Biopic lead big break for Aussie actress Cobham-Hervey - Boston Herald

For Tilda Cobham-Hervey, it can’t get better than playing Australia’s Helen Reddy, the Grammy-winning song stylist and feminist icon, in “I Am Woman.”

The music-studded biopic charts Reddy’s struggles as a single mother with a 3-year-old daughter stranded in Manhattan trying to get a break.

That happens when she marries Jeff Wald, an agent, and they move to LA. Wald battles to win her a recording contract, which leads to Reddy’s writing and singing the anthemic “I Am Woman,” which became the theme song of 1970s feminist rallies.

Tilda Cobham-Hervey in ‘I Am Woman’

“I’m incredibly grateful to be given the chance to play this extraordinary woman and explore her life,” Cobham-Hervey, 26, said from Adelaide, Australia.

“I’ve been in America the last six months,” she explained, “but I’ve just come back to Adelaide to see my family and I’m actually talking from (Australia’s strictly enforced 14-day arrivals) quarantine.”

Last year Cobham-Hervey was a valiant if doomed nanny in “Hotel Mumbai” opposite Armie Hammer so “Woman” slots as a big break. “We’ll have to see how that goes,” she laughed. “I’m in Adelaide waiting for a job.”

Reddy dominated the charts with a string of hits, toured and eventually did movies, stage and television. Long retired, at 78 she lives in an L.A. care facility.

For Cobham-Hervey, “Just playing a real person is challenging, especially a person we all know and love. I think your job as an actor is to fall in love with the character you’re playing — and I got so in love with Helen that I almost got in my own way.

“To portray her authentically and tell her story — that’s daunting. And you have to make sure you get enough of her physicality, her voice, her presence.”

That was more of a challenge than she expected. In Reddy’s era, female vocalists planted their two feet on the stage and sang. It was not like today’s vocalists with dancing and elaborate choreography.

“When Helen sang, she stands incredibly still. That’s something I find quite beautiful about her, her stillness. That takes a lot of confidence. It’s almost she’s telling you this story and the way she performs it, you almost have to lean in as an audience. She does so much with her eyes.

“Unlike a lot of performers, Helen isn’t looking to be loved. She isn’t looking for approval all the time. That confidence I found very inspiring.

“But it did take me a while to settle into it. I kept wanting to sort of move around and bop my head.”

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Biopic lead big break for Aussie actress Cobham-Hervey - Boston Herald
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