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Secrets and Lies kept killer twist from cast

Diana Glenn was "obsessed" with uncovering the killer's identity in TEN's new drama series.

2014-02-24_2045Filming on TEN’s new mystery series Secrets and Lies was kept under so much lock and key, that even the cast didn’t know if their character was the show’s killer.

“We weren’t told who the killer was until very late in the series,” Diana Glenn tells TV Tonight.

“We didn’t know if it was us! Initially it was kind of exciting.

“I was obsessed with solving it and then I got quite tired of that. After I found out I wondered, in retrospect, if I would have played it differently. It’s been a curious quest. It might have been slightly different by degree.

“It wasn’t a bad challenge, but it was a different one trying to put your trust in someone else and not fully own your character arc. I did find that challenging.”

Glenn plays real estate agent Christy Gundelach, wife to Ben Gundelach (Martin Henderson) who discovers the dead body of a 4 year old boy in his quiet neighbourhood. In doing so, he becomes the prime suspect in a murder case.

The 6 part series from Hoodlum Productions has certainly created some buzz, with a US series already in development and a UK broadcaster picking up the Australian production. Not bad for a show hasn’t even had a premiere in its home country.

“It’s a suburban thriller which to me has the feeling of Lantana about it. It’s haunting and quite dark. There’s a backdrop of Brisbane with a tropical, urban world. It’s a very unruffled world but then these quite violent acts happen in this very suburban street,” says Glenn.

“My husband is the prime suspect and then there are all kinds of secrets and lies that are uncovered as the series progresses. You realise that there are many motives and suspects. It could have been a whole range of people.”

The Brisbane series makes the most of its setting, featuring big, rambling Queenslander houses and green vegetation.

Glenn says Brisbane-based writer Stephen M. Irwin has woven the city and the climate into the story as a perfect backdrop.

“In Lantana the literal lantana is so important and so much a part of the landscape in it creepiness in the bush quality of that film. The Brisbane world works really well and it’s hot even though we shot it in winter. It’s that clinging, oppressive heat over Christmas and you have the nostalgia and sentimentality of Christmas until something so fractured happens,” she explains.

“It provides a natural pressure-cooker type environment.

“When you shoot in Melbourne it’s naturally cool. There is a hipness about it and it’s cosmopolitan. Sydney is so dominant in its natural beauty with the harbour.

“But Brisbane is a world we haven’t really seen.”

Also featuring in the series are Adrienne Pickering and, as Homicide Detective Ian Cornielle, Anthony Hayes. If the series performs well Hayes’ character could be embedded into another mystery case.

“I’m trying to find a way to have my character to sleep with Anthony’s character so I can come back!” she jokes.

“He’ll hate me for it but he provides the procedural line. Because he’s the cop and in charge of the investigation.

“We come on board with Ben as the protagonist but because (Detective) Cornielle  is the one who drives the search and investigation, you get to know him slowly as the series progresses. But you’re not given too much in terms of character.

“You also can’t tell if you’re siding with him or not.

“He’s fairly enigmatic and has a longer journey.”

Glenn, whose credits include Killing Time, The Slap, Satisfaction, Carla Cametti P.D., and Underbelly: Squizzy says the Secrets and Lies role differed from more sympathetic roles she has portrayed.

“Sometimes my character was really not very nice. I get why she is in the place that she is, but I found it really hard not to judge her,” she admits.

“There’s a coldness about her and she’s probably the first I’ve played. Most of my characters have certain warmth to them. I haven’t seen it so I have no idea how it translates on screen but there is a certain aloofness and coldness about her.

“But there are certainly pay offs to it.”

Secrets and Lies premieres 8:30pm Monday on TEN.

14 Responses

  1. Broadchurch was developed during 2011 and filmed in 2012, airing in the UK in early 2013. So I think it is fair to say that the genre of a single murder over a series is nothing new. I know when I read the article, I just thought an aussie Broadchurch, I hope its as good. The style and quality will decide that.

    It is inevitable that until S&L airs that some folk will make comparisons as the genre is similar

  2. There are lots of shows which look at one crime over a season with lots of suspects. The Killing being the most obvious recent example. I’d say Broadchurch owes a lot in style to recent Scandinavian shows while at the same time being an entirely original production. It’s unfair to accuse something of being a rip off without seeing it. I dare say this was being developed well before Broadchurch aired.

  3. I’m really looking forward to this! Also good to 9 have been replaying Love Child on Sunday nights at 10.40pm so have been catching up on the show then.

  4. From the article that has been written, this does seem to resemble Broadchurch quite a bit. That was my initial thoughts after reading it anyway

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