The TV love story that will appeal to everyone

Starring some of Australia’s best and brightest stars, including Hugo Weaving, Bojana Novakovic, Heather Mitchell, Binge’s newest family drama is the summer hit you need to see.

It’s a love story for the ages. Based on popular Swedish series Älska Mig, Binge’s new six-part Australian TV show Love Me is a modern, interwoven drama about three members of one family at very different stages of life navigating romantic relationships.

“There was no question I had to be part of this and I’d have done anything to be part of it. It’s about love, loss and the renewal of the human heart.”

It’s also a love letter to Melbourne – and let’s face it, the Australian city (which holds the unenviable world record for the most Covid-prompted lockdowns) could certainly do with a little love after the past two years.

Love Me was filmed just as Melburnians were once again sent back inside their homes, which proved to be both a blessing and a curse for its cast and crew.

For veteran actor Hugo Weaving, who plays the family patriarch Glen and spent a large part of his transient childhood in the Victorian seaside suburb of Brighton, it was disappointing that the pandemic prevented him from catching up with friends and enjoying his old stomping ground.

But in a happy twist of fate, the new series saw Weaving working with his close friend Heather Mitchell. The pair met at NIDA in 1979, and across four decades since, have worked together on stage and screen.

“We became a couple on screen and on stage quite regularly,” Weaving tells The Binge Guide with a laugh.

“I went to her wedding. And she played my mother in flashbacks in the [1991] movie Proof, funnily enough, so we’ve known each other for years and are very good friends.” Mitchell, who plays Weaving’s love interest in Love Me, says she jumped at the opportunity to work with her old friend.

“I received an email with an attachment to the [Swedish] series and couldn’t stop watching it,” she tells The Binge Guide.

“There was no question I had to be part of this and I’d have done anything to be part of it. It’s about love, loss and the renewal of the human heart. And the role was the way I’d love to see more roles for older women – women who haven’t given up on life but who are passionate, hungry and not going down some rabbit holes of despair.”

Bojana Novakovic, who plays Glen’s complicated daughter Clara in the series, says that filming during the pandemic inadvertently opened doors for filming opportunities that would have otherwise been impossible.

“The pandemic was a blessing and a curse,” she says. “We got to shoot at Flinders Street Station, we got to shoot at the National Gallery of Victoria. This is stuff you don’t get permits for when it’s life as usual because it’s too busy and it’s unsafe. So there was a blessing in that for us. Every shot is an artwork.”

Novakovic, who won an AFI Award (now known as an AACTA Award) for her role in the miniseries Marking Time in 2004 and later starred in the acclaimed Foxtel series Satisfaction, tells The Binge Guide: “This was the most joyful challenge I’ve experienced but it was hard work. There are a lot of emotional layers and depth to Clara.”

Read more in this Sunday’s The Binge Guide

“Even reading the script, I felt intimidated as well as excited. But it was joyful every step of the way. It’s like when you go on a really good run and you don’t stop until you reach your goal. You’re huffing and puffing [so much] you think you’re going to die, but you feel so good at the same time. It’s kind of like that.”

One of the things Novakovic says she admires most about Love Me is the way it challenges outdated stereotypes about age and gender. “This isn’t just a love story,” she adds.

“It’s about sexuality. You get to see 65-year-olds as sexual beings. And I’m so excited about it. Also, I really enjoyed playing a leading female who’s the charmer and the funny one. What leads us through this show, along with the dad and brother, is her chaos.”

William Lodder, who plays Glen’s son Aaron, agrees: “I love that for once we don’t just have to see something happen from only one character’s perspective,” he says. Weaving thinks the universality of the story will resonate with everyone. “It’s a story about family, love and grief,” he says.

“I’ve never played a character like Glen before. He’s such a timid man… It was a real joy to play someone who wasn’t superhuman; to just celebrate all the human frailties.”

All six episodes of Love Me are available on Binge from 26 December.