Making Fake, a drama series about a woman who falls for a man she meets via a dating app, got Aussie acting legends Asher Keddie and David Wenham talking – mostly about how relieved they were to have found love before apps became the way to do it.
“Yeah, I was grateful for my age,” says David, 58, who played Faramir in The Lord Of The Rings, before going on to star in Van Helsing, 300, Top Of The Lake, Pirates Of The Caribbean and Elvis.
Offspring and Nine Perfect Strangers actress Asher, 49, adds, “It was so wonderful when we were all falling in love in our twenties and thirties. Not feeling at all manipulated in that way. I’m grateful I met my partner before all that online stuff began. I would be dreadful at it! I’d feel too frightened, a total shut-in, completely by myself.”
Asher has been in a relationship with artist Vincent Fantauzzo for 12 years and is mother to their son Valentino. David has been with yoga teacher Kate Agnew for 30 years and has two kids, Eliza and Millie.
Chatting to us via Zoom, Asher and David admit they haven’t seen each other since they filmed Fake and start the call with a quick catch-up.
“How are you, my friend?” Melbourne-based Asher asks David. “Where are you?”
“I’ve got a lovely jumper on, so I’m in London,” replies Sydney-born David.
With both stars having decades of film and TV credits behind them, including David’s stint as Diver Dan in SeaChange and Asher’s award-winning run as Nina Proudman in Offspring, it’s surprising the pair hadn’t co-starred on screen before.
But they did act together in a 2005 stage production of Cyrano De Bergerac. “We had a good laugh looking back at the photos of us when we were young,” tells Asher.
In Fake, Asher plays Birdie Bell, who meets Joe Burt, played by David, and things quickly get serious. Despite her niggling worries that he isn’t the wealthy architect-turned-grazier he says he is. The two actors have some intimate scenes together, but they insist there actually was no awkwardness.
“It was so wonderful and easy working with you,” Asher tells David. “Our working relationship is diametrically opposed to Joe and Birdie’s,” agrees David. “There’s implicit trust between us.”
Since working on Fake, David says that several people told him their own stories of how others ‘catfished’ or deceived them in romantic relationships. Although it has never happened to him, someone in his life has told elaborate lies.
David recalls, “He created this myth about him being this writer. I spent quite some time with him, then one day his brother called to say they had jailed him. He asked if I would act as a character witness for him. He participated in a large drug importation through furniture from overseas. I was like, ‘Oh, my God!’”
One of the messages in Fake is the danger of believing in romantic fairytales. Asher’s real-life story of falling for Vincent – she walked past him on the street, and “absolutely felt connected on a level I’d never ever felt connected to anybody in my life”. Sounds like a romantic fairytale, but she says that wasn’t what she was seeking.
“My parents raised me in a house full of feminists who told me to live my life and march to the beat of my own drum,” she explains. “So I didn’t grow up with that princess myth. Which is one of the reasons I was so attracted to this story.”
Asher, who starred alongside Sir Sam Neill in the 2020 movie Rams and recently appeared in the ThreeNow series Strife, says she loves the jobs coming her way lately.
“I had such a long run in Offspring for seven seasons,” she smiles. “I never would have imagined I’d do a show for that long. Since then, they’ve certainly been quite different roles. That’s what an actor loves – to play really diverse characters and people we don’t know.”
Fake is streaming on ThreeNow.
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