble. But it was a hit from the first episode.
“I was doing promo in Adelaide last year, just as the first episode aired,” Rodger says. “And the next morning, the Nine [Network] executives were ringing me at eight o’clock – I was in the gym – saying that we’d topped the ratings on our first night out. That was amazing.”
Having now fronted both The Traitors and The Floor, Rodger has established himself as a game-show host. But he doesn’t see himself as more of a host than an actor.
“I just say yes to whatever the gig is,” he says.
Rodger has starred in some of the most popular Australian dramas of the past 25 years, including McLeod’s Daughters, Underbelly, Puberty Blues, The Doctor Blake Mysteries and Doctor Doctor. He says the drama landscape has “definitely changed” for him in recent years.
“I’m older, so I understand that’s probably just a natural progression for me,” he explains. “There’s probably more lead roles for people in their late 30s and 40s than in their 50s.”
Dad to Budd, Cilla and Dustin with wife Renae, and to Zipporah with ex-partner Christine Anu, Rodger also thinks he might be missing out on roles in US shows shot in Australia or co-productions because he doesn’t have the US credits that other Aussie actors do.
“I had my chance to go to Hollywood back when I had a holding deal with ABC. But I had family. I had to make choices. It was too much of a risk with three and then four kids. So I’m probably paying for that now.”
Rodger has been working on writing his own script recently, but there’s always the possibility that one of his past dramas could be rebooted.
“I tell you what Doctor Doctor might work well for: a Stan Christmas movie,” he hints.
He says he and the producers, Easy Tiger, have talked about it.
“When we saw each other, we went, ‘Oh, that could work.’ I don’t know it’s gone much further than that. It’s a bit like the McLeod’s reboot.”
Rodger says he saw “a bunch of the McLeod’s people” after the death of cast member Rachael Carpani, who passed away at the age of just 45, in December last year.
“I went to Rachael Carpani’s funeral, which was tough. She was the baby of the cast. It makes you value what you’ve got.
“Those things, that’s not when you want to catch up with people.”
Just as people around the world are still discovering McLeod’s, Rodger’s daughter Cilla has just come across Puberty Blues. Set in Sydney’s Sutherland Shire in the 1970s, the series stars Rodger as the cheating, abusive Ferris Hennessey.
“My daughter goes to school in the Shire,” Rodger says. “She goes, ‘Oh, a lot of my friends are watching Puberty Blues.’ And I went, ‘You don’t have to watch it. Dad wasn’t very nice in that.’ And she’s like, ‘Oh, I just want to watch it because other people are watching it.’”
While Rodger’s oldest daughter, Zipporah, is 23 and already releasing her own music, his middle two kids, Budd and Cilla, are in their teens.
That means he’s facing the usual teenager parenting challenges: trying to extract screens from their hands – “we live near the water, so for my eldest son, who likes fishing, it’s just encouraging him to get out there” – and trying to help them think about their future so they can choose their subjects for the final years of high school.
“I’m not very good as an example, because I didn’t know what I wanted to do,” he admits. “I started in rock bands, and then I went to an open call for a rock musical and got a lead in that, and then I started going for drama. I hadn’t done the school acting thing.
“I’ve always given things a go that are new. You’ve just got to give it a swing because you don’t know where you’re going to end up.”
For the next month or two at least, Rodger’s focus is going to be on parenting, with Renae having taken on a role in stage musical The Prom.
“So it’s Dad’s rules, which the kids are enjoying because I’m probably a little bit more lax on the healthy food and that sort of thing!”
This is Renae’s first role in a stage musical in two decades.
“Lucky she’s been a Pilates instructor, so she’s still got some fitness and she can still kick a leg,” Rodger says.
“That will be exciting for all the kids to go and see Mum actually perform, because they’ve never seen her perform, ever. And I haven’t seen her on stage since back when we were courting. So that’s exciting.”
The Floor premieres Sunday 19 April at 7.00pm on Channel 9 and 9Now, and continues Monday at 7.30pm.
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