‘Cruelty is a craft’: Getting into character with Class of ‘07’s Caitlin Stasey.
More often than not, the TV shows we spend our weekends binging are heavily laced with American or British-centric humour, culture, and talent. While it was produced over the ditch, Amazon Prime’s series Class of ‘07 feels a lot closer to home. Its sarcastic and savage humour, cultural emblems of Cruisers and end of year formals and banging throwback soundtrack, all transport us directly back into our high school halls.
At first glance, the plot of this Australian production seems a bit too ridiculous to make it worth watching the entire series. The comedy drama sees an apocalyptic flash-flood leave a Class of ‘07 high school reunion trapped together for months, with only a school cafeteria and shared moon cups for survival. While we were lured into the first episode by the silliness of the storyline, we stayed for the relatable and loveable characters and the troubles of womanhood which they each navigate. The diverse all-female cast excel in convincing the viewer that we’ve come across each and every character during or after our high school years.
A key character to any high school-related plot is the mean girl. In the case of ‘Ridge Heights Catholic Ladies College’, we are introduced to the now reformed mean girl Saskia, played by Caitlin Stasey, who got her start in popular Aussie classics ‘Neighbours’, ‘The Sleepover Club’ and ‘Tomorrow When The War Began’. We recently picked Caitlin’s brains to get an insight into her flawless portrayal of characters and what drew her to play a part in the Class of ‘07 ‘poco’.
How did you start out as an actress?
I started acting when I was very young and it luckily never really stopped happening. I was always very interested in doing it - even though I didn’t really understand what ‘doing it’ was. I think if you want to be a child actor, they want to work with people who are really well-behaved and I was a really well-behaved kid. I understood adult concepts, I longed to be an adult. I don’t necessarily think it was the healthiest environment for a kid to grow up in. Everyone was doing their best around me but it’s a strange setting. It certainly warps your perception of reality and your place in it.
Did you always know that you wanted to be in the acting scene or did it happen by chance?
It just happened naturally. I mean I can’t really remember a time when I wasn’t interested in acting because there wasn’t a lot of time when I wasn’t doing it. I’ve spent more of my life acting than I have not acting.
Caitlin with director, Kacie Anning (Supplied)
How did you react to the script of Class of ‘07? Which aspect of it grabbed your attention?
It really made me laugh when I read it. I was also super drawn to the character Saskia and was deeply invested in her journey. I was so curious as to why they (the director Kacie Anning) wanted me to audition for that role. It’s funny, I still haven’t asked Kacie where that came from. I don’t know whether she heard from someone that I was a bit of a ‘see you next tuesday’ or something but I should be asking her haha. I just was like ‘oh cool, no one’s ever asked me to do this before’. I wondered what I’d put out there that made them feel like I’d be able to pull it off.
What kind of resources or exercises do you use to get into the mindset of a character like Saskia?
I think about ways in which you can affect change in another person. Cruelty is a real craft and you want to do it effectively, you’ve got to be really smart and there are ways to sort of live rent-free in people’s heads. It is literally all about psychology. It’s all about taking advantage of people’s fears and weaknesses. It’s ugly business, but it's interesting business. Especially as an actor getting to engage in stuff like this, because it’s not something you should be doing in your own, regular life.
Is it difficult to switch off from playing the character, from embodying their psychological mindset?
During filming, it was less that I had to live in that psychological space, I had to live it in a physical way. I had to change the way I walked as Saskia. I had to change the way that I talked and moved and articulated things. I’m not a founder of an NGO or a calm, collected person like Saskia. I’m pretty frenetic for the most part. So what was cool about playing Saskia was that I had to sort of stay grounded throughout most of the day.
Did you take yourself back to high school when preparing for the role? Or were your days at school quite different as a child actress?
I mean I didn’t really attend high school up to a certain point. I sort of tapped out early on which I don’t recommend but it’s the path that I took. I didn’t really reflect back on high school, but more just thought about present female dynamics, and competitive and toxic friendships that I’ve had. I also thought about defence mechanisms that people put in place to keep themselves safe and to keep other people at a safe distance from them. There are things that you learn as a kid that travel with you into adulthood, so I spent a lot of time thinking about the psychology of Saskia and someone who would behave the way that she does based on her past experiences.
Why do you think it is important for large platforms such as Prime to produce more localised content for Aussie and NZ audiences?
It’s important for me because I want to keep working here in Australia. I also think that people know so little about this part of the world. I think Australia is really obsessed with America and Australian audiences would prefer to watch American content. We end up exporting all of our actors there because we don’t provide for them here. We’ve got a real wealth of talent and all we do is make reality TV and watch American sitcoms. What a waste. There is some good stuff being made, there always is. Some of my fave films and TV shows are Australian, but we need more.
I don’t know much about New Zealand’s film industry but it seems that you’ve got a lot of great ambassadors out there, like Taika Waititi and Peter Jackson. Australia needs more Baz Luhrmann’s and more people from varying backgrounds to start getting behind the camera.
If you could bring back anything from 2007, what would it be?
I don’t think I miss anything from 2007. Fashion really went off the deep end. We got high-waisted jeans that year I believe so at least we got back on track there. All the stuff I miss is from a little bit earlier, like Baby-Gs, Furbys, or pens that had big fluffy objects on the end. I was 17 and loved the store Fat. I don’t know if that still exists. Mimco was big - those big, chunky earrings, and the endless wallets.
