Latest news with #TheFamilyNextDoor
Herald Sun
20 hours ago
- Entertainment
- Herald Sun
Sally Hepworth reveals new novel Mad Mabel ahead of ABC TV series
It started, as great thrillers often do, with a confession. 'I'm thinking of murdering my next-door neighbour,' an elderly woman told Sally Hepworth after a book event. Most might smile nervously at such a statement, possibly call security. Hepworth, of course, is not most people. 'Oh? How are you going to do it?' she asked, leaning in. 'Well,' the woman considered, 'I don't know how I'm going to do it, but I know that I'm going to get away with it.' That moment of mutual mischief gave rise to Mad Mabel, Hepworth's 10th and perhaps most deliciously dark novel to date. It centres on an 81-year-old woman with a shadowy past, a new friendship with the seven-year-old across the street and a decades-old question: Did a young Mabel commit murder? The book, her first new release in two years, lands September 30 – just as another of Hepworth's creations makes its way from bookshelf to screen. The Family Next Door, her 2018 novel and the first to be set in her hometown of Melbourne, has been adapted into a six-part ABC series premiering August 10. It's a female-led production starring Teresa Palmer, Bella Heathcote and Philippa Northeast, directed by The Newsreader's Emma Freeman and adapted by Strife's Sarah Scheller. Since taking up writing during maternity leave, Hepworth has published almost a book a year since 2014, selling more than two million copies worldwide. Four have been optioned for the screen, including The Soulmate, which is now being adapted for TV by Bruna Papandrea's Made Up Stories (Nine Perfect Strangers) alongside Offspring creator and producer Imogen Banks and actor and producer Asher Keddie. But it's the VicScreen-backed ABC adaptation of The Family Next Door that's made it across the finish line first. While Hepworth isn't quitting her day job to join the Hollywood machine, she is one of the show's executive producers. 'I'm just glad that I got to have a seat at the table,' she says. 'Books are finite and there often is more that I would add … and I love the idea that the story will grow and continue to breathe.' Still, as excited as she is to see her stories come to life on screen, Hepworth's mind is elsewhere – whirring around in the next world she's creating. 'It feels bizarre,' she says of her success, dialling in from her Melbourne home. 'I'm a homebody … I'm so thrilled to have had the success that I have. Reading and writing has always been my great love and so it means a lot to me, but my focus has always been on the work and so my mind's always on the next book. 'I'm always carrying it in my head.' Hepworth's brand of twisty, tender, often wickedly funny domestic thrillers has captured imaginations across the world, earning her a spot on the New York Times bestseller list. Her novels – translated into 25 languages – unpack the secrets behind manicured hedges and happy family facades. In fact, 'domestic thriller' has never quite cut it as her genre. 'Family dysfunctionality with a side serve of murder,' Hepworth offers as a substitute. 'I'm still waiting for a bookstore to create a section.' Comparisons to fellow Aussie bestseller Liane Moriarty abound (and are well earned), but Hepworth's voice is distinctly her own – observant, disarming and comic. It was, however, the success of authors such as Moriarty and Jane Harper that allowed Hepworth to set her recent novels in Australia. Her first three were relocated to the US to appease publishers. By 2018, she finally got the nod to set The Family Next Door – almost literally – in her own back yard in Melbourne's bayside, where she lived at the time. 'Liane Moriarty, Jane Harper had really paved the way for that and it really showed, which is what I believed the whole time, that American readers could cope with an Australian setting and that, in fact, it might be an additional thing that they like about the book,' she says, having set all her subsequent books in Australia. 'It's a huge relief and a joy to write my books in the setting that I've grown up in and live in now.' She does often have to reassure her neighbours, and the mums at school pick up, that they won't end up with their secrets spilled in her pages. 'No one in real life – and no offence is meant by this – is interesting enough,' she grins. Instead, her inspiration is simply women. 'I adore men and have lots of men in my life, but my life is for women,' she adds. 'My lifelong friendships are with women, I'm inspired by women, I hope to inspire women, and I feel like it's women that I'm meant to write about.' At this, Hepworth shares a recent text exchange from her group chat: one friend admits her kids had cereal for dinner, another replies, 'Well my kids had chicken nuggets', and a third chimes in wryly, 'You give your kids dinner?' 'I look at what women are struggling with, the funny things that I hear in circles and the things that I struggle with,' she continues. 'I had a marriage breakdown the last couple of years and that's taught me such a lot about myself and all of that … is woven into the fabric of these characters.' Hepworth is a single mother to three kids – aged 16, 13 and eight – and sees the spark of storytelling in her youngest. She was the youngest of three herself, growing up with two older brothers and a vivid imagination. Though she began writing during maternity leave from a corporate career in HR – 'probably a bit brave as a first-time mother' she laughs – she hasn't looked back. 'Some people say, 'Do you treat it like a job?' And that always makes me laugh because it's a bit like saying to a dentist, 'Do you treat that like your job?'' she laughs. 'It's my only job. I'm a single mum and I support my family by this job.' She writes every weekday during school hours – these days, mostly from her couch. 'It's quite unromantic like that,' she continues. 'It's not wait for the muse to strike. I sit down and the muse just has to show up because that's my job, and it does.' Of course it wasn't an overnight success. 'It just made sense to me to give it a go, and I loved it,' she reflects. 'And I want to be clear, the first book I wrote was utter garbage and I then went and wrote a second book – even worse. But it was that moment in time and sometimes maternity leave can be that for people or if they step away from a job … a pondering of what I want to do and what brings me joy, and that was how I found this career and I'm lucky that it worked out.' The Family Next Door, the book-turned-series, is set in fictional cul-de-sac Pleasant Court – an ironically titled strip of suburbia where neighbours seem friendly but rarely cross the threshold of the welcome mat. Hepworth, by her own admission, is the nosy Mrs Mangel of her street – a nod to the Neighbours character – and her idea came while watching real-life neighbours from her home office window. 'I'd see the neighbours having a conversation, or the man next door wheeling his bins out, and I would start to think, 'Imagine if he had a dead body in that bin?'' she says. 'Whenever there's a big crime that happens in suburbia, everyone always says, ' … he was such a nice man'. You never see them say ' … you could tell he was going to have a woman in the basement'. And I thought, that would not happen in my street; I would know.' The story is about motherhood, identity and the pressure to be perfect. It follows several women whose carefully constructed family lives start to unravel, exposing personal struggles, infidelity and long-buried traumas. 'What do we know about our neighbours? What are they hiding? And then inevitably my books will come back to why are they hiding it?' Hepworth continues. 'I hope readers can connect to the why – what would cause someone to do this?' While she takes the storylines to extreme conclusions, they always start from that familiar niggling – the what if? 'Taking that little familiar feeling all the way to the end. If I really leaned into that feeling of jealousy, would I end up killing my husband?' she adds. 'It's quite fun to explore that in the safety of a book where you don't have to go to jail.' The TV adaptation twists and expands the world of Pleasant Court and brings in new characters – including Lulu and Holly, a same-sex couple raising a child. Hepworth embraced the changes, delighted to hand over the story to an all-female team. 'I was so thrilled with the team that in the early stages of it, I said to them please don't be afraid to change it,' she explains. 'This is a different medium for storytelling … so changes were not a fear of mine. The story's the same – and by that I mean the story of motherhood, that desperation for motherhood. 'I did give notes along the way, and I was encouraged to … In fact, my only specification at the start was that I wanted Sarah to take all the good things and then make it better. I said, 'Make me look good'. And I think she did that.' Even the setting remained faithful. Hepworth's cameo (a blink-and-you'll-miss-it moment) was filmed in her favourite local cafe near Half Moon Bay, just around the corner from the house where she wrote the book. Much to her delight, Bayside locals were on to the shoot long before it was public knowledge. The Bayside Community Hub – a 'wonderful Facebook group of Mrs Mangels' – was abuzz with rumours about filming and inside tips about the Sally Hepworth book being made into a series. 'I thought, these guys would know if there was a body in the basement,' Hepworth grins. Which brings us back to Mad Mabel, the novel inspired by the intriguing woman at the book event who insisted she would get away with murder. 'Because there are two groups of people that are never suspected of murder and one group is old ladies and the other is little girls,' the woman explained. 'I thought, my God that is the truest thing I've ever heard and that's what my next book is about,' Hepworth says. Two years of ruminating later and the possibility of murder is once again a side serve to richer themes of loneliness, friendship and, of course, women. 'It's my favourite book that I have written,' she says, catching herself. 'I know people say that every time, but I'm really excited about it.' Despite all the acclaim, Hepworth keeps her head down. She's grateful for the advocates fighting the big battles in the creative industries – such as the threat of AI – but her focus remains, as it always has, on the next story to tell. 'I keep my eye on the work and that can be selfish at times,' she says. 'The industry will change and there's no question we have to change with it but, for me, I'm a single mum – I just have to keep hustling.' And if you're wondering whether that elderly fan went through with her plan to murder her neighbour? 'Well, she'll never get caught,' Hepworth grins, her ever-reliable muse having shown up once again. 'I'm not giving her up.' The Family Next Door premieres Sunday August 10 at 8pm on ABC TV & ABC iview. Mad Mabel is out September 30 through Pan Macmillan, $35 Originally published as 'My life is for women': Bestselling author on female friends and her marriage breakdown
Sydney Morning Herald
4 days ago
- Entertainment
- Sydney Morning Herald
Perfect on the outside, chaos within: Teresa Palmer taps her heart of darkness in ABC drama
Teresa Palmer is heavily pregnant with her fifth child and positively glowing (as usual) when she joins me to talk about her role in The Family Next Door, a six-part ABC drama series in which she plays a woman who moves into a quiet suburban cul de sac near the beach and rapidly proceeds to blow it all apart. 'At its core, The Family Next Door is about the tension that exists between perception and truth,' says Palmer, who plays Isabelle, a woman who arrives in Pleasant Court claiming to be a journalist looking to write a travel piece, but whose real reason for being there will wreak havoc on the tight-knit community. 'All these people in this cul-de-sac have crafted these perfect little lives on the outside, but on the inside they're dealing with trauma and chaos and shame and longing. The series peels back that glossy facade, and it's very revealing, which is wonderful.' Isabelle is not an especially likeable character, though. She lies and steals and hides her true motives. She stomps around, emanates rage even when she's eating her food or drinking a beer, and immerses herself in ice baths any time it all threatens to become too much (which is often). 'I think there's a self-centeredness about Isabelle,' she says of her character, whom she describes as a disruptor. 'She has such a mission that she's eagle-eyed focused on, and it doesn't matter the ruin that is left in its wake – she is chasing something with this reckless abandon, and it's not necessarily the best thing for everyone.' Based on a novel by Sally Hepworth, the series has been adapted by Sarah Scheller (The Letdown, Strife) and is directed by Emma Freeman (The Newsreader, Fake). And while it has distinct echoes of the work of Liane Moriarty – whose Big Little Lies, Nine Perfect Strangers and Apples Never Fall have been so successfully adapted for screen in recent years – there's a pleasing and more grounded nuance to the way the characters and relationships are portrayed. Bella Heathcote plays Ange, the real estate agent with ambitions to become a developer and transform the sleepy seaside town. She leases the short-term rental to Isabelle, lives next door, frantically curates a perfect version of what she wants life to be, and hovers over the cul-de-sac like something between a guardian angel and a tyrant. Her husband is Lucas (Bob Morley), a handsome photographer-surfer-layabout, who may or may not be having an affair. Lawyer Fran (Ming-Zhu Hill) is married to Nigel (Daniel Henshall), a depressed and lethargic PhD candidate. Lulu (Jane Harber) and Holly (Maria Angelico) run a vegan cafe. Essie (Philippa Northeast) is struggling with post-natal depression and exhaustion after the birth of her second child, and with the fact she and husband Ben (Tane Williams-Accra) are so broke they've had to move back in with her mother, Barbara (Catherine McClements). Loading Everyone's kids, meanwhile, run from yard to yard on ad hoc play dates, while the parents take every opportunity for impromptu drinks on deck chairs as the summer heat bakes the bitumen and sprinklers sprinkle. It's Neighbours meets Home and Away, with a dash of something much darker – the Australian dream teetering on the brink of a nightmare. 'There are cracks beneath the surface for all these people, and Isabelle's presence is the breakdown to break through,' says Palmer. 'I mean, there's absolutely no sustainability in living this veneered life without actually getting under the surface, so I think my character is necessary for the growth of everyone.' Not that she's judging. 'I actually feel like I identify with all of them,' says Palmer. 'There's little pieces of each one of these women that I can relate to.' Relatability is Palmer's secret sauce. Though she's been working steadily as an actress since 2006, the 39-year-old has also built a parallel identity as a blogger, podcaster and social media personality with a focus on wellness and motherhood. In January, she and her partner (American actor/filmmaker Mark Webber) and their kids (her boys are eight and 11, her girls are four and six) relocated to Byron Bay. Loading 'We've always split our time between Los Angeles and Adelaide,' she says. 'That was always the back and forth, and also wherever I'm filming – we would all just move to the location. But I was like, 'All right, let's get pregnant and go to Byron Bay, put the kids in school and buy a house.' And that's what we've done.' Byron seems the perfect backdrop for the yummy mummy persona Palmer projects in her web presence. And by her own reckoning, it's not just a projection. 'I have this joy-filled life, my dream life,' she says, and somehow it doesn't come across as boastful. But her choice of screen roles couldn't make for a starker contrast. Isabelle is a dark character full of rage, fuelled by trauma in her past. In the Disney+ series The Clearing, loosely based on the true story of Melbourne cult The Family, she was an adult wrestling with the complex relationship with the 'mother' (Miranda Otto) who had abducted her as a young child. She has, in fact, been drawn to dark roles since the very start of her career, having made her debut in 2:37, a film about a suicide at an Adelaide high school. 'I am drawn to these darker characters who have an evolution from the start to the end,' she says. 'In The Clearing, my character was a broken flower, a little bit lost. But in this, there's such a drive in Isabelle. It's unrelenting, and then there's an aggressiveness to the character, which is really exciting to explore. 'I really love that trauma shows up and manifests itself in different behaviours. There's no right way to deal with trauma. Everyone handles it differently.' On the surface, it would appear there's not a lot of trauma in her life. So what does she draw on for these roles? 'It's funny, I always try to derive from my own past experiences,' she says. 'Of course, I have little traumas and things I went through that were not necessarily easy in my life. Me and my mum growing up together, just her and I, and her having schizo-affective disorder, it wasn't easy. But I still had the best childhood. All I knew was love. And these characters don't have that. 'And even though my childhood looked different from some of the other kids I went to school with, I had the best relationship with my mum, and I had all these wonderful childhood experiences where I just got to have this really playful, awesome mum who kind of let me get away with anything, and it was epic. I wouldn't change anything. But obviously, there's untapped feelings that I can draw upon in these roles.' Loading Playing the darkness is what she excels at, she feels. 'I find a simpler character much harder to portray. Comedy would be harder for me. But the dark, traumatic roles, I find that much easier to tap into, for whatever reason. And also it reflects something real: the inner chaos and trauma and grief and rage and all those things. People are told to keep things neat and quiet, but I like emotional mess and telling that story.' On the screen, you mean, or in real life, too? 'On screen, on screen,' she says urgently. 'It represents real experiences, but I would like to not have that bleed over into my life.' The Family Next Door premieres 8pm, August 10, on the ABC.
The Age
4 days ago
- Entertainment
- The Age
Perfect on the outside, chaos within: Teresa Palmer taps her heart of darkness in ABC drama
Teresa Palmer is heavily pregnant with her fifth child and positively glowing (as usual) when she joins me to talk about her role in The Family Next Door, a six-part ABC drama series in which she plays a woman who moves into a quiet suburban cul de sac near the beach and rapidly proceeds to blow it all apart. 'At its core, The Family Next Door is about the tension that exists between perception and truth,' says Palmer, who plays Isabelle, a woman who arrives in Pleasant Court claiming to be a journalist looking to write a travel piece, but whose real reason for being there will wreak havoc on the tight-knit community. 'All these people in this cul-de-sac have crafted these perfect little lives on the outside, but on the inside they're dealing with trauma and chaos and shame and longing. The series peels back that glossy facade, and it's very revealing, which is wonderful.' Isabelle is not an especially likeable character, though. She lies and steals and hides her true motives. She stomps around, emanates rage even when she's eating her food or drinking a beer, and immerses herself in ice baths any time it all threatens to become too much (which is often). 'I think there's a self-centeredness about Isabelle,' she says of her character, whom she describes as a disruptor. 'She has such a mission that she's eagle-eyed focused on, and it doesn't matter the ruin that is left in its wake – she is chasing something with this reckless abandon, and it's not necessarily the best thing for everyone.' Based on a novel by Sally Hepworth, the series has been adapted by Sarah Scheller (The Letdown, Strife) and is directed by Emma Freeman (The Newsreader, Fake). And while it has distinct echoes of the work of Liane Moriarty – whose Big Little Lies, Nine Perfect Strangers and Apples Never Fall have been so successfully adapted for screen in recent years – there's a pleasing and more grounded nuance to the way the characters and relationships are portrayed. Bella Heathcote plays Ange, the real estate agent with ambitions to become a developer and transform the sleepy seaside town. She leases the short-term rental to Isabelle, lives next door, frantically curates a perfect version of what she wants life to be, and hovers over the cul-de-sac like something between a guardian angel and a tyrant. Her husband is Lucas (Bob Morley), a handsome photographer-surfer-layabout, who may or may not be having an affair. Lawyer Fran (Ming-Zhu Hill) is married to Nigel (Daniel Henshall), a depressed and lethargic PhD candidate. Lulu (Jane Harber) and Holly (Maria Angelico) run a vegan cafe. Essie (Philippa Northeast) is struggling with post-natal depression and exhaustion after the birth of her second child, and with the fact she and husband Ben (Tane Williams-Accra) are so broke they've had to move back in with her mother, Barbara (Catherine McClements). Loading Everyone's kids, meanwhile, run from yard to yard on ad hoc play dates, while the parents take every opportunity for impromptu drinks on deck chairs as the summer heat bakes the bitumen and sprinklers sprinkle. It's Neighbours meets Home and Away, with a dash of something much darker – the Australian dream teetering on the brink of a nightmare. 'There are cracks beneath the surface for all these people, and Isabelle's presence is the breakdown to break through,' says Palmer. 'I mean, there's absolutely no sustainability in living this veneered life without actually getting under the surface, so I think my character is necessary for the growth of everyone.' Not that she's judging. 'I actually feel like I identify with all of them,' says Palmer. 'There's little pieces of each one of these women that I can relate to.' Relatability is Palmer's secret sauce. Though she's been working steadily as an actress since 2006, the 39-year-old has also built a parallel identity as a blogger, podcaster and social media personality with a focus on wellness and motherhood. In January, she and her partner (American actor/filmmaker Mark Webber) and their kids (her boys are eight and 11, her girls are four and six) relocated to Byron Bay. Loading 'We've always split our time between Los Angeles and Adelaide,' she says. 'That was always the back and forth, and also wherever I'm filming – we would all just move to the location. But I was like, 'All right, let's get pregnant and go to Byron Bay, put the kids in school and buy a house.' And that's what we've done.' Byron seems the perfect backdrop for the yummy mummy persona Palmer projects in her web presence. And by her own reckoning, it's not just a projection. 'I have this joy-filled life, my dream life,' she says, and somehow it doesn't come across as boastful. But her choice of screen roles couldn't make for a starker contrast. Isabelle is a dark character full of rage, fuelled by trauma in her past. In the Disney+ series The Clearing, loosely based on the true story of Melbourne cult The Family, she was an adult wrestling with the complex relationship with the 'mother' (Miranda Otto) who had abducted her as a young child. She has, in fact, been drawn to dark roles since the very start of her career, having made her debut in 2:37, a film about a suicide at an Adelaide high school. 'I am drawn to these darker characters who have an evolution from the start to the end,' she says. 'In The Clearing, my character was a broken flower, a little bit lost. But in this, there's such a drive in Isabelle. It's unrelenting, and then there's an aggressiveness to the character, which is really exciting to explore. 'I really love that trauma shows up and manifests itself in different behaviours. There's no right way to deal with trauma. Everyone handles it differently.' On the surface, it would appear there's not a lot of trauma in her life. So what does she draw on for these roles? 'It's funny, I always try to derive from my own past experiences,' she says. 'Of course, I have little traumas and things I went through that were not necessarily easy in my life. Me and my mum growing up together, just her and I, and her having schizo-affective disorder, it wasn't easy. But I still had the best childhood. All I knew was love. And these characters don't have that. 'And even though my childhood looked different from some of the other kids I went to school with, I had the best relationship with my mum, and I had all these wonderful childhood experiences where I just got to have this really playful, awesome mum who kind of let me get away with anything, and it was epic. I wouldn't change anything. But obviously, there's untapped feelings that I can draw upon in these roles.' Loading Playing the darkness is what she excels at, she feels. 'I find a simpler character much harder to portray. Comedy would be harder for me. But the dark, traumatic roles, I find that much easier to tap into, for whatever reason. And also it reflects something real: the inner chaos and trauma and grief and rage and all those things. People are told to keep things neat and quiet, but I like emotional mess and telling that story.' On the screen, you mean, or in real life, too? 'On screen, on screen,' she says urgently. 'It represents real experiences, but I would like to not have that bleed over into my life.' The Family Next Door premieres 8pm, August 10, on the ABC.
Express Tribune
27-02-2025
- Entertainment
- Express Tribune
Teresa Palmer and Liam Neeson set to star in a new dark comedy '4 Kids Walk Into A Bank'
Teresa Palmer has joined the cast of 4 Kids Walk Into A Bank, a dark comedy directed by Frankie Shaw for Amazon MGM's Orion label. The film, which began production in December in Ireland, also stars Liam Neeson, Talia Ryder, Whitney Peak, Jack Dylan Grazer, and others. Neeson plays Danny, a retired bank robber whose teenage granddaughter, Paige (Ryder), overhears that his former gang wants him back for one final heist to settle a debt. In a bid to protect him, Paige recruits her three best friends to rob the bank a day earlier, setting off a chaotic series of events. Palmer portrays the bank manager and becomes romantically involved with one of the robbers. The film is based on the graphic novel by Matthew Rosenberg and Tyler Boss, and is adapted by Matt Robinson. Production companies involved in the project include Picturestart, Miramax, Point Grey, Black Mask Studios, and Uncle Pete Productions, with FilmNation handling international sales. Palmer, known for her roles in Warm Bodies and A Discovery of Witches, has been busy with several other upcoming projects aswell. She also recently joined the Russell Crowe action film Bear Country and will star in the drama series The Family Next Door and The Last Anniversary. Additionally, she appeared in the rom-com Addition, which premiered at TIFF, and in David Leitch's The Fall Guy. Palmer is represented by CAA, Entertainment 360, Shanahan Management, and Sloane Offer Weber & Dern.
