It’s a hell of time for the Y chromosome set in the New Zealand apocalyptic disaster comedy, Creamerie. Season one of this wickedly fun series presented a clever premise: A virus has decimated all the men on Earth — except one, the secretly discovered and hunky Bobby, played by Jay Ryan of TV’s Beauty and the Beast. Three New Zealand female dairy farmers, Alex (Ally Zue), Jamie (JJ Fong), and Phillipa/Pip (Perlina Lau) find Bobby, and together, this motley crew soon discover that everything they’ve believed to be true may not be entirely true at all.
Apparently, Bobby isn’t the only man left on the planet. This effects the estrogen parade, of course, as the women must evade Lane (Tandi Wright), the ominous matriarch of Wellness, the group that has been monitoring a tricky repopulation plan with its semen lottery — hey, it pays to have kept those sperm banks around.
Meanwhile, Alex, Jamie, Pip, and Bobby are shocked by Jackson’s (Yoson An) betrayal — he’s under Lane’s hypnotic spell — and at the beginning of the new season, we find the gang stuck inside a sperm bank. This is a kind of ‘mannery;’ think dairy farm and use your imagination with different kinds of milking machines, where a gaggle of the surviving men on the planet have been kept hostage for repopulation purposes.
The series, co-created by its three leads (Liang, Fong, and Lau), immediately won raves for its gross, dark humor and breezy pace. Season two just landed on broadcaster TVNZ’s TVNZ+ and Hulu on July 15 in the U.S.
Because the show is a New Zealand production that is locally funded with cast contracted under New Zealand standard contracts, which are not subject to the current SAG-AFTRA strike, co-creator and star Perlina Lau was able to speak with MovieWeb about the festive season ahead. Read on.
Don’t Let the Cream Curdle
Perlina Lau (who has possibly the most transformative character arc in Creamerie) is upbeat and passionate in conversation. The multi-talented performer, who happens to be a newscaster in New Zealand when she’s not shooting Creamerie, was outspoken about the importance of diversity in casting the show. In fact, when the series originally debuted, it garnered praise for the kinds of characters it offered.
“Diversity is such a hot topic now,” Lau noted, “And when we think of diversity, it’s mostly ‘race in the face.’ And while that is important, it’s not just that. It’s also age, different backgrounds, socioeconomic, different experiences, maybe even the places that you’ve worked. And so, naturally, if you have a more diversity in the room, you just have different ideas and perspectives.” She added:
And so, to me, it feels like a no-brainer in that you’re only going to enrich your work and make it better, rather than the same ideas of the same people. It’s a bit like echo chambers on social media. If you just have people around you saying, ‘yes, yes, yes, that’s a great idea,’ nobody is challenging those ideas. So, how can those ideas evolve and become bigger and fuller?
That’s not an issue on Creamerie. The show is big, bold, and broad. Yet between its zany, frenzied circumstances, the series has a ton of heart, too. When asked what she felt audiences might be most surprised by in season two of Creamerie, Lau shared:
“We’ve got quite a few quests in this season. Something happens in each episode where you think you’re going down one track and then we sort of take you down another. I hope people are surprised by those twists and I hope they don’t see them coming. Mostly, we wanted to continue the journey with these women and Bobby and see what happens. You know, if there’s a season three, I hope people want to continue watching.”
The Possibility of a Third Season
There’s a lot to unpack in season two, and by the end of the season, audiences will most likely be craving more. The season ends fabulously. That said, Lau admitted that she and her creative partners had a specific vision for the show, which originally springboarded off concepts featured in her long-running podcast.
“We always thought about the show as a three-season arc,” Lau said. “We knew that from the beginning. We knew, ‘Okay, let’s start season one in the rural community, Hiro Valley. Go small there. And then each season, sort of open it up a bit more. Season two was always going to be about traveling — going to the city, and that sort of thing. We decided very early on that we wanted to pick up right where we left off from season one. Literally. Rather than doing the sort of, you know, six months later or before.”
Lau went on to say that the reason behind that was simple. “We just thought, the characters want answers, the viewers will want answers, so let’s just go straight in with that scene and go from there. And this season, we knew who our characters were. We knew each other, we knew the cast. There weren’t those jitters that come with filming with a new cast. So, this season was very much a more physical show. We’re on the run. We’re trying to get away from Lane and her people. It was physically a lot more demanding and busy, busy show.”
About That Side Job
Here’s some fodder to savor. Perlina Lau is a producer and presenter for Radio New Zealand (RNZ). When asked how she balances her “day job” with taking on Creamerie, she told MovieWeb that, first and foremost, she has “really understanding bosses, and that’s a good start.” Lau is a newscaster, in fact, so how does she balance the serious reporting with the wild antics found in the show?
“I always thought I’d move into news directing, but then I ended up getting a job in front of the camera and that threw me into producing more content,” she said. “This was in 2015. And so, each show or company I’ve worked at have always known about the web series and Creamerie, so it’s always just been part of the negotiating process.”
Do her audiences mind that she straddles both worlds? “I’m not sure what it would be like in America, I don’t know if it would be possible, but in New Zealand, people seem to be able to compartmentalize,” she added. “They don’t really seem to mind, and I’ve never had anyone say, ‘Well I don’t believe what you’re saying on the news.’ They just kind of go, ‘Oh, that’s cool.’ I love that.”
As for the show’s popularity and what she feels audiences have truly resonated with, Lau mused: “It’s nuts. It’s bonkers. The idea of it is so extreme in some ways, but because we’ve paired that with the jokes and humor… it’s a really New Zealand thing. Where the jokes are always really banal. They’re about really silly, small details. That sort of seems to be our kind of humor. ” She continued:
And so, when you put those two things together, you have this real rollercoaster of a world, where one minute, it’s life and death — it’s the highest stakes you can possibly think of for these characters — and the next minute, they’re arguing over a cup or something they’re wearing. I think people have responded to possibly being taken on this ride that’s quite unpredictable but entertaining at the same time.
Creamerie is now streaming Hulu in the U.S., on TVNZ+ in New Zealand, and coming to SBS On Demand and SBS VICELAND in Australia on Aug. 28. The series is a New Zealand production that is locally funded with cast contracted under New Zealand standard contracts that are not subject to the SAG-AFTRA strike.
Stay connected with us on social media platform for instant update click here to join our Twitter, & Facebook
We are now on Telegram. Click here to join our channel (@TechiUpdate) and stay updated with the latest Technology headlines.
For all the latest Education News Click Here
