Brush with the law
The jury’s definitely not out on Foxtel’s new courtroom drama The Twelve. Ngali Shaw, who plays Jarrod, a juror in a murder trial, tells Siobhan Duck what to expect from the eye-opening series
Ngali Shaw made a point of not reading the entire script before filming began on The Twelve. The rising star says remaining in the dark about whodunnit in the gripping new Foxtel courtroom drama had helped ensure his reactions to the plot twists were as authentic as possible.
“I wanted them to get my first and natural reaction on camera,” he explains.
“So, I didn’t find out whether she [the accused murderer played by Kate Mulvany] was guilty or not until the very last day.
“Because I didn’t know what the outcome was, I actually spent a bit of time trying to figure it out myself.”
Loosely based on the 2019 Belgian series of the same name,
The Twelve explores the lives, loves and conflicts of the 12 jurors deliberating a high-profile murder trial.
While in the original series, the case involved a mother charged with stabbing her young daughter, the Australian version instead has an artist (Mulvany) standing trial for killing her teenage niece.
Shaw plays a character not featured in the original series; a university student named Jarrod who finds himself struggling to keep up with the demands of his scholarship after being summonsed to sit on the jury.
“He [the character] is Aboriginal so you are not going to find that anywhere else in the world,” he says, before quickly adding that he hadn’t watched the Belgian version.
“See, I am really bad with subtitles,” he laughs.
“I watched the first episode, but I couldn’t keep up.”
Shaw also admits he isn’t a huge fan of crime dramas and wasn’t familiar with what a jury did, before The Twelve.
Even still, the Dubbo-raised actor says he didn’t have to do much research to understand the character he was playing. In fact, some of the character’s story arc could have been drawn from Shaw’s own life.
“Jarrod is like 90 per cent similar to me,” he explains.
“It’s insane. Like, he’s been through troubles with his family. He goes through police stuff. He has troubles at school. I had troubles at school. So basically, I didn’t have to change myself too much to get into character. I just had to bring out me.”
Playing a character so similar to himself also meant Shaw had to revisit some difficult experiences from his own life on screen.
“There was one scene that was based around my real life,” he says.
“And to film that felt pretty real. But it didn’t hit me emotionally or mentally. I was able to snap out of it pretty good. I handled it pretty well.”
Shaw believes the series will open many viewers’ eyes to what it is like to walk in someone else’s shoes.
The 12 characters on the jury all come from very different socioeconomic and cultural backgrounds and prove that you cannot judge a book by its cover.
“It’s got some great actors and it’s very entertaining, but I think people are really going to get some truth out of it,” he says.
“They are going to get a lot of truth about what happens in Aboriginal lives and other diverse lives. You see the character of
Farrad (The Hunting’s Hazem Shammas), who is from Iraq, and understand what people have to go through with immigration and stuff like that.
“People from all different backgrounds will see real stuff that happens [to others].”
Shaw knows better than most what it’s like to have people make assumptions about who he is based purely on his appearance.
“There’s always going to be people out there that are ignorant [about ingrained racism],” he says.
“Like, they just they just live in disbelief that this happens. I am just like: ‘Man, if you were in my body, and you went through the things I went through, you would know it [persecution] happens.’
“Because my brother, he doesn’t look like me. Well, he does in his features, but the skin [colour] is different.
“My brother has never been harassed or anything by cops. And he knows that’s because of his skin, because he looks white. So, they don’t see him as a threat.”
A gifted dancer and footballer, Shaw never dreamed of becoming an actor until fate intervened. Encouraged by his mum to send an audition tape to a casting agency, Shaw quickly scored a guest role on the Channel 7 drama RFDS, which paved the way to co-starring with some of the biggest names in Australian entertainment on
The Twelve.
Joining Shaw and Shammas on the jury are Brooke Satchwell (Mr Inbetween) and Brendan Cowell (The End). Sam Neill plays the accused killer’s defence barrister and Marta Dusseldorp (Wentworth) is the prosecutor.
While Neill has a decades-long career with movies such as the Oscar-winning film The Piano and the Jurassic Park franchise under his belt, Shaw says that acting alongside the Hollywood heavyweight hadn’t given him any bragging rights with his mates.
“Not many people in my age group know who Sam Neill is,” he laughs.
“I’m like: ‘Come on? Jurassic Park?’ “It [working on the series] was like one of the best moments of my life.
“There were so many different people who all brought different energies.
“The actors are all from different places and have different methods for doing stuff But, it was so good because everyone on there was so supportive.”
Shaw feels excited to be embarking on his career at a time when Indigenous actors and stories are finally getting more attention on both the small and big screens.
Now, with two acclaimed Aussie dramas under his belt, Shaw has Hollywood in his sights and says his dream role would be to play the biracial Marvel hero, Miles Morales.
“I never did [think that a movie career could be possible for me] but being in The Twelve has shown me
what’s possible,” he says.
■ The Twelve, Tuesday, 8.30pm, FOX Showcase and streaming, Foxtel On Demand