She’s no stranger to a hit TV series, having starred in the likes of Love My Way, Offspring and Nine Perfect Strangers, but Strife star Asher Keddie admits despite decades in the industry, she still gets a buzz when her shows are renewed for another season.
“Oh my gosh, it’s thrilling,” the actress tells WHO, ahead of the premiere of the second season of the hit show. “Especially with Strife, actually. This creative team – we work so well together. It’s very cohesive. It’s very inspiring. We really enjoy it. And so particularly when you’re in that situation with a group of people, you want to go again and keep exploring together.”
After a stellar first season, which broke streaming records for Binge when it premiered in late 2023, Keddie acknowledges there were added pressures that came with delivering a second season.
“No more than the expectations I place on myself [though], which are pretty high,” she admits. “Of course, there’s pressure there to achieve that wonderful audience response that we did in the first season. But I feel we’re really confident that we’re going to engage an even bigger audience this time, actually, because of the material and the themes we explore.”
Inspired by Mia Freedman’s memoir Work, Strife, Balance, the series follows Keddie’s character, Evelyn Jones, as she builds women’s website Eve Life, all while navigating motherhood and the end of her marriage. And this season, the stakes are even higher. “It’s a great journey this season,” Keddie, 50, teases. “Evelyn’s ambition is at an all-time high.”
With Evelyn facing the threat of a new rival women’s website, dealing with a nasty troll and continuing to “birdsnest” with her ex, the new season is set to be quite the roller-coaster. “I guess what we wanted to do with this season, right from the outset of our conversations, was we really wanted to get inside Evelyn’s experience more and explore the cost of what she’s trying to do in building this business,” Keddie explains.
“For us, it was important for the audience to feel more emotionally engaged with her as she tries to navigate all these different areas of her life and the demands that are placed on her, but also that she’s created herself. They’re all choices, aren’t they? Everything we do is a choice, and she seems to make choices that challenge her furiously, and all the people that are part of her life.”
As a mum-of-two herself – to son Valentino, 10, and step-son Luca, 15, with her husband, Vincent Fantauzzo – Keddie knows all too well the juggle that comes with a busy career and motherhood. And, as the show highlights so accurately, that work-life balance is often unattainable.
“It’s completely elusive,” she acknowledges. “A lot of women are in that similar position of wanting to have a fulfilling professional life, but also a fulfilling family life and personal relationships and solid, caring relationships with their children. To me, it feels fruitless trying to be able to balance it all. It’s just not possible, but we can only do our best.”
With Season 2 set for launch, Keddie is no doubt on the hunt for her next project. Lately there’s been no shortage of fantastic roles for women, specifically ones filmed Down Under – a welcome change for Keddie. “I and all my female colleagues feel buoyed by it and also feel worthy of it,” she enthuses. “Now we’re able to use our voices in a way that they’re actually heard across every industry, really. When you think about it now, culture has changed so much, particularly over the last five to 10 years.
“And the great thing about this show is this is looking at precisely that cultural change, where women’s voices started to become important and heard so that change could take place in terms of equality. In that respect, that’s really gratifying.”
(Strife S2 premieres Thu., May 8 on Binge)
