‘It was really liberating': Bump's teen mum is all grown up in courtroom drama
Morris relished Jazmyn's storyline that delves into the darkness of fast and intense female friendships, in parallel with a fictitious 1968 double-murder cold case.
'It was really liberating,' Morris says. 'I love Oly, and I think that she's a very complicated and three-dimensional character, but she's become like second skin. Sometimes I feel like I'm not acting any more. I always joke with Claudia, 'Are we doing our job, or are we just being ourselves at this point?' So it was really great to step into a character that did feel like I was exercising some muscles. It was a very creative experience.'
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The 28-year-old actor, who in 2023 was named as an international rising star by the Casting Guild of Australia, joins a stellar cast that includes Sam Neill, reprising his role as defence lawyer Brett Colby, Danielle Cormack as the prosecutor, William Zappa as the accused, Sarah Peirse as his wife, and Eryn Jean Norvill as a recently slain true-crime author.
Among the actors playing jury members are Ewen Leslie, Paul Tassone, Phoenix Raei and Bessie Holland.
'There were really great, funny, intelligent cast members in that jury,' Morris says. 'And we spent so much time together – all of those court days. Every witness was essentially two days' filming. So if you count the number of witnesses in the show, we were in that courtroom for a month, just sitting there together, observing.'
Just like a real jury, the actors were left to crime-solve by themselves, only finding out the identity of the killer as close as possible to filming. Having never done jury duty in real life, Morris says she would one day 'love to', though she does not indulge in the popular fascination with true crime. She didn't even follow closely the recent headline-grabbing Erin Patterson mushroom murder trial.
'I'm a very sensitive person and I get quite disheartened with the media portrayal of people and the sensationalised drama of it all,' Morris says. 'But I do find it fascinating that a group of people that are randomly selected have to decide on the fate of a person or of a case … It's such an incredible idea for a show [such as The Twelve ] to centre around these people that have to come together with all of their different existing prejudices and backgrounds and hash things out. It's such an interesting way into understanding the society that we live in.'
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With New Zealand actress Hanah Tayeb, who plays more reserved jury member Gretel, with whom Jazmyn quickly forms a destructive bond, Morris enjoyed 'unpacking' their characters' intense relationship.
'I got invested in that dynamic between Gretel and Jazmyn,' she says. 'What we're exploring between with them as friends is narcissistic personality traits … In the rehearsal process, we were all sharing about different relationships that we've had or observed, and different versions of Jazmyn that we've all had in our lives, or versions of Gretel. I've definitely had people come into my life that I've really admired and been drawn to and felt like I wanted to latch on to for some sort of personal transformation. And I think I've been that for other people at different times.'
Having taken the unusual step for an aspiring Australian actor and undergone training in New Zealand, at acclaimed Wellington drama school Toi Whakaari and then getting her start on iconic Kiwi soap Shortland Street, Morris was right at home with The Twelve: Cape Rock Killer' s Kiwi cast (Neill, Peirse, Cormack).
'I loved my time at Toi, and I think that New Zealand is a really creative place, like Tasmania,' she says. 'Smaller places end up being so much more innovative because they have less money, but so much heart. I'm seeing more and more New Zealanders across a lot of different casts. Even on Bump we had Arlo Green. I think that New Zealanders are very grounded and there's a connection to culture there that is a little bit stronger than in Australia.'
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Having experienced the buzz of the writers' room when she penned an episode of Bump (the series has just wrapped its apparently final incarnation, a Christmas movie), Morris is keen to explore a holistically creative path in the industry.
'I've had a really good role model in Claudia [Karvan], in terms of how she works,' Morris says. 'Her heart and her mind are very much in the right place. In this industry, especially when you're so young, it's such a big world, and you come out of school, and you really have no idea … I've learnt the things that I want to prioritise, and the way I want to engage with writers and directors, and how I want to work because Bump was such a collaborative show. I like to be involved in that storytelling process. It really is where my interest lies.'
She hopes one day to collaborate with her partner, Safe Home director Stevie Cruz-Martin, who, before the couple met, directed two episodes of the second local season of The Twelve.
'Stevie's on her path at the moment, and I'm on mine, and one day we will definitely do something together. She's such a phenomenal director that I would be honoured to be directed by her. I would definitely one day love to work with her, and I think she feels the same way.'
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