{"id":49449,"date":"2025-08-07T03:39:11","date_gmt":"2025-08-07T03:39:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/49449\/"},"modified":"2025-08-07T03:39:11","modified_gmt":"2025-08-07T03:39:11","slug":"austin-breaks-bad-in-season-two","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/49449\/","title":{"rendered":"Austin breaks bad in season two"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\t\t\t\t\tSeasoned actor Ben Miller reveals how working alongside star Michael Theo is not easy when he’s such a natural.\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n

Ben Miller chuckles down the line, sitting in the sun in Devon, as he reflects back on Season Two of ABC comedy Austin.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s clear the writers have had fun playing with Austin\u2018s (Michael Theo\u2019s) growing confidence and his very own publishing deal. Be careful what you wish for.<\/p>\n

\u201cAustin sort of breaks bad in season two,\u201d says Miller. \u201cIt kind of goes to his head a bit, and he becomes a bit of a knob.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve gotta say, Michael did that brilliantly. He wasn\u2019t very happy with his clothes or his hair style because it\u2019s not how he would choose to dress or behave. So it was really fun to see him do that.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s hilarious seeing Austin disappear up his own fundament.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Two<\/a><\/p>\n

When Miller was first pitched the idea of a scripted comedy with Love on the Spectrum\u2018s Michael Theo, by creator \/ director Darren Ashton, he was intrigued. The intial concept would suggest Theo\u2019s character turning up to Miller unannounced on the set of Bridgerton, claiming to be his son.<\/p>\n

While the premise shifted Miller still had one question he needed answered.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019d seen Michael in Love on the Spectrum, and I just thought he was the most fascinating character and clearly had his own feel for comedy. So my question was more angled towards, \u2018Do you think he\u2019s interested in acting? Do you think he has any talent as an actor? Can we find out? Because I\u2019d love to work with him,’\u201d he recalls.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt turns out he\u2019s a better actor than any of us!<\/p>\n

\u201cHe\u2019d gotten an awful lot of his own courage from watching animations and movies. Stories on screen meant probably even more to him than they did to us, and they mean a lot to us. So, it was a long process from then, because you can\u2019t just throw someone into a lead part. We had to get Michael some acting training.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Three<\/a><\/p>\n

But even for the seasoned Miller, whose lengthy credits include The Armstrong & Miller Show, Professor T, Johnny English, Paddington and Death in Paradise, acting alongside Theo is sometimes a challenge.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt became apparent really quickly that he was incredibly talented as an actor. He\u2019s quite hard to act against!\u201d he explains.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe whole thing was a huge risk, and that was what was one of the really exciting things about it, but he\u2019s so natural and so good. There are kind of tricks of acting. He doesn\u2019t really use those. He uses the truth. So it\u2019s quite hard to act against.\u201d<\/p>\n

Filming in both Australia and the UK, Austin also incorporates writers and crew with lived experience of autism and neurodivergence. Theo is also credited as script consultant.<\/p>\n

\u201cBeing a job is a good enough reason to want to be involved but we wanted to be a bit more neurodiverse on the crew as well. And that was really fantastic. It\u2019s funny what you say about educating people about neuro diversity, because at the same time, you don\u2019t want to be preachy,\u201d Miller insists.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat I like about Austin is anything you learn about neurodiversity, you really sort of learn through Michael himself. Like we all do on set. It\u2019s funny, my character hasn\u2019t really learned diversity at all, and that\u2019s quite fun as well. You know, not every character is singing from the same hymn sheet in the story. I find that quite refreshing. I wouldn\u2019t want it to feel worthy. I think if it felt worthy, people would suss that straight away. I think people have got a really good nose for what\u2019s authentic.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe idea of the story is to bring us more and more into Austin\u2018s viewpoint. So we start in the other characters\u2019 viewpoints out of necessity, really. We get to know them first, and then we get to know Austin, and then the longer the show goes on, the more it becomes Austin\u2018s view.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Three<\/a><\/p>\n

Performing alongside Sally Phillips, Gia Carides, Roy Billing and Ellie McKay, Miller enjoys the contrast to some of his more recent dramatic roles.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf you\u2019ve got a long view of what you\u2019re doing, you want to work with as many brilliant people and do as many different things as you can,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve got to be really invested in what I\u2019m doing, and in Austin that\u2019s definitely been the case, because the whole thing started with kicking an idea around with Darren. It\u2019s wonderful that it\u2019s ended up becoming a show. Often those things don\u2019t go anywhere.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat I\u2019m less good at is just being an actor for hire, but then sometimes you\u2019re working with such amazing people or the story is so interesting that it brings some that brings something else.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s about the people, isn\u2019t it? God, I wish there was a simple thing you could say\u2026I\u2019ve never really found a rule to work by that has been borne true. As things have gone on, I\u2019m kind of muddling through and I\u2019m trying to do things that where I feel I can contribute something. I suppose that that\u2019s what it is, and where I\u2019ll learn something.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was trying to get parts in dramas and ended up being in Professor T, which I\u2019m really, proud of. It\u2019s a very interesting crime drama with a very, very complex character and fascinating to do. I learned a lot about psychology and criminology. And then I thought, \u2018Why have I not done any comedy for so long?\u2019 You feel the urge to do the opposite thing.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s what\u2019s been nice with Austin. I go back to pure comedy, where your only aim really is to try and make people laugh. And I really, really love that.\u201d<\/p>\n

Austin\u00a0screens 7:30pm Sundays on ABC.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Seasoned actor Ben Miller reveals how working alongside star Michael Theo is not easy when he’s such a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":49450,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[29],"tags":[64,63,134,427],"class_list":{"0":"post-49449","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-tv","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-entertainment","11":"tag-tv"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49449","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=49449"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49449\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/49450"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=49449"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=49449"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=49449"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}