New Australian show Offspring takes an off-centre look at the life of a Melbourne obstetrician. Leading lady Asher Keddie talks to Scott Kara.
It takes a little while to warm to Nina Proudman, the caring and strong yet outrageously neurotic obstetrician in new comedy-drama series Offspring.
At first you may wonder what the hell the woman is on. You could even find yourself wanting to give her a good shake when she's muttering away to herself in her manic fantasy world.
And actress Asher Keddie, who plays Nina, knows all this. But it didn't stop her falling in love with this character who starts off irritating and then, ever so slowly, becomes quite endearing.
"Nina is not entirely palatable. She must be quite frustrating to watch some of the time," laughs Keddie who is probably best known in New Zealand as police officer Liz Cruickshank in Underbelly: A Tale of Two Cities. "But I never judged her like that. I just fell in love with her and I didn't find it that hard because I knew where the journey was going to go and you see her evolve throughout the series."
As well as Nina taking some getting used to, the show, which starts on TV One on Sunday at 8.30pm with a two-hour pilot, also takes some adjusting to. It's got the eccentricities of Scrubs, the family dynamic of Packed to the Rafters, and an Ally McBeal-in-a-Melbourne-hospital feel to it which makes for funny and unique viewing.
It revolves around Nina's life and her relationship with her high-maintenance family, friends and work colleagues - and to complicate things she's also being stalked by ex-husband Brendan (who happens to be an explosions expert) and has eyes for hunky new doctor Chris.
"It perhaps isn't quite as easy to embrace as a lot of the Australian dramas that we've produced in the last 10 years. But I liked that it was a little challenging and a little off-centre and not quite as digestible. That attracted me," she says.
"[Offspring] is about putting something on screen where we weren't apologising constantly, or making pretty. Families are shambolic and messy but they are also really funny.
"You know, everyone comes at life in a similar but slightly different way and I think the characters they've put together form a pretty shambolic and crazy dynamic that I really like."
While Offspring is over the top, much of what goes on is still believable, but as an actor it's often a fine line to tread, says Keddie.
"Because it's so heightened with the fantasies and all that, and Nina's imagination is her self-reflection really, I thought that side could be something that would be really entertaining but also quite easy for people to relate to. But sometimes we pull it back because we've pushed it too far and it's not believable, but without taking the humour or the ludicrous situation out of it."
Like when she fantasises about Tasering her grumpy boss; or luring her ex-husband out of hiding ("Come on Brendan, don't be late for your own ambush"); and, best of all, when she is asked to go starkers for an upcoming birth because the parents insist everyone in the delivery room is naked ("I'm a doctor not a stripper," she protests).
"I loved shooting that," she says of the latter, "and I think that's when I tapped into feeling pretty excited by the physical comedy and the lack of words I had to use [in the show]. Clearly Nina over-thinks, but because she doesn't talk a lot I really enjoy that there are not a lot of words on the page and a lot of it is physical for me."
The comedic side of the role was also something new for Keddie - whose parts to date have predominantly been heavy and dramatic - even though she admits to being "a bit of a goof" in real life.
Her take on Nina was to play a character who was both vulnerable, relatable, and at times confronting.
"That's the sort of person I think is really interesting," she says. "You do see her unravel. She's been the golden girl all her life, but she's hit that point in life where she doesn't believe she can live up to it. She's in her early 30s and she's very much alone. But when the other pressures in her life push her right to the edge it always comes back to the birth of a baby - and that always swings her back to a position of power and inner strength."
LOWDOWN
What: Offspring
Who: Actress Asher Keddie
When: Sunday, 8.30pm, TV One (two-hour pilot); then Sundays, 9.30pm
-TimeOut
