Heartbreak High’s Asher Yasbincek is glad young fans relate to Harper, but ‘it’s also sad’
School captaincy is up for election at Hartley High, and it’s men’s rights activists v ‘the woke agenda’ in season two of the Emmy-winning Aussie series.
Confidential
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Heartbreak High is back in session.
Season two of the sexually-charged, reimagined Australian high school drama launches on April 11 – and this term culture wars are kicking off.
PE teacher Timothy Voss – played with relish by Angus Sampson – believes young males are experiencing a crisis of confidence and wants to awaken Hartley High students to the perils of the “woke agenda”.
His masculinity classes include roasting pigs on the sports field and having the male students write their feelings on pieces of paper and literally bury them.
Under Voss’s tutelage, Spider (Bryn Chapman Parish) heads up the C(omprehensive) U(nderstanding) of M(asculinity) Lords party for the school captaincy election against queer vegan activist Sasha (Gemma Chua-Tran), and Amerie (Ayesha Madon), who campaigns under the banner of the sex education class SLTS.
“One of the things I really enjoy about Heartbreak High, including the original show, is how it’s always felt like it’s talking about things that are going on in that moment in Australia,” Asher Yasbincek told Confidential.
The 23-year-old actor, who plays Harper, said the satirical plot line dials up the silliness and drama to eleven but “it feels authentic. “I know that it’s super-dramatised because it’s a show but my high school experience felt that dramatic. Everything in high school feels make or break, life and death”.
The Perth-born actor was the focal point of the first season, with her character’s survival of an attempted sexual assault by a gang of eshays causing a “friendship break-up” with her “ride or die” Amerie.
“This season we get to see a different side to Harper,” Yasbincek said.
“You get to see her and Amerie in the really beautiful parts of their friendship and what it was before things hit the fan.”
“She’s really exploring her options moving forward in nearly every aspect of her life in season two, she’s figuring it out. It’s easy to forget that she’s a kid and hold her accountable like she isn’t learning, but she is.”
“It felt really lovely to rekindle that between them, and to see Harper laugh and have fun with her friends – and be a teenager, because she had to grow up fast.”
Yasbincek said she’s received many messages from young women who’ve told her that they relate to Harper.
“Which is kind of a complex feeling because on one hand I’m glad that you feel represented and seen by watching Harper, but I’m also so sorry for that,” she said. “It’s sad.”
“I really feel for Harper and I really feel for them.”
Heartbreak High hit No. 6 on the list of most watched TV shows globally on Netflix in 2022, amassing over 42.6m hours of viewing time in three weeks.
The original show, which ran for seven seasons and was broadcast in over 70 countries, pushed boundaries by exploring then-controversial topics such as race and drug use.
Its rebooted successor, filmed at South Sydney high school in Maroubra, has done the same.
“I don’t think any of us really conceptualised how big it ended up being,” Yasbincek said. “We didn’t foresee that. You obviously always hope, but even now it’s hard to think that there are so many people in different countries who’ll be watching.”
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