Celeste Barber is living a dream with starring role in Wellmania

Wellmania is giving Celeste Barber a chance to return to her first and foremost love.

Wellmania will put Celeste Barber in 230 million households around the world. Picture: Don Arnold/Getty Images for Netflix

You’d have to be wilfully ignorant of pop culture to not know the name in Celeste Barber.

The actor-comedian-writer is a household name in Australia, known as much for her popular Instagram series spoofing celebrity culture as she is for a raft of other projects, including her gargantuan effort raising $50 million during the Black Summer bushfires.

With 9.5 million followers on Instagram, it’s a fair bet that Barber’s profile extends beyond our shores girt by sea. With Netflix’s 230 million subscribers, Barber’s follower count is only set to rise with her new TV series, Wellmania.

The Australia comedy is adapted from writer Brigid Delaney’s nonfiction book exploring the world of wellness, from colonics and microdosing to green juice and cupping.

Created by Delaney and Benjamin Law, the TV show takes that as the inspiration to craft a fictional story centred on a character very much in tune with Barber’s comedic vibe, a messy and raw honesty.

Liv is a food writer living what she thinks is her best life in New York City, on the cusp of nabbing her dream job on a TV series. She flies home to Sydney for her best friend’s birthday but what was meant to be a weekend getaway ends up a much longer sojourn when she loses her green card.

Wellmania was adapted from Brigid Delaney’s nonfiction book.

And the US embassy won’t issue her with another until she passes a medical exam – not so easy when her blood pressure is sky high. Desperate to get back to NYC, Liv will try anything to get a clean bill of health and quick.

Supported by an ensemble cast which includes JJ Fong, Alexander Hodge, Leah Vanderberg and Remy Hii, Wellmania is a star vehicle for Barber, who talked to news.com.au about her experiences making the series.

This was a nonfiction book to start, could you see its potential as a scripted series?

Absolutely. It’s hilarious. Brigid is such a great writer and I love the idea of exploring the wellness industry from a place of curiosity as opposed to just judgment.

What were those early discussions like in terms of adding your voice and your personality into it?

The books are a jumping off point for us, like a springboard into the world to turn it into a TV show of this character, Liv Healey. I was close to the project from the beginning, and they built it around me. Hello? Who’s living a dream? It’s me.

So, they were always happy for me to throw in my opinion. And I’m an executive producer, so my opinion went in whether they liked it or not!

When you have a character who is built around you, but isn’t you, how do you keep that distinction clear?

It’s a tricky kind of thing because she does run quite close to me. However, there are many elements of this character that aren’t me. She’s someone who lives completely, 120 per cent in every moment. I do not do that. I wish I could, but she’s much than I am.

She makes really big, bold decisions. She throws everything at a wall and whatever sticks, she’ll run with. That’s not me.

I was happy to lend my voice to it but that’s the fun of acting where you get to take on something else and lean into another world or another perspective.

JJ Fong co-stars in Wellmania, alongside Celeste Barber.

You have a legion of fans but maybe some of them aren’t as aware of your acting work, such as on All Saints. How do you sort out the expectations of those who want to see your personality front and centre of a project versus the fact you’re also an actor?

It’s weird, isn’t it? Expectations? I ignore them.

Acting has always been my first and foremost love. It’s what I trained in, it’s what I started doing. And then Instagram came along, and everyone took notice. So, to go back to this world and to be in this world again, which is the world I’ve always wanted to be in, is actually what I’m really excited to give out to an audience.

I know you’re not allowed to say this, but I feel like they’re my friends. I really feel like the nine and half million people who follow me are all my friends. There are no trolls, everyone loves me, that’s how it works, right? I think they’re going to love it.

But friends are often bracingly honest with you as well. I’ve got some of those friends in my real life. I surround myself with people who go, ‘Calm down’ and I think that’s a good way to through life.

A lot of the wellness things Liv goes through in the show is unusual. Obviously, you’re acting, but how much of that did you actually explore yourself?

Not much because I wasn’t willing to do a lot of that stuff. Liv goes into this world new and fresh. It’s not as though she’s been living this wellness journey and then we pick up halfway through it. I wanted to do that as well. Go in fresh.

I’ve had a colonic before, it was years ago. I’m probably not going to do that again. I have a green juice every now and then. But aside from that, I didn’t dive too deep into that world because I wanted to explore as we did it. And on a TV level where it’s not real.

TV colonic.

Did it stir your curiosity as you went through the process?

Absolutely. That’s one of the main things I love about the show. We really wanted to focus on the curiosity of this world, of the wellness industry. Because some of it saves people’s lives. Some of it is absolute crap, some of it isn’t, and it’s different for everyone. There’s a reason why it’s a multi-billion-dollar industry.

While the wellness stuff is there on the surface, Wellmania is really about Liv’s relationships.

A hundred per cent. That’s one of the main focuses because there isn’t a show in just exploring a colonic episode and then a detox the next. There’s nothing in that. We needed a human connection. We needed a family connection.

It’s funny and, as I say, entertaining, but the real nuts and bolts is that connection that my character has to come back and find her family, after being away for so long.

Plus, you don’t want to make Goop 2.0.

No. I’d like to make the money that Goop makes! But I don’t really want to make that show.

Wellmania is streaming now on Netflix

Edited for clarity and length