The Secret Life of Us
Claudia Karvan is one of the leading actresses of her generation
in Australia. Having achieved both popular success and critical
acclaim in a string of Australian feature films and mini series,
her latest project sees her take a surprising detour into one of
Australia’s freshest and funniest new TV drama series - The Secret
Life of Us. As the female lead - a brittle, beautiful character
called Alex, Claudia’s was the last role to be cast. So what convinced
her to join the cast? Watch our video feature:
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Miranda lives with a cheating actor and a scaffolder who thinks
hamlet is crap. So threesomes are definitely out. Gabrielle is living
with a lawyer whose social conscience is crumbling fast. That’s
OK. Maybe Money’s better. Alex lives with a would be author who
thinks writing is a “piece of piss”. But he hasn’t written anything
yet. Then Kelly arrives, trailing an ex-boss who refuses to leave
his wife…
Fans of the UK series This Life and the stylish Manhattan
hunting ground of Sex and The City now have their own home
grown hybrid of the two. Network Ten’s new drama The Secret Life
of Us follow the lives of eight people looking for the same
things – live, sex, romance money success and anything else that’s
worth I going after. The problem is they haven’t worked out how
to get it.
After an long playing record of nasty, b-grade soaps which we’ve
exported to all corners of the globe Australia is finally getting
its twenty something drama right with the likes of ABC TV's Head
Start and love is a four letter word. The Secret Life
of Us might well be the hippest of the lot.
A veteran of Australian television production, series producer John
Edwards knew that in order to attract international interest, any
new show had to offer an alternative to the barbie-driven sagas
of the past. His starting point was to come up with something more
morally ambivalent. The result is a drama in which all the characters
are flawed, wildly contradictory and realistic and their lives all
the more fascinating for it.
Filmed in Melbourne’s St. Kilda, writer Judi McCrossin’s whip-smart
22 part story follows the lives of eight people looking for the
same things – love sex, romance, money, success – and anything else
that’s worth going after. The problem is they haven’t worked out
how to get it yet – so they make it up as they go along.
As Alex, Claudia Karvan supplies the pilot's catalyst, when she
indulges in an ill-conceived spot of al fresco adultery with her
best friend's fiancé.
In The Secret Live of Us, eight characters share a rich life
of love, heartaches and vodka shooters, It’s a show about life-
where Evan, Kelly, Alex, Miranda, Richie, Will, Gabrielle and Jason
get to face the big questions – like how much pizza to keep in the
fridge for breakfast tomorrow. Or the little questions - like am
I gay or not?
The cast, which also includes AFI winner Deborah Mailman as Kelly,
Samuel Johnson as Evan and Joel Edgerton as Will, and Abi Tucker
as Miranda is uniformly strong, the script is taut and very funny,
and the situations encountered by the characters are bound to strike
some chords. For the older viewer, their flaws are all too clear
a reminder of that urgent, earnest twenty something, mindset, where
everything seems crucially important, where it feels like you're
always just slightly out of your depth.
Cast:
Claudia Karvan - Alex
Deborah Mailman – Kelly
Samuel Johnson – Evan
Joel Edgerton – Will
Abi Tucker – Miranda
Spencer McLaren – Richie
Sibylla Budd – Gabrielle
Damian De Montemas – Jason
David Tredinnick – Simon
Crew:
Producer – John Edwards/Amanda Higgs
Writers – Christioper Lee and Judi McCrossin
Director (Telemovie premiere) – Lynn-Maree Danzey
Directors (Series) Cate Shortland, Stuart McDonald, Kate Dennis,
Daniel Nettheim.
The Secret Life of Us
screens Mondays at 9.30pm on TEN.
July 12, 2001
Telstra Entertainment
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