‘It’s OK to be polarising’: Asher Keddie on taking on her next big TV role in Strife

Queen of Aussie drama Asher Keddie opens up about her new role in the addictive new series Strife.

There’s no denying Asher Keddie is the queen of television. She gave us the lovably Dr Nina Proudman in the critically acclaimed drama Offspring and played neurotic Julia Jackson in the hit series Love My Way.

Despite the awards and accolades, Keddie still strives to take on projects that challenge her. And her role in the new BINGE original series Strife ticks all the right boxes.

“I like originality, I like things to feel unique. I like all the many different facets of different characters, and I like exploring things I don’t particularly understand,” Keddie tells news.com.au.

The Aussie actress plays the polarising yet passionate Evelyn Jones in the series about a former magazine editor who makes the leap into digital media by launching her own start-up women’s website.

Asher Keddie attends the world premiere of Strife in Sydney on December 3. Picture: Caroline McCredie/Getty Images

Keddie says she likes projects that challenge her. Picture: Caroline McCredie/Getty Images

The show may be based on Mamamia media mogul Mia Freedman’s 2017 memoir Work, Strife, Balance, but the character on the show is not based on Freedman at all, but rather a fictionalised version of her.

“In this case, I was exploring a character and building a character that I can relate to, and it does resonate with me, but there are also parts of her that I don’t understand and is so different to me,” Keddie said.

“So therein lies a challenge, I suppose. I guess it’s about challenge for me, but also understanding enough to be able to connect to an audience by delivering a performance that people can kind of understand.”

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Keddie, who plays Evelyn, is also an excutive producer on the show.

Strife also stars BeBe Bettencourt, Maria Angelico, Olivia Junkeer and Bryony Skillington. Picture: Binge

And there’s plenty of relatable content in the series that proudly champions chaos over calmness, with a firm message to viewers that it’s OK to not have it all.

Keddie said she appreciates and accepts her character’s failures and vulnerabilities as it’s an accurate depiction of life. The actress admitted she used to struggle with this in her personal life, but now that she’s 49, she can shake off the facade and embrace the mess.

“Interestingly, when I was in my thirties and early forties, I didn’t feel comfortable with that idea that people would actually know who I was or that I had vulnerabilities. And I really feel pretty comfortable with it now,” Keddie said.

“There’s certain things that I still feel are important to protect, and I think we’re all a bit like that – there’s certain things that are best to be private. But I think as you get older, you start to relax a little bit more into yourself and realise that actually, even if you are kind of judged in some way for having a certain opinion or being polarising, that it’s not the be all and end all.

“I think that’s what the show really explores well, is that it’s OK to sometimes be a little polarising. And that can mean progression. That can mean progression for a whole workplace like it does in Strife and for a person personally, as it does for Evelyn.”

Keddie says it was challenging bringing Evelyn to life on screen.

Freedman may be on board as executive producer alongside Keddie, but the former Cosmopolitan magazine editor gave the actress free reign to play Evelyn as she pleased.

“She didn’t have an opinion on it with me. She just wanted me to do my job and her to do hers,” Keddie said. “And for us to collaborate together on the tone and the specificity of the experiences was important to her.”

“I loved the idea of making this show and being able to be part of developing it from the ground up was thrilling to me,” she added. “With this group of women in particular, I think is so brave and has done so much to help women find their voices in the media and elsewhere, everywhere else. And I found so much of the story relatable and knew it would be relatable to many women no matter what industry they’re working in, not just the media industry.”

The collaborative process included other Strife executive producers such as Bruna Papandrea, Jodi Matterson and Sarah Scheller, who all included some of their real-life experiences in the series through hilarious anecdotes.

Mia Freedman and Keddie attend the Strife premiere in Sydney. Picture: Caroline McCredie/Getty Images

Case in point, Evelyn driving shirtless with only a bra on, revealing a used tampon in her handbag on live TV, and handing out unsliced oranges at her daughter’s hockey game.

“Sometimes we can get in our own way. And so there comes the levity in the show and the humour, which is relatable as well,” Keddie said.

“There are so many of my stories in there. We’ll keep to ourselves which specific experiences were ours, but there’s so many of my moments in life. Specific moments in life or altercations or conversations,” Keddie said of her fellow EPs.

“We have such an incredible writer in Sarah Scheller, and she’s our showrunner as well, that she’s really good at distilling and cherrypicking moments out of so much information. And we all threw information at her. We were throwing stories and experiences at her, and she just cherrypicks the right moments and the most compelling moments for drama.”

Strife is now streaming on BINGE

Originally published as ‘It’s OK to be polarising’: Asher Keddie on taking on her next big TV role in Strife