In a new Platform Paper, the actor discusses the survival skills that have helped him sustain a 50-year career.

In a new Platform Paper published today by Currency Press entitled The Jobbing Actor: Rules of engagement, Lex Marinos reveals the challenges he and his fellow “non-star” actors have faced in sustaining their careers and well-being. From Kingwood Country to The Slap, the Greek-Australian actor has survived five decades of cultural change. In the following extract, he discusses how working with Big hARt rescued him after a period of disillusionment in the 1990s ….

^{Lex Marinos. Photograph © Greer Versteeg}

Scott Rankin and his company, Big hArt, came to my rescue. After our first collaboration in Burnie, Tasmania there had been some workshops in Kalgoorlie, Wollongong, Wagga Wagga, Melbourne and Alice Springs. Now the company’s shows were getting bigger and more ambitious, and were also attracting the attention of festival directors.

We worked with all kinds of marginalised communities: young mothers, seniors, Indigenous, youth at risk, migrants and refugees, the homeless. We developed and toured high quality shows around the country.

Ngapartji Ngapartji told of the Pitjantjatjara people and their displacement by the...