"The Best Scripts Written For Older Women Are In Theatre"

"I think I kind of ooze love, that's what I'm told anyway. I just kind of popped out trusting and loving."

It's an appropriate quality to possess for someone who was heralded as a sex symbol throughout the '80s and '90s following roles on The Young Doctors, Starting Out and Prisoner, and who hosted Network Tens infotainment program Sex/Life.

Throughout the course of our conversation Goldsmith will confess to loving Samuel Johnson, "he's very instinctive and impulsive as an actor, he's alive and intelligent"; to "love love love"-ing Ivana Chubbuck (who led one of the many masterclasses Goldsmith has attended to indulge her thirst for theatre); and a girl crush on Lucy Freeman, who came across Goldsmith in yet another masterclass (this time led by Larry Moss) and offered her a role opposite perennially ocker heartthrob Samuel Johnson in a nationally touring production of Sex With Strangers written by Laura Eason (who also works on television's House Of Cards).

"I just kind of popped out trusting and loving."

It's her biggest stage role excepting stints in musicals — two years touring with Grease The Arena Spectacular and a jaunt playing Janet in Paul Dainty's The New Rocky Horror Show — and arrived at the perfect time for Goldsmith, who had resolved to throw herself headlong into theatre.

"I had made a decision a number of years ago that I really had to work out what I wanted; obviously it was in the performing arts, that's all I've ever done since I was a teenager, I did dancing, singing, acting, breakfast radio, TV hosting, everything, and as a woman that's getting older — I'm 52 now, 53 in August — I had to decide what do I want to grow old with? And the answer was theatre. The best scripts written for older women are in theatre. I'm not saying I won't do television and film, I hope I do, but once my daughter had left home… I could make decisions that were more about what I wanted and not what would put food on the table."

The character of Olivia in Sex With Strangers is one such role. An older, respected author, Olivia, falls for the younger, brasher, blogger-turned-best seller Ethan, who has made his mark in the world of writing documenting his sexual exploits. It's an intimate two-hander that offers commentary on the shifting processes of consuming culture and art in among the chaotic love story.

"I prayed to get a really good piece in my hands, and I got it. And I got Sam — because we're both very open it's been easy to get to that place of intimacy. Olivia becomes less of who she believes herself to be, she goes against everything she believed that she believed in. She embraces the digital era, a younger era, and loses this part of her that enjoys holding onto books and records and CDs and photo albums. She finds a hunger for success again."