At this point readers and viewers of a delicate disposition should be warned that Weaving and Mitchell do indeed get down and dirty in this show. It’s a revelation – and,according to Novakovic,a bit of a revolution too,one that demanded “extraordinary courage from the storytellers and the actors to portray people in their 60s as sexual beings”.
For Lewis,a big part of the beauty ofLove Me is that its premise can be boiled down to a single sentence. It’s that kind of easy-to-explain pitch that makes a format sellable,and in the increasingly global television market,that’s crucial.
“It’s about,first and foremost,satisfying the local market,but then ensuring it’s got legs to sell internationally,” he says. “So we can start laying the platform for (a) lifting the budgets of dramas locally through the money coming back from international markets,and (b) constantly raising the bar in the quality of our drama and storytelling and making sure it’s on par with the best drama in the world.”
But for Binge’s executive producer Alison Hurbert-Burns,the primary intention was to make something that worked for an Australian streaming audience. “I wanted to see a fresh,modern,really contemporary way of doing a love story,” she says. “Think back toLove My Way orThe Secret Life of Us,some of those breakout ways we told love and coming-of-age stories. I just wanted to say something like that with a fresh perspective.
“I felt that was missing in the landscape and after COVID I was feeling,‘Let’s have a bit of hope’,” she adds. “Not bubblegum silly – still complex,interesting stories – but they’re not about gloomy forests and death and lakes and stuff.”
Love Me ticks all those boxes. The characters are real and relatable,often infuriating but rarely anything but empathetic. It’s warm and funny and feels emotionally authentic. And it’s Australian if you know what to look for,but might not be if you don’t.
For Australian actor Bob Morley the role of Peter K – a model with a brain and a heart to match the body (“he’s the guy that’s too good to be true that girls always play in rom-coms”,says Novakovic) – was an opportunity to reframe his career.
Morley cut his teeth onHome and Away (as Drew Curtis) andNeighbours (as Aidan Foster) before scoring a lead role in the long-running dystopian sci-fi seriesThe 100.
“Once you’ve worked on soaps in Australia it’s really hard for people to see you in a different light,” says the Victorian-born actor who still gets hailed as Drew Curtis when he’s home from LA. “I learnt so much from being on those shows,I’m proud of having done them and had that experience. But it was such a great experience to be working in a different capacity in Australia.”
For Morley,Love Me is a show “about being vulnerable and open to being hurt in order to truly fall in love and to be loved and to be accepted”. For most of us,he adds,“that’s a scary concept”.
In a sense,Love Me is itself about to take that leap of faith,daring to get out there and mingle with everything streaming has to offer from all around the world,in the hope that it too can find the perfect match – an audience willing to love and embrace it in return.
Certainly Morley is hopeful of a fairytale ending.
“It’s one of the best things I’ve ever worked on,” he says. “And hopefully that translates to screen,and how people respond to it.”
Love Me is on Binge from December 26 (all six episodes at once).
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