Antonia’s big Aussie role
A relentless drive to improve has won Antonia Prebble her biggest acting role yet, writes Jack van Beynen.
Like a shark, Antonia Prebble always wants to be moving forward. Each new role in her acting career is a chance to further herself, to develop her skills.
‘‘My goal for acting has always been just to keep learning and keep getting better,’’ she says.
Prebble, 33, shares that restlessness with her character in Australian primetime comedy series Sisters.
Prebble plays Edie, a Melbourne lawyer who is one of three 30-year-old women who find out they are half-sisters.
The plot sounds too strange to be true but it’s actually based on real events. In the show, a top IVF doctor on his deathbed reveals he secretly used his own sperm for some of his clients’ babies.
Prebble’s Edie suddenly finds she has two half-sisters, both of whom couldn’t be more different from the high-flying lawyer with her penthouse apartment.
In her audition, Prebble was asked to perform as one of the other sisters, Julia, but says Edie is a much more natural fit.
‘‘They’re extremely different, and they absolutely made the right decision in casting me as Edie and casting Maria [Angelico] as Julia, because I think I could access Edie far more easily, I think.’’
Their shared restlessness makes Edie an easy role for Prebble to slip into - certainly easier than her Westside character, Rita West.
‘‘Our rhythms are quite similar. She’s got quite a fast rhythm, and that energy sort of propels you. She’s always moving forward and she has quite a bit of internal restlessness, I think. I definitely relate to that,’’ Prebble says.
‘‘My rhythm is fast - I talk fast, I walk fast, I eat fast, I think fast, I react fast, all of that, I’m always very forward-focused, what’s the next thing, what’s the next thing, trying to be a few steps ahead of myself, and I think she’s the same....
‘‘Other times, for example, Rita West from Westside, I found the process of getting into that character quite challenging, I feel like it took me about a season to sort of figure out what I was doing. Edie just in terms of who she is and who I amthere was quite a good match, I understood her quite easily.’’
Despite their shared character traits, Prebble still had to work hard to figure out how to play Edie. Emma Freeman, director of the series’ first three episodes, took the cast through two weeks of intensive rehearsals before filming for the pilot started last year.
‘‘We just talked in depth about the scripts and about the characters, and really tried to unpick and dig and mine as much as we could from what was there,’’ Prebble recalls.
It helped that Sisters has a naturalistic style. It is a very funny show, but you laugh at what happens to the characters, not the way they act.
‘‘You always try to be authentic, but there’s nothing heightened about it, whereas Westside is sometimes purposefully, the characters are put into the most ridiculous situations and have to respond to it. ... It was just about finding, understanding the truth of it and what it meant for the character.’’
If that authenticity was so easy to find, where was the challenge in Sisters for Prebble? How did it help her develop as an actress?
For a start, it was her most high-profile role yet: the first time she’s been a main character on primetime Aussie television.
But on top of that, Prebble says working with Freeman - a director whose star seems rapidly on the rise - was in itself a learning experience ‘‘in terms of life’’.
‘‘Emma led that set so beautifully, but with every part of her femininity intact. So she led with love and empathy and support and friendship, and with no ego or machismo or bravado, or anything like that. From watching her direct I feel like I learned so much about being a human being.’’
Sisters is a show that stars women and is made by women. All three directors were female. The producer, Imogen Banks, was a woman. A higher-than-normal proportion of the crew were female.
And of course, the three main characters are women. In an industry dominated by men, this makes Sisters a rarity.
‘‘I feel like we’re in the middle of a sea change at the moment, which is great. Hopefully we’ll see more and more examples femaledriven shows. But up until this point it’s been extremely uncommon,’’ Prebble says.
The high level of female involvement gave the set a subtly but significantly different feel. Prebble says there was a ‘‘lightness of touch’’ to the directing she hadn’t experienced before.
‘‘It was one of the happiest sets I’ve ever been on. And this is not to say that male directors create an unhappy set, at all. But it was like a sisterhood, and there was a real sense of a team,’’ Prebble says.
‘‘[The directors] led with their hearts as opposed to their heads, and I guess were just so understanding of the material because it was all about the experience of being a women, which they are, but they were so sensitive and empathetic and they were really interested in delving into, really digging deep, really mining the script and the characters for every opportunity they had.’’
Such inspirational direction could have inspired Prebble to get behind the camera herself, but she says directing doesn’t appeal to her; she’s more interested in writing or producing.
For the forseeable future, though, she’ll be sticking to acting. After Sisters, New Zealand will next see her in the new season of Westside, which is being filmed now.
For the past few years she’s been trying to crack the US, and might have another go this year if her schedule allows. Whatever the case, she’ll keep moving forward. ● Stream Sisters on TVNZ On Demand from December 11.