Daniel Webber and Krew Boylan as Kenny and Dolly in Seriously Red.

Within the space of a few days I was treated to multiple screenings of the new Australian dramedy, Seriously Red, and in that same amount of time I interviewed the film’s writer, creator and star, Krew Boylan, twice.

On the first occasion I watched the film, it was at home ahead of a Zoom interview with Krew the following day. The film is great, and I instantly felt the passion behind it from not only Krew, but the whole team including producers Robyn Kershaw and Jessica Carrera, director Gracie Otto, and co-stars Daniel Webber, Celeste Barber and Thomas Campbell.

But it wasn’t until I stood on the red carpet at CinefestOZ and spoke to Krew face-to-face that I could truly tell what this film meant to everyone involved. Krew’s passion for this film, her character Red and Red’s alter-ego Dolly, and her craft as an actor and business woman is electric, admirable and infectious.

Australian comedies like this, which pay tribute to the golden years of the genre and films like The Castle, The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert and Muriel’s Wedding, are few and far between. With Seriously Red, Krew and co succeed at breathing life back into big screen Australian comedy.

In this rowdy and rambunctious musical dramedy, Red (Krew Boylan) is a vivacious, clumsy and occasionally misguided redhead who is at a crossroads in her life. After misreading her work party’s dress code, Red trades her 9-to-5 job in real estate for a new career as a Dolly Parton impersonator. 

Seriously Red marks the screenwriting debut for Krew, who is also one of the co-founders of Dollhouse Pictures alongside the Seriously Red director Gracie Otto, co-star Rose Byrne and producer Jessica Carrera, and Babyteeth director Shannon Murphy. 

Boylan’s screen credits include The Secrets She Keeps, Molly, A Place To Call Home, Wild Boys, All Saints, At Home With Julia, Steinlager, Double Take, The Cut, Rescue: Special Ops, and Dirtgirlworld in which she voiced the popular character, Grubby. Her Australian theatre credits include Stuck on Girls (dir. Eliza Gorka, 2005) at the Tap Gallery, The Hoods (dir. Sarah Goodes, 2006) at the Old Fitzroy Theatre and The Bean Counters (dir. Nadia Townsend, 2007) for Darlinghurst Theatre.

Seriously Red is in cinemas from Thursday, November 24 2022. 

Krew Boylan and Daniel Webber as Dolly and Kenny in Seriously Red.

“Dolly emulated everything I was looking for in a character.”

Interview by Matthew Eeles

I’ve spoken with a few people involved in the making of Seriously Red, and I get the impression that it was a very fun film to make.
We had the best time, and you can’t always say that because it doesn’t always work out to be such a great time. But honestly, it was one of those projects which everyone locked on and it attracted all the right creatives. Everyone went, “Let’s do this. Let’s do it the best we can. Let’s throw everything at it that we can in a Covid world, and a reasonably low budget world.” We had a great time making it. Tim Chappel and Cassie Hanlon, who both worked on The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert, worked on this film in hair and makeup and they told me that the vibe on set was similar to that film.

Why Dolly Parton?
Dolly emulated everything I was looking for in a character, which was, what is success and what does it look like? That’s what I was searching for and why I started writing this film. And my conclusion was, for me it’s Dolly Parton. One of her most famous quotes is, “She looks like a woman that thinks like a man.” [Laughs]. And I’m sure she would probably update that. Now it should be, “She looks like a woma,n and she thinks like a woman.” But Dolly is a business woman. She’s an incredible talent. She knows what she wants, she looks like she does and she takes herself seriously, but not too seriously. She just emulated everything that I wanted to be. I’m an actress, but I’ve got these business fireworks going off at the same time. I could relate to Dolly. I love her music and I love that she always, especially in those past interviewers, takes the piss out of people for judging her by the way she looks. And she always keeps it positive and she always takes control of the joke and makes it her own. And I loved all those qualities about her.

Big screen Australian comedies are few and far between nowadays, which is hard to fathom considering there was once a time where it felt like comedies were all we made in Australia. Was that something you were conscious of while writing this film?
I very much was. I grew up as a Brent Street kid in Sydney, going to Brent Street Performing Arts. I was into dancing and singing and drama, and I loved all that colour and I felt I was auditioning for my future. I was doing a great play at downstairs Belvoir that was really off the wall and wacky, but I was auditioning for horror films and police dramas and really heavy stuff. I loved Muriel’s Wedding and Priscilla and Strictly Ballroom, and I was really craving seeing more of that stuff on the big screen. So hence why those sorts of films sprinkle into Seriously Red.

I know it’s an actor’s job to act, but essentially you play two characters here, quite often switching between the two in the same scene. Can you talk us through some of the challenges of performing as both Red and Dolly?
I’m really glad you asked that question because identity is a huge theme and something that I really leant into with this film. I feel with social media and the society that we are living in, it’s easy to lose touch with who your identity is, and that your identity is a little piece of art that is constantly changing and that you need to constantly tap into because who you are now is not who you were ten years ago. I loved playing Red and Dolly and allowing those two characters to really push up against each other and essentially explode her into the person that she really should be, or she should really start focusing on. That was a great challenge. I loved dipping between Red and all of her inappropriateness and her impulses, and the beautiful Dolly who’s also flawed. That was so much fun for me. I loved it so much.

Krew Boylan and Thomas Campbell as Red and Francis in Seriously Red.

I love the artists who feature in the Copy Club scenes throughout the film, and most of the real life impersonators we see in the film like Amy Winehouse, Elton John and even Kylie Minogue. What did you learn from working with these real life impersonators?
It was such a joy to have them and the commitment, not only to the film, but to the characters that they were playing and their generosity. It was an absolute pleasure. And I had been to Vegas to do a little bit of research on impersonators, and I got to have a little chat to some of them over there. They were very aware of our reasonable sized impersonating scene in Australia. Some of them had definitely traveled to the Gold Coast and done big shows there, and they were also aware of the Hong Kong scene because there’s quite a big scene there as well. Their focus and their dedication to their art is admirable. As Kenny says in the movie, “You can’t be halfway in. It doesn’t matter what industry you’re in.” And it was for me, just another reminder of why I’ve written this film, why I’ve taken control of my own career to try and get it to where I want it to be. And that’s just perseverance, persistence, and patience.

As well as being quite a good actor, Celeste Barber is a respected body positivity advocate. Did that play into Celeste’s casting?
I’d been wanting to work with Celeste for a long time. We tried to work with her on something else that we had done, but it didn’t quite work out with the timing. Since then she’s become the Celeste Baba we all love today. [Laughs]. It was awesome. This wasn’t Celeste just playing Celeste. She’s so much more than that. She’s a great actress, and she’s funny, and she just fit the part of Teeth so well that we were just happy that it worked out. And on top of that, it is nice that she stands for all of those great causes. That was the icing on the cake.

Gracie Otto is going from strength-to-strength at the moment as one of Australia’s best director’s having made a tonne of documentaries, TV shows, music videos and short films. It’s hard to believe this is her first feature film actually. How was the experience of working with Gracie on her first feature?
G knew about the project for years through reading it at Dollhouse Pictures. She hadn’t had as much experience initially, so I didn’t think that she would be right to direct it at that point. But then when everything aligned it just made sense. We were like, “Gracie, you’ve gotta do this.” And she’s like, “I’ve gotta do this.” [Laughs]. She’s an actor’s director first and foremost, but she’s a complete package. She’s got a very strong sense of vision and colour. Her colour palette was very strong as you’ll know having seen the film. She’s and incredible filmmaker. Gracie is everything I dreamed of.

Did you just affectionately refer to Gracie as G?
[Laughs]. I did, yeah. We call her G. [Laughs]. 

In Seriously Red, Red finds her community at the Copy Club. As an artist and a creative, have you found your community as a co-founder of Dollhouse Pictures? Is this a group of people you’d like to continue to make films with going forward?
Oh, that’s such a great question. That’s a very nice question. We all had 25 years experience separately, we’re all quite different. It just made so much sense to all come together to work together. There was a comfort within that group right from the get go. As well as working so well together, we’ve all got our own careers also going on at the same time. But when we wanna create something, when there’s a project coming up, we all chip in and make it work. It’s more than just us being business women. We want to take Australian talent to the world. We’re really proud to do that Seriously Red.

Seriously Red is in cinemas from November 24.

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