STAN AUSTRALIA LANDS STRONG WITH EDEN

Welcome back to TV Reload. My name is Benjamin Norris, and on this podcast, I'll be going behind the scenes with the biggest players in television. I want to quickly thank all the TV enthusiasts who have come back weekly to check out the podcast. I'm really getting spoiled for choice right across the streaming platforms and freeedoware networks. There's so many shows to explore, and I want to thank

I was writing little stories from a very young age because I think I was inspired by the books that I was reading.

Every single thing in life is about love.

Which basically this film world and the TV world have merged.

Every place and everyone has their secrets.

I feel like Eden has a very natural home. Instance.

Eden is finally here and you can watch every single episode now only on step. We have amazing actors here, and we have amazing directors and writers.

Do you people think you can do anything you want with me?

Your relationship isn't open, It's fucked.

I'm always very interested in chance and sliding doors.

Moment mate, how are you good day?

How are you? Do you know?

What's really funny is that my partner hates it. Is that I've basically said the whole way through the podcast, whether it's a guy or a girl, I say get a Mate. It's interesting because some people are like, oh I love that, Like it's a good way to signature yourself as being Australian on this podcast because people listen to it internationally. Our partners like, you can't say mate to women.

No, I like it.

I actually like being called mate, and I also like gooda but I always forget about it. So when people stay it to me, I'm like, oh yeah, yeah, yeah, good day.

Scripto drama for me is actually my favorite television programming. And I wanted to ask you how did you get started? Like what got you hooked?

Oh well, it's actually quite a good story.

There was a Screen Australia I think I was back in twenty seventeen, maybe twenty sixteen. Twenty seventeen, Queen Australia ran that initiative called Gender Matters, which wanted to address the imbalance in the industry between male voices and female voices and to try and get more women into the industry in roles like writing and directing and you know, just get those voices heard.

Screen Australia launch Gender Matters, an ambitious five point plan to sure that their production funding is targeted to creative teams that are at least fifty to fifty, so I was.

Sort of part of that.

There was this initiative called Smart for a Girl, which was run by Image and Banks and alis Bell with Endemol Shine, and my project was selected for that show called ID, which is pretty far along now in the process. So this was kind of the amazing origin story of that. From there, they put a professional writer's room around that I got the experience of working in that environment, and then I got some funding to actually write the pilot, which was it just felt like a million dollars back then.

It was like someone's going to pay me to write.

That's incredible, And then got pitched to Netflix and went into development with Netflix. So it was just kind of this fairy tale run with that show. And it was actually also the pilot that I'd written for that show that got me the job on Eden because the producers read part of that pilot and decided.

They wanted to work with me. So that it was a really.

Nice way in We're very lucky in this country to have the kind of support that we get from Screen Australia.

Absolutely, you know, I want to go back to some of the origin stories as well, because along the way you credited your mum for your passionate storytelling. Is you know she read to you from a really early age, with authors such as Enid Blyton. How important do you think it is to read to children and you know, how do you think that helps stimulate the creative brain.

I think it's fundamental, and I think it's It might sound really old fashioned to me, and it maybe shows that I'm actually.

Not that young anymore.

But you know, I credit reading with how I evolved as a writer, because I think from a very young age I was reading, I was devouring books, and you just say, that's the time when your brain's actually good. Like now, I can't retain information. I forget everything. I cannot learn really in any way the same way as I used to be able to learn. But back then you're this amazing sponge and that's when it all kind of goes in. And so I really think that's where

And it means that every single person's version of like that book, I guess, is actually different if you think about it.

Yeah, I always think that as well. You know, we always have our own interpretations of everything. I remember reading a book The Beach while I was in Bali once and I had such a really different take on that book to a friend of mine who just read it every night after work. And so it's such a personalized experience, but it's such a formulative approach to getting people to use their own imagination, which I think is really important.

Yeah. Actually, one of my old friends from primary school wrote to me just the other day because she'd seen all the Eden posters around and she was like, I was just talking to our other friend from school like high school days, and I hadn't.

Spoken to his friend in like a very long time.

But she kind of popped up and was like, we were remembering the story that you wrote in your age, the novel that you wrote in near eighte.

So we all had this fantasy.

We all hated to get out of Canberra and moved to Sydney, and we all had this kind of collective fantasy that they were all going to just live in Sydney. I wanted to live in a sharehouse with my best friends and we'd all have you know, partners, and it would be like fun and sexy, and so I.

Wrote I wrote the story about that, and.

I put us all in as characters and made up fictional boyfriends for us, and every you know, I'd write a chapter overnight and then to my friends and ang read the chapter at school and yeah.

How did it turn out? Is everyone now living any kind of similarities to this parallel universe that you created in your eight Yeah?

Weirdly, I was a writer.

Yep, I was a writer, and I lived in Sydney and I still I'm a writer that lived in Sydney. And my friend Bethany was living in la We all ended up sort of doing versions of this as well. It kind of became a bit of a thing where we'd all write our own little novels about our futures.

I don't know if that's really weird, but.

That no, I think it's good. It's like a vision board for children, you know. Look, I think that's important to be able to do that, and I think it's hilarious that now, as an adult, we can reflect back on that with you today and ask you, you know, what's the similarities there? Because there are some great similarities that you have achieved something amazing. I'm sure if we would go back and talk to yourself in your eight

Heh, that is amazing, And I don't think I could have. I don't think my vision of myself was anyway that ambitious. Actually, I think it was just like all I want to do was like live in a terrorist house. I don't even think I knew what a screenwriter really did or was back then, and it wasn't something I really kind of thought about until much later.

Well, you know, when it comes to your work and when you think about your writing and conceptualizing the story, you know, is there a signature theme that you feel you bring, like, is there something that you think that's my niche?

Yeah, I like to deal in the kind of this probably sounds slightly generic, but I'm really interested in kind of facades and the interior life versus the external presentation of self, and kind of the dissonance that happens, you know.

If those two things are at odds.

And I guess kind of the psychology about and the psychology of lying and secrets. And I think across all of my a lot of the work I'm doing, that's a big theme.

I think identity is a big theme.

I think like sexual power dynamics and female sexuality and sexuality in general are definitely themes that keep coming through in my work.

And yeah, also I'm.

Always very interested in chance and sliding doors moments and things like that.

I always say to people, flawed people, And I like flawed people, you know, especially in my reading and my watching of television and cinema and theater and all of that kind of stuff. You know, the more flawed the characters are, the more they lift to me. And it's like, you know, they just seem more interesting.

Oh, completely, And I think I mean, to me, it's just everyone's flawed.

There is no such thing as a perfect person.

So every character you write, I mean, if you're writing them without flaws, then they're not real people. I think you're totally right, and I think I agree. That's the most exciting access point, and I think we're seeing that more and more in modern television. It's not about these perfect heroes. It's about sort of these flawed, damaged people that aren't necessarily even don't even necessarily.

Behave that well. They're complex, just like all humans are.

It's a great segue into talking about Eden, which is as an original series and launching on stand this weekend. So I hope people get a chance to check it out.

Now.

It is a bit of a mystery set in a coastal town, which you know could be seen as something of a similar idea, but with this series there's this unbelievable character study which lands and it digs deeper the further you know, you go into the series. I felt, like, you know, episode one, it felt like a wider, more elusive story and more questions were kind of asked than

Well, you know, I think fundamentally, Eden's a story of a portrait of a town and it's I guess, you know, going along with that theme of facades.

I think Eden the town can be seen as one.

Big, beautiful, glossy, gorgeous facade over this town, you know, and underneath this surface there's you know, there are human beings with all the normal human voibles and some very abnormal ones as well. I think, well, not many, but but some some push the limits a little bit.

Do you trust me? Let me take you somewhere. Well, we don't have to pretend to be anything but us, but every place and everyone has their secrets.

Okay, So it goes these two young kids packed all their worldly positions into a car, drove it into the lake, and then vanished and said.

It, why are you all buying into this?

Things are wrong, everything's wrong.

I think the show does in many ways. It's a mystery, and it plays out a mystery person goes missing. But I really hope it's kind of a very new approach to that form. So it's like a fresh and bold take on that familiar form. So I hope that within that there's this really nice kind of feeling of both strangeness and familiarity when.

You watch it.

And I do just hope that people do really connect to the characters and their complexity and sort of keep watching to see how these stories interweave and overlap. Because episode one, yes it's elusive at us, sort of questions so much about what happens in that episode starts to kind of take on such a deeper meaning as the stories unfold throughout the series.

I like to consider it as screen printing, like it's such an unusual format, you know, Whilst I did say before, you know, some similar themes or some similar storytelling might appear at the first episode, but you know, as that screen print happens and you layer it, you know, you put the color over the top of it, and the picture starts to come together more. You know, it's a real reward for the viewer to go and commit to the series and then just keep getting those layers because

No, I love that way of describing it.

I think that that is completely I couldn't have said it better myself. Yeah, so the layers become it. It just becomes richer and richer the more you watch, I think, And that was always the idea, and I think it's it was a bit of a risk telling the story this way, because it's a slightly unusual and bold approach

I think there's some real authentic and courageous work being done here.

You know.

I always found what's interesting is sex, drugs and misbehavior. You know, we say that we're we try to present ourselves as being these amazing people, you know, on sex and drugs, and you know, it's always sort of been a bit taboo. Why do you think it's taken so long to tell the truth about those parts of our lives, which you've explored so well in this series.

I just think, you know, it's people are scared. You know.

I think we're in a really interesting and good moment in history because I think a lot of boundaries are being pushed and a lot of those you know, a lot of people who were afraid to express who they really were, and now I think feeling much more able to just come out and say this is who I am, and I'm not.

Ashamed of that.

And look, I have a community and I have you know, and I think the internet, much as Internet has done damage, I think the Internet's also done incredible things in terms of people finding communities, people finding the courage to express who they are, and I think it's formed this collective feeling that, yeah, we can push.

Further and we don't have to be so you know, victorian about everything.

I think that was previous generations, but I don't think the younger ones of us that are coming through, and like, you know, I'm gen hy and you know, the younger ones was the millennials are even more this way. I think they're even more because even I look back in high school and there was a lot of shame still and a lot of like I went to a Catholic school, guilt, all of that. But I think even this new generation.

Happen for me.

And I'm really really grateful, and in fact, I was encouraged to be bold, and that was my mandate.

That's what I was. That was my brief, like, be bold, go for.

It, be bold. Yeah, I think that that really works. I mean I think sometimes we've thought that, you know, you don't want to glorify drug use, or you know, you don't want to glorify some of the darker themes that we have in our lives. But what I thought with Eden was that there is a lot of drug use, there is a lot of sex and sexuality and new topics that we just haven't seen in Australian storytelling, and it isn't glorifying it, do you know what I mean?

It, absolutely, And I just think it's about part of the sort of wider thing they're talking.

About about just being honest.

This is what's going on, and sometimes it's you know, sometimes it's fun, but sometimes it's really damaging. And in Eden there is drug use and both those things apply and ultimately gets it's not a moralizing show. I mean, that was kind of something fundamental about it. I didn't

Well, there's just so much to be proud of, you know in this show. I wanted to ask you about the casting process when you were sort of writing and conceptualizing and working with the team of writers. Did you have people in mind when you're writing some of these people? You know, were you sitting there going, oh, Samuel Johnson, this is his role or did that come down to the casting process later on?

You know, you've always got I think when you start out, you've always got you've got your own interpretation of these people, that there's.

Made up people in your head.

And then you start this incredible one of the best parts of the whole thing. You start actually pairing those characters you kind of summoned out of thin air, and can you realize that you know, they're made for certain people and somehow, you know Sam Johnson like who else could possibly be cats?

Like he just is And he even said.

That my name is Samuel Johnson, and I am privileged enough to be playing Detective Ezra Katz in Eden. I would say that Kats is the heart and soul of the show. He's deeply human. Most of the other characters have got a lot going on in terms of shadiness. Whereas I'm a true author, I don't trust us down. I think he's a bad comp crazy. Well, I know bad comps.

It's why I'm friendless beautiful Ezra Katz. He is truly someone who understands what it means to be a good person, and he really tries to stand up for what's right.

Katz's moral compass is both a good and a bad thing. If he gets lost in that area, chances are will end up drowning and a pull it here, So yes, just stay strong.

He was like, I feel like I was want to play this role, and it feels like across the.

Board that really applies.

And I think the cast all felt very that there were big points of connection between them and kind of very joyful being finding that cast.

And it's exactly what I imagine really in.

So many ways, these actors really do magnify and take these characters in such really intricate places. And the thing that I was really shocked with, and I had to get out my IMDb and go back and have a look at some of the notes that I'd already started, was I didn't know that Cody Fern was an Australian. I was like, oh, I'd only seen him in his American work with Ryan Murphy in an American horror story, and then I realized he was Australian. Was he really a good get for this series?

Yeah? And you know what, that was an inspired casting choice. I think he was on all the original casting lists, and as soon as I saw him there, I was like, that version of Andy Dolan is special. That's like that, that's just going to take that character to the next level.

If it's the Cody.

Fern version, then I'm super excited. And you know, we kind of getting that character was a big thing for us. We knew that Andy Dolon character had to be somebody.

I'm Cody Fern and I'm playing Andy Dolan. The thing about Andy is that he's a very broken individual who's experienced some significant trauma in his life, particularly in his recent career downgrade, shall we say, in Hollywood.

He's in the middle of downward spiral into complete self oblivion, and he's returned to Eden to recuperate and to figure out where he's at in life and to get his bearings back. His journey is really one of figuring out who he is what he means, if he has any purpose in the world and if he can continue on in life.

You know, Cody came all the way back from la to do this, and he hasn't done an Australian show, Like he doesn't really work. He works there, and he came back to do this show because he really connected with the scripts and the character and with John Carr and the director, and he put everything into it and I think he had a great time and it was really nice for him to come home. I really love Cody and Cody's version of Andy.

You know, I have been reading so much about you, and You've got so much going for you. There's so much happening for you as well. I hear that you're writing a feature film at the moment. What is it that you're working on at the moment? What's coming up?

That show that I spoke about it originally that came through the Gender Matters initiative, that has kind of gone through a long development process with Netflix, So we're kind of getting to the end of that, which is pretty exciting. So it could be some exciting things happening soon and I could be having a little trip to America.

Pretty soon.

And meanwhile, I've about to submit a new draft of my feature film, which is loosely based on my short film Highway, and that is with Goalposts and Automatic, which is a US production company, and that's really exciting. That's that's a sort of genre piece that's close to my heart and it's been percolating away and you know, while these other two sort of things have been going on in the past couple of years, and so it's just been really nice to work on a feature actually because it's.

Such a it's a different process.

And it's a different based I mean, it's.

Also hard because it's just you, whereas obviously, you know, writing TV series is it's such a team effort, and it's nice having both. I think, you know, TV's great and features are obviously, Like I think I entered the film industry film and TV industry in the first place because I wanted to make.

Films, like write and direct films.

But you know, then TV kind of I sort of came into that world and I feel like there's no looking back. Really, it's like an amazing job and I'm just hoping to kind of keep on learning about how to show run and how to become more and more efficient at the job and just a better and better writer.

And it's an exciting period.

It feels like after many many years of slogging away as you do, and you're entering this industry, so many years of unpaid work and just like being so poor and relying on grunts and.

Having to go on the dole and all of that stuff.

Yeah, but it's kind of right time, right place for you in a certain way because you know, all that time of you know, going to Afters and getting all of this, you know, sort of musculating your work and getting all of that experience has led you to a place where film and television are almost on the same platform. You know, they were so different for so long, you know,

Yeah, and I you know, to give my someone came into Afters and visited and sort of they did like a talk to us at the end of our year, our master's year, and they said, you know, you guys would be very silly not to be looking at TV. And this was twenty fourteen. That was kind of just just at that.

Point where I think TV.

I mean, obviously it ever happened before with HBO and everything like, it was on the way to happening, but it wasn't happening to this extent. And they were really right, and I think that was where it was. But I think with someone maybe from Screen Australia or maybe it

Film world and the TV world have merged.

So you've got top crew and top cast doing both. And I think that's wonderful for everyone that just makes the quality better and it means more work for everyone, and it's good, it's great.

How do you think we've changed with Australian storytelling since we've expanded to having streaming services? You know? And do you think that people are moving away from free toow are television to get onto streaming services because of the idea of getting more eyes on it and maybe being more global.

Yeah, I think so. I think I've really experienced this with Eden. I feel like Eden has a very natural home with STAN because of the nature of what STAN does.

You know, start a happy for you to be bold, and it's just a different set of rules, I think. So, you know, I think free to AIRTV there's certain rules and there's certain ways you kind of certain expectations of something that goes to you know, free to air TV, and I think that maybe is what has kept a lot of TV a little bit samey seey, not just in it.

It hasn't been incredible like we.

Do so we do drama so well, and we have amazing actors here, and we have amazing directors and writers.

But you know, I think now.

We're all able to kind of go, oh, there's there's new possibilities because we don't have to subscribe to that structure anymore. We don't have to kind of write for ad breaks and all of that stuff, which I actually never even did. You know, I don't even know how

Why last question that I always ask all my guests before they go is what is an amazing story from behind the scenes that we as an audience would appreciate that we might not necessarily know.

You know. Initially there were some like really interesting additions to the show from the director John Carr and from the lead director, like crazy costumes that we'd see appearing in preproduction and we're like, what is going on? Like what is with those bodysuit things? Like I have no idea why people like you know, cast are like wandering around trying on these like full body like resuits and really garish colors, and we were kind of like, what

All like what is that? Like, how does that? How's that going to work?

And then you watch it and it all kind of makes sense in the in the landscape of a strange sound called Eden, where people are a little you know, people are a little different and they wear what they want and yeah, anything can happen.

Well, I just want to say thank you so much for your work on this show. I really hope people get a chance to watch it. I hope people do like what I was saying and continue to see the layers as they get layered. And I look forward to your feature film coming out and more of your work and just keep pushing those boundaries. So thank you so much for being here today and sharing your story.

Thank you so.

Much, Benjamin, it was lovely to talk to you, and thanks for all your insights as well.

It's nice to hear someone talk about the show that's not me