Fake actor Asher Keddie’s goal is always just to tell the truth

As she nears her milestone 50th birthday, Asher Keddie talks about the confidence drops she still experiences, and how she turns them into acting gold.

Exclusive: There’s something about women being at the top of their game.

When it’s on screen, it’s a near tangible authenticity. A confidence that only comes with age, with life experience, with trust – of themselves, and of each other.

That’s what Asher Keddie credits for the rawness of her new project Fake – a project the Gold Logie nominee stars in and helped produce with friend and longtime colleague, producer Imogen Banks, of Kindling Pictures.

The pair worked together on Offspring – Keddie in the adored role of Nina Proudman that earned her a Gold Logie back in 2013 – so they know it’s a recipe that works.

“I have a really full life away from set,” Keddie explains as she and Banks talk to Insider about the work, they say, is their best yet.

Asher Keddie and Imogen Banks. Picture: Sam Bisso

“And, of course, being on set, I feel completely at home – it’s just what my whole life has been, really, and I have managed to achieve a certain amount of relaxation, I guess, largely due to our years on Offspring, and leading in that way.

“Scene after scene after scene, you’re in every frame … so some relaxation comes with that after a while – it just has to – and that’s when you can really start enjoying yourself performing. For the most part, whether it’s material like Fake or Offspring, I enjoy it all.

Asher Keddie with Kat Stewart in Offspring. Picture: Channel 10

“I have moments where I think, ‘Oh, God, I hate it, I hate this – I don’t want to do it, I don’t know what I’m doing’, but I’m glad I have those moments, because those are the moments that are good for you.

“They push yourself a little further.

“So I’m able to leave set at the end of the day, and somehow refocus on where I’m gonna go – which is home, with my partner and children – and life has become even … fuller.

“It’s become very full now that I’m producing, which is what I’ve always wanted to do. Thanks to people like Imogen and Bruna Papandrea, I’m able to do that now, so I enjoy having a voice in the process with people that trust me, and that I trust.”

Trust is at the heart of Fake, a gripping, heart-in-your-throat Paramount+ original inspired by Stephanie Wood’s powerful memoir of the same name. It follows Keddie as Birdie Bell, a magazine writer who thinks she’s found her perfect match when she meets successful grazier, Joe Burt – played by David Wenham – on a dating app. But as the relationship intensifies, Birdie is torn between Joe’s magnetic pull and the instinct that her boyfriend isn’t all he’s led her to believe.

The relatable – and terrifying – story is brought to life by Keddie in a way screens haven’t seen her before – and that excites her.

“It’s been a really intense journey,” Keddie admits.

“That was another reason to do it.

“I really wanted this opportunity, and I wanted to really push myself into different dramatic territory, but also to really embody an experience like this – that was very singular. And that was terrifying in some ways.

Asher Keddie and David Wenham in Fake. Picture: Sarah Enticknap

“There were moments where I felt like I rejected it, and I was like, ‘oh, no, I can’t do any of this – you’ve got the wrong person’. And I do that with some of my roles. But this time I certainly gave it a good nudge.”

When she did “reject it”, and just before shooting raised her doubts that she was in fact able to be Birdie, it was Banks’s “you’ll be right” she needed to hear.

“Thank you for having that faith in me,” Keddie says to her friend.

“Because I did have to really push myself. I never mind exposing myself – I love that part of performance. I think that’s the most exciting part, and I never feel embarrassed or uncomfortable about … exposing vulnerabilities or embarrassing things, because they’re the things that people can relate to.

“But, of course, there are terrifying moments. And one of them was when we were shooting that episode on a soundstage and I think I may have had a small tantrum with (director) Emma Freeman in a dressing room somewhere, saying ‘it’s just absolutely not going to happen, I just don’t know what to do’ – and, of course, I did know what to do but I just had a moment, like any human does – especially creative people – where you think, ‘I’m not sure I can deliver this in the authentic way that I must’.

“That’s all part of it, though.

“That’s all part of the nuttiness of being a performer. I feel really good about the commitment and the investment we all made to really unapologetically explore the journey of this woman and how she – and how we all – lie to ourselves to, in a way, protect ourselves, but to expose ourselves. It’s very complex stuff.”

Asher Keddie drew on “everything” to take her Fake performance to the heights it needed to go to. Picture: Sarah Enticknap

The Offspring and Nine Perfect Strangers star tells Insider she drew on “everything” to take her performance to the heights it needed to go to.

“My goal is always just to tell the truth,” she says.

“I mean, you’re convincing as an actor or you’re not, and I don’t want to be the ‘not’ – so I push myself to dig deep, to whatever vulnerabilities the character needs me to.

“And they just seem to be there – because we all have them – it’s just whether or not you’ve had the guts to deliver them.”

Despite the role being all-consuming, Keddie was able to switch off at the end of the day, and go home to her husband, artist Vincent Fantauzzo, and sons Luca, 14, and Valentino, 9.

For the first time, she’s accepting of help with the life that happens around work, and school schedules that have to carry on when she’s on set, and Fantauzzo is busy painting.

“I can’t even explain the level of joy it gives me,” she says of her work.

“So I’m able to shift my focus pretty well away from character and story to the really important things in life – which are my family.”

Asher Keddie and her husband Vincent Fantauzzo. Picture: Alex Coppel

Asher Keddie with her 2018 Logies. Picture: Julie Kiriacoudis

When asked if she feels, just one month before she turns 50, Keddie is at her best, she shrugs it off.

“Mostly, I feel that about Imo,” she says.

“This is the great thing about finding your people and then moving through so much. I just think ‘my god, you are at your absolute best – this is the best work you’ve ever done’.

“I don’t know about me,” she says modestly.

“I don’t know how to answer that really – but what I do know, is that I’ve never enjoyed myself more than I do right now, at this age, and this stage in my career. I have never enjoyed it as much as this – and that’s what I’m excited about.”

This week, Keddie received a Gold Logie nod for her work on Binge original Strife, loosely based on Mia Freedman’s memoir, Work Strife Balance. That team is currently working on season two.

“I was shocked,” she laughs.

“But it’s a lovely nomination to receive. I was like, ‘wow, what? okay’. Well, that’s amazing.

“I’m thrilled for the shows that I’ve been doing and the ones that are coming out as well.”

Banks says the material dissected by Fake was about portraying what the experience of it felt like, which is what compelled her to tell the story.

“When you think about the series, and it’s not ‘big event’ – it’s very small event – but it’s about how each of those little assaults on your intuition and your ability to trust yourself and to kind of know where you are in a situation – and the cumulative confusion of that – and that’s what we really wanted to show an audience,” Banks says.

“Because you’ve watched friends go through that, or you experience it yourself, but it’s very hard to explain to people what that is … what it feels like to be in a circumstance like that.”

Nodding, Keddie agrees.

“That’s exactly what drew me to it too – and there was a real simpatico there the whole way through. We were just on the same page about the way we wanted to tell the story,” she says. “And for people to experience it, was the most important thing.

“It never got boring – it never became easy at any point – because we just wanted to keep reaching for a deeper experience, especially as the story unfolded.

Asher Keddie making Fake was “really challenging – but in a good way”.

“So it was really involving for us. And really challenging – but in a great way. The way we wanted it to be. That’s why we wanted to make a project together.”

There’s one scene in the eight-part series that occurs entirely with Keddie in the back of a taxi. She receives a phone call from Wenham’s character who has, unbeknown to her, let her down – again – and, in trying to help the man clearly deceiving her, has a near panic attack.

The anxiety is palpable – and she says it was just as draining to shoot as it is uncomfortable to watch.

“It was harrowing – being inside that and trying to deliver that – particularly that episode,” Keddie admits.

“But truly, I think the most exciting piece of television I’ve made was that episode. It makes me feel overwhelmed thinking that we achieved it, and that we achieved what we set out to achieve.

“And that was daunting.

“We’d never seen that before – a person in the back of a cab for an entire episode, becoming undone, and pushing that instinct down as hard as she possibly could, but it’s bubbling out, it’s manifesting physically.

“It was very intense to make that. But I’m really glad we did.”

That was “Imo’s idea”, Keddie says – and an example of the trust they had behind the scenes – a level needed to truly depict the danger trust can bring, in the telling of the important story.

“And from my point of view, it’s only possible to have that idea … and trust that idea, knowing you’ve got someone like Asher, who can deliver,” Banks says.

“And that’s key.

“That’s why it’s so great to develop things knowing that it’s Asher who’s delivering that performance – because I know that she can do it.

“I think there’s something really lovely about getting to a point in your career where you’ve sort of lost fear, that silly fear – you’ve lost the fear of judgment – so when you take on a project, you commit to developing and making it. You’re more prepared to take risks.

“I don’t have other sort of pressures and voices, or something – so it’s like, for better or worse, this is how I think it should be made. This is us.”

“That’s definitely true of this project and this stage in our careers,” says Keddie, finishing her friend’s point.

“It’s safe to say that … this is us, this is what we want to do, this is how we think we can best make it, and we’re going to give it all we’ve got and deliver something really compelling and really thought provoking – and emotionally connected.

“There’s a just a different level of confidence that I feel, now.”

Fake premieres on Thursday, July 4 on Paramount+ and available on Hubbl