By Helen Musa

Former Narrabundah College student Leon Ford is the perfect example of a Canberra-boy-made-good in the theatre.

A TV actor best known for his roles in series such as The Cooks, Changi, and Stepfather of the Bride, Ford has more recently appeared in Ten Pound Poms, Elvis and Dog Park. On stage, he played the title role in Tartuffe in a 2014 Bell Shakespeare production.

As a scriptwriter, Ford has written for Australian productions such as Love Me, Offspring, House Husbands and Rush. He also wrote and directed the film Griff the Invisible.

In an unusual move by Bell Shakespeare, Ford has been given top billing and features prominently on the poster for artistic director Peter Evans’ production of Julius Caesar, coming to the Playhouse in April.

If Ford had been playing Caesar or Brutus, that might have been understandable. Instead, he takes on the role of Cassius, the arch-conspirator in the plot to assassinate Caesar, famously described as having a “lean and hungry look”. Evans calls it the most famous murder in Western history.

Ford puts his prominence down to having been hired long ago, but it is surely also due to his rising profile, especially after co-creating and starring in the ABC/Matchbox Pictures comedy series Dog Park.

When we catch up, Ford reminds me that I once reviewed him at Narrabundah. He credits that school experience, along with his time studying at Theatre Nepean in Penrith, where he learned to do everything. Graduating in 1995, he often performed with Bell Shakespeare and recalls touring with productions such as A Midsummer Night’s Dream and the Henry plays, while already beginning to write scripts.

Ford is adamant that the central character in Julius Caesar is Brutus, played here by Brigid Zengeni in a gender-bending casting choice he describes as “an incredible move”. When Zengeni was recently unwell and the understudy stepped in, Ford notes, it became a completely different production.

“With Brigid, there is such a fascinating shifting gender perspective in the way Brutus considers all the evidence before taking part in the conspiracy,” he says.

Cassius, Ford explains, is not just “lean and hungry”. Caesar also accuses him of thinking too much, reading widely, and observing others closely – qualities Ford suggests any dictator would fear, and make no mistake, Caesar is leading the populace right into autocracy

Unlike Caesar and Brutus, Cassius has no domestic life, making him harder to build from the inside. Still, Ford has embraced the challenge.

“I’ve had to do a lot of imagining,” he says, “but what I’ve learnt is that he’s passionate about the Rome that existed before, when the government was more like what we understand to be democratic.”

“He’s genuinely outraged, and I’m enjoying being on his side, which I have to do as an actor anyway.”

As a play, Julius Caesar is no pushover. “It’s like two different plays,” Ford says. “The first half is a thriller where Cassius is devising a conspiracy. The second half is what happens afterwards. There’s no real right or wrong.”

Evans, who last year staged an earlier Roman story, Coriolanus, has set this production in a world evoking Eastern Europe in the 1990s, describing it as an exploration of politics, persuasion, and their violent consequences.

“I’m a writer, so I can dissect the script,” Ford says. 

Bell Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar, The Playhouse, April 10-18.