Period drama no picnic
Picnic at Hanging Rock star Lily Sullivan makes her move on Hollywood in the epic limited series Barkskins, writes Holly Byrnes
CINCHED in tight by yet another corset, Lily Sullivan is the first to say her penchant for period drama comes with some side effects.
The Picnic at Hanging Rock star, who revived the role of Miranda in the iconic adaptation of Joan Lindsay novel by Foxtel two years ago, has just found herself stepping back in time again
– this time, for her first international credit, in National Geographic’s stunning new limited series Barkskins.
Playing Filles Du Roi [daughter of the king], Delphine, she is shipped to the new ‘France’ of North America and is expected to do her part to populate this wild land, seized from its First Nation people, the Iroquois.
Filmed in acres of wilderness three hours outside of Quebec City in Canada, the $90 million production went to extraordinary lengths to replicate the 1690s settlement called Wobik and how challenging it was to live through those days – including those damn corsets, Sullivan laughs.
“I had to eye roll at that,” she says, “but there is a level of immersion [in period drama] that is so intoxicating ... jumping into another world.
“The only resentment is the corset, but it usually helps with your acting to be huffing and puffing, being an oppressed woman, in an era where equality doesn’t exist. So it’s informative from that perspective.”
The courage and resilience it took women like Delphine to literally give birth to this new settlement inspired the 26-year-old.
“She is one of the first fleet of desperate women to cross the Atlantic, on a three-month voyage, full of disease and death. I had so much admiration learning about these women, who were there to pretty much mother this new land. It sounds nice and pretty saying ‘mothered’ but the expectation was they’d give birth to up to 20 children and you could die from that pretty quickly,” she says.
Sullivan, who grew up in Logan, near Brisbane, saw similarities with Australia’s First Nation people and in the brutal historical fiction of the eight-part drama; where a mysterious massacre of settlers in the vast and unforgiving wilds of threatens to throw the Canadian province into all-out war.
“It’s fantastic when you get to learn about a culture that you’re not familiar with ... the First Nation people, the Iroquois of North America and a story that’s so close to home for so many colonised countries, who acknowledge that murderous past.”
The gig was made even more memorable by Sullivan’s co-star Marcia Gay Harden, who took her under her wing. “Oh my god, she’s one of the most fabulous women I’ve ever met,” she coos. “It was such a joy to work with her.”
Harden’s humility and hard work stunned her young co-star.
“Being with her there until 2am, the last on set, never complaining. She was just an absolute trooper for the artform of storytelling and so generous.”
So much so that on production breaks, Sullivan recalls, she be mothering the cast and crew.
“She totally embodied her character and just loved taking all of the harvest from set and baking it for everyone ... she was an absolute treasure.”
And Harden’s hospitality didn’t end at the wrap party, extending an invitation for the acting newcomer to stay at her homes in New York and Los Angeles.
“It made me think of people like Heath Ledger, who offered a helping hand to the people coming behind him. She was straightaway open arms.”