Roy Billing, who plays master crim “Aussie Bob” Trimbole in Underbelly: A Tale of Two Cities, always bets on red.
Why do you reckon people are so interested in crims?
It’s an Australian thing. We’ve got convict heritage and heroes like Ned Kelly. There’s a fascination with what makes people step over the line. Like you saw in the first
Underbelly, most of these people have family lives and they do normal things. But what is it that makes them step over that line and commit a crime or a murder? Sometimes, we all feel like, ‘Jeez, I could just grab that and it’s mine’ or ‘Gee, I’d like to bloody do something to that guy’ but you don’t — something holds you back. With the criminal mind, they’re able to step over that moral line and the whole idea of ‘I could be like that’ and ‘What would it be like if I did?’ is an intriguing thing.
Why do you crims pull all the hot chicks?
I think it’s the whole thing about the bad boy. I think women are just naturally attracted to bad guys. Even when they know they’re going to get hurt, they can’t stop going there.
Like Underbelly, the scope is massive. How important is Trimbole to the story?
He’s massive. Him and the Terry Clark (Matthew Newton) character are the main guys. There’s a million different things going on and somehow, everything’s connected to them. Some way or another, they’re all connected in a criminal network. But in the series, the main thing is Terry and Bob’s partnership.
How dangerous was Bob Trimbole?
Well, in my research and after talking to people, I found that everybody really liked him. He’d walk into a bar and just start talking to people, which is what made him such a great corrupter. He didn’t run around blasting people like Alphonse Gangitano but if anyone got in the way of the money flow, they were taken care of. As far as I know, he never actually killed anybody himself, but he was capable of ordering murder. Clark killed a number of people. Drug couriers that might talk or start using — he’d shoot them in the back of the head, cut their hands off and smash their teeth in so the bodies couldn’t be identified. So, yeah, they were dangerous guys.
There was a fair bit of skin in Underbelly. Did the producers ask you to drop your dacks for any scenes?
Well, Terry does a hell of a lot. But my agent told me they were going to invoke the nudity clause in my contract and I got quite excited because I actually have a rather attractive young girlfriend in the series — as Bob did. So I thought, ‘Wow, I’m gonna get a sex scene.’ But then my agent told me, “They’re gonna do a prostate examination.” We have this funny scene — well, I hope it’s funny — where Bob gets probed by the rubber-gloved finger.
When you’re at the roulette table, do you go red or black?
Red.
From an underworld perspective, how much should you tip for a good lap dance?
Let’s say $10 back in ’78. You can do the inflation on that.
That’s $21.33, big spender.
Dan Steiner
How do you think Underbelly: A Tale of Two Cities compares to Underbelly, enter your comments below.
To download a previous episode and for more info about the show, check out the Underbelly: A Tale of Two Cities site.
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