On television he played Tom Fletcher in Home and Away and Senator Doug Rutherford in Something in the Air, but his face is familiar from many other TV series including The Sullivans, A Country Practice, Blue Heelers, Halifax fp and Good Guys Bad Guys. We spoke to Roger in our pilot programme in May 2006.
When you started Home & Away did you ever think it would last as long as it has.
No, it’s amazing isn’t it? We knew we were turning out quite a good product, but no-one knew it would still be going…
Vanessa Downing originally wasn’t going to be Pippa was she?
I think we filmed a day or two of the pilot with Carol Willesee and suddenly Carol turned into Vanessa Downing!
In due course, when Vanessa left the show, after I left, one of the other ladies I’d auditioned with, Debra Lawrence, ended up playing Pippa.
As more established actors did you and Vanessa feel at all paternal/maternal towards the young actors playing the foster kids?
I suppose we did a bit. It’s interesting, neither of us have families, so it was quite nice to have an instantaneous family and interact with these youngsters. We actually all got on really well. I think back quite fondly about that.
If you’d known about the show’s longevity would it have been more tempting to have stayed?
I often wish I’d stayed a little bit longer but, Vanessa and I have talked about this, one of the main attractions of being an actor is that you get to play different people.
Are you happy to still be remembered as Tom after all this time?
In one way it’s slightly irritating but in another it’s quite nice that people still remember a personality that you’ve helped to create. When you’re an actor you’re there to make a character live, whether you’re on stage or in front of a TV camera. If people have strong memories of a character it means that it’s worked I suppose and that’s always nice! I know myself that I’m not just Tom and I’ve played many other roles, but not as many thousands and millions of people have seen those roles, I suppose.
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