SALLY McLEANActor, screenwriter, director, producer and freelance Casting Director, Sally began her work in the entertainment industry in her mid-teens and has since performed leading roles in Australian and British film, theatre and television. In addition to her own acting work, she has just completed the Melbourne and regional seasons of her play Chasing Pegasus (a play in ten chords) as writer/director, starring Bridget Neval and Jennifer Hansen and is currently producing two independent feature films - Water Deep (working title) and Dalny (working title), both under representation for distribution with Neon Pictures in Sydney.
As an actor, she has tended the sick in Flying Doctors, modelled on Bingles, sung and thrown up for The D-Generation, solicited for customers on Totally Full Frontal, been Kylie’s schoolyard mate and Guy Pearce’s model student in Neighbours, been very annoyed with Nick Giannopoulous on Acropolis Now!, had a knight in shining armour, a priest and water dumped over her in the name of the A-Z Homeguide series of commercials, sold cars for Nissan, sold beds for Sleepy Sam’s, pretended she knew about engines for Repco Autos, demonstrated and was arrested on Blue Heelers and eventually got into bed with Steve Vizard on Tonight Live - after which, she left the country.
She then studied at The Actor's Institute, London, completing her Degree in Dramatic Art, and beginning her MA in Drama & Education, before going on to play roles in UK theatre, television and film, including the lead roles in the West End premier of Annabel's Requiem, and the films A Little Rain Must Fall (selected for the Cannes Film Festival and invited to screen at the Venice Film Festival) and Just Move Your Lips, as well as being the voice for the relaunch of UKGold TV.
She also snogged a stranger in a phone box in the middle of Piccadilly Circus for The Bookworm and mourned at a grave for Poetry Nation, amongst other roles for BBC television. A highlight was playing a decidedly male “King Duncan” in the all-female Macbeth, described as “… an utterly convincing performance as the old Scottish King, belying the fact that McLean is not only young and a woman, but also Australian.” - Time Out.
Upon her return to Australia, she interviewed cops on Blue Heelers, played a primary school teacher with a social conscience in the film Joining The Dots, been everybody’s favourite girl-next-door in the award-winning play Lovepuke and sung and danced her way across the stage with Julia Morris in the Australian premier of the Broadway comedy review I Love You, You’re Perfect, Now Change at the Athenaeum Theatre, Melbourne. She was most recently seen on ABC Television in the role of “Angie Powers” in the BBC mini-series Bootleg, on stage for La Mama Theatre in the moved reading of Young Turks by Gwen Thompson, and in Phrankly Theatre's The Auxiliary at Gasworks, and has just completed filming the lead role of "Catherine Gale" in Earnest Kim's Sleeper.
When not on stage or screen, she worked as a Casting Assistant with Prototype Casting and a Theatrical Agency Assistant with Barry Michael Artists in Melbourne, as well as three years in production with the BBC in London. Her most recent production role was with Crackerjack Productions at Channel 9, Melbourne. She has cast several short films, most notably the 2005 short "Within", starring Randall Berger (Spotswood, Come In Spinner, Ben Elton's Stark, Child Star: The Shirley Temple Story, Shine, Rose Against The Odds, etc) and Jarryd Jinks (2004 AFI Nominee for Best New Talent for Tom White).
In the late 1990’s, she created her own feature film production outfit, Salmac Productions, under the patronage of respected British actor, Sir Nigel Hawthorne, known internationally for his roles as "Sir Humphrey Appleby" in Yes, Minister and Yes, Prime Minister and his Oscar nominated performance in the title role of The Madness Of King George. She now additionally runs Incognita Enterprises - a business dedicated to Arts Education and professional theatre production.
Sally has written and produced three film projects, one in the UK (A Little Rain Must Fall - selected to screen at the Cannes Film Festival) and two in Melbourne (which she also directed) (fixNATION - screened on Foxtel and Brigit & Benny (a modern faerietale) - 2005 Cannes Film Festival entrant). She has also written and directed the plays Chasing Pegasus (a play in ten chords) and P.S. I Love You, both of which were successfully staged in Melbourne, as well as her current work-in-progress Bayonets and Bully Beef, excerpts from which were performed under her direction at the Victorian Arts Centre in July 2005. She is currently working on a new Australian sitcom and docu/drama for broadcast.
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