Higher ground
High Country’s Aaron Pedersen tells Siobhan Duck why the rugged Australian landscape is perfect for crime dramas
WHETHER filming the award-winning drama Mystery Road in the dry heat of the Western Australian outback, or shooting his latest mystery series High Country on the foggy slopes of the Victorian alps, actor Aaron Pedersen says that he always maintains deep respect for his surrounds. Australian topography is “the beauty and the beast”, the actor explains. “If you step off in the wrong direction, it will swallow you up and kill you in no time.” A star of some of our most popular crime shows, Pedersen understands how important landscape can be in creating atmosphere. After all, the Kimberley region played a major part in both 2018’s Mystery Road and his 2007 legal drama series The Circuit.
In High Country, city detective Andrea “Andie” Whitford (Leah Purcell) makes a tree change to regional Victoria and ends up investigating a string of mysterious disappearances. The mountainous area in which the show was filmed – located about a three-hour drive north of Melbourne and encompassing the historic town of Jamieson and the Mansfield Shire – serves as a foreboding and mystical presence.
As tour guide Owen Cooper, Pedersen’s character has an innate understanding of the local terrain.
“At one stage, [Owen] says, ‘There are some places here that even my people haven’t set foot on,’” he explains of the region’s dense bushland.
“And that’s true. There are some places which remain pretty untouched, because they are too dangerous or too hard to reach.”
Filming on location, he adds, had an impact on his performance.
“I loved being out in the cold,” Pedersen enthuses.
“It impacts how you breathe and how you walk. It helps you build that character.”
In addition to being inspired, in part, by real missing persons cases in the area, High Country explores how First Nations people connect to Country. Biracial Andie was raised without a sense of her cultural heritage, and it’s dormant until she moves to the High Country; she oscillates between awe and terror as she investigates the case within the natural environment.
“There are also areas of Country that people just walk on without having too much knowledge about it,” Pedersen adds.
“Owen is a character who has a real connection to that Country and can pass on knowledge to [Purcell’s] character, and offer stories and guidance.”
Pedersen says weaving Andie’s personal journey into the broader narrative is a good way to ensure audiences are “informed, educated and entertained” all at once.
“It’s been a journey for all of us to have our stories on screen and to have people embrace them,” he says of Indigenous storytelling.
“But I think people have been starving to have these sorts of stories told with our voices and our minds.”