After years of working abroad with some of Hollywood’s biggest names, homegrown talents Liv Hewson, 30, and Natasha Liu Bordizzo, 31, sit down with WHO to chat about filming their latest feminist-focused, Sydney-based series, He Had It Coming.
WHO: What drew you both in when you first read the script?
LIV: I hope they don’t mind me mentioning this, but when I got sent the script at the time, the title of the show was Kill All Men, and so I get this email that’s just like: “Read for interest: Kill All Men.” I just sort of was like, “Well, don’t mind if I do.” And the mix of how confronting the subject matter is and then how funny the world of the show is – that’s my favourite space to play in as an actor.
NATASHA: The tone of the show is so unique and seeing the final product – it really achieved, I think, what I was hoping it would be when I read it. Big picture, that is really important to me. Before this came along, I was really looking for something back [home].
WHO: You guys have both done a lot of work overseas. What does it feel like returning home to Australia?
LIV: Really nice. That was a big part of the appeal, too – the notion that this is a specifically Australian show, and a chance to come back and do something that is specific to here. It’s really important to me to be able to come back here and be a part of telling Australian stories.
NATASHA: It was my first time working at home in Sydney, and it was just so great to marry work and personal [life] and family. And Australia is such an interesting place, and I think the culture is always shifting, and to be part of that is just really important because it’s an exciting place, especially when I feel like it’s never quite found a limiting identity. It’s quite evolutionary with how it continues to change.
WHO: The show filmed at the historic Parramatta Girls Home, which carries a pretty heavy past. Did that location add any sort of emotional weight or perspective?
LIV: Oh yeah, that wasn’t lost on us at all. It became a central piece of it. I feel like that structure is a character in the world. Certainly being there, it’s like, ‘We’re making this show at the Parramatta female factory.’ And it’s on everybody’s mind while we were there. We were very grateful to have the opportunity to come into that space and to make the use of it that we were making. It felt very significant and very loaded and quite special.
NATASHA: There’s memorials everywhere as well. So you can’t miss it. You’re kind of coming to your own terms with what it means to be making content about this on a site like this. Yeah, it was in the conscience daily.
WHO: If you could choose any song to describe your characters, what would it be?
LIV: I made a playlist! I was listening to the song ‘Chick Habit’ by April March quite a bit filming.
NATASHA: I’m looking at my playlist. I mean, look, there was a lot of the Brat [by Charli XCX] remixes on there.
(He Had It Coming is streaming on Stan)
