There’s a scene in the first episode of Tidelands, the first Netflix Original that’s also an Australian production, that tells you exactly what kind of show it’s going to be.
Adrielle (Elsa Pataky) has come to visit Augie (Aaron Jakubenko), the super ripped brother of our ex-con protagonist Calliope, apparently for a late night booty call. She tears off his pants, settles onto him, and you think he’s having a good time – but no, he is having a bad, BAD time.
“You’re crushing me,” he grits out.
She smirks.
“I’m strong.”
Yes, this is a show set in an Aussie beach town where the scary, mysterious hotties are not anti-vaccination Instagram mums but a community of sirens called the Tidelanders.
It’s exactly as ridiculous and fun and horny as it sounds, and the cast know it.
“That was just a wild scene,” says Jakubenko. “And of course Elsa’s just an incredible professional, so that makes it a much funner collaboration – you get fo focus on the craft and the things that matter.
“The scene is wild and sexy as it is, but it’s also important, because it also sets up the difference between the humans and the Tidelanders. We see that superhuman strength that she has.”
That was a fun scene to direct.
— Toa Fraser (@ToaFraser) December 18, 2018
Of course, supernaturally powerful dick-crushing Kegels aren’t real, so Jakubenko had to do the work of sweating and popping his forehead veins IRL.
“It was crazy! It was a lot of work, I was exhausted – being crushed is not something you wanna get into.”
Meanwhile, Brazilian actor Marco Pigossi plays Dylan, a smouldering Tidelander who has to deliver what might be the most gloriously laboured come-on on TV this year.
I won’t spoil it, but it involves a set-up about mosquitoes and a payoff about “sucking”, and there are f**bois on Tinder who would be ashamed of it.
When GOAT asked Pigossi about the line, he made this face:
That’s the show’s star Charlotte Best, who plays Calliope, doubled over next to him, cackling.
“It’s so bad!” Best hoots.
“I have heard I am the best actor of saying the worst lines,” Pigossi says proudly. “And that was a big compliment, because I am from soap operas. And when I read that [line in the script] I was like ‘OK, this is my biggest challenge!’”
“It worked on me,” says Best with a smirk, before correcting herself: “Cal! It works on Cal.”
But Pigossi says a line like that is actually a way of pushing the spaces where the Tidelanders’ behaviours and motivations differ from those of the mere mortal characters.
“In these lines is where you find, actually, some layers for the character, and how they play with this sexuality – they’re so free,” he says. “They don’t have these social boundaries that we have.”
If the Oscars can consider a Best Popular Film statue, surely the AACTAs can add a category for Achievement In Magical Sea Horniness.
The premiere season of Tidelands is streaming in full on Netflix now.