Second season of hit Aussie TV series Bloom turns back time
If you could live your life again, would you make different choices? The second season of Stan’s original Australian drama series Bloom explores this conundrum.
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It’s an interesting question to ponder – if you could live your life again, would you make different choices?
Stan’s original Australian drama series Bloom explores this conundrum.
Season one – which starred Oscar nominee Jacki Weaver, Aussie icon Bryan Brown and a galaxy of local young stars – tapped into the universal desire to turn back the clock.
Now, the haunting and deeply emotional second season continues the story of an inexplicable fountain of youth plant which continues to transform the lives of a country community, already trying to recover from a devastating flood.
Brown — who plays Ray Reed, a man who fed the berry to his dementia-stricken wife Gwen [Weaver] and is reunited with her younger self [played by Phoebe Tonkin] – tells News Corp Australia he’d be too scared to take one of these magical berries.
“I’d probably go and do something I didn’t do before and bloody kill myself at the age of 28,” he says, from his harbourside home in Sydney.
“I’d probably go ‘hey, this berry is good and get on a motorbike and go booming somewhere around the back of Turkey and end up bloody going over a cliff. I’m probably better off being the silly old bugger I am.”
But what if he retained all the wisdom of his 72 years, only in a much younger body?
Brown muses: “Ah, well that’s always a big question isn’t it? That sliding doors moment. There’s two things, without being silly, that I would like to do if I was younger again. One is learn a musical instrument – probably the guitar, so that I had the joy of that throughout my life.
“And I’d like to have spent more time surfing when I was younger so that I’d be a better surfer than I am now. I’m fair dinkum about those things.”
He’s also fair dinkum when he says he had some reservations about Bloom being given the nod for second go.
“It’s good when you do something and people have liked something and want to know a bit more about it,” Brown says.
“But then of course, there’s the other side of that which is ‘what do we do with it now?’ I mean you don’t want it to be the same and you don’t want it to be less, which it can be. We want to take the audience somewhere new.”
Fortunately the creatives have certainly managed this, with the addition of new characters, such as Jacqueline McKenzie’s enigmatic Anne Carter, who has her own plans for the miraculous plant.
Then there’s young Jackson Heywood, who joins the strong ensemble cast as the younger version of Ray [Brown].
“I met Bryan pretty quickly and we went out for a beer. He was amazing and made me feel at ease with the whole thing. He’s an actor’s actor. He’s happy to answer any questions and guide you a little bit. But just to have his support and be this dude that sees something in you is amazing.”
Best known for playing Brody Morgan on Seven soap, Home And Away, Heywood relished the slower pace of production on Bloom.
“(On Home And Away) you shot five episodes a week, whereas Bloom had six months to shoot six episodes and the detail and the preparation that went into that … just that delicate process of refining a story and making it the best you can was great,” Heywood says.
Brown delighted in reuniting with Weaver for this second series.
“I’ve always admired Jacki – I always thought there was a special cheekiness about her,” he says. “A delightful cheekiness that finds its way through all her characters. This time I enjoyed it even more.”
He’s renowned for championing Australian stories, but hasn’t ever confined himself to one genre.
His recent offerings have included last year’s local movie hit, Palm Beach, and the AACTA-winning indigenous film, Sweet Country.
He will return in SBS drama series, Hungry Ghosts, to air later this year.
Brown says the rise of streaming platforms is an opportunity to continue to tell our own tales.
“I think the biggest thing we have to realise is we’re a small nation so there’s only so many things we can make. You turn on the TV and the Yanks have got a bloody mass of stuff out there and the Brits are a bigger industry.
He argues: “it’s about finding when you do make stuff to try and make it as interesting and as different for the world to look at. I think we’re getting that adventurous.”
“Let’s keep looking for the interesting concepts but it also comes down the relationships and emotions – that’s what drags everyone in. You can have a high concept like eating a berry but it comes down to the people and ‘do I like them and do I connect with what they are going through?”
Meanwhile, he’s got two new stories in development, but in the meantime is content to wait for someone to offer him something interesting.
“If I like it, I’ll do it,” Brown says. “I’ve only ever known twice in 40 odd years when I’ve been shooting, what I was going to be doing after. I usually go ‘thank God I’ve finished and now, let’s see if someone can come up with something that interests me.” I’ve never been too anxious. It’s just how it is.”
* Bloom, streaming Thursday April 9, Stan