Sister act:
Antonia Prebble talks about her role in the new Australian drama Sisters now streaming on TVNZ OnDemand. Kerry Harvey reports.
Antonia Prebble’s new drama series.
Suffering from a terminal illness, IVF pioneer Julius Bechly makes a horrifying confession from his deathbed. As a secret donor, he is the unofficial father to dozens of children.
This is the premise of the Australian drama Sisters, which brings together Australian acting legends Barry Otto, Catherine McClements, Magda Szubanksi, and Roy Billings with Kiwi Antonia Prebble and screen newcomers Lucy Durack and Maria Angelico.
Prebble says the story is not that far removed from reality.
“While the script is fictional, since we filmed the pilot in August 2016, two articles came out internationally about doctors who had done this. It did happen,” says Prebble, who is back home in Auckland filming the fourth season of Westside.
When Julius’ one legitimate child, Julia (Maria Angelico), decides to track down her siblings, she discovers a sea of brothers but only two sisters – troubled children’s TV star Roxy Karibas (Lucy Durack), and belligerent lawyer Edie Flanagan (Prebble).
While Julia relishes the prospect of gaining a new family, Edie cannot see past the crime that has been committed.
“She really feels like a massive injustice has been committed and that it should be put to rights and that the victims of that injustice should be heard and be compensated,” Prebble says.
However, at the same time, she also starts to question everything about her formerly ordered life.
“She’s really struggling with the big questions of ‘Who am I?’ and ‘What do I want?’.” However, Prebble had no qualms about joining Sisters, which offered the chance to join a female-driven production from the team behind Offspring.
“The three leads
are women and they are sisters. The themes of the show are about identity and womanhood and sisterhood and the female friendship and female identity and what that means in a modern world,” she says.
“But also, a lot of the key positions on this show were held by women as well. All three directors were women, which is very unusual, and that just gave the set environment a really different element.
“It wasn’t drastically different from other sets, but it was subtly, significantly different, and I really enjoyed having a women’s eye leading us through stories that were about women.”
Prebble says like the sisters, the actors who played them were virtual strangers at the start of filming.
“They are just such amazing women and they were such an important fundamental part of the experience for me. Not only are they fantastic actors but they’re just really great women,” she says.
While the cast bonded quickly, the relationship between the sisters was a lot more challenging.
“The sisters’ relationships in the show are not easy because of the situation – well actually a lot of sisters’ relationships aren’t easy – but beneath everything they absolutely were there for each other,” Prebble says.
“Even if the more surface feelings were often anger and resentment and great upset, underneath that was a great underpinning of love and connection. It made me feel very warmly about my own sister and how important family bonds are.”