The Beautiful Lie: Brace yourself for the sexiest TV series of the year

IT all sounds very high brow but The Beautiful Lie is an ambitious and intoxicating adaptation of Leo Tolstoy’s Anna Karenina that is about to set hearts racing.

YEARNING for the return of Offspring? Miss the complicated relationships of Love My Way?

Well, brace yourself for the sexiest TV series of the year set to sizzle its way onto the small screen next month.

The Beautiful Lie — premiering 8.30pm, Sunday October 18 on the ABC — is an ambitious and intoxicating adaptation of Leo Tolstoy’s Anna Karenina, which sounds all very highbrow and unrelatable but for the pulsating chemistry between the sensational Australian cast, as well as the contemporary re-imagining of the story which unfolds in and around Melbourne.

Sarah Snook, indisputably the most in-demand actor in local TV and film today, plays Anna, a former tennis pro and apparently happy mum of one and wife to Rodger Corser’s Xander.

In a clever web of characters, Anna meets a dangerous young record producer, Skeet (Benedict Samuels), with the couple forming an instant and utterly electric connection, which threatens to fray family ties and destroy lifelong bonds.

The six-part series also stars Sophie Lowe (Once Upon A Time In Wonderland), Celia Pacquola (Utopia), Snowtown’s Dan Henshall and Open Slather’s Gina Riley.

Snook, who appears in three recent box office releases — Oddball, Holding The Man and The Dressmaker — has inevitably been dubbed, depending on who you talk to, “the new Nicole” (the red hair), “the new Cate” (the luminous skin), “the new Jennifer Lawrence” (the Oscar potential) or “the new Emma Stone” (with a face like hers, there must be a cosmetics contract in her near future).

And all that gushing praise is fine by Snook, who takes the comparisons as “an enormous compliment. I’d like to work with any of those women. They just have to ask.”

For the NIDA graduate the most important endorsement she’s earned to date could be from the TV drama’s executive producer, John Edwards, who has a knack for casting and encouraging the careers of amazing leading ladies including Claudia Karvan and Asher Keddie (he first hired Snook in his 2010 Foxtel series, Spirited).

“You cannot stop watching her on screen, whatever she’s doing — she’s magnetic,” Edwards told Insider.

The 28-year-old is currently on the publicity trail at the Toronto Film Festival for The Dressmaker, with co-star Kate Winslet, who she said has been an inspiration.

“She has always been herself, found her voice and was confident enough to say what she wanted and mean it,” Snook said.

Her next film, due out on October 8, also co-stars Winslet and Michael Fassbender as Steve Jobs.

Snook will then set off for London, where she’s preparing to make her West End debut in an Henrik Ibsen play, The Master Builder, opposite Ralph Fiennes.

Even the Old Vic production’s artistic director Matthew Warchus couldn’t resist his own formula for Snook’s immense talent, describing her as “the next Judi Dench and Judy Davis rolled into one. She’s a remarkable actor and she’s really going to give Ralph a run for his money. That would be something to see.”

Mark Beretta, Samantha Armytage, David Koch and Natalie Barr from the Sunrise team. Picture: Tara Croser.

TV GOSSIP: SUNRISE FLY RATINGS FLAG

EVEN before they jetted off for a record attempt at broadcasting from five countries in five days, the Sunrise team were flying high last week — in the ratings, where it counts.

Posting their biggest viewer numbers in six months, Channel 7’s breakfast crew had it over Nine’s Today from Monday-Friday, averaging a national audience of 358,000 people to Today’s about 300,000 fans.

The Crawleys are back for season six of Downton Abbey.

ONE TO WATCH: DOWNTON’S FINAL BOW

AS if the last goodbye to our favourite toffs on Downton Abbey wasn’t going to be hard enough, Seven has confirmed it will make Australia wait until next year to see season six. The last episodes begin airing to UK fans from September 20.

All the Crawleys and their trusty staff are back including Dame Maggie Smith (as the Dowager), who told press of her plans post-show: “I’m going to be lying down for quite some time.”

Peter Allen: Not The Boy Next Door stars Sara West as Liza Minnelli and Joel Jackson as Peter Allen. Picture: Tony Mott/Channel 7

DON’T MISS: TRIBUTE TO A BOY FROM OZ

IT is staggering to think there’s a generation of TV viewers who will sit down to watch tonight’s telemovie, Peter Allen: Not The Boy Next Door (8.40pm, Seven) and not have a clue about who the Aussie icon was. But this sentimental stroll down memory lane showcases Allen’s extraordinary anthology of songs and even more inspiring, the unshakable spirit he showed getting to the top.