In the gripping third season of award-winning series The Twelve, Brett Colby (Sam Neill) is back – this time, enlisted to help defend the spouse of an old friend, who stands accused of murder.
While researching the 1968 murders of two young girls for a book she was writing, English teacher Amanda Taylor (Eryn Jean Norvill) had stumbled on new evidence linking Beth Chaplin’s (Sarah Peirse) husband, Alan (William Zappa), to the case.
An altercation between the pair now makes him the prime suspect in Amanda’s untimely death.
As such, Brett will have a tough time proving Alan’s innocence, as he goes up against dogged police prosecutor Gabe Nicholls (Danielle Cormack) – his former protégé and associate.
Among the 12 jurors tasked with deciding the defendant’s fate are Jazmyn Tanner and Gretel Bauer – two young women who are inexplicably drawn to one another. Flaunting the rules with blatant disregard for the consequences, things soon take a turn Gretel never could have imagined.
WHO sat down with former Bump star Nathalie Morris and Shortland Street’s Hanah Tayeb, who play two of the jurors this season, to talk all things The Twelve; read the full interview below.
WHO: Your characters are polar opposites – how would you describe them?
Nathalie: I think Jazmyn is very self-destructive. She’s very intelligent, very charismatic and very social. She can really pull you in, because she’s also very curious and well-read and very engaging. But she has some issues with attachment and is a complicated human.
Hanah: I would describe Gretel as sweet. She’s bright-eyed and bushy-tailed when we meet her. She’s at a very transitional stage in her life – she’s just moved to Perth, so she’s kind of trying to find her footing.
WHO: The pair quickly bond and break the rules by fraternising outside of court…
Nathalie: Yeah, they become very quick friends, and they start to hang out outside of the case. Jaz’s boyfriend [Rowan, played by Kirin J Callinan] runs a club that Jaz invites Gretel to – I think they become fast friends because there’s some sort of pull between them.
It was interesting to unpack what that was with Hanah – why they were drawn to each other and what they both enjoyed about that dynamic. And it was so easy, because Hanah is gorgeous. She’s become one of my great friends.
Hanah: The first time Gretel sees Jazmyn, she’s completely enthralled by her. Jaz is this incredibly bright light that she’s so unfathomably attracted to. Gretel’s like a moth to a flame when she meets Jazmyn – she represents who Gretel wants to be with the way she’s so confident and so easily comfortable in any area she’s in. And that’s something that Gretel really admires. She kind of falls in love a little bit.
WHO: Things take a turn, though, when Gretel wakes up after a night of partying in bed with Jazmyn and Rowan, with very scattered memories – and Jazmyn brushes it off as her just getting wasted…
Hanah: Yeah, the shift between Gretel feeling so electric and excited in her new friendship with Jazmyn and this complete uncertainty and unsafety is really sharp. Because of how confident and how smooth and easeful Jazmyn is in her demeanour and in her reassurance of Gretel, she trusts it at first. But her gut is telling her that something’s really wrong.
Nathalie: It was a really fascinating process – even while we were shooting, there was disagreement about how aware Jazmyn was of what had happened.
WHO: Gretel starts to think her drink was spiked, but when she raises it with her new friends, it doesn’t go down well. Why is that?
Nathalie: I think Jazmyn’s in survival [mode]. She’s trying to shut it down at every point, and totally gaslighting her and pulling out all the stops to get Gretel to stop looking into it and stop thinking about it. She’s making her feel like she’s lost her mind a little bit.
Hanah: It’s a real slippery slope, because Gretel feels so out of her depth already, being in a new environment and completely alone. I feel like Jazmyn just wants to move on and carry on as if nothing’s happened, but for Gretel, it’s a really profound thing that she thinks she’s gone through. It’s a big cloud of uncertainty and confusion that she’s trying to unpack.
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