‘‘You can’t have a freedom-fighting martyr any more because you have too much access to people’s personal shit,’’ says  Perfect. ‘‘And we’re very judgmental, there’s no mystery any more. We have more and more channels of communication, and understand less and less. The world is just a swirling ball of manufactured opinion that we cherry pick to believe one way or another.’’

The cultural life of Australia is a topic Perfect has mined to good effect in his work outside of TV, satirically in Shane Warne: The Musical and more directly in his recent debut stage play The Beast for the Melbourne Theatre Company. ‘‘Everyone is so hemmed in by the rules and these cultural ideas of how we’re meant to behave. It’s stifling, but as soon as people try to break out, moral middle-Australia screams them down. I find it quite beige. Culturally, Australia is like a bubble-wrapped kids’ playground. We’re going to cover off every corner until there’s no way we can hurt ourselves and then we’ll be this shitty jungle gym where there’s just no fun.’’

For those who have followed Perfect’s career, it’s gratifying to learn that he has ambitions to write for TV. ‘‘I’m chipping away at an undisclosed project now. It may go somewhere, it may not, but I like the idea of writing for TV, especially after writing a play.’’ A medium that is more intimate than theatre, TV is the ideal vehicle to explore what it means to live in Australia at this particular time, he believes.

‘‘We’ve never been so wealthy and status-driven yet more afraid of outsiders and less generous and less happy. I’ve always thought it odd that the Australian character is defined by adversity, often insurmountable adversity, and we’re happiest when things turn to shit.

‘‘Australians want to make themselves safe but don’t realise that you make yourself safe and happy and comfortable and you become unhappy. Life is about challenges. There’s an energy about [overcoming obstacles] and once you get comfortable and remove that urge, life doesn’t seem to be as bright and vivid."

The great appeal of playing Mick is turning up and reading lines that someone else has written for him. ‘‘In every other aspect of my career I’m across everything, from writing it to rewriting, casting, producing. Being in a TV show where you just turn up, are given great words to say, eat the sandwiches and after a long day’s work go home and not have to worry about the ongoing production is a real gift. The negative side is they can kill [your character], but you have to roll the dice on that stuff.’’

Mick’s absence from season five so far – save a brief Skype call to Billie in which he revealed he had begun a new relationship – allowed Perfect to attend to The Beast. In creative terms, it dovetailed ideally with the unfolding drama. He deliberately avoided reading the season five scripts, ‘‘so when I came back into it I was every bit as clueless as Mick would be’’. It not only meant that for the first time he could watch Offspring with objectivity and surprise, but could mine the awkwardness and difficulty of a couple  that  has drifted apart but seeks some kind of conciliation.

‘‘That separation between couples when they do break up ... is always high stakes and nerve-racking. ‘‘Offspring has always been good at having art imitate life in unexpected ways. We always strive to make everything as real as possible. It was a homecoming both for the character and me. Everything matched up sweetly.’’

Though Mick is the chronic underachiever whose life choices are usually made for him, his attraction to Billie is one that audiences can  relate to. ‘‘People like Billie and want to be Billie because she cracks open the truth and says the things we’re all too afraid to say. She provokes a reaction between people. Who doesn’t love a character like that? And the Proudmans are really characterised by sharing and talking about their feelings and being loud, whereas I don’t know if a lot of Australians are like that. It’s nice to play a character that doesn’t feel the need to crack open every single little thing, analyse things from every single angle or paint themselves into a corner that they have no chance of getting out of.’’

Yet Mick’s return signals a shift in the tenuous dynamic between him and Billie. ‘‘There’s this redrafting of the rules of who does what in the relationship. The tables turn. Mick gets attention and starts to be successful and I think that’s a massive challenge to Billie.’’

The bigger question that their separation prompts is about betrayal and forgiveness; not for their respective affairs, but the way that betrayal strikes at someone’s insecurities. He credits Offspring’s creators for their ability to entertain viewers with the pain of living.

‘‘It’s human nature to want to avoid pain, but drama is the opposite, drama wants to continuously produce pain. That’s where drama comes from, good drama is characters making mistakes, bad things happening to good people.

‘‘I think [producers] John Edwards and Imogen Banks are hyper aware of that. Between the two of them they’ve put some of the most brutal human drama on screen. I still haven’t recovered from season one of Love My Way. They listen to what people want and then give them kind of the opposite of that. Otherwise it’s just a warm fuzzy blanket that people pull on themselves without learning anything.’’

Offspring, Ten, Wednesday, 8.30pm.