AAA<\/p>\n
There is a familiarity within the Australian creative scene that gives audiences a unique kinship with the actors who appear on our screens and stages. These are the faces we have grown up with, who we have aged with, and who we innately feel like \u2014 were we to run into them at the pub \u2014 we could share a beer with. It gives our home-grown productions a warm, fuzzy feeling because, not only do we recognise familiar streets, landmarks and cafes used as filming locations, but we feel an instant intimacy when recognisable faces appear. The pride is palpable.<\/p>\n
Occasionally, a production comes along that is so successful in creating that feeling of familiarity you can\u2019t help but smile when you watch it, even if the subject makes you cry or shift uncomfortably in your seat. And that, in a nutshell, is Dalliance.<\/p>\n
![\"Hugo](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/f88daa742330648b0b8011d1579776ee886f77a2.jpeg\")
Hugo Weaving and Heather Mitchell in Dalliance. The good friends have worked together for more than 40 years. <\/p>\n
The six-episode drama series charts the fallout from one big, life-changing event and the ways it radically upends a group of 60-something friends. Exploring everything from female friendship and the path to parenthood to sex, desire and ambition, it\u2019s the latest endeavour from John and Dan Edwards<\/a>, the father-and-son production duo behind Bump<\/a> and The F Ward<\/a>.<\/p>\n The series also marks a reunion for long-time friends and collaborators Heather Mitchell<\/a> and Hugo Weaving<\/a>, who star as would-be romantic interests, Dani and Billy. Their on-screen rapport is instant, but when you\u2019ve shared stage and screen for over 40 years, that\u2019s to be expected.<\/p>\n Related Article \u201cI feel so blessed every time I get to work with him,\u201d Mitchell says of her decades-long friend. \u201cFrom when we first worked together \u2026 there\u2019s always been a lot of laughter, a lot of fun and ease. It hasn\u2019t changed, really, over the years. And that\u2019s the thing about getting older. [With] people you\u2019ve known for a long time, you sort of slot right back to where you were.\u201d<\/p>\n The pair first met at the prestigious National Institute of Dramatic Art (NIDA) in 1979, began working together at Sydney Theatre Company in 1982, and, most recently, shared the screen in Binge\u2019s acclaimed multi-generational drama Love Me<\/a>.<\/p>\n \u201cI adore Heather,\u201d says Weaving. \u201cWorking with her is being embraced. She has a capacity to care about others like no one else and I consider myself hugely lucky to get to play with her whenever we work together.\u201d<\/p>\n Dalliance is a reunion for many of the cast, and remarkable in that most of them are in their 50s and 60s. Mitchell was most excited by the prospect of giving talented friends, such as Catherine McClements, an opportunity to expand their creative horizons. \u201cI loved watching her play a character who\u2019s sexy, funny and complex when she\u2019s so often cast as brittle and tough.\u201d<\/p>\n She also knew the perfect person for the role of Rose, Billy\u2019s wife of 40 years, pleading with Home and Away producer Julie McGauran to release Georgie Parker, who has spent 16 years working on the soap, for Dalliance. \u201cI\u2019ve known Georgie Parker since we were in our 20s, and I think this role shows people the depth of her talent.\u201d<\/p>\n Related Article By nature of the series\u2019 time-jumping format, Weaving worked mostly with Mitchell and David Wenham<\/a>, who plays Billy\u2019s volatile younger brother, but relished the chance to connect with old friends. \u201cOur read-through days were very special, all the cast together for two days. It was so lovely to catch up with everyone.\u201d And like all great 21st-century friendships, Mitchell adds, the WhatsApp group is still going strong. \u201cWe\u2019re constantly writing to each other on because we formed such a close relationship between all of us. It\u2019s beautiful.\u201d<\/p>\n For 68-year-old Mitchell, this was a project particularly close to her heart. Despite a career rich with experience (she won her second AACTA Award in February for The Narrow Road to the Deep North<\/a>), this is her first time in the producer\u2019s seat. She was quick to accept when John Edwards made the offer. \u201cOne of the beautiful things about being older is the challenges are less risky because you\u2019ve got less to lose, if that makes sense.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cAnd I have loved it,\u201d she adds, pointing out that her age gave her the confidence to ask questions. \u201cI haven\u2019t beaten myself up if I don\u2019t know something. I just say, \u2018Can you help me with this?\u2019 I\u2019d go to the production manager and say, \u2018I have no idea what this means.\u2019 I think as I\u2019m getting older, I ask for help more.\u201d<\/p>\n Camaraderie played a pivotal role in not only the chemistry between the actors and behind the scenes \u2013 Mitchell\u2019s husband of 34 years, Martin McGrath<\/a>, is the show\u2019s director of photography \u2013 but also in the writing room, where lived experience and a willingness to be vulnerable gave depth to each character\u2019s journey.<\/p>\n Related Article \u201cWe talked a lot about sexuality,\u201d says Mitchell. \u201cPassion, love, sex. People who\u2019ve been through cancer, how medication affects your sexuality, how desire changes for each person as they get older. Some people just do not want to be touched any more. Other people long for it desperately. For me personally, I\u2019m probably saying too much \u2026 [but] I\u2019m more sexually satisfied in my 60s than I ever have been. And I know what I want.<\/p>\n \u201cWe really wanted to explore both men and women and whatever gender, that there is no time limit to love and companionship and sex. And that sex is not the driving thing for everybody. That often people go online looking for very different things. And sometimes it is sex with no other attachments. And other times, someone is really looking for a true love. The past can turn up.<\/p>\n \u201cSo we talked at length about what is sexuality, and how is it perceived? And I would hope that for younger people, if any younger people watch this show, that they will also feel that life doesn\u2019t stop. You don\u2019t stop growing. You don\u2019t stop living. You don\u2019t stop wanting.\u201d<\/p>\n Dalliance, and Mitchell\u2019s own sharpened focus on life, touches on what psychologists call \u201csocioemotional selectivity theory\u201d. It argues that we shift our priorities and goals depending on how long we think we have left. Young people who see the future as long and open-ended prioritise knowledge and building their social network, while those further along in life, faced with their own mortality, grow more selective. They chase emotionally meaningful goals, avoid obvious risk, and prioritise close relationships over new connections.<\/p>\n \u201cThe older you get, you\u2019re looking closer to the idea of death. More friends die around you, more things happen which you might feel will result in an ending,\u201d reflects Mitchell. \u201cCertainly within this show, we want to say, no one\u2019s ready to end anything. These characters aren\u2019t thinking of endings, they\u2019re thinking of beginnings, like how do I want to live the rest of my life? How do I want to be with the people I love?\u201d<\/p>\n Endings, as it happens, are fresh in Mitchell\u2019s mind. She recently starred in black comedy The Fox, which would become one of the late Sam Neill\u2019s final roles<\/a> (though with Neill as the voice of a magpie, they didn\u2019t actually share the screen). \u201cSam was a very, very dear friend of mine,\u201d says Mitchell, who also paid tribute to Neill at the recent Logie Awards<\/a>. \u201cI\u2019ve spent a lot of time with him, and my husband was a close friend of Sam\u2019s. He\u2019s directed me, I\u2019ve acted with him, but our main relationship is a non-professional one \u2013 I actually went out with him when I was 22 \u2013 and I still feel his presence enormously.<\/p>\n \u201cAnd there again, a man in his late 70s who was working and had jobs lined up. So much of his identity and his love was in his work, the people and the industry. I think it\u2019s important for people to know, he was not a weakened person. He was strong right up until the end.\u201d<\/p>\n Related Article As with Neill, both Mitchell and 66-year-old Weaving show no signs of slowing down. Weaving is in pre-production for, among other projects, the long-awaited Priscilla Queen of the Desert 2<\/a> and returns in season six of Slow Horses<\/a> next month. Meanwhile, Mitchell is fresh off a 350-show run of her acclaimed one-woman play RBG: Of Many, One<\/a> and is already lining up her next credits.<\/p>\n \u201cPeople talk about being invisible in their 60s or as they get older; I feel the reverse,\u201d she says. \u201cYour 60s is a wonderful period of self-exploration in a whole new way, consolidating what\u2019s important in life and what\u2019s right for you.\u201d If you ever run into her at the pub, she\u2019ll tell you all about it.<\/p>\n Dalliance premieres on Paramount+ on August 27.<\/p>\n Want more TV? We\u2019ve got you.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Save You have reached your maximum number of saved items. Remove items from your saved list to add…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":865109,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[29],"tags":[64,63,134,427],"class_list":["post-865108","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tv","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-entertainment","tag-tv"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/865108","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=865108"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/865108\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/865109"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=865108"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=865108"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=865108"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"What](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/ecda93d59b368901724b57d4e5a665e5179baab8e2ae172b5fdbc5defebd62e3.jpeg\")
<\/a><\/p>\n![\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/d331436ebcf062f7b9f9f80695fe126e9b9946b5.jpeg\")
Georgie Parker as Rose, Hugo Weaving as Billy, and Heather Mitchell as Dani in Dalliance.<\/p>\n![\"Hugo](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/8f6fe9c4a6bcb3b99de1e5f706c834563f9f1990.jpeg\")
<\/a><\/p>\n![\"Georgie](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/8e6227d3b2055b99ec8f244ab9c0e3603741dc0a.jpeg\")
Georgie Parker as Rose and David Wenham as Gary in Dalliance.<\/p>\n![\"Philippa](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/20fa08d25da0d676f307a18ceca395933841008e.jpeg\")
<\/a><\/p>\n![\"Mitchell](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/6c81d83102dd668ebd922824e7e7271872ea1a3e.jpeg\")
Mitchell and Weaving in the 1984 miniseries Bodyline. It was the first time they played partners on screen. <\/p>\n![\"Molly](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/1787450894_158_be6e2211ae23bf2db5353627bb31671fafe1b6dd.jpeg\")
<\/a><\/p>\n