Disclaimer: This My Brilliant Career interview has been edited for brevity and clarity.
The latest must-watch book-to-screen adaptation is My Brilliant Career. The limited series is based on the classic Australian novel of the same name by author Miles Franklin. The story introduces viewers to Sybylla, a young woman living in 1900 Australia with dreams of becoming a writer.
Sybylla is unapologetically herself, despite the critical feedback from her stern grandmother Mrs. Dossier. Sybylla’s family is determined to marry her off, which she is highly averse to. Unexpectedly, she meets a handsome stranger Harry whom she falls in love with.
Ahead of the series premiere, I spoke with star Philippa Northeast about her approach to playing Sybylla and the vibrant reimagining of a famous Australian story.
LadyJenevia: I have to first say congratulations on this series. It’s incredible, and you are phenomenal in it. My first question is an icebreaker to do with Baz Luhrmann, whom we were talking about before the interview officially began. What is your favorite Baz Luhrmann project?
Northeast: I love that this is how we’ve begun this interview. I grew up on Baz’s Romeo and Juliet. That’s the one that probably is closest to my heart. What about for you?
LadyJenevia: Well, I saw Elvis eighteen times in the cinema. There’s no wrong answer to this question, truly. I mention him not just because I have a hyperfixation, but because I find that this new version of My Brilliant Career is similar to a lot of his work where it’s an adaptation of a classic piece of pre-existing source material, but it’s been reinvigorated to resonate really well with a modern audience. For example, with Sybylla, she’s very funny in the series. I did not find her funny in the book. How much of her outlandish, endearing personality came from your own choices as an actor versus what’s on the page of the scripts that you were given?
Northeast: When I first read the book, and when I read it multiple times, actually after that, I did find the humor in the book, but it’s much darker. I think Miles Franklin as an author is incredibly funny, and it’s a humor for her time that would have been very modern and very bold and very outspoken for a woman. I already had an idea that there was humor throughout the character of Sybylla.
Then when I met with Liz and Alyssa and Chloe, the producers and director of this adaptation, I think we shared a very similar vision of Sybylla in terms of tonality and sensibilities and how she was going to present in our adaptation and how that sort of electricity that runs through her was going to translate through the screen. I made offers to what the Sybylla that lived in my heart and what that electricity was to me and then they met it and super boosted it by also putting incredible music. There’s a very teenage lens to the cinematic language of this series. We all sort of met in the middle in terms of tonality and then did what we could to nurture it from different angles.
LadyJenevia: The way that Sybylla moves through this series, there is this tremendous urgency to almost everything that she does. How did you maintain your stamina when playing her with that really high level of urgency, but keep it from becoming one note?
Northeast: Yeah, just fear. Fear is a really good motivator, I think. [laughter] No, I knew that because she’s such a determined, ambitious character, I knew that there was going to be a sense of urgency with anything that she put her mind to. She’s this character that is as much mind as she is body, particularly because she’s a young woman in the world seeking new experiences. She is all forward in body and in mind.
In terms of Philippa as the actor trying to conserve energy, I was pretty grateful that I met this project in my spoiler alert, but in my 30s, because I have been through what it is to be a young female, though I’m still young, guys, I still got it! I also can see it from a bird’s-eye point of view. I knew that in terms of filming every day, the discipline would be around eating properly. Shout out to Rachel Marcus, who was the best caterer in all the lands in South Australia. The produce was just beautiful on this set. Every detail was beautiful on this set. But also, getting to sleep as much as I could – I don’t think I would have been able to meet Sybylla’s energy if I wasn’t disciplined.
There was a sort of liberation to the character through my own personal discipline, which was a different way of shooting for me because I love the social aspect. I love getting to know the cast really well, and in this, I did get to know everyone well. I mean, by nature, working this closely with people, you bond really closely, but I wasn’t going out for dinners or going out for drinks or getting to know them outside of work. We were all really committed to telling this story in the right way and conserving energy to be able to do that. We found other ways to bond with each other inside the world.
LadyJenevia: Sybylla is highly averse to marriage, but she does end up having a really beautiful love story with Harry. What would you say is the basis of her attraction to him in this version?
Northeast: That’s a good question. I really love that question because Sybylla believes and feels love wholeheartedly. She is a character of love. Everything she does is through passion and through love. She absolutely falls in love with Harry, but she defies the conventions of marriage and what that means to her life and her career. I think with Harry, she is obviously struck by how gorgeous he is. For a young woman, they are new feelings: attraction, aesthetic, and arousal. We explore how that moves through Sybylla’s body, but at the same time, when she goes to Five-Bob, Augusta opens her world up to new ways of writing and supports her in a way that she’s never been supported before. She tastes things that she’s never tasted and she drinks things. While she’s also incredibly attracted to Harry, she’s starting to be really aroused by life. Harry in that part of the story at Five-Bob represents that opening to the world. In our version, we see that as much as she starts to fall for Harry, we see her start to really fall for life, and he represents that, and there’s arousal across the board. That’s a strange sentence, but just watch, and you’ll see.
LadyJenevia: I really enjoyed how this series offers both entertainment and an insight into history. Was there anything particular in Australian history that you latched on to to better inform how you approached playing Sybylla?
Northeast: Yeah, I think it was definitely what challenges women of the 19th century in Australia faced, how they were expected to be in terms of domestic life, in terms of marrying and having children, and how immovable that would have been for a woman in this period. We still face challenges today as women in terms of pre-ordained expectation, but through my research it was even more apparent to me that it was a worthy fight that she went on and one that wouldn’t have been light.
What’s really interesting about our adaptation is that the world and the authentic representation of Australia at that time has been expanded upon. We know there would have been Chinese Australian people at that time. Of course, there [were] and always will be Aboriginal people and Indigenous peoples, and they had their own story in their search for agency in the 19th century in Australia. All of the expansion that we’ve done to this period in time that’s true and authentic to the period complements Sybylla’s own search for agency and the challenges that she faces. They make the whole story, the true beating heart of this story, more robust.
LadyJenevia: It seems as though a lot of the other characters in the ensemble learn lessons by knowing and observing Sybylla because she’s so authentically herself. Was there anything that you learned and have now kept with you as a result of playing her?
Northeast: Yeah, absolutely. I’ve been thinking about this lately. I’m doing theatre at the moment, and I think I actually gained a voice through Sybylla. She’s such an external force and tries her hand at everything, and of course we also see that she absolutely falls flat on her face, and she has to pick herself up multiple times. Because she is so forward and so determined and so ambitious, I had to sort of channel that through my own body, and then I’ve held on to that after playing Sybylla. It’s the first time in my career as an actor that it’s a different voice to the voice I have known previously. It might not work for every role, and you’d hope that I could modify and change it when needed, but I’m externally louder, and I am taking up more space. I feel confident that a creative path is the one that I should be taking, and I know that it won’t be straightforward, but I will try and try again, which I think Sybylla has taught me.
LadyJenevia: I was reading through some descriptions of other acting jobs that you’ve done, and comparatively speaking, it seems as though My Brilliant Career is wholly unique. Do you have a specific acting method you tend to rely on, whatever it might be, Stanislavski, Meisner, or do you modify your approach to acting based on the unique qualities of a job like this?
Northeast: Exactly. For me, it’s the latter. I started off in the industry straight away on a soap opera in Australia for 4 years when I had just turned 18. I say I got an apprenticeship in the industry rather than getting that sort of classical training at a university. I went straight to the tools and had to work it out as I went. But also, I had the luxury of being employed and supported financially. When I finished that apprenticeship, I did grapple to learn what I could and did try doing workshops and master classes on different methods just so I could know what was out there and what other actors were talking about, probably so that I could be in the conversation as well.
Now when I approach characters, it is quite free form. The scripts to me are [the] Bible. I’ve been lucky to do two book adaptations, and I have so much source material there that becomes the starting point for my character research and character building, but it will change from project to project.
LadyJenevia: Sybylla’s relationship with Augusta is really special. Was there anything in particular that you found really meaningful about being able to play that?
Northeast: Yeah, Aunt Gussy, the queen of the world, Kate Mulvany- everything she does turns to gold. She’s in Elvis, too, you know.
LadyJenevia: Yes!
Northeast: She’s just a legend of our industry and of the industry globally. It was so interesting with the experienced women on this set like Genevieve O’Reilly, Kate Mulvany, Anna Chancellor. From the get-go, they took me under their wings and taught me so much, mentored me, and encouraged me to go above and beyond as Sybylla. Kate was particularly special. We started filming the series together. The first day of shooting was in episode two when Sybylla gets to Five-Bob; she tries oysters for the first time. That was our first scene ever. Kate had twenty oysters, and I think I had about twenty-five that day. It was nine a.m. It was too early for that many oysters, so it was a real bonding experience. We quickly formed that humor and banter. Also, because Kate was such a mentor to me, it was easy enough to sit in that Gussy-Sybylla world because Gussy was also opening Sybylla’s eyes up to new experiences.
LadyJenevia: What do you hope viewers get out of watching this version of My Brilliant Career?
Northeast: I really hope that it’s joyful. I really hope it’s a balm in this pretty fragile world for people. I hope that women feel that they can stay true to their own internal path and make their external worlds match what they feel internally one way or another. [laughter]
LadyJenevia: If it means anything, it was definitely joyful for me. I kind of scream-laughed at her introduction when Sybylla is performing what she performs in the show’s opening. I said, ‘I’m obsessed with her already. I don’t know where this is going, but I love her.’
Northeast: I’m so moved to hear that. Thank you. It really means a lot.
LadyJenevia: It’s the best series I’ve watched all year. This reminds me I don’t need to completely quit on television.
Northeast: Yes, I love that! That’s the best feedback. I retire. That’s all we need. Thank you.
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My Brilliant Career debuts on Netflix on August 13.