Critics raved about the first season on Foxtel last year. And US cable channel FX, which commissioned it, has been enthusiastic enough to go from six to 10 episodes for the second season. "Scott tells the truth. And the truth is f---ing funny": Brooke Satchwell and Scott Ryan in the new season of Mr Inbetween. Credit:Foxtel The show centres on street-smart Ray Shoesmith, a single father with a talent for intimidation, extortion and worse. He works for the oily Freddy (Damon Herriman), cares for both his young daughter (Chika Yasumura) and disabled brother (Nicholas Cassim) and goes out with a warm-hearted paramedic (Brooke Satchwell). After decades of struggle, Ryan is having to get used to success. But he still seems very much his own man. Instead of backslapping with the television industry at the Logies on the Gold Coast, Ryan was at home in Sydney, getting ready for an early start to filming and not expecting to win. "I was lying in bed and turned the TV on, then just got a surprise," he says. "It was like 'holy crap!'"

While appreciative, Ryan has no illusions about his acting. Loading "I don't really consider myself an actor," he says. "I'm more of a writer. It's funny that people want to give me acting awards." That let's-not-get-carried-away attitude has a lot to do with where Ryan came from and the 15 years it took from writing, directing, producing, editing and starring in the no-budget film The Magician (a mockumentary about the same laconic hitman that was a festival hit), through to, finally, getting the series made. Just before the The Magician's cinema release in 2005, Ryan drew on a cigarette in the courtyard of a Kings Cross hotel as he told Spectrum what motivated him to make films.

"My whole life I've just felt this big," he said, barely audible and holding his fingers centimetres apart. "I've been told, 'You're never going to be nothing'. When you feel this big, you want to feel like everybody else does. So you've got this drive. "It's not so much about the passion for the film – that's part of it – but it's also like I want to be somebody. I want people to care." Ryan talked with almost terrifying honesty about how, after a tough childhood in outer suburban Melbourne, he had spent 13 years on the dole, often struggling with depression, while trying to become a filmmaker. Every one of his relationships had "crashed and burned". His self-confidence "went down the toilet" after he was fired as a waiter. He was insecure and shy, with no self-esteem. A meeting with Nash Edgerton, the talented stuntman and director of The Square and Gringo, helped turn that around. Edgerton saw a cut-down version of The Magician at the St Kilda Film Festival in 2004 and asked for a copy to show his actor brother Joel. Writer and star Scott Ryan (left) with executive producer and director Nash Edgerton at the Television Critics Association Summer Press Tour in Beverly Hills in August. Credit:Chris Pizzello/Invision/AP

When Ryan said the only copy he had was of the feature, Edgerton watched it and saw the potential. He came on as producer with Chopper's Michelle Bennett and helped Ryan re-edit and polish the film. Plans to turn it into a TV series kept falling over for years. For Edgerton, the deal breaker was when backers would not guarantee Ryan would star until FX came along. "The fact that audiences connected with it, and especially the fact US audiences connected with it, was awesome," he says on set. "It was a nice validation because I'd fought for so long to get it made with Scott as the lead. For people to actually respond to him as an actor, it was like, 'Ok, I wasn't f---ing crazy'." Edgerton was convinced that Ryan had to star. "There was something about the character he created – the rawness and the realness of it," he says. "The character is very likable but very dangerous and very relatable. The combination of those three things, for me, made engaging cinema."

Crim for hire: Scott Ryan in Mr Inbetween. Credit:Foxtel Brooke Satchwell, who plays Ally, is also a big fan. "I adore him to pieces, I really do," she says. "The thing that I'm most proud of with Scott is the integrity of his vision. Scott tells the truth. And the truth is f---ing funny." For the second season, Ryan estimates he has written and acted in the equivalent of three feature films in 12 months. "The stress is ridiculous, especially when you're writing on your own," he says. "If the scripts don't measure up then the show doesn't measure up and that's on me. Then there's having to play the lead. I've got to make sure I do my job because if I don't, again, the show's just not going to work." Ryan's success has come after what he calls a "horror year". He had health problems, his father almost died and a relationship broke up – all of which have contributed to making the second season darker than the first.

"You have your good years and your bad years," he says. "But I do feel in a lot of ways a lot better about myself than I used to. I'm a lot more confident. A lot more assertive. "So it's been good for me but it doesn't mean that I live some wonderful life. Maybe down the track somewhere I'll get there." A hitman and his daughter ... Scott Ryan with Chika Yasumura. Credit:Foxtel Given all the pressure, why do it? "The money," Ryan says with that terrifying honesty again. "It's either that or drive taxis."