The actor, the artist, her life and her fantasies

Admit it. You’ve thought about having sex with Sam Neill too.

No matter how strident one’s feminism, it’s possible to watch My Brilliant Career (1979) and fail to comprehend how Judy Davis’ Sybylla could have rejected Harry – the smoking-hot love interest played by Sam Neill. He smouldered again as the rakish lead in the 1983 series Reilly, Ace of Spies, becoming the object of countless sexual fantasies. For Davida Allen, at home with four young children, watching Sam on telly on Sunday nights was an escape, a delicious ritual. As an artist whose work is always unabashed and usually autobiographical – ‘wifehood, motherhood, womanhood, parenthood: all the female hoods’ – Allen created a series that flagrantly broke the unwritten rule that ‘nice girls’ (and women artists) should keep their desires to themselves. The Sam Neill suite is revered by Allen’s admirers for its evocation of the way that the frustrations and constraints of family life can co-exist with intense, unshakeable love for spouse and children – and sexy actors to boot.