Richard Roxburgh is a troubled pastor at the helm of a megachurch in new drama Prosper

In the opening minutes of Prosper, the eight-part, one-hour Stan series about a powerful, wealthy and rapidly fracturing family running a globally successful Australian evangelical megachurch, Richard Roxburgh stands in a pool of light and calls to the sky. (Stan is owned by Nine, publisher of this masthead.)

“Are you there?” he says amid the sounds of a beating heart. “Can you hear me? Say something.”

Roxburgh, playing Cal Quinn, a charismatic pastor and head of Sydney-based megachurch U Star, is calling these questions to a sound technician in an auditorium during a routine mic check. But, by episode’s end, his world is crashing down and he is asking them to a higher power. Adored by U Star’s thousands of followers, and seen as the personification of faith, love and acceptance, Quinn has faltered with secret drug use and the mishandling of a vulnerable parishioner.

“Are you there? Can you hear me? Say something.”

The church’s success and reputation are jeopardised and Quinn is losing his connection with God. “How does the saying go?” Roxburgh says on-set between filming scenes for Prosper in a Sydney CBD office building. “Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.”

“The power of this family and the church that they’ve built has become more like an absolute power. Like any kind of dictatorship or totalitarian organisation that has to shield itself, has to build its turrets and walls to protect itself.

Richard Roxburgh as the charismatic pastor Cal Quinn, head of megachurch U Star.Credit: Lisa Tomasetti

“And, that’s when the rot always happens. That’s what’s exciting in terms of the dramatic possibilities in this series.”

Created by Matt Cameron (Jack Irish, Secret City) and Jason Stephens (Lambs of God, Upright), Prosper is entirely fictional but comes after years of headlines surrounding iniquities within Australian megachurches.

Co-starring Rebecca Gibney as Cal’s wife and U Star co-founder Abi Quinn, and Ewen Leslie (Bali 2002, The Stranger) as Cal’s son Dion, it is set in a world of money and privilege.

The church’s successes, including its chart-topping original live music and songs, fund private jets, helicopter commutes, lavish harbourside homes and languid lilo-floating meditations on infinity pools.

They have also catapulted the Quinn family, which includes four adult children and their partners, into powerful figures with political connections, congregation performance stars, or street church founders rejecting their origins.

There is disharmony, disillusion about the church’s direction and, akin to US series Succession, intense competition for their father’s favour.

Jason Stephens says the idea for Prosper was first prompted by curiosity about megachurches outshining traditional churches in popularity, and their promotion of prosperity and religious belief. “It’s a really interesting idea that God wants you to prosper, God wants you to be successful, God wants you to be rich,” he says. “And there is certainly a focus through these churches on the self.

“That’s really interesting in terms of timing and why they’re working so well. It is only a few degrees from a Tony Robbins talk sometimes, in terms of how you can be the better version of yourself.”

Jason Stephens, co-creator of Prosper, says the idea was prompted by curiosity of how megachurches had become more popular than traditional churches.Credit: LisaTomasetti

Cameron, who also co-wrote the series, says he was also drawn to the dramatic possibilities of what running a church like U Star asked of people. “The stakes don’t get much higher than something to do with God and belief and human beings reaching for such a grand ambition for themselves,” he says.

“It’s not just about their ambition for a connection to God or an understanding of God. Their ambitions are also of the global corporation level. There’s so much scale to it that’s really appealing dramatically.

“And, not to disparage them at all, there’s so many TV shows about doctors and lawyers and detectives and cops. Prosper has a whole different engine behind it. And yet it has the touchstone of family, really closely connected, intimately involved characters. But they also have a greater purpose. I was hooked from the get-go on that.”

Both agree the series hangs significantly on the magnetism and larger-than-life character of Cal Quinn, a role requiring an actor who can embody immense hubris and humility.

“Here is a character with very intimate and muted internal moments who also has to go out on stage and connect with thousands of people and more watching around the world beyond that,” Cameron says.

“That’s not an easy thing to pull off. We’ve all seen the bible-thumping gospel style of preaching, American-style, but finding a way to do that with an Australian sensibility was very important to the veracity of the show. And Richard Roxburgh has that.”

Roxburgh says his strongest pull to the role was Quinn’s riven mind. “Cal is a very impressive, charismatic individual,” he says. “But he’s also a very troubled person with many demons at play. And he’s smart. He can feel in his dark soul that there’s something very wrong with the fact that he’s driving around in a half-a-million-dollar car, that he lives in this extraordinary property and is flying around in jets.

“At the same time, he also believes in the principles and the commandments, and that the word of the Bible is true. And that he’s accountable to it. I find that fascinating.

Richard Roxburgh and Rebecca Gibney in a scene from Stan’s eight-part drama Prosper.Credit: Lisa Tomasetti

“But also his family. They’ve got secrets and problems and issues, and they feel terrible guilt about that. Like any family. But, unlike any other family, they have to be a morally flawless example to their own community and the world beyond.

“The pressure of that on these souls is incredible. It’s unsustainable. And we see that coming to pass as well.”

At its heart, Cameron says, Prosper is a high-stakes tale about a family fighting for their personal and professional survival.

“For people who do attend megachurches or who are religious, hopefully they watch the show and go, ‘Oh, let’s see what their version of what my experience is’,” he says.

“For people who don’t, it’s a chance to see a show about something they’re curious about and get a feeling for what it might be like without having to go.”

Gibney says Prosper’s writing, characters and story of rivalries, conflict and personal ethics make it compelling. “I know a lot of people are like, ‘Oh, here we go, we’re going to tear down the church’,” she says. “But it’s actually not about tearing down the church at all.

“In fact, it’s the opposite. Every single character in this series has an absolutely dogged belief, an absolute faith in the church and in God.

“It’s the moral dilemmas that each of them face. It’s their secrets or the decisions they have to make based on trying to protect their family and their church.

“The Quinns are not villains. They’re not saints. They’re somewhere in the middle, and that’s what we all are. Everyone of us has failings.”

Prosper is on Stan from January 18.

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