Phoebe Tonkin came into our lives and hearts as Cleo, one third of the H20: Just Add Water mermaid girl-gang. Since then she’s launched to international fame via roles in the CW’s Vampire Diaries, The Originals, and The Secret Circle – which I’m still very upset got cancelled.
Now she’s back on our screens in a home-grown Aussie series that’s dropping exclusively on Stan come New Year’s Day: Bloom.
Bloom is an Australian original, high-production, drama series that explores the possibilities (and consequences) of becoming somehow young again.
It’s a supernatural occurrence that isn’t clearly a blessing or a curse, so of course when we sat down with Bloom stars Phoebe Tonkin and Ryan Corr (our very own Blue Water High star), we asked them to weigh in on the supernatural powers of Bloom…and H20: Just Add Water.
When asked to decide whether it was a blessing or a curse to become a mermaid every time you touch water and have the power to control bodies of water (ie. Cleo’s H20 power), Phoebe Tonkin didn’t hesitate.
“Blessing. Yea I think everyone wants to be a mermaid.”
There’s been no shortage of time spent by H20 fans pondering the practicality of the whole mermaid-when-wet situation. It raises a lot of questions about bodily fluids (what happens when you sweat?), and sanitation (how do you ever clean your lower half?), just to start.
So as a curious and diehard H20 fan, I prodded about the TV show that I was definitely not invited there to talk about – “Every time you touch water?”
“Maybe not every time” she admitted. “That is the situation…hmmm, yea that is a problem.”
So Phoebe came through with a solution of how she would do things differently with her H20: Just Add Water mermaid powers if she was calling the shots.
“I think you just commit to being a mermaid and you just live in the sea and you don’t try to do anything normal and be in the ocean.”
Honestly, that makes a lot of sense, and it’s a red hot opportunity to exit the iron-clad restraints of our capitalist society so why NOT take it???
On the other hand, Tonkin admitted that the power to become young again was really “a little bit of a curse.” Her co-star Ryan Corr agreed that he would definitely choose being a merman and Cleo’s power to wield water over the you’re-only-young-twice supernatural power they encounter in Bloom.
“I think, you know, you are the sum of the experiences you’ve had in your life,” Phoebe Tonkin explained, “and to kind of go back and rewrite that … you’re really rewriting the rest of your life by going back. And I think there’s something sort of, I don’t know, sad about that, because it means that your entire life was – not pointless – but it wasn’t how you wished you lived it.”
While the power to become young again might be a curse, the thought experiment makes extremely good TV, and it’s great to see that Australia continues to raise the standard of supernaturally-themed screen projects – from the iconic H20: Just Add Water, to the illustrious drama of Bloom.
You can binge Bloom from New Year’s Day on Stan to see Aussie productions and our Aussie teen screen queen dominate once again.