Soaring Into 70s-Era Australia: Radha Mitchell, Jesse Spencer and Linh-Dan Pham Talk 'Last Days of the Space Age'

If Neighbours wasn't already famously taken as a title of an Australian TV series, it could've also fit Last Days of the Space Age. Set in the 70s in Perth, the eight-part Disney+ show incorporates everything from US space station Skylab and workers striking for their rights to the battle for gender equality, the nation's treatment of Indigenous Australians, grappling with trauma and the immigrant experience — plus Miss Universe and the Cold War as well. Navigating all of the above: three neighbouring families in the Western Australian capital's suburbs.

Judy (Radha Mitchell, Troppo) and Tony Bissett (Jesse Spencer, Chicago Fire), Sandy (Linh-Dan Pham, Blue Bayou) and Lam Bui (Vico Thai, Total Control), and Eileen Wilberforce (Deborah Mailman, Boy Swallows Universe) are all good neighbours and good friends. The teenagers in the three households — aspiring astronaut Tilly Bissett (Mackenzie Mazur, Moja Vesna), her surf-loving sister Mia (Emily Grant, RFDS), her best friend Jono Bui (debutant Aidan Du Chiem) and new arrival Bilya Wilberforce (Thomas Weatherall, Heartbreak High) — also all go to school together. Those connections sit at the heart of the series — and, as almost everything that the Bissetts, Buis and Wilberforces know starts to change, their neighbourly ties couldn't be more pivotal.

Mitchell and Spencer are more than a bit familiar with this type of situation on-screen. While their careers have taken them overseas for decades — Mitchell has Phone Booth, The Crazies, two Silent Hill films, Olympus Has Fallen and London Has Fallen on her resume; Spencer featured in 173 episodes of House before his Chicago Fire stint; both also co-starred with a 00s-era Dakota Fanning in Man on Fire and Uptown Girls, respectively — they share a past on Neighbours. Last Days of the Space Age is Spencer's big return to homegrown TV, in fact, and his first major Australian small-screen role since playing Billy Kennedy.

Ramsay Street's antics aren't set in 1979, of course. Spencer can see the symmetry with the Aussie television role that brought him to fame in the 90s and his latest show, however, he tells Concrete Playground. "The writing quality is a little bit more involved, but that's up to you to decide," adds Mitchell. 

As Last Days of the Space Age's Judy and Tony, the pair play not just a married couple but also colleagues at the Doull Power Plant, where Tony has been leading the worker strike for six months. When Judy is promoted and tasked with negotiating an end to the union action, their family dynamic is unsurprisingly shaken up. Aided by directors Bharat Nalluri (Boy Swallows Universe), Rachel Ward (Rachel's Farm) and Kriv Stenders (Danger Close: The Battle of Long Tan), creator David Chidlow (Hidden, Moving On) unfurls the Bissetts' upheaval alongside the Bui family's efforts to build a new life after arriving from Vietnam. With the Wilberforces — and with 1979 marking 150 years since Perth was founded — the series also confronts the impact of colonisation.

Game of Thrones fans will spot Iain Glen (Silo) among the cast as well, as Judy's father Bob. Also included in the clearly ambitious series, which enthusiastically embraces its era and its tonal rollercoaster: Tony's journalist brother Mick (George Mason, Exposure) covering the beauty pageant, where USSR contestant Svetlana (Ines English, Dead Lucky) is a frontrunner under close watch by her KGB minder Yvgeny (Jacek Koman, Prosper).

With Last Days of the Space Age available to stream via Disney+ since Wednesday, October 2, we chatted with Mitchell, Spencer and and French Vietnamese actor Pham about what excited them about the show's bold mix of elements, the fight to be treated fairly that thrums through the series, balancing its tones, Mitchell and Spencer's homecoming, Pham connecting to her roots, Neighbours and more.

On What Excited Mitchell, Spencer and Pham About Starring in Last Days of the Space Age

Jesse: "I was in the States, I just had my first child and this script came across my desk — and I love period dramas. It was my first chance to play a father with two daughters, so I felt like I was looking into my future a little bit.

I knew nothing really about unions or the history of unions, but my character's a very passionate union leader, so I researched that — and there's a whole pretty awful history of treatment of workers back in the day, and workers' rights.

But the whole project felt like a really interesting ensemble. It was quite quirky, but it was ultimately about families, and families fighting for each other — and societal change and how they coped with that. And it was really well-written.

Then I got to Australia and it was a great cast, and it was a great experience to bring it off the page and bring it to life on the screen."

Linh-Dan: "I think when I choose projects, there's always something personal, somehow, unconsciously. And this one was very clear: it was about reconnecting with my roots, basically.

Even though my parents didn't go through what the Bui family has gone through, I managed to talk to some of my relatives about it, and it reopened the conversation — and also discovering the hidden pain, the trauma, was my way to get into Sandy.

The script was actually so amazing anyway, and period pieces are so interesting. To go back: first of all, Australia, I love traveling; 70s outfits, hello disco. So it was a no-brainer for me."

Radha: "There's so much in all of the storylines, and this sense of community, and all different parts of the fabric of the Australian identity being reviewed, in a way, because we have an opportunity to have a bit of distance between now and 1979. I thought that was really an interesting mirror to history, how we've constructed our sense of identity and where we're going to go with it now. Looking through the lens of that period, I thought was really interesting.

And I liked all the characters. I felt it was written with a really compassionate, kind perspective. There's so much snarky nastiness in the media lately, that it was nice to just be involved in a story that was trying to put something positive into the world.

So I felt very aligned to all those aspects of the script."

On Mitchell and Spencer's Homecoming — and the Joy of Not Needing to Imitate US Culture

Radha: "It was a little bit of a sense of coming back home, maybe, for me and Jesse — that we were able to bring some of where we've come from to where we are now. It felt like a bit of a contribution for me, being able to come home and do something that I felt aligned to."

Jesse: "Every Australian actor I know — because a lot of work is international, and for a lot of actors too — but every actor I know always loves to go home and try to do a project. Because you spend a lot of time learning about throwing yourself into other cultures, and more or less trying to imitate authentically who they are, and where they are in certain points in time and stuff.

So to bring it back to something that's much more familiar is just a pleasure. Things are much, much more tangible. It's accessible. There's still challenges, but it makes it very, very fun.

And especially when there's good writing and good casting — I know a lot of actors who are always trying to go back to their home countries and do it. And this was an opportunity to do that. So I grabbed it."

Radha: "It's interesting — an imitation. That is true when you're working in the US."

Jesse: "I mean, you don't think about it. You don't want to think about that."

Radha: "Yeah, but you're imitating the culture, whereas here, I feel like this is our culture, talking about things that we're part of."

On Whether Making a Show About Neighbours After Acting on Neighbours Feels Like a Full-Circle Moment

Radha: "I think Jesse would say so."

Jesse: "Yeah, a little bit. There was a little bit of that. Although, yes and no, because the dynamics, the themes that run through the show, the dynamics between the characters, is just a little different to Neighbours, but there is a similarity there."

Radha: "We are neighbours in the show."

Jesse: "I mean, we're next door to each other."

On the Series' Resonant and Repeated Focus on Fighting to Be Treated Fairly

Jesse: "I think it's a human trope. Everyone's fighting a hard battle against themselves and in society. It's something everyone can relate to. And it's enjoyable to watch, I think, characters have obstacles — to come up against them, sometimes fail, but sometimes find a way around that and breakthrough for a transformation.

That's what this show is all about. It's about transformation, courage and ultimately hope."

Radha: "But it's subverted, I guess, in a great way by this crazy stuff that's going on in history, and the crazy costumes. And all this stuff, there's a sincerity to it, but there's also an irreverence about the storytelling, which I think attracted me to it."

On Balancing the Mix of Warmth, Tragedy, Humour and History

Radha: "That's the challenge in the discovery. I think we were on set thinking 'what is this? Is this a comedy?'."

Jesse: "Right. Right."

Radha: "'Look at your outfit, man. I can't even look at you without laughing' — but here we are, we're doing this very serious scene."

Jesse: "But that's life as well, when it's this tragedy but it's also kind of funny — a bit of black humour or quirky sort of humour. There's always a million shades of grey, which is better than just one colour. And yeah, that was a challenge.

And we were always trying to figure out what the tone is in the scene and where you were with the character."

Radha: "Even Bharat [Nalluri], who was the first director for the series, was like 'wow, okay, we're really going to create this together, the tone'. And we felt comfortable that he had recognised that that was part of what we were doing — that it couldn't be just taken for granted.

I think that's what makes the series unique, that it's got its own tone, its own voice — and I think that was what we created."

On How Pham Approached Playing a Character Caught Between Making a New Life and Grappling with Trauma

Lin-Danh: "Well, you go deep. I think somehow what your parents instil in you, your family, your surroundings, you feed yourself from all of that, and it's the mystery also of acting, sometimes.

Actually, my aunt had written a story about her side of the family, a book she self-published. I did read about that. And it was ups and down all the time, her first few years in France where she lost everything and she refused to go back to Vietnam, and had to fend for herself with her three kids.

They were boat people, met some pirates. So, you just talk to these people and you feed off it. It feels a bit selfish and sometimes like I'm forcing a little bit. But they were very generous and we had great conversations with my family that I had not really had kept in touch with. So that's how I got through Sandy."

On Mitchell's Take on Judy Being Pulled in Every Direction Both at Work and at Home — and Finding Herself in the Chaos

Radha: "I just wanted to keep her really real. And I felt maybe what was charming about her is that she didn't want to do all these things. They were just happening and she was discovering her talents in action, but she wasn't ambitious at all. It was just happening, it was her nightmare that she was going to be doing all these things, and yet she was discovering herself in them.

I thought that was really interesting about her. She wasn't this empowered woman — she was somebody discovering her power. And the conflict around that at home, and the challenges of having teenage daughters that just don't want to listen to you, I think it sort of played itself out.

And maybe even my own personal bias against it — just feeling that I like these emancipated female characters, so to cut my own wings in the role was really interesting for me.

I think those were the challenges, and I was lucky enough to be working with great actors, and we created this wacky little family together. And then the friendships around that, I think layered it with this — I think Linh-Dan was saying it was a feminist show in a way, and I don't think it is only, but it certainly celebrates the relationships between women and the details of women's lives in a kind of intimate way. I think that's one of the beautiful parts of the storytelling."

Last Days of the Space Age streams via Disney+ from Wednesday, October 2, 2024.

Images: Joel Pratley, Tony Mott and Mark Rogers.