Speaker 1: It's in the news today, but it was actually on TV.
Speaker 2: Reload, the podcast Plant Beef.
Speaker 1: Hey guys, welcome back to TV Reload. I want to
Speaker 1: thank you for clicking and downloading on today's episode with
Speaker 1: Brendan Cow from Plum, which is about to be seen
Speaker 1: on the ABC. And I have to tell you, Brendan
Speaker 1: Cow would have to be one of my favorite Australian actors,
Speaker 1: so I'm very excited to be chatting with him today.
Speaker 1: Brendan was an actor that first came into my life
Speaker 1: when I was watching Love My Way, which was on
Speaker 1: Foxtail back in the day. And if you've been with
Speaker 1: me for a long time listening to the podcast, you
Speaker 1: may know that it is my favorite Australian drama series
Speaker 1: ever made. So Brendan Cow not only stars in Plum,
Speaker 1: but it's actually based on a book of the same name,
Speaker 1: which he also wrote. Brenda will talk about how he
Speaker 1: got started in the industry and what he remembers about
Speaker 1: Love My Way. We will talk about how Brendan Cow
Speaker 1: has passed over on Secret Lafe of Us, but how
Speaker 1: his journey with John Edwards has led him back to
Speaker 1: Asha Ketty. With this series, I will discuss the hurdles
Speaker 1: and if there was any with a pushback from the
Speaker 1: Kranulla Sharks, considering a story can be quite sensitive at times.
Speaker 1: You will even get to find out why Brendan cow
Speaker 1: explores the Aussie man his ability to create authentic Australian stories,
Speaker 1: and if he knew that the book Plum would be
Speaker 1: made into a TV series when he was writing it.
Speaker 1: There's actually so much to talk about, with so many
Speaker 1: inside revelations as always, so guys, sit back and relax
Speaker 1: as we unpack the wonderful world of Plum, which launches
Speaker 1: this Sunday night on the ABC.
Speaker 2: Hi Brendan, how I? How are you?
Speaker 1: I am very well. I'm very excited to be talking
Speaker 1: to you because I'm actually a very big fan and
Speaker 1: so this is a real joy to be able.
Speaker 2: To have this chat with you.
Speaker 1: Thanks May Sadly, I loved Love My Way so much
Speaker 1: that I've watched it every year since it has come out,
Speaker 1: and I would go as far as saying on the
Speaker 1: record that is my favorite TV show ever made.
Speaker 2: We'll you'll take it. We were also young and attractive
Speaker 2: in that show. I like it. When PEED would talk about.
Speaker 1: It still look the same. I'm watching Plum and I
Speaker 1: can still see remnants. I've always wanted to talk to
Speaker 1: you about the way in which you write and create
Speaker 1: characters that feel more real and more authentic than any
Speaker 1: other content creators that I've ever come across.
Speaker 2: Well, I've never been called a content creator. Oh really,
Speaker 2: I thought that was TikTok. I thought content was social
Speaker 2: media thing. But I didn't realize Plum was Love my
Speaker 2: Way and Plum were content. Are they content?
Speaker 1: Yeah, I'd say it's content. I mean it's like content
Speaker 1: creation is about making stories, making it compelling, and making
Speaker 1: it interesting for people. And I guess maybe the influencers
Speaker 1: in the way in which they create content. I've sort
Speaker 1: of owned that phrase. But when I think about making
Speaker 1: good Telly, which is what you do, that's content.
Speaker 2: I would prefer to make people content.
Speaker 1: That's a good way to go, a good way to
Speaker 1: look at it.
Speaker 2: If it makes me edgy and present and relevant, I'll
Speaker 2: say I'm a content creator. But yeah, I mean Love
Speaker 2: my Way. You know, that's where I didn't know what
Speaker 2: I was doing when I started I Love my Way.
Speaker 2: They you know i'd come off right and a few
Speaker 2: crazy plays and winning a few playwriting awards. Patrick White
Speaker 2: and Rabbit at the Stables and Bed and Rubin. You know,
Speaker 2: I hadn't even ridden Reuben Guthrie yet, and Glaudia and
Speaker 2: John kind of said they actually got me a meeting
Speaker 2: with Secret Life of Us but didn't work out. And
Speaker 2: then Love my Way, kind of Secret Life of Us
Speaker 2: in your thirties, I guess, came along and I was
Speaker 2: thrown into a story room with kind of these four
Speaker 2: amazing women and myself and Tony mcnamart, you know, And
Speaker 2: that's kind of where I had no idea how to
Speaker 2: write television. But I got to watch the Owner series
Speaker 2: and Jack and Percy and lou Fox and kind of
Speaker 2: learn and I just listened, you know, And that's why
Speaker 2: I've become good at what I did. I just really
Speaker 2: I only had to hear it once, you know, and
Speaker 2: I just asked a lot of questions and kind of
Speaker 2: took my expressive, kind of aggressive, aggressively comic theatrical style
Speaker 2: into TV writing. But yeah, that's where I learned everything
Speaker 2: from my way those kind of five years.
Speaker 1: When did you realize that you had this sort of
Speaker 1: ability to write characters and write characters that represented Australian
Speaker 1: people so well, you know.
Speaker 2: It was probably when I wrote Men, my first play
Speaker 2: in two thousand, which I wrote in a pure you know,
Speaker 2: through pure vanity to just lift up my non existent
Speaker 2: acting career in nineteen ninety nine two thousand, it was like,
Speaker 2: I'm going to write a play with a great role,
Speaker 2: and I'm going to put it on so then people
Speaker 2: will be forced to watch me act. And the play
Speaker 2: sold out at the Old Fids, went to Belvoire, went
Speaker 2: to Edinburgh, went to New York. It was my first play,
Speaker 2: and everyone said, write another play, and I thought, and
Speaker 2: I wrote another one for me to be in Happy
Speaker 2: new and then I wrote a third one and I thought,
Speaker 2: I won't be in this one. And people were really
Speaker 2: resonating with the young people that I was writing, particularly
Speaker 2: the rage and the young male, and I felt that
Speaker 2: there was a real kind of gap in what I
Speaker 2: was seeing on stage, and I felt I could really
Speaker 2: communicate what it was like to have these bewildering emotions,
Speaker 2: these conflicting emotions, and that I could write relationships. And
Speaker 2: then as I grew up, grew older, I started to
Speaker 2: want to, you know, I guess deal with the family,
Speaker 2: the Australian family, which is something that i've kind of
Speaker 2: rested on in Plum.
Speaker 1: I think that's vulnerability in what you've explored with men.
Speaker 1: And I think before we, you know, before you're talking
Speaker 1: about this work, we sort of had this way of
Speaker 1: presenting men and their struggles as just being one dimens
Speaker 1: and I think it's really impressive with how that vulnerability
Speaker 1: comes through with a lot of your characters. I mean,
Speaker 1: we see that again in this series so well. I mean,
Speaker 1: you could easily be making this very sort of polarizing
Speaker 1: character and have it him be unlikable. But every single
Speaker 1: second that you're watching this character on screen, there's this
Speaker 1: vulnerability that makes you compelled to keep watching his story
Speaker 1: and feel for him.
Speaker 2: Thank you. And I guess that's is that a question
Speaker 2: or a provoking statement? I guess when I watch men
Speaker 2: behaving badly in TV of film and I'd find myself
Speaker 2: not connected, it's because they're swept up in their own
Speaker 2: torture and self importance, and those kind of characters I
Speaker 2: don't find interesting because I don't find any access to them.
Speaker 2: And I'm not talking about likability, but in order to
Speaker 2: access a character, we need to see them trying, and
Speaker 2: Peter Lum is trying to face something so much bigger
Speaker 2: than him. But he doesn't have the emotional skills. He's
Speaker 2: never been taught them. What he's been taught is the opposite.
Speaker 2: I'll never take a backwards step plow on almost like
Speaker 2: he not only does he not know how, he doesn't
Speaker 2: feel like he's allowed to deal with this in the
Speaker 2: proper way, which is to communicate, reach out, ask for help,
Speaker 2: admit that you're scared. And you know, I remember writing
Speaker 2: episode three of The Slap Harry and Harry's the man
Speaker 2: that slaps the kid, and thinking, well, he does actually
Speaker 2: go and apologize, and you know, and I learned that
Speaker 2: the audience went with Harry once he turned around and went, Okay,
Speaker 2: I'll try. And I think it's all that we want
Speaker 2: from our male figures is for them to try or
Speaker 2: just try to try. And I didn't have a lot
Speaker 2: of male role models growing up that did that. But
Speaker 2: what I love about Peter Love is that he is
Speaker 2: a beautiful man. It's very sentimental, and that's what I
Speaker 2: found with a lot of rugby league players. They are
Speaker 2: really sentimental, utterly family people. But these men are capable
Speaker 2: of uncertable, you know, of bad behavior when they get
Speaker 2: overwhelmed by something they don't have a language for and
Speaker 2: trying to articulate. That means that you can push the
Speaker 2: behavior of a character further because you've connected the audience
Speaker 2: to the fact that there's a lost eight year old
Speaker 2: boy in there trying to try to get out, you know.
Speaker 2: And if we can connect an audience to the pain
Speaker 2: and the confusion, then we've got great comic tragic behavior,
Speaker 2: which is really what you want to watch. You want
Speaker 2: to watch people behaving, yeah on screen, you know what
Speaker 2: I mean, not suffering things, but behaving out of the
Speaker 2: corner of their own kind of torture. And that's what
Speaker 2: kind of plumb is. He's this good bloke being fucked
Speaker 2: over by fate, fate being a brain injury that he
Speaker 2: didn't mean to get, and this whole family try to
Speaker 2: deal with it. They're good people, and you know that's
Speaker 2: what I try to write. It's good people behaving badly
Speaker 2: because what faith has presented them with.
Speaker 1: Well, we get to see ourselves on screen. I think
Speaker 1: through a lot of your work, and I think that's
Speaker 1: an accessibility that is the magic behind you. And I
Speaker 1: think that the key to this series, whether it represents
Speaker 1: what I'm talking about or whether it is about the sport.
Speaker 1: I feel like his journey where he's struggling to face
Speaker 1: the realities of something and keeping it a secret is
Speaker 1: something that I think we all do, you know.
Speaker 2: I think that's right.
Speaker 1: You ask anybody, and they spend so much time worrying
Speaker 1: about something that's eating themselves up inside that they don't
Speaker 1: feel that they can reach out and ask for help.
Speaker 1: And I think that's what drew me to this story.
Speaker 1: That's what made the story for me so compelling, because
Speaker 1: it made me sort of look back at myself and
Speaker 1: think about the things that I don't verbalize, and then
Speaker 1: I don't feel comfortable asking for help with.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, and everyone is so anxious, and it manifests
Speaker 2: in your body what you hold in me, you know,
Speaker 2: and it spits out sideways in the wrong way. Whatever
Speaker 2: we hold in me, it will bubble over.
Speaker 1: I think it's fear, you know. Fear is really interesting
Speaker 1: because when we as people feel fear, we behave badly. Yeah,
Speaker 1: And that's what I think happens to all of us,
Speaker 1: you know, when we don't have the answers, that's usually
Speaker 1: where bad behavior starts to sort of surf it well,
Speaker 1: sort of that's where it's that's the root of where
Speaker 1: it's coming from.
Speaker 2: That's right. Fear stands for fuck everything and run.
Speaker 1: When people are rude to me, or I see people
Speaker 1: behaving badly, my brain tells me that that person's in trouble.
Speaker 2: You know.
Speaker 1: My brain doesn't tell me to fuck you and fuck
Speaker 1: off from that, do you know what I mean? Like,
Speaker 1: I see fear as a request and I see bad
Speaker 1: behavior as a request for help.
Speaker 2: Wow, well you must be a good friend and family
Speaker 2: member if you're like that, because that's that's the higher ground, right,
Speaker 2: that's the ninja move man, if you can get to
Speaker 2: that kind of level of evolution. But when it comes
Speaker 2: to family, that's not always achievable because family pressure buttons.
Speaker 2: Relationships press your buttons, and so you try to take
Speaker 2: the higher road, but it hurts, you know, the ones
Speaker 2: who love us the most, of the ones where the
Speaker 2: most cruel to you know what I mean, And the
Speaker 2: ones that we struggle to communicate with. You know, you
Speaker 2: can probably tell your hairdresser or the guy at the
Speaker 2: pub what's really going on for you. And in Plumb's case,
Speaker 2: Sylvia Plats, the ghost of Sylvia platf he can tell
Speaker 2: you know what I mean? Like he can tell a
Speaker 2: trans poetry club owner what's really going on for him?
Speaker 2: Can he tell his girlfriend and his fucking son, you.
Speaker 3: Know what I mean?
Speaker 2: And that's kind of the grand irony, isn't it? But yeah,
Speaker 2: I think fear, You know, perfectionism is fear. You hear
Speaker 2: people who go, oh, let me tell you about this.
Speaker 2: I know this. You know the alpha male, all those
Speaker 2: overconfident people who pretend to know everything and they can't
Speaker 2: change their opinion, and they need everyone to hear their opinion,
Speaker 2: and they go on the internet and they savage other
Speaker 2: people's opinion. They are completely possessed by fear. Fear is
Speaker 2: controlling them, and that turns into anger and resentment and
Speaker 2: the need to tell everybody that they're wrong. And you
Speaker 2: think you are wasting such a huge period of your
Speaker 2: life being controlled by fear in such a negative way.
Speaker 2: And if you can let go and let go of
Speaker 2: your ego for a second and let your ego drift
Speaker 2: out to sea, you can be present and you can learn.
Speaker 2: And this is what Peter Lum learns, is that you know,
Speaker 2: once you let go of your ego and you open
Speaker 2: yourself up, suddenly the misfits and the people that you
Speaker 2: never saw in Cronulla become your friends, and you see
Speaker 2: that everyone's human and everyone's trying, and if you surround
Speaker 2: yourself by people who think the same as you, you're
Speaker 2: never going to grow. You're just going to stay controlled
Speaker 2: by that same fear and anger. And Peter Lum learned
Speaker 2: that there's just so much more to life than just
Speaker 2: thinking the same thing and doing life the same way,
Speaker 2: you know what I mean, and hiding out, and he
Speaker 2: starts to grow in episode five and six when he
Speaker 2: puts this to the test.
Speaker 1: The characters they're so eclectic in so many ways, and
Speaker 1: they bring out different things in him, and it's really
Speaker 1: powerful to watch what it is that people that he'd
Speaker 1: never seen and you're in your words, you know, had
Speaker 1: never seen them before, what they sort of letting down
Speaker 1: those barriers just a little bit and finding out about
Speaker 1: other people. How that's actually helped him out unlock some
Speaker 1: of the answers for himself. And I think that is
Speaker 1: sort of how you've structured this story, because in episode
Speaker 1: one it's a real starting point and the evolution of
Speaker 1: where we're going with this story is quite brilliant. It's
Speaker 1: quite amazing. It's quite uplifting, and I think that's what
Speaker 1: we want from television, you know, we want real and
Speaker 1: this can be quite bleak, I think at times, but
Speaker 1: I think it takes us on a journey that's quite rewarding.
Speaker 2: Yeah, watch a lot of television that I don't think
Speaker 2: respects the Australian slash global audience. I think Australians watch
Speaker 2: a lot of TV, especially coming out of the pandemic,
Speaker 2: and we live complicated, difficult lives here and you know,
Speaker 2: throughout history and through what's going on now politically and
Speaker 2: in the suburbs. You know, things like this affect lives.
Speaker 2: And I Fiona Series and I who wrote the show together,
Speaker 2: adapted the novel together. We really wanted to give the
Speaker 2: audience a big job to do and to live in
Speaker 2: the grayness, especially in a black and white world now
Speaker 2: where everyone's like love hate, you know, and there's nothing
Speaker 2: in the middle. We wanted to make a messy show
Speaker 2: where women, men, young and old. Everyone behaves well and
Speaker 2: everyone behaves badly. Everyone's reacting to the ripple effects of
Speaker 2: the King of Crinulla's brain injury. And that's when after
Speaker 2: one and two, where you see you know, basically denial.
Speaker 2: You know, the first act of the three dramas, there's
Speaker 2: two episodes, and he's behind denials. You know there is
Speaker 2: no monster. Episode two. Okay, there is a monster. I'll
Speaker 2: admit there's a monster. It doesn't mean I'm going to
Speaker 2: do anything about it. Three or four he starts to go,
Speaker 2: oh shit, if I don't admit there's a monster and
Speaker 2: do something about it, I'm going to fuck my whole family,
Speaker 2: Like this is going to really destroy all my relationships. Yeah,
Speaker 2: and then five and six, you know, I'm going to
Speaker 2: have a look at this monster, see the monsters in me,
Speaker 2: and try to change change who I am. And you know,
Speaker 2: what we really wanted to do was just you know,
Speaker 2: which is often hard with networks and investors because they're like,
Speaker 2: this isn't clear and this person's behaving in a negative way,
Speaker 2: and they go, yes, haven't you in situations like this,
Speaker 2: isn't that what we do when we love too much
Speaker 2: and we're scared? And then it flips it on its
Speaker 2: head that you think, Oh Renee played by the extraordinary
Speaker 2: Ashi Ketty, she's this nosy, kind of shallow Oh hang on,
Speaker 2: she's going to save the day here she's the one
Speaker 2: with the biggest heart. She's going to rescue. And you
Speaker 2: start to watch the characters behave in different ways and
Speaker 2: fulfill different roles within the family and surprise each other,
Speaker 2: and they change and people don't change. And I guess
Speaker 2: that's what this shows about, is change isn't drinking a
Speaker 2: little more water and turning your phone off the ten minutes,
Speaker 2: and that's not changed. Change is doing what you're not doing,
Speaker 2: doing something else, turning around one point eighty, faithing the
Speaker 2: other way, becoming another person. It is so hard to change,
Speaker 2: It is so scary. And if you if you're interested
Speaker 2: in fear, then try and change, you know what I mean,
Speaker 2: because you have to face all of them. And Peter Lum,
Speaker 2: the allegend toughest guy in Australia, is finally scared of it.
Speaker 2: And the thing he's most scared of is personal growth
Speaker 2: and change and vulnerability. He'll run at any Pacific islander forward.
Speaker 2: He will fight anyone in a boxing ring or in
Speaker 2: a pub. But you put him, you know, put him
Speaker 2: in front of himself and he's try childer me then
Speaker 2: and suddenly he's terrified, you know, And yeah, his mortality.
Speaker 1: I always feel like that. I'm scared of a lot
Speaker 1: of things, but my parents told me to push against
Speaker 1: the fear. So instead of seeing something and going oh,
Speaker 1: I'm scared of that and walking away or recoiling from that,
Speaker 1: I've was brought up to push myself against the fear.
Speaker 1: So I'm often in situations where people I don't even
Speaker 1: think realize how nervous or scared I am.
Speaker 2: But I am.
Speaker 1: And that's because I'm so thirsty for living my life
Speaker 1: and pushing myself, you know what I mean, and getting
Speaker 1: the most out of it.
Speaker 2: I guess that's wonderful. And what do you want to
Speaker 2: look back on when you're seventy eighty ninety, you know,
Speaker 2: is all the things you didn't do or all the
Speaker 2: times you're scared?
Speaker 1: Did you jump out of the plane? You know, it's
Speaker 1: interesting just to take a side step, just very quickly,
Speaker 1: because we are running out of time. One of the
Speaker 1: things I love about this show is the fact that
Speaker 1: watching it on my television in Queensland, I could smell Sydney.
Speaker 1: That's how well you captured Sydney and Cronulla. I've got
Speaker 1: my best friend that lives in Crinola, so I go
Speaker 1: there often and as soon as I was watching the show,
Speaker 1: and very cleverly. I think the Noiseworks song that was
Speaker 1: chosen as well captured the setup of I just I
Speaker 1: don't know, does it sound silly to you that I'm
Speaker 1: saying this, but it just you could smell it. It
Speaker 1: was so visceral.
Speaker 2: Yeah, thank you very much. And I think, you know,
Speaker 2: talking to my mother a lot about it, like, we
Speaker 2: don't make shows enough that are affectionate, you know, that
Speaker 2: are affectionate landscapes of the insights into the suburban life.
Speaker 2: If we do, we're mocking the way we speak, or
Speaker 2: we're showing this really depressing documentary about people living on
Speaker 2: the fringes. And a lot of the reviews for my
Speaker 2: novel were col sets sets his tail in the in
Speaker 2: the suburban world or cow suburban and you think, well,
Speaker 2: most of us live there, most of us grew up there.
Speaker 2: Seventy percent. This is Australian life. I just went there
Speaker 2: with a lens. You know, that's the importance of that speech.
Speaker 2: At the start, he's got it argent girlfriend that puts
Speaker 2: skinwire in the salad, and he's got a Torres Straight
Speaker 2: Island girlfriend and they go to the gym together and
Speaker 2: you know, I go down there all my mates. I've
Speaker 2: got four kids and they're freethinking people, and you have
Speaker 2: conversations in what's called slow time. You sit around a
Speaker 2: table eating sausages with a kinwar salen the kids that
Speaker 2: the sixteen kids in the pool, and you have a
Speaker 2: chat for two hours and you hear people's pain and
Speaker 2: the illnesses and the changes and the thoughts and there's
Speaker 2: real dialogue going down there on a different pace. And
Speaker 2: I wanted to show suburban people dealing with something beyond
Speaker 2: them and how they get in via love and connection
Speaker 2: and how strong the family connection is down there. And
Speaker 2: I think at the end of the day, you know,
Speaker 2: Plumb is about a guy suffering from a brain injury
Speaker 2: who learns that poetry can be healing. Right, that's probably
Speaker 2: the one liner. But really it's about Australians urban family.
Speaker 2: It's about our lives and it's about pushing on together.
Speaker 2: And I think that's where we really found the shark.
Speaker 1: It would be remissive me not to ask this question
Speaker 1: just before you go, but I mean, sport is such
Speaker 1: a huge part of Australian culture, and you know, the
Speaker 1: Kernella sharks are just such an iconic team. I was
Speaker 1: curious about, you know, was there any pushback from them
Speaker 1: in terms of portraying some of the harsher realities of
Speaker 1: the game, because I think that is also a huge
Speaker 1: part of this story. And I was curious about you
Speaker 1: being careful not to sort of either glorify it or
Speaker 1: make it look too dangerous. I mean, what was going
Speaker 1: through your brain looking at that?
Speaker 2: When I wrote the book, I didn't know I would
Speaker 2: be making a TV show, you know, And I don't
Speaker 2: want to be one of those novelists who writes a
Speaker 2: book that looks like a TV show. I want to
Speaker 2: write an inner monologue, which I think is what Plum
Speaker 2: the novel is. And if anything, I hope the TV
Speaker 2: show makes people read the book, you know, because the
Speaker 2: book is so much more epic. You know, It's got
Speaker 2: lots of different storylines in it. And if you like
Speaker 2: the show, by the book, you know, the Sharks, the
Speaker 2: Sharks were like and it's one thing that Rugby League
Speaker 2: doesn't do enough. Oh it doesn't refer to itself enough.
Speaker 2: And it's great history. It's the national game, you know.
Speaker 2: Ben Mendelsson did this trailer that I was involved in
Speaker 2: for Channel nine showing in, you know, the conversation in Huddersfield,
Speaker 2: and we don't revere ourselves like American sports do and
Speaker 2: remark on our history and have museums and look back.
Speaker 2: You know, we're always pushing on like a brand. And look,
Speaker 2: it was the NRL in the end that were kind
Speaker 2: of reluctant to give us too much footage of or
Speaker 2: any footage of big hits. And that's fair enough. But yeah,
Speaker 2: the Sharks in themselves were like, no, come down and
Speaker 2: film there. And we've continued to market the show down
Speaker 2: there and they've really championed it. And you know, the
Speaker 2: clubs are fantastic. They have protocols, they want to protect
Speaker 2: their players, They love their players as men primarily, and
Speaker 2: I think the Roosters have really led the way with that,
Speaker 2: Trent Robertson, you know, Robinson retiring, you know, medical retiring
Speaker 2: some of the best players instead of going no, you'll
Speaker 2: play another season. So we need to make the finals,
Speaker 2: you know, I mean like, and I think the other
Speaker 2: clubs have followed and gone it's more important for a
Speaker 2: man to live a life with all these faculties than
Speaker 2: it is to make, you know, to make the top
Speaker 2: four and let's remember that. And I think if the
Speaker 2: if NRL can make some changes which might be a
Speaker 2: little drastic now, it means the game could go forever.
Speaker 2: You can make some changes now, you can live forever.
Speaker 1: You know, absolutely, I mean you can definitely hear that
Speaker 1: passion that you have for the game and the sport
Speaker 1: and the respect for it, which I think is also
Speaker 1: important to do. I finished my podcast with answer asking
Speaker 1: this last question because you know, Brendon and I could
Speaker 1: talk to you all day and honestly, this is so
Speaker 1: enjoyable for me.
Speaker 2: Oh thanks man.
Speaker 1: Always knew that I could have a very in depth
Speaker 1: conversation about humanity with you, and I think that what
Speaker 1: you're tapping into with your life's work is so compelling
Speaker 1: and it's so interesting. But as I said, I finished
Speaker 1: the podcast with the same question every time, what is
Speaker 1: something from behind the scenes, something you might not necessarily know?
Speaker 1: And a question about Asha Kenny maybe because you know
Speaker 1: you both work together on Love My Way and you
Speaker 1: both have such amazing chemistry. I was wondering about maybe
Speaker 1: how she got attached to this project. Did you call
Speaker 1: her up and ask her to do it? Like maybe
Speaker 1: there's something in the behind the scenes secret there.
Speaker 2: Well, I'm going down to Melbourne next week to do
Speaker 2: a couple of days of pressed with Asha, so I
Speaker 2: guess we'll be talking about that quite a lot. But
Speaker 2: you know, and I've spoken about this a little bit,
Speaker 2: is that Ash I asked, you know, my my most
Speaker 2: high profile friends to do a quote for the book,
Speaker 2: which is the hardest part of publishing is to harass
Speaker 2: famous people, you know, and say, can you read it
Speaker 2: in like three weeks and give me three lines that
Speaker 2: are just almost like you know you've ever read and
Speaker 2: they're okay, and then you got to harass them, you know.
Speaker 2: But Ash came forward, like really quickly. She goes, I
Speaker 2: read it twice because she's.
Speaker 3: Just that's hoo, you kind of since she is, and
Speaker 3: she kept calling me and she's like, I just want
Speaker 3: to talk about because she's got thuns and she's who
Speaker 3: plays board and family and you know, I was just
Speaker 3: walking around Centennial with my mother and we had her
Speaker 3: on the out speaker, and by the end of the call,
Speaker 3: it just started to feel like if we ever got
Speaker 3: this thing made, I was playing plumb and she was
Speaker 3: playing Renee and she goes, yeah, I think so too.
Speaker 2: That's what I was thinking, and it was just like
Speaker 2: an organic thing, and I went, well, I can't guarantee it,
Speaker 2: you know, because I'm no tred Dalton. But ABC responded
Speaker 2: to it and made the call and I went, well,
Speaker 2: I've got to ask key, you know, and they're like what,
Speaker 2: and I'm like, yeah, I don't, Asha Eddy. So that
Speaker 2: definitely put us on the top shelf.
Speaker 1: And you know, I think about your chemistry, but it
Speaker 1: really is. I mean, I can think back to that
Speaker 1: scene of walking down going to King's Cross and Love
Speaker 1: my Way, where she was drunk and she was trying
Speaker 1: to get you to go and buy pills from King's Cross.
Speaker 1: The two of your characters sort have really only melded
Speaker 1: together in those sort of final series of Love My Way,
Speaker 1: but you could definitely see that chemistry. But this has
Speaker 1: leveled itself up.
Speaker 2: Well, we've been looking for someone for so long, you know,
Speaker 2: we've been looking for one for twenty years, because we've
Speaker 2: just been admiring each other from Afar and I've been
Speaker 2: in London for eight years, and you know, and she's
Speaker 2: a show runner now too, and I became a showrunner
Speaker 2: and we've just kind of been admiring each other and
Speaker 2: we're good mates, you know, and no mates with her husband,
Speaker 2: and so we missed a few and then this one
Speaker 2: came and it was like, bang, this is it, and
Speaker 2: we're both so glad that this was the one, this
Speaker 2: was the one for us to come together. And she
Speaker 2: keeps you on your toes. You know, she kind of
Speaker 2: appears like she doesn't know her lines and she isn't ready,
Speaker 2: and then it's action and it's bag bag bang, and
Speaker 2: she has this detailed You just know that she's all
Speaker 2: last night, she's been musing over what to do, and
Speaker 2: she stayed in cornella the whole time she was here.
Speaker 2: She goes, now, I'm staying down here. And she got
Speaker 2: up early and walked around and listened to the women
Speaker 2: and went to the esplanade. And you know that's what
Speaker 2: she does. If she's going to do something, she does it.
Speaker 2: She'll fucking do it. Yeah, And that's what the best do.
Speaker 2: You know, that's what the best do.
Speaker 1: There's a scene in this where she's wearing a jacket
Speaker 1: that's something you've never said that Asha Ketty probably would
Speaker 1: never wear. It was some sort of hideous Leopard's big
Speaker 1: period and immediately you could see Cranella women. I don't
Speaker 1: know why.
Speaker 2: I don't want to.
Speaker 1: Say that, is that the negative or a good a
Speaker 1: good thing or a bad thing. I just was like,
Speaker 1: immediately her with that champagne talking to you, I was like,
Speaker 1: she is that person.
Speaker 2: She is someone knows. It was my ex girlfriend Selene
Speaker 2: and the costume designer Olivia Smiles kind of got together
Speaker 2: and went through every Wag photo on the Daily Mail
Speaker 2: and it was kind of that kind of was like,
Speaker 2: how do we keep her within her integrity, but really
Speaker 2: pushed the big label belts and the sparkly sandals and
Speaker 2: and that that you know, Ash plays a lot of
Speaker 2: those kind of very well to do, you know, women
Speaker 2: in lovely kitchens, and we thought, now we want to
Speaker 2: we want to make it slightly garish. You know, she
Speaker 2: she's back after postnatal depression, and you know she's like,
Speaker 2: I'm fucking back, I'm on the lines, I'm getting out there,
Speaker 2: you know. So exactly, so we wanted Renee to be
Speaker 2: kind of, you know, reliving, which is side of why
Speaker 2: her and Pete get in a tangle, is she's she's
Speaker 2: reliving a bit of her Wag past. Yea through this.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's so good congratulations, make on mate.
Speaker 2: Thanks for the chat and thanks for your support. I
Speaker 2: appreciate it.
Speaker 1: I just can't wait for people to watch this, and
Speaker 1: I hope you get to bask in the accolade anyway.
Speaker 2: He looks up.
Speaker 1: She's thanks for your time.