Former Neighbours star Radha Mitchell enjoys US TV breakthrough with Red Widow Radha Mitchell as Marta Walraven in the Red Widow pilot. Radha Mitchell is one angry mum. Bursting on to our screens last week as Marta Walraven in US TV series Red Widow, the Aussie actress said the high-octane role was too good to resist - even though she wasn't in the market for a TV show. But the role of a widow, who, when her husband is shot because of his links to organised crime, has to draw on her Russian mob background to protect her family, is action-packed, seeing Mitchell handling guns, gore and intrigue in her first US TV series. Red Widow also features the talents of fellow Aussie Wil Traval, also in his first US role, and debuted last week with figures just over 900,000 on Channel 7. Traval plays Mitchell's brother, Irwin, displaying a dark side which might surprise Australian audiences who will remember him from his 'nice guy' days as All Saints' Dr Jack Quade. For both actors, the chance to play a darker character was irresistible. The cool thing about acting is you get to play out all these aspects of your psyche, without necessarily playing them out. So, no, I don't really go out shooting. But it's fun to do it on camera," says Mitchell. Red Mitchell says she enjoyed playing with guns in Red Widow. Marta has many dimensions. She skirts the boundaries between being a mum and trying to have a normal life with exploring her dark side. That's titillating in a dark kind of way. The elusive world of Radha Mitchell Radha Mitchell's naked romp Mitchell approached the role with "a little trepidation, but a lot of excitement," drawn to the many different levels of a woman who is forced into a world she wants to reject because of her desire to protect her children. I love Marta. I love her humanity, I love her vulnerability, and I love the fact that she has got balls. Radha Mitchell in a scene from Red Widow. The fact that she's a mother and has three children, it's really beautiful to have these moments of maternal-ness, which you don't see a lot in leading female characters. Mitchell's and Traval's Australian roots helped cement their sibling bond for the series. It was this great chemistry for us to play siblings. Every now and then they'll hassle us about our accents, and we're like, 'We're siblings, of course we have the same accents'. It makes perfect sense," Mitchell says. We get each other in a way that you wouldn't if you weren't from the same place. It's a pretty interesting chemistry between these two characters. It's very, kind of, love/hate. There's a lot of love, but there's a lot of frustration. And it's a lot of fun. Mitchell, who started out on Neighbours, was previously best known for her movie roles including Phone Booth, Finding Neverland and Pitch Black. She has also played Russian before, starring as Alexandra Korolenko in The Code. However she didn't need to worry about speaking the language. It is interesting acting in a language you don't understand. For Traval, the Russian angle gave him the chance to draw on his family background - albeit belatedly. My mother speaks Russian. Her mother was Ukrainian and my grandfather was Russian," he says. She taught my two older brothers Russian as their first language, and then 10 years later she had me and my sister in regional Australia and decided not to teach us anything. So I landed this role and said: 'Mum, you've got to give me anything you got. Anything'. Traval loves playing the bad guy. Irwin's one of those people whose driving passion is to get power, and to become a powerful figure in whatever world he lives in. But that underlying motivation is in order to be loved by his dad," he says. For me, Irwin is very relatable. And I was completely in love with him until I found out he was the most hated character on the series. He is a ruthless, opportunistic, borderline sociopath ... who's lovable. Red Widow Mondays,9.30pm, Seven