Dropping the mask: Aussie screen industry’s hidden mental health crisis

Summary

A Central News investigation into the mental health crisis affecting Australia's screen industry has uncovered systemic problems, with industry insiders calling for the creation of a peak body to tackle mental health advocacy, implementing sustainable workload management practices and providing training for industry leaders.

TRIGGER WARNING: Please note, this article contains references to drug addiction and suicide.

By Jessica O’Bryan, Tishanie Ratnappuly and Orlando Sagar

“You’ll never work in this industry again!”

The worst words imaginable to Ben Steel rang in ears, as colleagues and crew around him stared. From a young age all he had wanted to be was an actor, and now, here he was, being publicly humiliated.

It was just one incident in a career in which the 49-year-old said he experienced bullying and put-downs on set, including being called derogatory names and having cruel jokes made at his expense. But as an actor, where reputation and networking is everything, Steel felt there was nothing he could do about it.

“I always felt lucky that I had a purpose, that I knew what I wanted to do,” he said about his early ambitions.

From acting to working behind the scenes as a writer, producer and director, Steel has extensive experience in Australia’s century-old screen industry, but is probably best known for playing the character Jude Lawson in Home and Away from 2000-2022.

Yet, beyond the red carpets, the glitz and glamour he said lies an industry that isn’t always sustainable, healthy or safe for creative workers like himself.

It was a power trip to a certain degree, them shouting ‘well, you go, just go, you’re fired’.

“That (the bullying) had an impact, that had a toll on me for sure,” he said. “It made that job, that work, so much more unpleasant, and put me under more and more stress.”

In his 30s, Steel was working on a film, which he will not name, where he said he wasn’t given the resources to do his job properly.

“I made the team aware of that and they were insistent that there was nothing they could do, no resources that they could spare,” he said.

“And so, ultimately I had to, right at the very end of the job, walk away and resign and say ‘look, I can’t do this.'”

When one production lead heard Steel was exiting the production, they confronted him on the studio floor.

“I was quite calm with it and ultimately they got more and more angry and aggressive,” Steel said. “I said I was not feeling comfortable with the discussion and I was going to leave, and then I did leave. I started to walk out of the studio and then this person raised their voice even louder, so everyone definitely could hear.

 

“[It was a] power trip to a certain degree, [them] shouting ‘well, you go, just go, you’re fired. Get out of here. You’re never gonna work here again in this industry.’

“As I was walking out of the studio and then down the corridors, [they] proceeded to follow me down the corridors, continuing to say this, over and over again.

“There were more and more people coming out of their workspaces in the corridor and listening to what was going on, which was quite hurtful and humiliating.”

Peter Hegedus, an associate professor, and Bobbi-Lea Dionysius, a producer and researcher, both at Griffith University, started the Queensland Screen Collective online in 2020 during the pandemic, and quickly noticed how many screen workers were sharing how they felt burnt out from their work.

“What became very clear is that there were critical issues facing us in the industry, in terms of mental health and wellbeing. A lot of anxiety, depression, even bullying,” Hegedus said.

“People talked about their own experiences but there was no real data backing it up.”

Their research captured these experiences through a national survey and collected essential data for the first time, with the preliminary report published earlier this year.

‘They remain silent’: what the data revealed

With data from 864 screen industry workers, the Pressure Point report highlighted concerns about experiences of mental health, burnout, workplace culture and bullying.

It found 72 per cent of screen workers do not believe the screen industry is a mentally healthy place to work, and nearly half of respondents experienced bullying in the past year.

In addition, almost 50 per cent of screen workers reported being frequently given tasks with unreasonable deadlines and 57 per cent felt completely drained by the end of their workday.

Bullying and overwork, Steel said, led to deep feelings of anxiety, particularly about his future in the industry, stress, depression and suicidal thoughts.

The actor now channels that experience to help others going through the same thing.

Steel, who is the managing partner and founder of Screen Well, an initiative aiming at improving the mental health and wellbeing of screen industry workers, said industry leaders “are just doing their best” but are not properly trained to address the issues.

“[How] leadership is developed and nurtured and worked in our industry is based on your creative merit and your creative success … not necessarily how well you manage and look after people,” Steel said.

Dionysius agreed, describing individual screen projects as start-up companies that lack human resources (HR) departments.

They don’t want to let the team down. The show has to go on, essentially, at all costs.

“Who do you go to when something happens?” she said, adding “producers are not trained to be HR departments, they’re not trained to be total business owners, but in fact they are.”

The screen industry is quite hierarchical, according to Steel, which means leaders wield more power and influence than others.

“What they say kind of goes … but also, people sometimes feel scared to approach them about concerns or bad behaviours that they may be responsible for,” Steel added.

The Pressure Point Report found many participants chose not to formally report incidents because they feared career repercussions or that meaningful change would not eventuate.

“They remain silent and they just soldier on and struggle and try to solve it alone because they don’t want to be seen as a problem or they don’t want to cause the production or their team a problem,” Steel said.

“They don’t want to let the team down. The show has to go on, essentially, at all costs.”

 

In the screen industry, legal protections do exist for workers.

A spokesperson for SafeWork NSW told Central News “employers have a legal responsibility to manage all hazards and risks in the workplace”.

SafeWork NSW has partnered with other industry leaders in the work health sector on the People at Work resource that includes a free psychosocial risk assessment tool and other materials that can assist employers to comply with health and safety responsibilities.

Screen Australia, the federal government’s funding body for the Australian screen industry, also supports industry initiatives that improve psychological safety in workplaces.

While these workplace protections are in place, Hegedus said there is little regulation when it comes to the screen industry.

“A lot of production companies, for many different reasons, don’t think about those legislations affecting them,” he said. 

For example, Screen Australia requires all funding recipients to meet their legal obligations. This includes providing a psychologically safe workplace.

However, in reality, Hegedus said budget limitations result in mental health not being prioritised. 

“Budgets are so tight everywhere that it’s a miracle to pull [one] together … when you’re having to focus on those really big, almost impossible objectives, other things fall to the side,” Hegedus said.

“Our objectives are to educate students about this as soon as we can and university is the best place to do that.

“It’s best that they become aware of these things as early as possible.” 

Dionysius added: “I do have some students that are more aware than I was when I was a student. There wasn’t a lot of talk about the industry, we just got taught skills.” 

What students have learnt instead is to prioritise stability over spontaneity, choosing creative compromise in exchange for a consistent paycheck, structure and sanity.  

“Whether they’re going to work freelance or try and get a full time job, some of them are really aware and say ‘I’m just going to be a content creator and work for a company because I’ll get a full-time job and I’m still being creative’,” Dionysius said.

“They’ve chosen to be stable rather than fully creative.”

Creative burnout and economic blowout

The cost of living has workers burning the candle at both ends. Passion alone can no longer sustain them and those left behind are forced to pick up the slack. 

Those who choose to pursue their ambitions despite these challenges face considerable financial hardship.

“This is what happens with us creatives. We have stories that we really want to tell, so we’ll just take on that burden of working with no money to tell that story,” Hegedus said.

“I used to feel a lot of shame about not having enough money.

“And of course, the personal disappointment when you work so hard on a project and it doesn’t get financed. It gets rejected over and over again, and then you still have to put up a smiling face and continue to put in more and more effort.

“When those rejections come, those rejections go straight to the core of who we are as people.”

Dionysius agreed, adding “finance and mental health are entwined, that’s why it’s so complex”.

US President Donald Trump recently announced plans to impose a 100 per cent tariff on films made outside the US, citing the “very fast death” of the American film industry.

Trump’s main concern is the lack of production in the US, writing “WE WANT MOVIES MADE IN AMERICA, AGAIN!” on his social media platform, Truth Social, earlier this year.

“The tariffs that Trump is trying to impose on American films could have a devastating impact on Australia. That could be another factor as to why people leave,” Hegedus said.

Australia has worked hard to earn its reputation as one of the world’s foremost filming locations, housing the productions of box office successes such as The Matrix, The Great Gatsby and Elvis.

These tariffs may result in Hollywood reconsidering Australia as a prime filming location and settling for somewhere back home. Without support from the US, the Australian film industry is bound to take a financial blow, leading to further staff cuts. 

The screen industry was the leading creative contribution to the Australian economy in 2021-22, providing an estimated $6 billion. 

“We could be the next Hollywood. We need to back films because we have the ability to become a part of the global industry,” Dionysius said.

Considering film and video production businesses made up almost half of the screen industry, Australia might heed that advice. 

 

Hidden depths of self-medication

Drug dependency in the screen industry is worse than what is represented in films and TV shows and a far cry from Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg’s ninth episode of the satirical comedy, The Studio, where Hollywood executives and actors indulge in an “old school Hollywood buffet” full of potent mushroom chocolates and sneak in bumps of cocaine for fun. 

In reality, the culture of self-medicating is far more insidious and entrenched. 

A 2016 Entertainment Assist report estimated high substance usage among performing artists, support workers and equipment operators. Cocaine consumption in the preceding year was 12 times higher than the general population, MDMA seven times higher and methamphetamines eight times higher.

For those who had taken cocaine in the year before, 43.8 per cent were addicted, 48.2 per cent were addicted to MDMA and 32.2 per cent were addicted to methamphetamines.

“It gives me confidence to deal with a difficult work situation, or to socialise when I am stressed or unhappy but must be sociable,” said Lilly, a participant in the report, on why she used cocaine to cope with work.  

“Dealing with an impossible workload, it helps relieve social awkwardness and panic at gigs,” said an anonymous participant on their methamphetamine use.

For all types of drugs, the study found that 20 per cent of those surveyed admitted they were addicted, compared to the national average of 4.5 per cent. 

In the country that records the highest cocaine and MDMA use on the planet, Australia has a lot to repair, especially in the screen industry where substance use is not just recreational, but a coping mechanism. Drug use has evolved from wanting to escape and has become about endurance. 

‘A long way to go’

While Steel believes the awareness of mental health struggles has evolved in the industry, particularly in the last few years, he says there is still more work to be done.

“We’ve still got a long way to go where it’s completely accepted and people do feel safe to share that they need some help … or they need to be able to take the morning off because they’ve got to go see their counsellor or their psychologist,” Steel said.

“I think there’s a lot of resistance and people themselves, they don’t want to let their team down.

“We should be treating our mental health exactly the same in the workplace [as our physical health].”

Steel has specific policies in mind to help make the screen industry more sustainable and healthier, including that those who fund screen content must check that wellbeing is included in project budgets. 

“If there’s no line item for wellbeing and what they’re doing to support their people, I think, as a policy across the industry, we should be asking, why? Why is that not a priority?” Steel added.

 

Further, Steel said the industry must ensure budgets are resourced enough for people to work safely and effectively.

Meanwhile, the Pressure Point Report made several recommendations, including establishing a mental health advocacy group, creating a psychological safety framework, implementing sustainable workload management practices and providing training for industry leaders.

Hegedus also suggested the creation of a peak body which would “facilitate, administer and navigate through this particularly difficult terrain”.

Both Griffith academics also emphasised that a collective industry approach is needed to make effective change.

We don’t want to get to a point where we have to see people getting really hurt to be noticed.

“If people do things in silo and don’t really work together on a collective basis, nothing significant or ground-breaking or transformative will get done,” Hegedus said.

Aside from the moral reasons of making mental health a priority, Steel said organisations can be incentivised to make change with evidence-supported productivity benefits, legal obligations and financial returns, including $1.50 returned for every $1 invested in mental health.

For Steel, the high suicide rates in the screen industry are what drives his work at Screen Well. 

“I lost one of my acting mentors to suicide a few years ago now, which started me on this whole journey,” he said.

“It upsets me and impacts me, every time that I hear that we have lost another one of our beautiful, wonderful creative workers in our industry.”

Hegedus and Dionysius also said it is important for the industry to improve conditions before people take their own lives.

“We don’t want to get to a point where we have to see people getting really hurt to be noticed,” Hegedus said.

An intricate industry

Marginalised groups within the screen industry are often vulnerable to internal pressures.

Independent documentary filmmaker Wendy Champagne spoke to the complications of self-funded productions.

“It’s an insecure environment to work. It’s really tough,” she said.

“It doesn’t help when there’s external pressure like governments from America saying they’re going to put 100 per cent tariffs on movies coming from Australia.

“It’s a very small pot of funding that we have to get projects up and it can take years and it’s gruelling.”

Over her tenure, Champagne has seen a change in attitudes towards diversity in the industry.

“It’s a bit old school now to not take that into account. You have to think about how people feel and what their bodies are doing,” she said.

Champagne said that while there has been a change in the conduct of interpersonal relationships, the nature of the industry remains often unforgiving.

“It can be thankless and you lose belief in yourself quite easily.”

“People burn out and most people who work [in the industry] are neurodiverse and so it’s by our very nature that we’re more susceptible to extremes of creative spurts and then downward spirals,” Champagne said.

According to the 2021-22 Everyone Counts report by the Screen Diversity and Inclusion Network and the Everyone Project, people living with a disability were widely underrepresented both in front of (8.9 per cent) and behind the camera (5.3 per cent). 

The importance of representation has been prioritised for years, particularly since one in five Australians live with a disability.

However, substantial structure to support professionals living with a disability from a working perspective has only recently gained traction.

In 2024, the federal government launched Equity: The Arts and Disability Associated Plan (ADAP), aimed at providing equity for creatives living with a disability to see more representation and support across the industry.

This year, an advisory board has been commissioned to help direct this initiative.

Women, who are still underrepresented in the industry, experience systematic discrimination, even in a post-#MeToo world.

 

One actress, who asked to remain anonymous, was employed in the Australian screen industry for over a decade, and recounted when she was made to work 70 hour weeks just weeks after giving birth.

The actress said her health was not prioritised even when she asked for flexibility.

“One day I worked overtime after starting at 5am and ended up with heatstroke and ketotic and I couldn’t keep my food or water down. It was the most awful experience,” she said.

“I was at the mercy of the production and the hours they wanted me to do.”

She ended up terminating her contract with that production.

The 43-year-old, who has also worked as a producer and writer, now works primarily in the non-profit sector and occasionally consults on industry projects. She said her and a colleague’s mental health had been affected by the industry.

There’s a fear of speaking up because you wouldn’t be reemployed. There’s the threat of someone younger, who will be more pliable and agreeable who will end up getting the role.

Though she agrees that there is a certain privilege that should be acknowledged about being an actor, she also believes that industry professionals should be given more agency and consideration for their wellbeing when dealing with heavy material.

“I’ve taken on roles or I’ve auditioned for a part, no idea what the actual script is, got the full script when you get down to the final round and then you realise it doesn’t correlate with any of your values,” she said.

The source said the psychological effects of script content are seldom taken into account. She believes that productions need to provide targeted support for screen workers, especially when dealing with distressing content.

“There’s not enough research into how playing certain parts affects actors’ mental health. If you’re acting in a war scene or if you’re playing someone who’s been sexually abused and then you’re just expected to go home and get back to life,” she said.

“There’s not enough aftercare for artists who are putting themselves through those various scenarios and literally firing pathways in the brain that would be akin to experiencing trauma.”

She also addressed the unpredictability of employment, the power imbalance disadvantages screen professionals both in front of and behind the camera.

“There’s a fear of speaking up because you wouldn’t be reemployed. There’s the threat of someone younger, who will be more pliable and agreeable who will end up getting the role,” she said.

“You get so sucked into the machine that you don’t even realise until you look back at it.”

Changing careers has allowed the former actress to realise the stark difference between the screen industry and traditional sectors.

“After being out of the industry for a while and working with people who actually respect you and there’s protocols around sick leave, even just the language that’s used day-to-day in the work environment is just night and day.”

A cog in the machine

In the 2025 documentary Mental Health & The Actor’s Life, actress and counsellor Sophie Carter speaks about the pressure on professionals in the performing arts.

“There’s a culture around being reliable, dependable, skillful, ready to go because you don’t know where your next job’s coming from,” Carter said.

“You don’t want to be labelled as ‘that person’,” she said about the reluctance to speak out. 

This culture of reliability is often blind to the personal needs of professionals who are the beating heart of the screen industry.

Production houses and stakeholders generally hold all the cards when it comes to time management and support resource availability, yet they are rarely involved in day-to-day action.

Future of the industry

It is a critical time for the Australian screen industry, particularly with the Pressure Point report finding one in four screen industry workers are planning their exit within the next six months.

Steel described this number as “staggering”.

“If we really want to encourage people to come into this industry … we definitely need to make it a more attractive, more healthy, more safe working environment,” he said.

Looking ahead, many screen industry workers see an unclear future, with questions and concerns about its ongoing sustainability and retainment.

With trials of job-sharing and four-day weeks occurring, Steel said he hopes it will become “a more friendly and forgiving industry for people that also want to have a life outside of work”.

Ultimately, amid these challenging conditions, Hegedus believes there will always be a place for the screen industry.

He said: “I think human beings, in essence, are creators, and so this industry gives us the opportunity to be creators … but at what cost?”

If this article has raised issues for you, or if you are concerned about someone you know, contact:

• 000 in an emergency
• Lifeline on 13 11 14
• Beyond Blue on 1300 224 636
• Headspace on 1800 650 890
• National Alcohol and Other Drug Hotline on 1800 250 105
• Support Act Wellbeing Helpline on 1800 959 500

Main image by Kyle Loftus/Unsplash.