With his new film Harmony set to be released in cinemas across Australia on Oct. 4, this should be an incredibly exciting time for Jerome Meyer, but he has mixed feelings as he remembers his co-star and friend Jessica Falkholt, who tragically lost her life in January.
“It is bringing up a lot of emotion” Meyer tells WHO of the film’s release. “But I am also ready for the release of the film to be over so that I can have the film for myself and use it as a tool to remember her.”
Returning to Sydney on Boxing Day after a trip on the NSW South Coast, the family’s vehicle was struck by another car, killing Falkholt’s father, Lars, 69, mother, Vivian, 60, and her sister, Annabelle, 21, and leaving Jess on life support.
On the Jan. 17, Jess succumbed to her injuries.
“We were completely blindsided,” Meyer says. “She was such a force of nature. She was so hungry and keen to make a life happen for herself. It was a real tragedy.”
Best known for her role on Home and Away, Falkholt was carving out a successful acting career in Australia and had wrapped up her first lead role in the film Harmony shortly before her death.
“It’s a high-concept horror-thriller-sci-fi,” Meyer says of the film. “It’s every genre under the sun, and it’s a romance.”
Falkholt plays Harmony, who can take away the pain and fear of others by absorbing the pain of those she touches. She only ventures out at night to help those in need before literally washing away the darkness. She meets both evil, in the form of Jimmy (Eamon Farren) and good, Mason (Meyer), who begins to make her feel that happiness is possible.
Meyer knew that Falkholt was the perfect person to play Harmony from day one. “When [director] Corey [Pearson] first spoke to me about the script, I had just met Jess and I was totally crazy about her. I thought she was the coolest thing that had ever happened to Sydney,” he says. “Corey said, ‘There’s this other character Harmony,’ and I showed him a pic of Jess and said that she would be perfect. Three years later he coincidentally cast her – he doesn’t even remember that I showed him the picture.”
Despite being busy working on several new projects, Meyer concedes that Harmony will always hold a special place in his heart.
“I have this cherished cinematic artefact,” he says of the film. “There were little in-jokes that Jess and I had and I can watch the film these days and see the little glint in our eyes and I can remember what that was about … I would give up everything to have her back.”
Read the full article in this week’s issue of WHO, on sale now.
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