3 months ago
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Natasha Liu Bordizzo is ready to come home. After a decade in Hollywood, where she has starred in everything from Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon: Sword of Destiny, to The Society, The Voyeurs and the Star Wars series Ahsoka, she now sees more opportunities at home.
“For people who look like me there weren’t really many jobs [in Australia] 10 years ago … Now there are more opportunities for people of colour,” says Liu Bordizzo.
Natasha Liu Bordizzo as Barbara in He Had It Coming.Credit:
The project that lured her back makes a dramatic change from the action-adventure, interstellar fantasy and erotic thrillers that have been her bread and butter. An eight-part gender-warfare crime comedy, fuelled by feminist rage, set at a university, He Had It Coming marks Liu Bordizzo’s first comedic role.
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“Based on my heritage [Liu Bordizzo’s mother is Chinese and her Australian father is of Italian descent] I started off doing martial-arts action roles, which I loved, but I also didn’t want to be pigeonholed,” she says. “I’m a goofy person but I was always playing the cool action girl. So it was very cool to show another side. And the script is hilarious. We were just laughing every day on set.”
Written by Gretel Vella (Class of ’07), produced by Chloe Rickard (No Activity, Squinters) and directed by Rachel House (the Heartbreak High actor from New Zealand, making her series directing debut), with a cast that includes Liv Hewson (Yellowjackets), Duncan Fellows, Mabel Li, Cody Simpson and Miah Madden, the series takes a riotous approach to a disturbing issue – misogyny and sexual assault on campus.
Liu Bordizzo is Barbara, an influencer undertaking a fine arts degree on the side. Her favourite hashtag is “girl power” but her personal politics don’t quite align with her branding. A chance encounter with shy English exchange student Elise (British actor Lydia West), who makes feminist protest art, locks the pair in a dangerous tryst. After drinks at the student bar a statue gets desecrated and a male student widely known as a sex pest winds up dead.
Natasha Liu Bordizzo as Mandalorian warrior Sabine Wren in Star Wars: Ahsoka.Credit:
“Originally, Gretel and [screenwriter and actor] Craig Anderson were going to make a horror,” says Liu Bordizzo. “But it was all too heavy. Then, in talking to focus groups with young women who had been through sexual assault but dealt with it with humour, they were inspired to create a comedy.
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“It’s one of my favourite things as an actor, to have content that is heavy but also takes the edge off with comedy, and you’re living between two worlds … It’s also part of real life. When you go through a traumatic experience, healing is oftentimes laughing and finding joy again.”
The series is filmed at the former Parramatta Girls Home, which closed in 1974 after public outcry over the abuse that occurred there.
“It was almost restorative to shoot a show like this there,” says Liu Bordizzo. “I think we all had to come to terms in our own minds with what that meant. And it was very special. Ultimately, it only felt good and right.”
One of her favourite scenes with West involves the aforementioned statue. Spoiler alert: it does not end well for the statue. “That was so much fun! Honestly, I was not expecting for my first hit to knock this guy’s cock off … Generally speaking, I don’t like [vandalism]. But if it’s a really silly statue that stands for something really problematic, maybe I’ll make an exception.”
In Barbara, Liu Bordizzo sees a little of her younger self: “She’s got a repressed exterior. She’s very avoidant.”
Snr Constable Shepherd (Liv Hewson) and Barbara (Natasha Liu Bordizzo) in He Had It Coming.Credit:
Unlike Barbara, she is selective about what she posts online.
“Obviously it’s more prevalent when you have a public-facing career. But I think we all have to deal with our presence online,” she says. “Are we showing our day-to-day lives? Is it purely work? Are we going to get political? Are we going to talk about important issues? I think it’s an ebb and flow.
“Sometimes I feel like sharing more than others. Sometimes I have the emotional availability to read more news and take on the heavy things going on in the world. And other times I don’t have the space for that. Everyone just has to figure out how social media can have a healthy position in their lives. And I think we should all be on it less.”
At home in Sydney, Liu Bordizzo “flies under the radar”.
“I’m not hanging out anywhere that anyone’s going to see me. I’m with my parents,” she says. “I’m going to the park. I am going to my local ocean pool. I’m not in the ‘sceney’ areas.”
Elise (Lydia West) and Barbara (Natasha Liu Bordizzo) in He Had It Coming.Credit:
When she is stopped for a selfie, it’s likely to be by Star Wars fans.
“It’s a different beast because people watch it with their parents and grandparents,” she says. “It’s been passed on and continues and is world-building. It is such a blessing because it’s not just a job; it’s part of your life forever.”
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Hollywood will have to wait as Liu Bordizzo fulfils her “yearning to be part of the Australian stories that we are and we grew up with”.
“This was my first time shooting in Sydney. I got to come home to my mum’s cooking every night, and bring my dad to set for the first time,” she says. “Liv Hewson and I were talking about how the Australian creative community is really specific. It’s hard to pin down what Australian culture actually is. But we want to be part of figuring that out. And I just love being home. I really do.”
He Had It Coming is now streaming on Stan, which is owned by Nine, the publisher of this masthead.
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