Chloe Martin Dee-Brief Interview

A 9-Part Dramedy Series

Cast: Chloe Martin, Alexandra Hines
Director: Sarah Hickey
Genre: Drama, Comedy

Synopsis: Dee-Brief is a 9-part dramedy series (and 3-episode series for broadcast) that tells the story of Dee and Kate, two best friends trying their best to navigate their late 20's in Melbourne. After Dee breaks up with her long-term, on-again off-again partner, she moves in with best friend Kate to try and put the pieces back together. But 'adulting' is hard when your best friend is just so damn excited to have you around again. And being single looked a hell of a lot different the last time you were here. Let's be real. We've all been there before, relationships between women are complex.

Dee-Brief will broadcast weekly at 7pm on Channel 31 if you're in Melbourne or you can catch Dee-Brief online via their YouTube channel, subscribe and catch the first three episodes at 9pm on Monday 14th May and then weekly every Monday night.
Follow the show on their website and Facebook page.

Dee-Brief
Trailer
https://www.deebriefseries.com/

Interview with Chloe Martin

Question: What attracted you to the project of Dee-Brief?

Chloe Martin: At the first audition, Jess [the producer of Deebrief, who also wrote the story] spoke about the origins of the show: her realisation that her relationship with her best friend had been the most formative relationship of her 20s. When I heard her articulate that, I was hooked. I'm so obsessed by the complexity and brilliance of my friendships with other women, and so hungry to see that relationship put centre stage. At the second audition, they told us that there was no script; that the dialogue would be improvised. Improvising is my favourite thing to do, and so at that point I was dead on the floor with desire.


Question: How would you explain the show?

Chloe Martin: I've been loudly announcing it as the classic love story of our time. The show is an improvised dramedy which puts a friendship between two women in the foreground of the plot. I'm thinking of that Lora Mathis quote that I have saved in my Instagram ribbons and which I have looked at countless times during the creation of Deebrief. It begins, 'Kiss your friends faces more / destroy the belief that intimacy must be reserved for monogamous relationships' -That's what's at the heart of it for me. Through the lens of Dee and Kate's relationship we see the crises of their late 20s come at them hard and fast. Sometimes they handle it with this sick sharp humour they've shared for years, and sometimes they don't handle it at all.


Question: Why will we all be able to relate to Dee-Brief?

Chloe Martin: I believe everyone in their 20s has felt devastating heartbreak, or been a friend to someone heartbroken. It's in this decade that we try to achieve self-actualisation, that we let people in and develop our relationship to sex and intimacy, that the rug is ripped out from under us and we are forced to try again - it's a slippery road and it's all just slathered in huge amounts of advice, analysis and direction from our best friends. I don't know that there's any part of Dee-Brief that is pure invention, the show has grown out of so many stories shared.


Question: Can you tell us about your character?

Chloe Martin: Kate is in her late 20s and is steadily cruising into a kind of existential crisis. She's got this pretty luxurious lifestyle, she's having fun, and she's got plenty of stuff... but she's not on her way to anywhere in particular. When Dee moves in with her the contrast between them is accentuated, and Kate starts to realise she hasn't built anything for herself in the way that Dee has, at least career-wise. Of course she doesn't care one bit for Dee's path, but there's suddenly this question of direction… she's like a 2018 beatnik, with a side of extra boujie. I love her because she is so passionate and excited about the world she's in - she sees potential everywhere she goes, and just wants to stick her finger in every single pie. It's been so fun to play with that motivation and to find that it is her weakness as much as her strength - she's a dilettante, she feels so much enthusiasm and has plenty of talents, but she can't settle on anyone or anything.


Question: How could you relate to your character?

Chloe Martin: Developing the character of Kate was a really great chance to drag certain aspects of myself. Kate spent a bit of time in Europe a long time ago, and she clings to it in a way that is tragi-comic. She's always comparing places, and always dyyyying to get out of Melbourne. I like to think of her as a personification of contemporary cultural cringe. I also relate hard to Kate's central problem - I think most creative people that stepped with wild abandon off the beaten track of school-uni-employment in their early 20s can relate to the savage panic that hits you around 27, 28 - like hang on, am I insane? Is this even possible? Am I, in fact, a waste of space?

Question: What was it like to improv on this project?

Chloe Martin: We did a lot of improv work shopping prior to the shooting block, and focused on building a back-log of stories and situations that Dee and Kate share. The episodes are short, and we wanted it to be really clear that these two have been very close for years and years, without the characters having to say 'we've been so close for years and years'. We wanted to get that shared history across with the characters' bodies, gestures and language. During shooting, we were generally decided on the space that the scene would take place in, and on three or so key points or character shifts that were important to the overall storyline. We'd improvise to find the range of movement, get the cameras in place to be able to capture that, then improvise the scene a bunch of times. The improvisation aspect gave us so much freedom, so many laughs. I get tingles remembering it, it's truly the most fun you can have as an actor, to just be allowed to play like that. Hell for continuity, of course.


Question: How is this project similar to HBO's Girls?

Chloe Martin: Dee-Brief is similar in that it seeks to put a lens on what is real, and the way that the grand dramas of our lives unfold in a quotidian way. I'd say it goes even bit further into that territory than Girls. We all have moments in our lives when the thought occurs 'this would make a great scene'. Deebrief focuses on all the moments you probably haven't thought deserve a camera - and the effect is so powerful. I think especially as women we are kind of inculcated to understand that our ordinary lives are not cinematic. A single woman's story is worthy of a screen if the Man of Her Dreams is about to Change Her Life Forever. A woman's conversation with her best friend is a great vehicle for reinforcing recent plot developments in case the audience is a bit dim, etc. There's so rarely effort put into accurately portraying the way we actually speak with each other and the special humour we share, at least in mainstream TV and film. We need to see these ordinary, everyday moments on TV because they are the moments that actually form us, they are so rich. One of my favourite episodes of Dee-Brief consists entirely of Dee and Kate arguing over the kitchen table about what it means to create an online dating profile. I've had a version of that conversation with every one of my female friends, and I've never thought of it as something that would make for a great scene. Well, it does.


Question: What is it like to work in an female-led team?

Chloe Martin: Very amazing. It's so lovely to work on stories written by women, and female characters written by women. I remember an interview with Laura Linney where she's explaining how she feels lucky to have been offered so many roles that are 'actable'. There are so many scripts written by men where the roles for woman are just not 'actable'. I can't even describe how wonderful it is to skip over that laborious part of scene prep where you try to agree with a stubborn male auteur on some believable character motivations, or try to cut back on the 'she giggles, flattered'. Its hard work, it's disheartening. To have a director that lives the experience you're portraying is a beautiful thing. We've had women all around us on this project, in all aspects of the production, and great men who do not undermine female direction.


Question: What was it like working with Sarah Hickey, on this project?

Chloe Martin: Sarah has such a strong vision and sense of style, and also gave Alex and I so much agency in the process. I have never experienced such warmth and generosity from a director. Going back to that kitchen table episode - when camera positions were being locked in I was tugging at her sleeve saying 'no, no, I think we need to move, it needs to be more dynamic, we can't just sit there at the table the whole time people will be snoring' well she put me (very gently) right back in my place, saying 'trust me'. And of course she was right. I trust that woman with my life.


Question: What's next for you?
Chloe Martin: I'm writing, playing little parts, waiting for my hair to grow, and 'putting myself out there', whatever that means.


Interview by Brooke Hunter
Photo: Tuscany Gray Photography