![Celia Pacquola.](/web/20170107014959im_/http://www.smh.com.au/content/dam/images/g/t/h/y/v/u/image.related.articleLeadNarrow.300x0.gthwb5.png/1483167062661.jpg)
There is a serious side to comedian Celia Pacquola, and if her recent performance in the ABC TV drama The Beautiful Lie is anything to go by, we're likely to see much more of it.
"I've always wanted to do drama with some serious heavy hitter actors," Pacquola says. "But I never thought I would get a role [in The Beautiful Lie]. I just wanted to give it a shot even though I had nothing to show the producers to prove I could do it. It was a leap of faith for them."
Pacquola joined a cast including Sarah Snook, Dan Wyllie, Benedict Samuel and Robert Menzies in a modern day reimagining of Tolstoy's sweeping tragic novel Anna Karenina. That made it easier, she says. "It's such a great ensemble. Worst-case scenario, if I was terrible, the show would still turn out OK."
But Pacquola wasn't terrible. Far from it. Her turn as a mother of three cheated on by her husband earned her a best guest or supporting actress in a television drama award at the first Australian Academy of Cinema and Television Arts Awards, held recently in Sydney.
Is Pacquola standing at a career crossroads?
"I would love to do more dramatic roles but I will never, ever forsake comedy," Pacquola says. To prove her point, she is bringing her fifth solo stand-up show, The Looking Glass, to the Sydney Festival.
"It's a really fun hour," says Pacquola of the show that premiered in the 2016 Melbourne International Comedy Festival and earned glowing reviews. "I really enjoy doing it. It's a very varied range of topics but it's me, always high energy, lots of silliness and stories from my life."
Pacquola, 33, did have dramatic ambitions as a university student. "I wrote what I thought was an angsty play about real-world issues," she recalls. "It was called Playing You and it was vaguely about the social masks we wear. You know when you are young and you act differently around different people. It was, 'who are we really'? Oh my god!"
The audience laughed all the way through it, Pacquola recalls. "I was like, c'mon, it's not funny guys. These are my feelings!"
Theatre's loss turned out to be comedy's gain. Pacquola's incisive, self-deprecating humour quickly won her an audience. She has been nominated for the Barry Award at the Melbourne International Comedy Festival for best show, and has performed worldwide including at the Montreal Just For Laughs Festival.
Working as a serious actor has given Pacquola some fuel for her comedy. Some off-screen stories might make their way in The Looking Glass. "After I got the part in The Beautiful Lie, I found out there were going to be two bath scenes," she says. "I had to have a conversation with the director about how much nudity I was comfortable with. Turns out … not much. It was just bizarre sitting in a room working out the contract. I said, I am prepared to put my arse on the table, but that is it. No nipples and no side boob!"
Celia Pacquola: The Looking Glass plays in the Magic Mirrors Spiegeltent, Hyde Park North, January 17-19. A Sydney Festival event. $36, sydneyfestival.org.au
Tears of a clown
Inside every clown, goes the saying, there's a serious actor trying to get out. Celia Pacquola joins a long list of stand-up comedians who have made big splashes as dramatic actors.
Eric Bana
Who knew back in 1991 that the Melbourne comic who had to wait tables to supplement his meagre income from stand-up comedy would become one of Hollywood's most magnetic leading men?
Tim Minchin
The piano-bashing satirist and musical theatre writer showed his dramatic chops as Herod in the London arena staging of Jesus Christ Superstar and as the villainous Smasher Sullivan in the ABC TV mini-series The Secret River.
Mary Coustas
Coustas came to national attention in the long-running Wogs Out of Work stage shows. She went on to play straight in TV series including Wildside, The Secret Life of Us and Rake.
Julia Morris
Cutting her comic teeth in stand-up, Morris is a TV comedy star but she showed she could act, too, starring in Nine's drama series House Husbands.
Steve Martin
His comedy films are classics but when he does get serious, Martin is excellent. If you can find it, grab a copy of David Mamet's 1997 noir The Spanish Prisoner.
Robin Williams
The undisputed champion of the comedy-to-drama actors and one who always went back to the stand-up stage to refresh.