Australian actress Rachel Griffiths has made the bold claim that a session with a sex worker can be more beneficial than a trip to the psychologist.

The Muriel’s Wedding star, 56, was chatting to Allison Langdon on Nine’s A Current Affair on Friday to promote her upcoming series Madam.

The New Zealand-based dramedy tells the story of Mack Lee, played by Griffiths, who, after discovering her husband has been seeing a sex worker, takes an unusual action.

She is inspired to open her own feminist brothel called Sweethearts in a small New Zealand town.

‘There’s a whole thing about the NDIS and people with disabilities seeing sex workers, and how the taxpayer should pay for it,’ Rachel divulged.

She then said that after having conversations in preparation for the role, she came to the conclusion that sex workers could be more beneficial to mental health than psychologists. 

‘After many of the conversations I had I thought an hour with a professional, tender, warm sex worker would probably leave a client a lot more happy and lighthearted than an hour with a psychologist banging on about how difficult your childhood was,’ she said.

‘I’m all for that.’

Rachel continued after Allison labelled her comments as ‘controversial.’

‘I think women provide a service and I think it has a lot of positive benefits for the people who choose to employ those services.’

Elsewhere in the interview, Rachel said she was drawn to the role as it told a based-on-a-true-story tale of the sex work industry from a female point of view.

‘When I get a script that is about the sex industry from the perspective of a woman who worked in it as a comedy I think this is gonna have the twist,’ she said.

‘When women talk about sex, it’s funny and also, I think sex is funny.’

The interview took an odd turn when Rachel began talking about dogs in a park. 

‘When you see two dogs at it in the park  it’s like: “oh please”‘ she continued.

‘But I reckon those same dogs if they saw two people at it in the park would go “oh please that is just embarrassing”. 

‘They’d be apologising to the other dog going I am so sorry.’

Realising the bizarre turn the interview had taken, Rachel added: ‘I’ve ended up in a cul-de-sac of weirdness.’ 

Catting back to Allison after the interview she said: ‘And that was the clean version. Imagine what we had to leave on the cutting room floor.’ 

The Academy Award-winning actress tied the knot with her artist husband Andrew Taylor in 2002.

They share two children Banjo, 20, and Adelaide, 19.

The family who lived in the US for a decade, moved back Down Under in 2012.

‘I was hungry to come home and tell our own Australian stories with humanity and vigour,’ she wrote in a 2021 column for Stellar.

‘So I did, and the years since have been the most satisfying of my career.’

Since returning, she has starred in a remake of the Australian horror film Patrick and the Mel Gibson-directed Hacksaw Ridge.

She has also directed episodes of the TV series Nowhere Boys and the feature-length Michelle Payne biopic Ride Like a Girl. 

Madam premieres on Nine and Nine Now after Married At First Sight on Tuesday 4 February.