The Clearing’s Miranda Otto and Guy Pearce on ‘harrowing’ series

If you’re watching this right before bed, you better schedule a light palate cleanser. Unless you want to be haunted by weird dreams.

Teresa Palmer in The Clearing. Picture: Ben King/Disney

On screen, the kids were subjected to emotional abuse, but when the director yelled “cut!” it was all laughs and fun.

When you’re making a series with a story as bone-chilling as The Clearing, you have to find the balance on set.

Inspired by real-life Victorian cult The Family, the Disney+ original series stars Miranda Otto as Adrienne, a charismatic cult leader whose charges include many children adopted into her care. Of course, “care” is used liberally as the kids are subjected to cruel treatment.

The Clearing is definitely creepy and unnerving, the type of viewing that might need a palate cleanser if you’re watching late at night just before bed. Otto told news.com.au she spent her nights and weekends during the shoot watching a lot of comedy.

And the adult actors and crew ensured they kept it light in between takes when they weren’t filming.

“When we’re shooting with the kids, there was a lot of laughter and running around and playing games,” she revealed. “You need to break the energy when you’re working on something like this. You need to bring it when the cameras are rolling and then leave it when they’re not.”

The Clearing stars Miranda Otto as a charismatic cult leader. Picture: Ben King/Disney

Similarly, co-star Guy Pearce, who plays one of Adrienne’s collaborators, made the same effort.

“It felt important to be clear with these children that I’m not really like that guy,” he said. “Yes, I’m playing a horrible kind of man but in real life, you know we can be buddies.”

Pearce said even though the work was dark and disturbing, he’s become much better at being able to switch off from it.

“I don’t feel as overwhelmed by the material that I’m working on anymore, like I used to be. I would allow myself to completely enter that world when we’re shooting but I trust the fact that five minutes before that, I was having my breakfast or texting with my son, or whatever it is.

“Twenty years ago, it would’ve been far more harrowing for me to do something like [The Clearing] because I would’ve felt I would have to stay in there the whole time.”

Created by Jack Irish’s Matt Cameron and Stateless’s Elise McCredie, the series was adapted from the novel by J.P. Pomare. While it’s a fictional story, the inspiration of The Family is obvious, especially when you consider the visual cues of the platinum blonde children, looking dead-eyed at the camera.

The Family was a doomsday cult founded by Anne Hamilton-Byrne in the 1960s. Hamilton-Byrne, who died in 2019, was exposed almost two decades later as having emotionally and physically abused more than two dozen children she had adopted or being “gifted”.

The Clearing takes visual inspiration from real-life cult The Family. Picture: Ben King/Disney

Otto said she did not know much about Hamilton-Byrne or The Family specifically, but she had done copious research on cults in general including books and documentaries on Nxivm and the Branch Davidians.

“I’ve always been really fascinated by cults, so I’ve read a lot about them and the different experiences of people over the years.”

That morbid curiosity was useful when it came to embodying the character. Otto understood the complexity of playing someone abhorrent but seductive. “If you don’t believe she’s capable of making these people do things, then it won’t work.

“I realised a lot of it was about being in the moment, really seeing people, touching them, holding their gaze and unconditionally loving them. So much so that they keep wanting that moment back. And then you make it harder and harder for them to have that moment.

“Someone described it as ‘love bombing’ which is something I hadn’t heard of before, but it feels a bit like that when you give all this attention and make people feel so special and then you pull back and it becomes very hard to that approval.”

Guy Pearce said he’s much better at switching off darker material he’s working on. Picture: Ben King/Disney

The intensity of the character is very much threaded throughout the series, the vibe laden with peril and fear. Directed by Jeffrey Walker and also starring Teresa Palmer, Kate Mulvany, Julia Savage and Hazem Shammas, The Clearing isn’t a clear-cut linear drama. Otto described it as a narrative that “keeps shifting from under you”.

A viewer needs to keep their wits at hand, and maybe some smelling salts in case it gets too much. Pearce said the show has an ominous feel about it, especially as it involves the fates of characters who are kids.

“An audience watching this will probably be able to relate to it because those who have kids will go, ‘Oh wow, imagine if my child or a child we know was subjected to such disdainful behaviour’.

“It’s harrowing.”

The Clearing is streaming now on Disney+