•  
Home ENTERTAINMENT

The quirky ABC comedy that’s gone international

Celia Pacquola and Luke McGregor discuss the evolution of  their series, 'Rosehaven'
Profile picture of Clare Rigden
Loading the player...
It might take place in a sleepy corner of Tasmania, but quirky ABC comedy series Rosehaven, about small-town life and real-estate, is a global concern. In 2017, the show created by Celia Pacquola and Luke McGregor, who play friends Emma and Daniel, was picked up by US channel Sundance TV, which now co-produces the show with the ABC. Rosehaven’s two stars and writers tell WHO about the experience of going international. Watch the Season 3 trailer below.

What’s ahead for Emma and Daniel in Season 3?
PACQUOLA It’s more of the same – but it feels a bit better. It feels like every time we do [the show], it gets a bit more confident. But even less happens!  So it’s more insignificant problems that are a huge deal to them. Like, in Episode 1, they find a pig. That’s it! That’s the whole episode. In Season 3, we get to do a lot of fun stuff with the things we have already [built].

Do you feel like you know your characters well now, having written them for three seasons?
McGREGOR They feel like real people now. The hardest thing about writing Season 1 was we’d put these two characters together, and we didn’t really know what they would say to one another. Now we know what they’ll say, and it’s so much fun to write.

After you were signed to Sundance, did you feel you had to alter anything? Rosehaven has a lot of very Aussie-specific humour.
PACQUOLA It’s been good – they have been really supportive of us making the type of show we want to make. Certainly, their notes have not been too restrictive. And they’ve always been on the side of saying, “Well, they’re Australian characters, we will not have them say something that feels weird.”
McGREGOR The only thing is, when we are writing and there’s a joke where we are like, “Only Australia is going to get this,” we try to think if we can make it just as funny, but have a more universal reference. If it is going to sacrifice the joke, we’ll keep it as is. 
PACQUOLA The only real change is getting the occasional tweet from someone in San Francisco saying, “Hey, I love your show!” That just blows our mind.

Didn’t you recently get a shout-out on The Simpsons, with Rosehaven listed in the background of an episode about shows to stream on TV?
PACQUOLA Yeah!
McGREGOR That was unbelievable. 
PACQUOLA We still don’t know how it happened. If you can find out, that would be great.
McGREGOR It was massive. I had to ring my mum at 11.30pm!

Away from the camera, how long have you two been friends?
PACQUOLA Since we started doing Utopia. The first season of Utopia [in 2014] was when we started hanging out a lot.
McGREGOR They would write our characters together a lot.

Will you both be back for Season 4 of Utopia?
McGREGOR I couldn’t do Season 3 because I was touring, so I had to say goodbye, which was a hard decision to make.
PACQUOLA They haven’t justified where you are.
McGREGOR So I could be back.
PACQUOLA They have never mentioned what happened to Hugh, so he maybe went professional with his mixed netball?
For more of our interview, check out this week’s issue of WHO.
Profile picture of Clare Rigden
Clare Rigden

Clare Rigden is a freelance journalist, based in Melbourne. When she's not writing for WHO magazine, she can be found roaming the globe with her partner and 4 year-old son, a seasoned traveller who loves nothing more than popping on his yellow ‘bee backpack’ and hitting the road with mum.

Related stories