Having recently been announced as the latest resident to join Ramsay Street, Phoebe’s character Freya is simply described as complex, mysterious and a risk-taker.
“I’m having so much fun with her, she brings a little bit of drama and she’s a little bit of a wild one,” Phoebe told 10 play, “and I think that’s all I can really say! But I'm excited to be with her for a couple of months.”
Phoebe is currently starring in Lie With Me as Becky, a young nanny who has wandered into a tense household. Soon, secrets begin to unravel and it seems like no one in the house is who they first appeared.
“She’s quite an enigma,” Phoebe said of Becky, “you don’t know a heap about where she’s come from and she just entered into this crazy situation and that was really fun because I felt like I could turn her into whatever I wanted as long as it worked within the story.”
Starring Charlie Brooks as Anna and Brett Tucker as Jake, a married couple who have relocated back to Jake’s home of Australia after unspoken events saw the couple need a new start, they welcome Becky into their home as their nanny.
Hiding secrets of her own, Becky’s arrival sets a series of events in motion that have deadly consequences.
“I guess the summary of Becky is that she’s just a fully devoted person who has been completely driven by her heart and love for another man,” Phoebe said, “and it makes you do some really interesting things.
“I loved playing her because you can see someone spiralling out. That’s what she experiences. She gets very deep in the situation and begins to unravel because it’s so much more than what she thought it was going to be, and it’s so much more adult than she can actually handle.”
Having to keep the secrets of the series close to her chest, Phoebe laughed at the idea of having to “speak in code” for people to piece together after they’ve seen the series.
“You don’t want to ruin it for anybody. I mean, with this kind of genre and the way the story goes, all the twists and manipulations and intricacies are what makes it great!”
With both Freya and Becky being framed by their mysteries, Phoebe said it was the clarity of their situations that make them such enjoyable characters to embody.
“The more you can feel it and the more you can commit to it, the more fun it will be and both of these characters are extremely complex and allow you to really explore pretty deep storylines and situations, and that’s just any actor’s dream.”
With Freya’s imminent arrival on Ramsay Street, Phoebe said she now understands what so many Aussie actors mean when they say being on Neighbours is the best training that any actor could ever do.
“I was always like, oh I wonder what that means. I’ve only been here for two weeks and I totally understand,” she said, adding, “it’s so quick and there’s so much to get through and you just have to learn how to move at a million miles an hour and wrap your head around everything a million words at a time.
“It’s just really cool to be part of something so iconic, it’s an amazing experience and I’m just so lucky to be here.”
Lie With Me airs Wednesday nights on 10 and 10 play on demand
