Interview: Mandy Bishop’s Truvy cuts through the hair and heart of ‘Steel Magnolias’

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Steel Magnolias - Theatre Royal Sydney

Date Reviewed: 19/05/2026

By the time Mandy Bishop apologises for being “slightly windswept” after getting caught in the Sydney rain, she has already slipped into the warmth that makes audiences instantly trust her.

“I was going to put some lovely makeup and earrings on,” she laughs. “But no, no, it’s all good because this is a print interview.”

Natural charm suits her anyway. Especially now, as she steps into the iconic role of Truvy Jones in Steel Magnolias, the wisecracking Louisiana hairdresser immortalised on screen by Dolly Parton. The production is currently playing at Theatre Royal Sydney until May 30th before heading to Melbourne.

But long before television satire, political impressions and standing ovations, Bishop’s world was a tiny Upper Hunter village called Bunnan.

“It had a post office, a general store, a pub, a school and a church,” she says. “As we grew up, all of those facilities closed down. That’s how small it is.”

The family lived several kilometres outside the 30-member town, where groceries arrived once a week with the mail lady driving a station wagon down dusty roads.

“We had five kids in the family,” she says. “Otherwise known as mum and dad’s free labour.”

Singing on horseback

Bishop traces her love of performance not to theatre school, but to horseback rides with her father. “We used to sing on our horses,” she says. “Dad’s a really lovely singer and he’d teach us songs while we were riding home.”

The rhythm of hooves, the open sky and the isolation of country life quietly shaped the performer she would become.

“I loved making sound with a group of people,” she says. “Sound has been a big part of my career because I learned how people speak. It’s good for accents, for comedy, for music.”

Growing up far from cinemas and city distractions also fuelled her imagination.

“You had the sky as your canvas,” she says. “It lets your imagination run wild.”

That fascination with sound eventually led Bishop into music studies before comedy and acting took over. She says her musical training still underpins everything she does, especially her famous impressions.

“Rhythm is so important in comedy,” she says. “We’re thinking in milliseconds sometimes.”

Then, without warning, she slips perfectly into one of her best-known characters.

“Don’t look at me like that,” she growls suddenly in her unmistakable Jacqui Lambie impression.

Even over coffee-shop noise and rain, the timing lands flawlessly. I’m getting a private performance. It’s gold.

Finding Truvy beyond Dolly

Taking on a role so tied to Dolly Parton came with pressure, but Bishop knew imitation would never work. “Nobody wants to see people being Dolly because no one can be Dolly,” she says.

Instead, she searched for the emotional core beneath the rhinestones.

“She’s the heart that holds the story together,” Bishop says. “It’s her empathy and compassion that I connected to.”

That compassion now unfolds nightly inside one of the production’s most technically demanding elements: live hairdressing performed on stage.

Yes, that means actual haircuts.

Bishop and co-star Lottie Beckett trained with professional stylists, learning how to roller-set wigs, trim hair and perform salon choreography while delivering dialogue.

“There’s a whole other play going on just ahead,” she laughs.

At one point, she must transform Shelby’s long hair into a short style during the performance.

“I don’t think I’ve ever had a role where I’m juggling so many precision props and skills I’d never done before,” she says.

“I’m not crazy. I’ve just been in a bad mood for 40 years”

The production has earned praise for balancing broad comedy with emotional honesty, something Bishop credits to director Lee Lewis.

“She kept us out of slapstick comedy and inside the heart of the play,” she says.

The cast includes Australian stage veterans Debra Lawrance, Lisa McCune and Belinda Giblin, alongside rising performers including Jessica Redmayne.

Bishop describes the ensemble as “safe hands”.

“It’s an honour to be on stage with them,” she says.

And audiences are responding with roaring laughter, especially during the play’s iconic one-liners.

“My audience just erupts,” Bishop says of Weezer’s legendary line: “I’m not crazy. I’ve just been in a very bad mood for 40 years.”

Why Steel Magnolias still works

Bishop first watched Steel Magnolias in the late 1980s and remembers being devastated by it. “I bawled my eyes out,” she says.

What surprises her most now is how powerfully the story still resonates decades later.

“It’s really about a small-town community,” she says. “That never dates.”

The production’s staging adds another emotional layer. Instead of facing each other conventionally, the actors perform as though looking into salon mirrors, meaning the audience spends the entire play staring directly into their faces.

“It’s emotionally accessible in a really beautiful way,” she says.

And yes, audiences should probably bring tissues, though Bishop won’t admit to it or pre-empt in any way.

“I don’t want to give away spoilers,” she says.

Asked who the “steel magnolias” in her own life are, she doesn’t hesitate.

“My sister Nicky, my sister Christy and my mum are probably my most steely magnolias,” she says, before adding that she has always been surrounded by “amazing women”.

Country soul, city life

Despite decades in the arts, Bishop still carries Bunnan with her.

A perfect day, she says, includes theatre, the beach, organic vegetables from Sydney’s Orange Grove markets and, ideally, horses.

“If there were stables affordable in the city, I’d have a horse,” she says.

Back home, her family’s rural life continues, with relatives now competing seriously in equestrian sports.

“I go home and pat the horses,” she says fondly.

For all the wigs, satire and stage lights, the country girl never really left.

“You miss the land,” she says quietly. “You miss being able to have your mind free.”

‘Steel Magnolias’ is playing at the Theatre Royal Sydney until May 30th.

Interviewed by Mary Sinanidis