By Louise Rugendyke
Shalom Brune-Franklin and William Lodder play former partners who are raising a baby in Love Me.
Shalom Brune-Franklin would like you to know she’s a good egg.
It’s important information when you consider the British-Australian actor’s roster of slightly slippery and brittle characters on TV shows such as Love Me, The Tourist and Line of Duty. They’re all hiding something – their real identity, their feelings – but not Brune-Franklin.
“I’m just a good, solid egg,” she says, laughing. “I’ll always be there.”
I can confirm that Brune-Franklin is indeed a good egg. It’s late at night in London, where Brune-Franklin lives, but she’s happily chatting away over Zoom, as my daughter sits next to me shovelling in Weet-Bix while Bluey blasts in the background. “Oh, I like your pyjamas,” she says in her wonderfully mixed-up British-Australian accent to my six-year-old, who gives a thumbs up in response.
British-Australian actor Shalom Brune-Franklin has been hailed as one of the screen’s rising stars for her performances in shows such as Love Me and Line of Duty.
Over the past few years Brune-Franklin has been making all the right moves – building an enviable career that ticks all the right boxes: BBC police dramas with cult followings, twisty international thrillers, high-end Australian streaming hits and co-stars that include Oscar winners (Olivia Colman in Great Expectations), national treasures (Hugo Weaving and Heather Mitchell in Love Me) and international-spunks-who-can-also-act (Jamie Dornan in The Tourist). If that weren’t enough, she’s been filming the secretive TV spinoff to the Dune film series, called Dune: The Sisterhood.
“I definitely still feel like a bit of an impostor when I’m on set,” she says. “I’m like, ‘Oh my gosh, how did I get here? How is this happening right now?’ That feeling has not worn off, which is good.”
Brune-Franklin may feel like she’s an impostor, but there aren’t many who would agree with that. The 28-year-old has been hailed as a “woman to watch” and one of “Britain’s brightest screen talents” by Harper’s Bazaar magazine in the UK, with a photo shoot for the cover to match.
“Honestly, I still can’t believe that that was a thing,” she says, shaking her head. “I’m not even gonna lie. I went to the shop to buy some, because my mum was like, ‘Get me some, send me some.’ So I was literally trying to clear out all the convenience stores around me and every time I was blabbing, ‘Oh my god, I can’t believe this is a real thing.’”
Did any of the staff in the shops recognise her?
“When I was buying it once, my mate was like, ‘Look, don’t you recognise the girl on the cover? Doesn’t she look really familiar?’ to the shopkeeper and the shopkeeper was just looking at him.”
All that attention would be enough to turn anyone’s head but Brune-Franklin seems wonderfully unaffected. It’s a quality that comes across in her performances, too, especially in Love Me, the romantic drama in which she plays Ella, the straight-shooting love interest-turned-ex-turned-baby-mama of Aaron, played by William Lodder.
He’s a bit wet behind the ears, grieving the death of his mother but smitten with Ella, a DJ who appears to be an escape from the grief hanging over his family and a way out of a future that’s already mapped out for him.
At the end of season one, Ella reveals she is pregnant and pretty much nine months later, that’s where season two kicks off, with her in the maternity ward, shouting, “What’s that f—ing smell?” It’s quite the entrance.
“She’s a bit different, isn’t she” says Brune-Franklin. “She adds something to the show. She’s this rogue character, she punches through. Even her lines are so punchy. When I was reading [the script for the first episode], I was like, ‘Oh, there she is.’”
Set in Melbourne, Love Me is adapted by Alison Bell from a Swedish series of the same name (Alska mig) and it follows the Mathiesons – dad Glen (Hugo Weaving) and his two adult children, Clara (Bojana Novakovic) and Aaron – as they cope with the loss of their mother Christine (Sarah Peirse).
It’s a terrific portrait of grief and all that comes with it – humour, sadness and bare bottoms – and the tangled search for love after death. Ella’s brittleness provides a sharp counterbalance to Aaron’s flakiness and it’s a credit to Brune-Franklin that you never really dislike Ella but she probably does need a hug.
Shalom Brune-Franklin with Martin Compston (left) and Adrian Dunbar in Line of Duty.
“That was definitely something that was really interesting to figure out,” says Brune-Franklin of her and Aaron’s relationship. “Because not only are they becoming parents, they’re trying to co-parent together as they’re not together any more. It’s a really overwhelming and confusing time for both of them and they’re just trying to survive day by day with this newborn baby.
“Ella feels like she doesn’t have the best support system – and it’s kind of obvious. And Aaron, as much as he’s probably tried to prepare himself for this, he’s really overwhelmed.”
The one person who does provide support is Aaron’s dad, Glen (side note: Hugo Weaving is magnificent in this role. Soft, kind and, yes, completely huggable). He is one of the few people Ella opens up to.
“I remember when I read that, I thought, ‘Wow, that’s the first time we’ve ever seen that from this character,’” says Brune-Franklin. “She’s always got this really hard facade and I think it’s interesting learning that that comes from her mum. You can see where she learnt it from, that constant deflection.”
Brune-Franklin moved with her family from Hertfordshire in the UK to Perth when she was 14, hence the mixed-up accent. It was, of course, a complete culture shock but what she remembers most is being overwhelmed by the space. “That first bus ride I took to school perfectly sums it up,” she says. “I remember constantly being cramped on the bus, school kids screaming at each other, in England. And there was just so much liveliness.
“And when I got on the bus in Perth, there were two other kids on there. And the bus driver literally made a comment at the fact that he hadn’t seen us on the route before. And we were like, ‘Yeah, we’re new. We just got here.’ And I was like, ‘Whoa, we are in a totally different place now.’”
It was at school that she took her first steps in drama. “I remember just getting up and doing [a monologue] and going, ‘Oh, it was so easy. I can’t believe we can get marks for this.’ And it all started from there,” she recalls.
“I didn’t realise it wasn’t supposed to feel that good and that easy all the time. I think it was quite terrifying for a lot of people and I thought, ‘What? What’s terrifying about playing another person? It’s so easy.’”
The next step was the Western Australian Academy of Performing Arts, where Hugh Jackman entered stage right, with a $17,000 scholarship in her final year that changed the course of her career. It almost didn’t happen because Brune-Franklin almost forgot to apply.
“I did not think that was going to happen to me,” she says. “Everyone was applying for the scholarship and I wasn’t. It was so not in my mindframe of ever thinking that I would be eligible for it, let alone win it.
“And I remember a couple of nights before it was due, my mate was like, ‘Why haven’t you put your application in yet?’ And I was like, ‘Oh, nah, I’m not gonna win that. Come on.’ And she was like, ‘Please do it.’
“I should probably thank her for being the one that forced me to do it – and then look what happens! You should probably just back yourself a little bit more. I didn’t have tickets on myself then, I probably still don’t have enough tickets on myself now, but I don’t think that’s a bad thing.”
Acting aside, the big question for anyone with as mixed-up an accent as Brune-Franklin, is which country does she support in sport. Think of it as Hugo Weaving v Jamie Dornan, Heather Mitchell v Olivia Colman. Come on then, who is it?
“That is the question,” she says, laughing. “That is like the main question. And honestly, my family have asked me that. Sometimes they’re like, ‘C’mon,’ and I seriously don’t know. I love both.”
Ah, finally a crack in the egg.
Season two of Love Me streams on Binge from April 6.
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