Tasma Walton and Hunter Page-Lochard star in the new SBS series Reckless and it’s a tense but hilarious black comedy that is completely captivating.
When feuding siblings June (Walton) and Charlie (Page-Lochard) cover up a deadly hit and run in their hometown of Fremantle, their lives spiral wildly out of control. As the lies pile up, so do the consequences and soon, everyone in town has something to lose.
Fast and fearless, Reckless, is written by Kodie Bedford (Mystery Road, Return to Paradise) and Stuart Page (Total Control, Cleverman) and it is a uniquely Australian take on crime and chaos where small-town secrets, family feuds and guilt make for explosive TV.
If the plot sounds familiar, it’s because the series is a remake of the highly acclaimed Scottish series Guilt which ran for three seasons starring Mark Bonnar and Jamie Sives.
This Australian take though it a completely different beast. By layering on the intersectionality of race, sexuality and class, the characters in the Australian version deliver a more more complex and multi-layered take on the premise.
Rather than telling the stories of two brothers, it’s morphed to a sister and brother interactions between June and Charlie, June’s a power lesbian, and their Indigenous background puts a whole additional level on to the story too.
The pairing of Tasma Walton and Hunter Page-Lochard is inspired casting as the duo has great chemistry. The cast also includes Jessica De Gouw, Clarence Ryan, Tracey Mann and many other familiar faces.
Hunter Page-Lochard has built up a career in recent years that has made him one of the most in-demand actors in the country. From his breakthrough role in Bran Nue Dae to memorable appearances in Cleverman The Newsreaders, and Critical Incident, he’s making is mark on Australian screens.
OUTinPerth spoke to him about his latest role which was filmed right here in Western Australia.
When I was watching the first episode of Reckless, it immediately struck me that while I’d seen the Scottish drama this is based on, this is something completely different.
It is, it really is. We felt that when we were shooting it. We were like, “Oh, this feels good, it feels right, it feels different, it feels unique. I think a lot of that had to do with the fact that it was putting two Aboriginal people in that perspective, especially in an urban setting as well.
The stakes are immediately much higher. It’s two black fellas in a troublesome situation, and you immediately think “This is not going to go well for you”, and that’s a horrible thought, but immediately the tension, even in the first two minutes, is 500% higher than the same story about two Scottish brothers.
I totally agree!
What made you want to sign on for this role?
Quite a lot of things. Obviously, it being penned by Kodie Bedford and being told that Beck Cole was going to direct all the episodes, there was already an intrigue in that.
The last time I worked with mob like this probably was Cleverman. So even just that was intriguing, because it gets to a point where you want to kind of work with with your own mob and have that same kind of thought pattern and be on the same page.
But then I think just the script itself, I think Kodie has done a fantastic job. It’s circumstantial and an hijinks and each mistake that’s is made is what pushes the plot along. So it’s very character driven. I just thought it just ticked a lot of boxes of what I want to do personally as an actor, and how I want to challenge myself.
I didn’t even see it as a comedy. It was very bloody funny, but, but it was funny because of the circumstance. It was funny because of the characters. It wasn’t funny because there was jokes and punch lines.
I just found that a bit intelligent really, and intelligent in a Black space. I feel we kind of stray straight towards the trauma of things when it comes to Black stories and this has just has a different vibe to it, there is moments of trauma, but there’s a lot more relatability in this where you’re just following two brothers, a brother and sister that that just want to clear their bloody name.
There are so many layers to these characters, June’s gay, Charlie’s got child custody issues, add to that they’re Indigenous and it makes for a really interesting tale.
It really does. When we were in the rehearsals, there was a lot of moments where we would delve into the characters and their back stories. Why the brother and sister haven’t spent a lot of time together. Really delving into Charlie and seeing that he was someone that lived in the nostalgia of the past and felt comfortable in that, and that he was a child in a man’s body, and really needed to grow up.
I just saw a lot of myself in him really, a lot of my past self in him. So there was just a lot of relatability to begin with that really, really helped created something for me that was a bit more unique than anything else that I’ve played.
This series really shows the maturity of our local television industry where we are making lots of dramas, a few years ago we were just making children’s television.
I love WA. I haven’t spent that much time in WA, but one of my best friends Clarence Ryan lives in WA that was a great thing to kind of experience, being close to him and working close with him, because whenever I worked with him in the past he’s always come come to Sydney.
You always have a preconceived notion of the of the other side of the country and how different it is to to the east. But I kind of fell in love with Freo and and got really close with it. It was a treat!
Working away from home can be hard, and working away from the family can be even harder. But luckily it was during school holidays, so I had the kids and the wife come, and we all got to kind of experience Perth and Fremantle together, and we almost made it to Rottnest Island.
Before filming this, had you seen the Scottish version? And was there a choice not to?
I hadn’t seen it, and I think there was definitely, kind of an unspoken rule of, we’re making this our own and I’m glad I did because even though it’s inspired by something that’s already been done, it’s definitely got its own unique flavor to it. I think it’s got that unique flavor because of the stakes being different with it being two Indigenous characters, but also us kind of just delving into a world that we’re kind of creating ourselves rather than copying and pasting.
Reckless premieres Wednesday November 12 at 8:30pm on SBS, NITV and SBS On Demand.
