With patience comes rewards—that much is obvious as we approach the discharge of Nine Perfect Strangers, landing on Amazon Prime this month. The new mini-series supported Liane Moriarty’s bestselling book has been touted together of 2021’s unmissable television events with iconic Australian actress Nicole Kidman heading the series because the mysterious Masha.
To add, our very own homegrown talent Asher Keddie and Samara Weaving join Kidman alongside screen stalwarts Melissa McCarthy, Luke Evans and Regina Hall.
The story follows the narratives of nine different people, each with unique personalities and backstories. They attend a health and wellness retreat named Tranquillum House hoping to flee from various stresses in their city-based lives.
When they arrive, they meet Masha, the resort’s curious and charismatic director who is devoted in her ability to vary the lives of her guests—at any cost. Each of the nine characters haven’t any idea what’s close to hit them, but when it does, it completely blindsides them.
marie claire sat down with Samara Weaving and Asher Keddie before the series’ release to listen to more about their character transformations and dealing on the Byron Bay-based set together.
29-year-old Samara speaks to us via Zoom from her current base in LA, though she’s not forgetful of the incredible opportunity Nine Perfect Strangers posed in giving her a while back on Australian soil.
“Being ready to work with this incredible cast, in Byron Bay within the summer… it had been nuts,” she explains, before adding that the star-packed cast was like working within a “circus”.
“It was like having front row seats to the simplest play in town because it had been such an ensemble piece. And albeit the scene wasn’t about me i used to be usually within the background helping.”
Samara plays the character Jessica, a lady embroiled in her looks, her social media presence and her celebrity status. It’s an obsession catalysed from a $22 million lottery win together with her husband Ben, which subsequently results in their journey to the retreat—with a hope to reconnect.
If you have been following the sneak peeks thus far , you will be conversant in the incredibly accurate portrayal Samara has made from her character—something the actress herself wasn’t mad about.
“I loved her wardrobe! i actually wanted her to require to seem sort of a Kardashian or someone thereto extent, but to quite catch on wrong. I wanted everything to be just a touch bit off,” Weaving tells us.
That, she nailed on the top . Jessica is seen in various stills from the series wearing velour tracksuits, bold statement jewellery and her face modified via cosmetic surgery (in real world , an arduous computer graphics make-up job within the chair every day).
Interestingly Samara, who had a hand in finalising the character’s wardrobe via Pinterest boards and appearance books, said she reflected on her own experience for the inspiration behind Jessica’s wardrobe.
“I assumed she wouldn’t have a stylist, she’s doing this herself. I remember before I had my very own wonderful stylist, I had to decorate myself for events. That was always really confusing. I kind of thought of Jessica doing an equivalent thing.”
Out of Jessica’s wardrobe, a Fendi tracksuit was Samara’s favourite pick of the bunch. It begged the question we had to ask: Did Samara herself take any of that inspiration in her own day-to-day I found myself dressing quite similarly by accident!” Samara admitted I would get little matching sets and I’d be like, ‘This is cute right? And it quite is, it’s just not normally my vibe’.”
Of Offspring notoriety comes Asher Keddie, who plays bereaved mother Heather in Nine Perfect Strangers. The distraught mum attempts to process the death of her son. She arrives at Tranquillum House together with her husband and adult daughter with a hope to try to to that together, but secrets have how of beginning at the resort, and therefore the family aren’t an exception.
“They feel alone in their grief. There are there’s tons of pain, tons of sadness, they’re stuck and they are really considerably alone,” Asher told marie claire of the characters.
Acting this out would be one thing, except for Asher, the role required her to delve deeper and into new territory. While she may be a mother herself (she welcomed a son Valentino Fantauzzo together with her husband Vincent Fantauzzo in 2015) the actress admits she has never had an experience like Heather’s to relate to.
That said, she brought her own maternal instinct and looked to Moriarty’s incredible depiction of the challenging storyline: “For me it had been about the approaching it and delivering it with the foremost authenticity that I could imagine.”
“It was very challenging and really confronting to undertake and picture what that unimaginable grief seems like . Yet as a mother, it had been helpful—although sometimes i’ll have resented it—to invest in it in an authentic way because the thought of losing your child and even worse being liable for it’s with great care painful.
“It was a very intense shoot, for all folks , but I’m hoping that it are often relatable because the fullness of the journey of grief for this family is beautifully and sensitively written. I hope that we’ve delivered it during a way that’s relatable,” Keddie finished.