‘I still had fire in my blood’: The anger that fuels this excellent Aussie drama

On a stinking hot summer day, a bunch of high school students in formal dress are preparing to be presented at a deb ball. As they, their parents and teachers are led in to take their positions on either side of a strip of gold carpet, someone yells a bit of crucial advice for the big night.

“Anything later than an iPhone 9 just isn’t going to cut it,” says a man dressed a little more appropriately for the weather in shorts and T-shirt.

He is an assistant director on the set of Invisible Boys, Canning Town Hall in suburban Perth is doubling for Geraldton 400 kilometres to the north, and February 2024 is doubling for late 2017, when the marriage equality referendum was the hottest topic in Australian social and political life.

That’s a slight shift from Holden Sheppard’s novel, which was published in 2019 and set a year earlier, but it’s one Nicholas Verso, the showrunner and director of this terrific coming-of-age gay drama, felt compelled to make when he optioned the book in 2020.

Charlie (Joseph Zada) is defiantly out and proud.

“I was still angry after the same-sex marriage plebiscite, I still had fire in my blood,” Verso says. “So I thought, let’s set it then because it was the teenagers and the young people who were the most adversely affected. They could see this vitriolic commentary going on from people it didn’t really affect, arguing whether they should have equal rights or not. And I thought that’ll give it a powerful backdrop and make the story just a bit bigger because it’s quite an intimate story.”

In truth, Invisible Boys is intimate and expansive as it follows four young men in regional Australia who wear their sexuality in vastly different ways across 10 half-hour episodes.

Charlie (Joseph Zada) outs himself on social media after a fling with a married and ostensibly straight man goes awry. With his painted nails, blue hair and aspirations to be a rock star, he’s defiantly out and proud.

Zeke (Aydan Calafiore) is the dutiful son of conservative Italian Catholics, rightly fearful that his mother (Pia Miranda) would simply refuse to accept her son for what he is. Hammer (Zach Blampied) is a hypermasculine Indigenous kid who has spent his entire life working towards being drafted into the AFL, with the relentless encouragement of his mother (Shareena Clanton). And Matt (Joe Klocek) uses sex as a way to alleviate the pressure of trying to hold the family farm together, in the face of crop failure and an ailing father.

Though he is gay, Verso says, for a long time, “I didn’t want to be classified as a gay filmmaker, and I didn’t particularly want to tell gay stories. I was quite resistant to it, to be honest.”

What he was drawn to were “stories about masculinity, the in-between space between straight and gay; I’ve always been fascinated by that”.

Hammer (Zach Blampied, left) hides his sexuality behind a shield of hyper-aggressive masculinity.Credit: David Dare Parker

But at a certain point, he realised he was one of a very small number of openly gay directors in this country, and there was a dearth of gay representation on screen he could relate to. “So I thought, ‘Well, this is something I could contribute to.’”

Invisible Boys had great characters, a world that felt real, and situations, Verso says, “that lined up with a lot of my personal experiences. And I thought, ‘I can really tell this story’”.

Having spent much of his professional life working in the YA space, making content for an audience of 12-15 years – the feature film Boys in the Trees and the ABC TV series Nowhere Boys and Crazy Fun Park chief among them – Invisible Boys represents a step into more mature terrain.

Nicholas Verso (centre) directs Joseph Zada and Jade Baynes on the set.Credit: David Dare Parker/Stan

“No one under 15 should be watching this show,” says Verso with a laugh. “It’s much more adult in its themes and in the way it’s shot. It pushes things, it gets pretty provocative. It’s a horny show.”

That it most certainly is. Though there’s no actual nudity, there’s plenty of steamily suggestive action, some of it rather untidy – a fact of which Verso is quietly proud.

“One of the things I said in the writers’ room was, ‘Where has Hollywood lied to us? What do we wish we knew as gay teens coming through, where Hollywood made it seem a lot simpler than it really is?’ We wanted to lean into the mess and the complication.”

Of course, tackling adult themes with a young cast comes with its complications. Chiefly, he says, “it’s about making sure everyone’s safe and comfortable, and that everyone knew what they were signing on for”.

Just to audition for one of the key roles, people had to be at least 18, he says. “In the audition briefs we were really upfront, going, ‘This is what will be required of you; if you’re uncomfortable please don’t audition’. And some people didn’t, for that very reason. We had quite a few boys who were just like, ‘Oh, this isn’t for me’, and that’s great. It’s really good, I think, for everyone to know their boundaries.”

Holden Sheppard, author of Invisible Boys.

There was an intimacy co-ordinator, “and she had separate conversations because, of course, sometimes there’s things they don’t want to say to me that they’ll feel more comfortable saying to her. But I try to keep a really open door about it.

“Some people are more comfortable than others,” Verso adds, “but I’ve been kind of amazed by how courageous they’ve been.”

For Joseph Zada, whose Charlie is an avatar for author Sheppard, it’s been a dive into the deep end.

“I’ve never worked harder in my life,” he says in a break between scenes. “It’s going deep. I’m not a very vulnerable person like Charlie is. Charlie wears his heart on his sleeve, and it’s been very difficult for me to learn how to do that, but I think I’ve adapted to it. It’s been really good for me as well; now I’m more open to my emotions.”

As he speaks, Verso hovers nearby. I’ve been given clear instructions not to get too personal in my line of questioning of any of the young cast; it’s clear that everyone involved in Invisible Boys is determined to shepherd the show’s young stars through unscathed.

And if Zada’s testimony can be trusted, they seem to be doing a pretty good job of it.

“I’m having such an amazing experience, meeting everyone, hanging out with everyone. Everyone’s f---ing amazing,” he says.

And what about the subject – do you relate, and do you think kids of your generation will?

“Yeah, I think so,” he says. “I had a bit of a rough childhood, a lot of troubles and problems in my family, I got kicked out of both of my schools. I was sort of defiant. So I definitely relate to Charlie, the way he couldn’t fit in.

“I think the story and the subject matter are very appealing to my generation,” he says. “People will be able to resonate with all the characters.”

Invisible Boys streams on Stan from February 13. Stan and this masthead are owned by Nine.

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