Asher Keddie on meaningful TV and why the ABC’s refugee drama Stateless reduced her to tears
Seven-time Logie-winner Asher Keddie is focusing on making television that has something to say — but what was it about refugee drama Stateless that reduced her to tears?
Entertainment
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Asher Keddie was so overwhelmed shooting the ABC drama Stateless that her very first scene reduced her to tears.
Already nervous at the enormity of the task ahead, the physical hardships of shooting in the South Australian desert and the harrowing, hot-button subject matter of refugees, the seven-time Logie winner was in a heightened state before the cameras even rolled on her.
But walking with director Emma Freeman on to the custom-built detention centre set for the first time, populated with extras who had been in such facilities in real life, pushed her over the edge.
“The first image I saw was one of the extras, a little boy, whose family had been in detention and he was playing around a swing set with no swing because everything had to be taken down for safety,” says Keddie who plays Claire Kowitz, a pragmatic, policy-focused Canberra bureaucrat. “And I just held on to that image and burst into tears. And Emma looked at me and said ‘I know, I know – but you have to push it down’. So I spent the entire shoot pushing it down — and I mean every scene.”
Imagining such hardship especially for those so young, Keddie says she couldn’t help but think of her own son Valentino and stepson Luca, who she raises with artist husband Vincent Fantauzzo.
“My empathy grew enormously for the plight of these children,” she says.
“And of course, because I have my own children, I mean, you just do that don’t you?
“I was holding on a little bit tighter each day with my children and running to the plane to get home each weekend.”
The six-part Stateless began as the brainchild of two-time Australian Oscar-winner Cate Blanchett and her old high-school friend, writer Elise McCredie. The pair had come across the unlikely true story of an Australian who mistakenly ended up in a detention centre in her own country and used it as a springboard to delve into the vast, difficult and often divisive subject of refugees and asylum seekers.
To give the multifaceted, global topic the complexity it demanded, it was decided the story needed to be told from several perspectives, namely Keddie’s government worker, Yvonne Strahovski’s troubled airline hostess who ends up in the camp trying to flee her past, Jai Courtney’s camp security guard trying to put bread on the table for his family and Fayssal Bazzi’s Afghan refugee, fleeing persecution in his homeland and in search of a better life for his wife and daughters in Australia.
One of the fundamental questions it asks is how far would people go to find a safe and better life for themselves and their families?
“I asked myself that question every single day I walked on to that detention centre to shoot,” says Keddie. “The question of the show and the question that was with us actors every day was how as a country do we deal with those people who are fleeing genuine trauma for a new life but also secure our borders and preserve our humanity?
“It’s such a complex issue for the people working inside the immigration department and the detention centres, which is why it’s so great that there are multiple perspectives. I think there is a really full picture there for us to be able to relate to.”
Keddie says the calibre of the cast, which also includes Blanchett, The Wire star Dominic West and Marta Dusseldorp, and the quality and timeliness of the story made Stateless and easy yes for her, but admits she was somewhat ashamed at how little she knew about the subject. She hopes it will spark a conversation about the enormity of the issue by putting a human face to a story often told in statistics and ensure that all sides are taken into account.
“Stateless isn’t taking a particular stand on immigration policy, present or past,” she says. “It’s neutral because the aim is to explore the human drama behind the policy to present all sides of an incredibly complex issue. So we allow the audience to engage in the story and the issues from perspectives that they may not have had a chance to be privy to. I think that’s why the multiple perspectives are really important and really helpful.”
Since farewelling her most famous character Nina Proudman in 2017 with the seventh (and likely final) series of Offspring, Keddie has shone in a series of darker, more serious TV roles. In 2018 there she played an alcoholic ex-wife in the four-part psychological drama The Cry, about a missing baby and the myths of motherhood. She followed that last year with the SBS drama The Hunting, which tackled themes of misogyny, sexualisation and bullying. She says she’s increasingly drawn to big issues and feels a responsibility that the projects she spends her time on have something to say.
“I’m not going to say I am never going to perform in a kind of kitchen sink drama ever again,” she says. “But I have to say that what I want to explore and collaborate with people on are these bigger issues that we need to understand and I think we are hungry to understand so we can live with more responsibility, socially and culturally and politically, than we have done in the past in the ‘70s, ‘80s and ‘90s I suppose.
“I am sure that everyone feels the same – the world is changing and these issues are getting more and more complex essentially because of our lack of understanding of them.”
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There is some light relief on the horizon however in the coming comedy Rams, which stars Sam Neill and Michael Caton as feuding sheep-farmer brothers.
“I don’t have a large role in that – it’s all about Sam and Michael and they are absolutely magnificent,” she says. “There is a small ensemble around them – myself and Wayne Blair and Travis McMahon and Hayley McElhinney and we had a wonderful time with Jeremy Sims, who has got to be one of the most wonderful directors ever to work with. He’s such a great filmmaker and has such a great energy. I think it’s going to be a really beautiful film.”
WATCH: Stateless, Sunday, 8.30pm, ABC