You know someone can act when they go from the face of French skin care brand Ella Bache to an ugly stand over merchant. The role of Sue “Boomer” Jenkins in Wentworth television series made Katrina Milosevic a household name but it was almost not so.

Prior to auditioning for the role one of those making the decision said she was too pretty to make the character work. However, they were assured “she can play ugly”.

A self-confessed ‘girlie-girl’ who loves embracing her feminine side she wore a pair of heeled boots “so I was seven foot tall”, gelled her hair back, and adding some foul-mouthed aggression let her “inner bogan” out.

“I was going off like a frog in a sock.”

The role was hers and she started season 1 as a background character. Boomer was soon part of the main cast and when the series ended eight seasons later Milosevic was one of only four actors to appear from start to finish.

Though she has appeared in nearly 30 movies and TV series her portrayal of Boomer is what she is best known for. Wentworth followed the lives of people imprisoned at Wentworth Correctional Centre and from 2013 to 2021 was a constant award winner.

Attractive actresses often look for roles where they can pare back their looks and be judged on acting ability alone. Boomer fits the bill perfectly, but it can also prove tiresome.

“Some days I struggle looking like that,” she once said.

Life in prison means ill-fitting clothes and Milosevic adopted a lurching, cumbersome gait that she combined with her weight and size to intimidate fellow prisoners.

Her Boomer character required no conventional make-up just dark circles added under the eyes as well as bruises and a pallid prison skin colour. Some teeth were blackened out, others stained and her hair was a “dragged out of bed after a big night out” style.

“Some days on set we would go to lunch and I’m covering my mouth because, (as Boomer) I had no teeth.”

Katrina would cover her mouth when she laughed and try and hide from new people on set because she was so self-conscious. Her maturity and self-worth held her in good stead as well as only listening to people who matter.

“As a woman - and a woman in this industry, it has been a looks based industry for such a long time. I think that’s changing now which is bloody amazing.”

However, the show’s viewers clearly connected with Boomer despite the obvious blood on her hands and she was undoubtedly one of the show’s most popular characters.

“My theory is she’s the kind of person that makes you feel better about yourself, in that you could so easily go there if you had that in you,” she explained.

“People embrace her, physically as well, so many fans want to hug her, touch her when they meet you. She can see the good in people.

Milosevic has had people cross the street to hug her or give her a friendly punch on the shoulder.

Over time it seems Katrina and Boomer have taken from each other’s character. Katrina built Boomer’s character by asking herself, “what would Katrina do?” and then doing the exact opposite.

In real life the tables are turned.

So why did people fall in love with Boomer?

“I think they respond to the four stock things Boomer responds to: loyalty, love, patience and attention.”

The show began in 2013 as a new spin on the much-admired Australian classic Prisoner. While the main characters were in many ways replicas of their predecessors Boomer was a new one.

It didn’t take long for the sometimes-brutal, sometimes-childlike, sometimes-hilarious “Boomer” to be embraced by viewers.

Born and raised alongside her younger brother in Mount Isa she also has an older half-brother. Her father Rade is of Serbian heritage and mother Angela Australian.

Both have passed away but she revealed that they both supported her when she chose to pursue a career in the film industry.

“I remember the day I was tasked with giving a speech at school, and the teacher had asked us to prepare the most boring speech we could think of. I did one about a teapot; I put so much into it and I really tried to create this character to give the other kids every bit of knowledge about a teapot. I really did milk it, and the kids laughed. And it was the first time I felt accepted.”

The family left Mount Isa when Katrina was seven before moving to Mackay. Upon finishing school she attended the University of New England graduating with a Bachelor of Arts degree in Performing Arts in 1997.

She then studied acting at the National Institute of Dramatic Art (NIDA) graduating aged 21 with the formations of who she would become in place. She described it as a life-changing experience not just because of what she learned but the  pressure and circumstances in which you have to learn.

“The discipline it gives you has stayed with me.” She affirmed. “NIDA changed my life. I learned so much at that place and I use that knowledge every day. It’s definitely shaped who I became in my 20s and 30s and beyond.”

Leaving NIDA she, like so many fledgling thespians, cut her teeth in the theatre; travelling around Australia with the Bells Shakespeare company.

Over the years she starred opposite Cate Blanchet in the Sydney Theatre Company production of Gross Und Klein and in 2016 was nominated for a Helpmann Award for Best Female Actor in a Supporting Role for her  performance in The Distance for the Melbourne Theatre Company.

She also had a short modelling career and was delighted and proud to be the face of the French skincare brand Ella Bache, a company she greatly admired.

“I was 24 or 25, and I was the Ella Bache girl for about two years,’ Katrina recalled. “I was proud of what they stood for and what they did. They were one of the first to try and reflect people from all walks of life and all shapes and sizes and colours.”

Her debut TV series appearance was her portrayal of two characters in two episodes of the 2000 sports comedy “The Games”.

Between 2000 and 2004, she played the supporting character Sophie Novak in 69 episodes of the mystery crime drama “Stingers” and in 2003 was nominated for Most Popular New Female Talent.

She played several characters in Blue Heelers through the 2000s as well as appearances in other series and 27 episodes as Kelly Katsis in Neighbours .

In 2005 she made her film debut alongside Sigrid Thornton in the 2005 drama “Little Oberon”.

20 years after she was nominated for Most Popular New Female Talent she was nominated for Most Outstanding Supporting Actress for her portrayal of Boomer in Wentworth.

So much did she invest in her role as Boomer that it took its toll in several ways. Where once she used to think what would Katrina do and do the opposite by the end she said it didn’t feel hard anymore.

She admitted toward the end of her time on Wentworth that she would be happy at some point to put her to bed. She did so and has been involved in several shows and projects since including a role in the comedy-drama Winners & Losers.

‘It was nice for me to actually have some nice make-up put on me for once, and my hair done rather than it being scrunched with mud or grease, I loved it. It was good for my self-esteem to have lipstick on for a change.’

Creative types are often a different breed and search for like-minded individuals.

“It’s finding your tribe, which is all anyone ever wants to do: to find somewhere to belong.”

While sportsmen and women talk about unity and team spirit it is also a part of Katrina’s business.

“When you put a show on, you go through something with everyone working on the show, and that bunch of people always have that shared knowledge that ‘we did this together.”

Away from work she lives in a federation pad in Melbourne’s inner city that has a distinctive English flavour.  

“I think I have been obsessed with England since Bros (boy band from the 1980s). I am a complete Anglophile, I find English comedy very cute and love hearing about the East End of London.

“I even pretend I am living in a countryside village in England. I went to the University of New England (Armidale, NSW), even though I am from North Queensland. It snowed in winter and all my professors wore duffel coats with elbow patches. It was just magical for me.”

She shares her little piece of the English countryside with her partner Rodney Hawksworth who she met on her first day living in Melbourne.

“I have kept journals for years and have hundreds of them. I met my partner 21 years ago in a cafe on my first day living in Melbourne. I wrote about meeting a cute guy on that day and that he may be my destiny.”

The other special thing she keeps in the house is a dining table that belonged to her parents.

“I grew up around that table. I have lost both of them, so it’s a special reminder.”