Dying For Sex has earned this talented Australian an Emmy nod

NIDA graduate Shannon Murphy is an award-winning theatre, TV and film director whose miniseries Dying for Sex has just been nominated for an Emmy. I spoke to her on Thursday evening.

Fitz: Shannon, congrats on your Emmy nomination. Is that your highest achievement so far?

SM: Yes, I think so.

Shannon Murphy at the Cannes Film Festival in May. “I’m not afraid to push extreme performances.”Credit: Corbis via Getty Images

Fitz: Members of the Academy, here’s … Shannon Murphy. Can you tell us a little of your background, and what sent you down the path of directing in the first place?

SM: I was born in South Africa and grew up in Singapore, Hong Kong and Australia.

Fitz: And looking back at that upbringing, what were the “hinge moments”, the ones that set you down the path of being a director?

SM: Even as a child, I’d have all these little figurines and toys, and I’d lose myself for hours just in my own head, creating stories out of them. Growing up in Asia, I was in musicals all the time, on stage from the age of seven, but I really have no memory of performing, which I didn’t like. I only remember being backstage and in rehearsal rooms, exploring what was done on that side of things.

Fitz: And they tell me your noted love of music in your work started back then too?

SM: Yes, as a child, my parents had an Andrew Lloyd Webber compilation CD, and I remember the first time I put that on when I was about six, sobbing the whole way through because his songs were so moving. I think I always recognised the power of the right music in films and TV, just as with musicals, and how – often – it is the music that carries the audience on the journey, and then also it’s through the music that it lives in their mind once the film’s finished.

Fitz: So what was the “hinge moment” in your life which veered you towards actively pursuing directing as a career?

SM: I was about 13, and my first drama teacher at Caulfield Grammar, Mr Joachim Matschoss – who I’m still in touch with – actually wrote in my drama book, “you should really consider this as a profession”. I had no idea what that really meant because for me drama was fun, and I enjoyed doing it, but I didn’t know how you could make it a life’s work. But that put the idea in my head…

Murphy and Michelle Williams on the set of miniseries Dying for Sex, which has been nominated for multiple Emmys.Credit: GC Images

Fitz: And the influence of attending Sydney’s own NIDA in 2007?

SM: It was honestly the best year of my life. I loved being surrounded by people who all were as enthusiastic as I was about theatre, and took it as seriously as I did. I was just in awe of that school and the teachers and my classmates. I always loved listening to the directors and the choreographers and the designers and listening to how they did things, how they saw things.

Fitz: Go on.

SM: At NIDA, it was about the rigour of being an informed artist. There was always so much pressure – and rightly so – to make sure that you’re at the forefront of the entire creative industry. And the only way you can do that is if you watch everything, see as much art and theatre and opera and everything else that you can, so that you know who everyone is, and you know what art is in the world right now, so you can be ahead of the zeitgeist. And I really take that so seriously in my daily life now. I’m always at galleries and staying adventurous and creative, and that’s what has made me the artist that I am.

Fitz: So you are operating by informed instinct, with no rigid playbook?

SM: Yes. It is all instinct, from years of being in rehearsal rooms and then NIDA and then AFTRS [the Australian Film Television and Radio School].

Fitz: And so when you moved from theatre to film and television, what would you say were your own hallmarks in approach?

Shannon Murphy (second from right) with the stars of her movie Babyteeth at the 2019 Venice Film Festival. (From left) Ben Mendelsohn, Eliza Scanlen and Toby Wallace.Credit: Arthur Mola/Invision/AP

SM: I think it’s the performance style I create with the actors. I want it be grounded and believable, but I’m not afraid to push extreme performances – because I also think people are extreme. I love colour, which probably comes from growing up and staring out at the Hong Kong harbour and neon lights my whole life. I’d also say I’ve got a dark and unusual sense of humour, but that would also come from living in so many countries and understanding many different kinds of comedy, right? And music. Nothing captures mood better than the right music.

Fitz: So for your debut feature film, Babyteeth, at the Venice Film Festival in 2019, you received a standing ovation for 15 minutes?

SM: Yeah, that was crazy. We’d just finished it at the last minute, so we had no idea how they were going to respond. We’d never known where people would laugh, where people would cry. So it was quite overwhelming. We were very stressed to work out whether it was any good or not. Obviously, the standing ovation helped us feel better about it.

Fitz: How do you do get the best performances out of your actors? Are you somebody who wants 50 takes?

SM: I do like to have a proper relationship with them off-screen, and for them to have that with each other. We must know each other, beyond just being professionals together. No, I don’t do a lot of takes, and when I do repeat them, they’re always quite different. I’m very confident about when I’ve got something and I can move on quite quickly. I don’t want to over intellectualise it. I want to work out how we’re really going to transform this character through their movements, not just being a talking head.

Fitz: After you yell “Cut!” and “That’s a wrap for the day, people,” do they all go home, while you sit there until midnight, going through the rushes?

SM: No. I’ve got a bit of a photographic memory, so when it comes to the content that I’ve shot, I don’t need to rewatch anything afterwards. And to be honest, I don’t really like looking at any of it until I’ve finished because I find it confusing. In this art form, scenes might move into different spots, so you can’t overly plan every transition from one scene to another, because that scene might end up at the end of the project instead of at the beginning.

Fitz: And when they all finally do go home, are you then buried for six months putting it all together?

SM: Yes. And that’s the bit I always struggle with because it’s a much more lonely process. But at least I have the most amazing editor, an Australian, Steve Evans, and he makes my life really exciting during that period because he’s so proficient in music, and a huge reason why my work has so much great music in it. And I come in to the editing booth at the end of a shoot as an exhausted shell of a person, and he revives me creatively again.

Fitz: How did Dying For Sex come across your desk, and what is the premise of the story?

SM: It was based on a podcast about a woman called Molly and her best friend, Nikki. They’re both actors and when Molly finds out she’s dying of cancer, she realises she hasn’t had enough sexual experience and variety in her life and so starts to explore it in the time she has left. When I read the synopsis, I loved it. I knew it was going to be a really strong tonal challenge.

Fitz: What’s a tonal challenge?

SM: It’s when I read it and I love the really interesting tone on the page, but start wondering how do I actually execute that with all the other elements of the visuals and performance and music? And I know that it’s going to be hard to get right. Dying For Sex could easily have come across as bad taste, and it had to be handled carefully. And so all of us were on board with that, and the challenge was delicately working out you could have a scene that talks about sexual abuse and then making a fart joke in the same moment.

Fitz: When you go to the Emmys will you have a speech prepared in case you win, or would that be bad karma?

SM: Yes. I am so nervous about public speaking that there’s no way that I wouldn’t have something written down, because I just can’t get up and wing it. I’m not a performer.

Fitz: Well, if it’s not bad karma, let’s have a little practice. “Thank you, thank you all! The person I’d like to thank most is …”

SM: “… is my daughter, Dylan. She’s 10, and she was just six months old when I started doing television, and she has very much been on this journey with me the whole way.” My daughter loves hanging out on set, and we have wonderful, creative people around our house all the time. Life is more rich because of it. Being a single mum is a little bit challenging in this industry, but I also feel like this industry is incredibly supportive of that – particularly in London, where I live now – and it never seems like it’s a disadvantage, which is really nice.

Fitz: So now you’ve got an Emmy nomination, and maybe an Emmy itself, we can presume you’ve nailed the zeitgeist with your work. How do you define that zeitgeist in 2025?

SM: At the moment, we do need to feel some positivity about the future. To be better to each other, and be better to the environment without being didactic in any way, and be really interesting in storytelling and style, are the things that are going to resonate most with people, particularly if you can do it with humour, energy and a sense of history.

Fitz: Good luck.

SM: Thank you.

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