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The third season of Hoodlum’s Five Bedrooms will stream on Paramount+ New Year’s Day.

Back for another eight-episodes Kat Stewart, Stephen Peacocke, Doris Younane, Roy Joseph, Katie Robertson and Johnny Carr.

This season, they navigate their way through the perils and pleasures of not only co-housing, but turning said house into a bed and breakfast.

Plus, there are now two couples living under one roof, a garden-variety blindside betrayal, a brave new sexual journey, an unexpected parenting proposal, plus one-and-a-half unexpected marriage proposals.

Five Bedrooms is created by Michael Lucas and Christine Bartlett, who wrote the third iteration with Alisha Hnatjuk and Mithila Gupta.

The set-up director is Peter Templeman, alongside Fiona Banks and Craig Irvin.

Andy Walker is the producer, with executive producers Nathan Mayfield and Tracey Robertson.

The third season has been developed and produced with support from Film Victoria, and assistance from Screen Australia.

The...

Your favorite Aussie singles are back.  Season two of Peacock's dramedy Five Bedrooms returns Thursday, Aug. 19 and E! News has an exclusive first look at the adorable new character portraits featuring co-stars Kat Stewart, Doris Younane, Stephen Peacocke, Katie Robertson and Roy Joseph. So what does the sophomore season have in store for these five friends who moved in together after drunkenly meeting at a wedding? Well, let's just say they're moving. "After losing their first communal home at an auction, season two finds this one-of-a-kind family house hunting once again, believing they have prevailed as a unique collective," reads the Peacock description....

The second season of Hoodlum Entertainment’s Five Bedrooms was among the key launch titles for Paramount+ as it went live in Australia yesterday. The streamer seems assured of its continued success, with production already underway on a third in Melbourne.

Key cast Kat Stewart, Stephen Peacocke, Doris Younane, Roy Joseph and Katie Robertson will all return as flawed, disparate housemates. No plot details have been revealed as yet.

Five Bedrooms is created by Michael Lucas and Christine Bartlett, who script the third iteration with Alisha Hnatjuk and Mithila Gupta.

The set-up director is once again Peter Templeman, alongside Fiona Banks and Craig Irvin.

Andy Walker is the producer, with executive producers Nathan Mayfield and Tracey Robertson.

Lucas said: “We are so ridiculously invested in these five characters, we simply can’t stop imagining funny, fraught, tragic, joyful situations to put them in. So, we are beyond delighted that we...

The second season of Hoodlum Entertainment’s Five Bedrooms will premiere on Paramount+ August 11 as the streaming service launches in Australia.

Kat Stewart, Stephen Peacocke, Doris Younane, Katie Robertson, Roy Joseph, Kate Jenkinson and Hugh Sheridan return, joined by new faces Daniel Lapaine and Josh McKenzie.

The second instalment sees a new home. A DIY renovation. A DIY renovation injury. Two pregnancies. An ex-husband. A workplace bullying complaint. An unexpected tragedy. Love found and love lost.

Five Bedrooms is created by Michael Lucas and Christine Bartlett. Andy Walker is the series producer and the scripts are by Lucas, Bartlett, Mithila Gupta and Xavier Coy.

Peter Templeman is the set-up director, working with Fadia Abboud and Shirley Barrett.

Five Bedrooms is supported by Screen Australia and Film Victoria.

The post ‘Five Bedrooms’ (Season 2 Trailer) appeared first on If Magazine.

The second season of Hoodlum Entertainment’s Five Bedrooms will premiere exclusively on Paramount+ when it launches in Australia August 11, with the ViacomCBS streamer also announcing three new local productions today.

They include comedy Spreadsheet, drama Last King of the Cross and feature film 6 Festivals, each of which is expected to commence production soon.

Paramount+, a rebrand of 10 All Access, will have a have starting subscription price of $8.99 per month, cheaper than competitors Netflix, Stan, Disney+ and Binge.

The content line-up includes series and films such as The First Lady, Dexter, The Luminaries, The Harper House, The Man Who Fell To Earth, The Gilded Age, Yellow Jackets, Coyote, Mayor of Kingston, Everyone is Doing Great, Spy City, Anne Boleyn, Leonardo, The Godfather, Mission: Impossible and Paw Patrol.

Other exclusive titles include Lioness, Halo, The Offer, Y:1883, Flatbush Misdemeanors, Stephen, Crossing Swords, Help, No Return, Line In The Sand and Ripley and documentaries,...

The second season of Sarah Kendall’s comedy Frayed is currently filming in Sydney for the ABC/Sky Studios UK, with Hamish Michael, Jane Hall and Emma Harvie joining the regular cast.

The next instalment will find Sammy (Kendall) and her kids, having made it out of Australia, living in a tiny London flat while she frantically tries to prove that her lawyer, Rufus (Robert Webb), stole her house. Barely able to make ends meet working in ‘exhaust management’ (she’s a secretary in a muffler repair shop), Sammy is desperate to find a way to reclaim her opulent London life. She must also keep her kids far away from Australia and the truth about what happened to their neighbour.

Meanwhile back down under in Newcastle, an ambitious cop heads up the missing persons case and simply does not believe Sammy’s neighbour would just disappear.

With Jim (Ben Mingay...

Netflix has commissioned a reboot of beloved ’90s teen drama Heartbreak High, to be produced by Fremantle Australia and Dutch production company NewBe.

The eight-part series, to shoot in Sydney with the support of Screen Nsw, will be inspired by the original but reimagined for today.

NewBe started shopping a contemporary remake at MIPCOM last year, after acquiring the rights from Brian Abel, partner of the late Ben Gannon, who created and produced the original. Fremantle was understood to be involved in March.

Production is expected to begin next year, with the show to premiere globally on the streamer in 2022. Fremantle Asia Pacific CEO Chris Oliver-Taylor and creative director, scripted content Carly Heaton will be the EPs, together with NewBe founder and CEO Jeroen Koopman and Tarik Traidia. Abel and Michael Jenkins, one of the original EPs, will be consultants on the series.

Set in Sydney’s fictional Hartley High School,...

Shannon Murphy’s feature debut Babyteeth leads the early Aacta Awards race, scoring nods in 12 out of 13 film categories, while Mystery Road and Stateless are ahead in television.

The Australian Academy revealed the first round of nominees for the annual awards over the weekend, to be presented across two ‘reimagined’ events later this month.

Television and documentary craft nominations, visual effects and animation, casting, hair and make-up and subscription television presenter categories are yet to be announced, expected on November 12.

Despite the disrupted year for film, some 19 narrative features are nominated so far.

However, six dominate alongside the aforementioned Babyteeth: Justin Kurzel’s True History of the Kelly Gang, with 10 nominations, John Sheedy’s H is for Happiness with nine, Leigh Whannell’s The Invisible Man and Unjoo Moon’s I Am Woman close behind with eight and seven nominations respectively, and Natalie Erika James’ Relic with five. Each will...

Five strangers move in together…what could go wrong? That's the plot of the new Peacock original series Five Bedrooms. The show, which launches on NBCU's streaming service today (Aug. 13), follows the story of five Australian singles who get tipsy at a wedding together and decide to pool their money to buy a house they otherwise couldn't afford individually. While the premise sounds like a catalyst for lots of laughs, the show's stars Kat Stewart, Doris Younane, Katie Robertson, Roy Joseph and Hugh Sheridan promise lots of heartwarming moments too. "It not a straight comedy and it's not a straight drama. To me, it's rooted in...

The streaming service field is becoming more fractured, as more and more media companies break from Netflix, Amazon Prime, and Hulu in favor of creating their own streaming services. NBCUniversal—the Comcast Corp. division that owns NBC, MSNBC, USA, and the Universal Pictures movie studio—is next up with new streaming service Peacock.

Peacock will feature content from NBC, Bravo, USA Network, Syfy, Oxygen, E!, CNBC, MSNBC, Nbcsn, Golf Channel, Universal Kids, A&e, ABC, CBS, The CW, Fox, History, Nickelodeon, Showtime, Universal Pictures, DreamWorks, Focus Features, Illumination, ViacomCBS, Paramount, Lionsgate, Warner Bros., and Blumhouse.

Here’s what we know:

Peacock Release Date

Peacock was made available to Comcast’s Xfinity X1 platform subscribers on April 15, 2020. The service will officially roll out to the rest of the country on July 15, 2020. NBCUniversal has plans for an international release of the service but no timeframe has been announced yet.

Peacock Price

What is Peacock going to cost?...

The wait is almost over, “A.P. Bio” fans. On Tuesday, Peacock, NBCUniversal’s new streaming service, revealed the premiere date for Season 3 of the Glenn Howerton-led comedy, which was originally canceled at NBC last May and then picked up by Peacock the following month.

The third season of “A.P. Bio” will launch Sept. 3 on Peacock, according to the streaming service, which rolls out nationwide Wednesday. Other upcoming Peacock original series that received debut dates from the platform today include “Departure,” a Canadian-British drama starring Archie Panjabi and Christopher Plummer, which will premiere Sept. 17, Australian comedy “Five Bedrooms” (Aug. 13) and the Sky Studios-produced “Hitmen” (Aug. 6).

While you still have to wait a little while for these series to drop, Peacock is launching in full tomorrow with originals “Brave New World,” “The Capture,” “Intelligence,” “Psych 2: Lassie Come Home,” “Where’s Waldo?,” “Cleopatra In Space” and ”Curious George,” along with an extensive lineup of library content.

‘Measure for Measure’.

Paul Ireland’s Measure for Measure will be released in North America by Samuel Goldwyn Films, the distributor’s third Australian acquisition this year.

The contemporary drama inspired by Shakespeare’s play, starring Hugo Weaving, Harrison Gilbertson, Megan Smart, Fayssal Bazzi, Mark Leonard Winter, Daniel Henshall, John Brumpton and Doris Younane, will go out on digital platforms on September 4.

Umbrella Films, which had planned a theatrical release in May that was scuttled after cinemas shuttered, will open the film on September 3.

Scripted by Ireland and the late Damian Hill, the plot follows the love affair between a modern Muslim girl and a local musician against the background of racial tension and gang culture in a notorious housing estate in Melbourne. Thea McLeod was the casting director

“In the current racial climate the world finds Itself, Measure for Measure becomes even more relevant to a society reaching out for love and equality,...

(L-r) Katie Robertson, Doris Younane, Stephen Peacocke, Kat Stewart and Roy Joseph pre-pandemic.

Hoodlum Entertainment will resume filming the second season of Network 10’s Five Bedrooms in Melbourne on Friday, three months after production was forced to shut down.

The producers are adhering to the Covid-Safe Guidelines developed by the Australian Screen Sector Task Force, supplemented with individual safety plans for department heads.

“Scripts are tweaked, hand santizer is stocked and our amazing cast is ready to walk back into scenes they began three months ago,” Michael Lucas, who co-created the show with Christine Bartlett, Tweeted on Sunday. “Trust me it’ll be seamless…”

Filming of episodes 5 and 6 was more than half way through when production paused, with episodes 7 and 8 to follow.

Doris Younane, who plays the lusty Heather, and her husband Billy lived in the Five Bedrooms house during the hiatus.

Younane, who has since moved to an apartment with Billy,...

First Ad Jeremy Grogan, Dop Martin McGrath and camera operator Nicolas Owens on the ‘Wakefield’ set (Photo: Lisa Tomasetti).

The Australian TV drama production sector has virtually ground to a halt with multiple shows suspending shooting last Friday.

Jungle Entertainment and BBC Studios shut down the ABC-commissioned Wakefield, the eight-episode drama set in a Blue Mountains psychiatric hospital.

“The limitations we’ve put on our incredible cast and crew over the last two weeks have made shooting more and more difficult and it is now logistically impossible and unsafe to continue,” Jungle CEO Jason Burrows tells If.

“We’re lucky to have partners in the ABC, Screen Australia, Screen Nsw and BBC Studios who have been very supportive. I just hope the government will provide some financial relief to those in need in our team, and the wider industry, while they are out of work.”

Hoodlum Entertainment called a halt...

‘Five Bedrooms.’

BBC One has acquired both series of Hoodlum Entertainment/Network 10’s Five Bedrooms from NBCUniversal Global Distribution.

It’s the second major deal for the Michael Lucas and Christine Bartlett-created relationships dramedy, which launches in the Us on NBCU’s streaming service Peacock in April.

The first series will premiere on BBC’s main channel in a daytime slot soon.

Now shooting, the second season again stars Kat Stewart, Stephen Peacocke, Doris Younane, Katie Robertson, Roy Joseph, Kate Jenkinson and Hugh Sheridan, with Andy Walker as series producer.

The new faces are Daniel Lapaine as Joseph, brother of Peacocke’s Ben, and Josh McKenzie as Xavier, a potential love interest for Joseph’s Harry. Screen Australia and Film Victoria are co-funding with 10.

Directors Fadia Abboud and Shirley Barrett joined set-up director Peter Templeman. Emerging writer Xavier Coy is the new addition to the writing team alongside Lucas,...

Exclusive: BBC One has secured the keys to Australian drama Five Bedrooms from NBCUniversal Global Distribution.

The British public broadcaster becomes the latest international network to pick up the series, which will launch on NBCU’s streaming service Peacock in the U.S. in April. The show is set to launch on BBC’s main channel in a daytime slot soon.

The eight-part series is produced by Hoodlum Entertainment, the Tracey Robertson and Nathan Mayfield-run company behind ABC Studios International’s crime drama Harrow, with production investment from Screen Australia and developed and produced with the assistance of Film Victoria. international sales are being handled by NBCUniversal Global Distribution on behalf of Sky Studios.

Originally commissioned by Australia’s Network Ten, This Life-esque Five Bedrooms is the story of five loosely connected friends at the singles table at a wedding who, after too many champagnes, and wines and whiskeys and beers,...

(L-r) Katie Robertson, Doris Younane, Stephen Peacocke, Kat Stewart and Roy Joseph.

Directors Fadia Abboud and Shirley Barrett are joining set-up director Peter Templeman on the second season of Network 10/Hoodlum Entertainment’s Five Bedrooms, which is now shooting in Melbourne.

Emerging writer Xavier Coy is the new addition to the writing team, alongside the creators Michael Lucas and Christine Bartlett, while Mithila Gupta also returns.

The housemates face multiple questions in the new season, not least: After auctioning their communal home in the last episode, how quickly will they find a new abode?

How will the dynamic change with the pregnancy of Ainsley (Katie Robertson) and how will that affect the child’s father Lachlan (Hugh Sheridan)?

Will Harry (Roy Joseph) find new love with Xavier (Bad Mothers’ Josh McKenzie) and how will the arrival of Ben’s (Stephen Peacocke) brother Joseph (Daniel Lapaine), a successful international businessman,...

Stephen Peacocke, Katie Robertson, Doris Younane, Roy Joseph and Kat Stewart at a table read for series 2.

NBC’s Us streaming service Peacock has bought Hoodlum Entertainment’s Five Bedrooms just as production of the second series of the relationships dramedy gets underway for Network 10.

Peacock will start to roll out in the Us on Comcast and Flex on April 15, spanning 24 million homes, followed by a nationwide launch on July 15.

There will be three versions: free, ad-supported; a more extensive, ad-supported tier that will be free to Comcast and Cox Cable subscribers and cost $US5 a month for everyone else; and an ad-free offering for $US5 for Comcast and Cox subscribers and $US10 for everyone else.

Created by Michael Lucas and Christine Bartlett, the second series again stars Stephen Peacocke, Katie Robertson, Doris Younane, Roy Joseph and Kat Stewart.

The network is expected to announce the full cast, directors and writers later this week,...

‘Heartbreak High.’

Some 20 years after Heartbreak High ended, a contemporary remake of the popular Australian high school series is being shopped at Mipcom.

Dutch production company NewBe, which secured worldwide English-language rights to the show created by the late Ben Gannon, is seeking to partner with streaming companies on new series.

Following students at a fictional school in a tough Sydney neighbourhood, the drama launched on Network Ten in 1994 and moved to the ABC three years later, ending in 1999. More than 200 episodes were produced.

The show introduced many new or relatively fresh faces including Alex Dimitriades, Callan Mulvey, Ada Nicodemu, Doris Younane, Rebecca Smart, Tony Martin, Abi Tucker, Salvatore Coco, Kym Wilson, Scott Major and Emma Roche.

Gannon died in 2007 and rights to the series reverted to his partner Brian Abel, who will serve as a consultant on the remake alongside Michael Jenkins, who was the executive producer.

Jenkins was...

‘Frayed.’

Merman Television and Guesswork Television’s comedy Frayed created by and starring Sarah Kendall will premiere on the ABC and iview on Wednesday October 16 at 9.10 pm.

The UK-based Australian comedian plays Simone Cooper, a fabulously wealthy London housewife who in 1988 is forced to return to her Newcastle hometown after her husband has a fatal attack during sex with a prostitute.

Broke, homeless and a social outcast, back home with her children she must revisit her past and the events that led her to flee as a teenager years earlier.

The ensemble cast includes Kerry Armstrong as Simone’s mother, Ben Mingay as her brother Jim, Doris Younane as Jim’s partner Bev, Matt Passmore as Dan, Simone’s high school sweetheart whom she left behind in Newcastle 20 years earlier, Diane Morgan and Robert Webb.

Nicole O’Donohue is the producer and the directors are Jennifer Leacey and Shaun Wilson.

Ben Mingay.

When Ben Mingay awoke at 4 o’clock one morning, he checked his emails and saw he’d been sent the scripts for an ABC TV comedy drama.

The 1989-set series created by UK-based Australian comedian Sarah Kendall is set in Newcastle, which struck a chord with the Novocastrian-born actor/performer.

He started reading, laughing so loud and so often he woke up his wife, and didn’t stop until he had read all five episodes of Frayed he’d been sent.

Ben was asked to audition for the role of Jim, the brother of Kendall’s Sammy, a fabulously wealthy London housewife. Sammy is forced to forced to return to her Newcastle hometown with her two kids after her husband died while having sex with a prostitute.

He nailed the part after doing chemistry reads with Kendall, with whom he had an instant rapport (“we were riffing like...

Roy Joseph.

Roy Joseph always wanted to be an actor but he was so lacking in self-confidence he did an entertainment management course at the Jmc Academy with a view to working in the music industry.

His self-belief grew after he completed a Nida Open Actors Studio program in Melbourne so he applied to enrol at Nida. Not once, but three times, without success. He also applied to Waapa and was accepted after his second try.

Before he graduated from Waapa at the end of 2017 he was introduced to casting director Nathan Lloyd by a fellow student. That led to his first breakthrough: winning a regular role as Vijay Kapoor, CEO of Doppelganger Designs, in the Gristmill/ ABC comedy Back in Very Small Business.

Lloyd recommended to Five Bedrooms creators Michael Lucas and Christine Bartlett they hire Joseph for the role of Harry, the gay surgeon who is hiding his sexuality from his Indian mother,...

Fayssal Bazzi. (Photo: Amelia J Dowd)

Actor Fayssal Bazzi’s father is Lebanese and his mother is Syrian, so for much of his career he was determined to avoid being typecast as Arabic characters, particularly criminals and terrorists.

After scoring the lead role in Mark Grentell’s comedy-drama The Merger, he has enjoyed a higher profile and portrayed a diverse range of characters.

“I just want to play characters whose ethnicity is incidental and I’ve been lucky to be able to do that in the past few years,” he tells If.

Earlier this year he played the son-in-law of Damon Herriman’s seedy night club owner in the second season of FX/Foxtel’s Mr Inbetween, created by and starring Scott Ryan and directed by Nash Edgerton. That was his second collaboration with Herriman following Abe Forsythe’s 2015 Cronulla race riot drama Down Under.

Currently he is in Adelaide shooting Stateless,...

Doris Younane in ‘Five Bedrooms’

After years of fighting against being typecast as Lebanese or other Middle Eastern characters, actor Doris Younane is in a very happy place in her career.

She’s played a variety of characters, most of no specific ethnicity, in the past five years with recurring roles in Five Bedrooms, The Wrong Girl and Party Tricks plus guest appearances in Secret City, Harrow and Janet King.

“I just want to be seen as an actor in Australia,” she tells If. “I no longer want to be a pin-up for multiculturalism; I have passed that baton on to others. I’ve been really lucky. I think I am a good, solid actor and that’s what has got me through.”

Currently Younane is winning plaudits for her performance as the firebrand Heather in Five Bedrooms, Hoodlum Entertainment’s eight-part comedy-drama for Network 10 created by Christine Bartlett and Michael Lucas.

Michael Lucas and Christine Bartlett.

After years of creating fictional characters in such series as House Husbands, Offspring, The Wrong Girl and Playing for Keeps, Christine Bartlett allowed herself the freedom to do something unprecedented in Five Bedrooms.

Namely: To flesh out a character modelled on her own life and experiences.

Doris Younane plays her alter ego Heather in Hoodlum Entertainment’s 8-part comedy-drama co-created by Bartlett and her frequent collaborator Michael Lucas, which premieres on 10 at 8.40 pm on May 15.

The set-up director Peter Templeman describes Heather as “funny, complex and raw, and that’s Chris.”

Bartlett tells If: “Michael gave me permission to be totally unfiltered, so I went balls-out like never before. I was blown away watching what Doris did to bring the character to life.”

At the crossroads in her life, Heather is married to Colin (Alan Dukes), whom she says “peaked at high school,” and they have two doltish adult children.

Peter Templeman on set with Stephen Peacocke.

Director Peter Templeman rates Michael Lucas and Christine Bartlett as Australia’s pre-eminent creators of TV comedy-dramas.

So he jumped at the chance to serve as the set-up director of the duo’s Five Bedrooms, Hoodlum Entertainment’s 8-part series which premieres on 10 at 8.40 pm on May 15.

He could not be happier with the performances of the ensemble cast led by Kat Stewart, Stephen Peacocke, Doris Younane, Katie Robertson, Roy Joseph, Kate Jenkinson and Hugh Sheridan.

“Michael and Chris created totally real characters, each with a rich inner life and a back story,” Templeman tells If. “Working on the show was a great experience. We were spoiled for talent.”

Scripted by Lucas, Bartlett and Mithila Gupta, the plot revolves around five strangers, all misfits, who find themselves at a singles table at a wedding. After an excess of alcohol they decide the solution...

Megan Hajjar in ‘M4M’

Since graduating from Waapa in 2016 Megan Hajjar has built an impressive resume with roles in Breath, Love Child, The Secret Daughter, Harrow and the upcoming movies M4M and The Naked Wanderer.

You may not recognise the name because, until recently, she was known as Megan Smart. The actor has decided to use Hajjar, her mother’s maiden name, to more closely identify with her Lebanese heritage.

“I wasn’t being considered for some Middle Eastern roles because the producers did not recognise my heritage,” she tells If.

While she does play a Lebanese woman in Paul Ireland’s M4M, she mostly portrays characters whose nationality is incidental. For example, she had fun playing a serial killer named Charlotte in the ABC/Hoodlum Entertainment’s Harrow and troublemaker Anna Hennessy in Screentime/Seven’s The Secret Daughter.

In Alan Lindsay’s romantic comedy The Naked Wanderer...

Joel Jackson and Geraldine Hakewill.

Director Fiona Banks is tired of watching shows which depict women as victims, back-stabbers or characters who are pitted against each other.

So she was thrilled when she was offered Ms Fisher’s Modern Murder Mysteries, Every Cloud Productions’ spin off of the ABC series which starred Essie Davis as Phryne Fisher.

“The thing that drew me to the show from the word go is the genuine friendships between the women,” says Banks, who served as the set-up director for the first time in her illustrious career.

“These women support and encourage each other. These are good strong relationships. They are not always in agreement with each other and there is lot of humour and strength of character.”

Created by Fiona Eagger and Deb Cox and produced by Beth Frey, the four telemovies are set in 1964 and follow Geraldine Hakewill as Peregrine Fisher, who takes...

(L-r) Roy Joseph, Doris Younane, Katie Robertson, Kat Stewart and Stephen Peacocke.

The Australian obsession with housing prices and affordability is the inspiration behind Five Bedrooms, Hoodlum Entertainment’s drama which started shooting in Melbourne today.

Commissioned by Network 10, the series features an ensemble cast led by Kat Stewart, Stephen Peacocke, Doris Younane, Katie Robertson, Roy Joseph, Kate Jenkinson and Hugh Sheridan.

Created by Michael Lucas and Christine Bartlett, the plot follows a group of very different people who find themselves at a singles table at a wedding.

After a few too many champagnes, wines, whiskeys and beers, the solution to all their problems seems to be buying a house together: A really big, five bedroom house.

Lucas tells If: “The idea of pooling together with friends to crack into the real estate market is something Christine and I have talked about for almost a decade now. As prices...

Damian Hill and Ty Perham in ‘West of Sunshine.’

Shooting of M4M began in Melbourne on Monday as the cast and crew regrouped following the death on September 22 of Damian Hill, who co-wrote the crime drama/romance with the director Paul Ireland.

Ireland has dedicated the film inspired by Shakespeare’s ‘Measure for Measure’ to Hill, his best mate who was to co-produce and play Angelo, a character the director described as a fallen angel.

“After Dame died we got together and decided the best thing to do is carry on and make this for Dame,” says Ireland, who first collaborated with the actor/producer/writer in Pawno in 2015.

“Everyone has been amazing and very stoic. Dame and I were like a married couple. We worked together every day. He was so humble, a beautiful person. I feel like I have lost a part of me, but I’m determined to get through this.

Damian Hill and stepson Ty Perham in ‘West of Sunshine’.

The independent film sector in Australia is in shock following the news that gifted actor, writer and producer Damian Hill died in Melbourne on Saturday night.

The star of Jason Raftopoulos’ West of Sunshine and Paul Ireland’s Pawno, which he co-wrote, and a supporting actor in Heath Davis’ Broke, Hill was 42.

The cause of death was not immediately reported and may not be confirmed until the police file a report for the coroner.

Known to his friends as Dame, today he was due to start shooting M4M, an unlikely love story set against the background of drugs, racial intolerance and crime in Melbourne, which stars Hugo Weaving, directed by Ireland and co-written and produced by Hill and Ireland.

Ireland tells If: “We are just regrouping and will keep going in his beautiful memory. He put three years of...

Jessica Marais in The Wrong Girl.

Network Ten has announced its new Aussie drama, The Wrong Girl, based on the book by Zoë Foster Blake, will premiere on September 28.

The show follows the life of 29-year old breakfast television producer Lily Woodward, played by Jessica Marais (Love Child, Packed to the Rafters)..

.I.m thrilled to bring the character of Lily Woodward to life. She is fun, confident, determined, quick to react and disarmingly charismatic. I hope audiences love her as much as I do,. said Marais.

.It has been a pleasure working with the exceptional cast and crew, and I.m incredibly proud to be involved in this fresh and exciting new drama..

Marais will be joined by a cast that includes Craig McLachlan, Kerry Armstrong, Madeleine West, Hamish Blake, Doris Younane, Steve Vizard, Rob Collins, Ian Meadows, Hayley Magnus, Kevin Harrington, Leah Vandenberg, Christie Whelan Browne, Hugo Johnstone-Burt,...

Rodger Corser and Asher Keddie

.

Adam Zwar, Angus Sampson, Colin Moody, Kaiya Jones, Oliver Ackland and Doris Younane have joined the cast of Party Tricks, the Network Ten drama now shooting in Melbourne.

Michael Lucas (Offspring, Not Suitable for Children) created the 6-part series which stars Asher Keddie as Premier Kate Ballard, whose campaign to be re-elected is upset when popular TV and radio personality David McLeod (Rodger Corser) is drafted in as the Opposition.s candidate.

It turns out Kate and David had a secret, tumultuous affair several years earlier. Party Tricks becomes a cat-and-mouse game which culminates in an election night finale.

Imogen Banks and John Edwards are producing for Endemol Australia, co-funded by Screen Australia and Film Victoria. Endemol Worldwide Distribution is distributing internationally.

Zwar (The Agony of Life, Rush) plays Trevor Bailey, the deputy Opposition leader.. Sampson (Paper Giants: Magazine Wars, Howzat! Kerry Packer.s War) is Wayne Duffy,...