DYNAMIC DUO
The Veronicas bare all about the harsh reality of life in the spotlight in their new MTV series, writes Kathy McCabe
THERE’S The Veronicas.
And there’s Lisa and Jessica Origliasso.
The Australian pop stars have been a celebrity curiosity for 15 years for their music and the personal dramas which have played out online and in the media.
Now they would like to introduce you to Jess and Lisa, their unique lifestyle and the often bizarre world of identical twins.
And they have chosen the medium of reality television, partnering with MTV, the channel which pioneered the genre with The Osbournes, for a six-part series called The Veronicas: Blood Is For Life.
”I think it’s hard sometimes for people to grasp the concept the Veronicas are a creative outlet and personas we have created for ourselves when we step on stage,” Jess says.
“Lisa and Jessica, in our personal time, deal with a very different lifestyle than we do with The Veronicas.”
Those lifestyles intersect when the personal becomes public as it has with the confusing Qantas incident where they were offloaded from a September fl ight in Brisbane over the handling of their luggage in an overhead bin.
Or the social media war between Jess and her ex,
Batwoman star Ruby Rose, as she started a new relationship with American singer songwriter Kai Carlton.
There is a long pause as Jess seeks to explain how the show will tackle the ghost of Rose, as she has made it clear she has difficulty talking about it.
The experience of doing so for the show was both triggering and cathartic.
“There was a big question mark over what happened during that time and the series picks it up from that point,” she says.
“We chose to start the show giving some context to those lost years. Then we move on. What I share is more my process in having to work through such a difficult time in my life.”
As Lisa enjoys newlywed bliss with her actor partner Logan Huffman and Jess ended one relationship and started another, the sisters have bought a home together on the outskirts of Brisbane – borne out of a need to be close to their mum Colleen, who suffers dementia.
Now ambassadors for Dementia Australia, the sisters sought their mother’s consent to share their family’s experience of living with the insidious disease.
“We have been very protective of Mummy,” Lisa says.
“We feel very passionately about sharing her story and ourselves as a family with what she is going through because we feel the visibility of that could help those going through similar things, to not feel alone and feel supported.
“It was something we could discuss with her. She’s our biggest fan and she was aware and excited to be around the cameras. She was on the road with us for so long so she is comfortable with cameras, but we didn’t give a lot of access to her, everything was done entirely with her being comfortable about it.”
Jess insisted early in the shoot she would fi lm herself and Kai behind the scenes until they reached a point where they felt secure enough to reveal more of their relationship.
“The whole show was shot on our terms so the viewers are introduced to our relationship through footage I took,” Jess says.
“It was important for me to keep the newness of our relationship somewhat sacred while we were getting to know each other and as time has gone on, we defi nitely shared more with the cameras.”
For Lisa and her husband, the decision to let MTV fi lm their fledgling marriage threw up hurdles but as an actor, Huffman was up for it. Even the “intimate moments.”
“We have been very private with our relationship so that was confronting, something I hold so pure and scared would be on TV for the world to see,” Lisa says.
“Those intimate moments, they have to keep rolling because you have to get used to the fact there is a camera there to the point you don’t care anymore.
“Logan is a triplet so he has a unique understanding of our sisterhood and that it is defi nitely a two for one deal.”
The series also captures the pair’s legendary fights. You could probably fi ll an entire hour with a montage of “shut ups” and worse.
“Anyone who has been around a Veronicas fight knows ‘shut up’ is one of the nicer things we say,” Lisa says. “But that sistership, that relationship to family, it’s like the Osbournes. They fight hard, they love hard and they are over it within two seconds.
“At the end of the day, family is all that matters, it’s everything.”
The series, which was shot over seven months in Australia and the US, will precede the much- delayed fourth album from The Veronicas, their fi rst in six years.
“Yes, you will get some insight into the new album. Timing is everything and this recording has been such a long, long labour. But it’s all aligning the way we hoped.”