From Slow Horses to Outback thirst trap: Christopher Chung’s brilliant career
After a scene stealing turn in Apple TV spy drama Slow Horses, Christopher Chung has embraced a new challenge: the reimagined romantic lead in Netflix’s modern reboot of Miles Franklin’s My Brilliant Career.
Over 120 years later after My Brilliant Career was published, Christopher Chung is aware he might not be what its author Stella Miles Franklin envisioned for Harry Beecham – and there was a time when he couldn’t see himself in this kind of role either.
“I’ve said before, I definitely thought that my career would have been capped at being a best friend or a sidekick – very much not a leading part,” the 38-year-old actor tells InReview.
In Franklin’s 1901 novel, her protagonist and narrator Sybylla introduces the character of Harold ‘Harry’ Beecham as “my first, my last, my only real sweetheart”.
As the young and wealthy heir to Five Bob Downs – a pastoral station neighbouring her own maternal family seat of Caddagat – Sybylla finds herself drawn to Beecham’s open face, his “pleasant quiet smile”, and wonders “as I watched him if anything ever disturbed his serenity, and desired to try”.
Given the aspiring writer’s earlier proclamation that her story “is not a romance”, this presents a bit of a problem for the defiant young Sybylla.
Franklin and her debut novel are rarely far from Australia’s cultural conversation, from the two annual literary prizes named after her, to the steady stream of books about her life, her undercover journalism career, and her lesser-known sister. A celebrated, pub-rock infused musical adaptation of My Brilliant Career wrapped a national tour in May, while another about Franklin herself premiered in June.
It’s been a year since Chung wrapped filming on the latest major addition to the Franklinverse: Netflix’s big budget, six-part remake of My Brilliant Career, which drops on the streamer this week across 190 countries.
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Filmed in South Australia, it’s a thorough retooling of Franklin’s original novel, infusing it with a modern sensibility that at times feels like Bridgerton in Brindabella. This includes a frank depiction of Sybylla’s early sexual awakenings, and the addition of First Nations characters and perspectives granted only passing mention in Franklin’s original – and often in the racist language of its period.
Foremost among those revisions is the character of Beecham, previously played onscreen by the late Sam Neill in Gillian Armstrong’s 1979 film adaptation. While Franklin’s portrayal of the dark-haired, unconventionally attractive Beecham isn’t overly prescriptive about the origins of his “colonial nationality”, his reinvention by My Brilliant Career showrunner Liz Doran is a long way from the fleeting references to “Chinamen” that appear in the novel.
“I was initially quite surprised that they had written this character as Chinese Australian, in a period piece in the Outback,” Chung explains. “I was like, ‘I really need to gun for this role’.
“The world is so much more expanded than what the film does, and what the book does, but it still keeps the central message and the DNA of the piece exactly the same.”
For Chung, whose parents met in London before moving to Melbourne, preparing for the show gave him an “eye-opening” appreciation for the deeper history of Chinese diaspora in Australia.
“I knew that there was Chinese people present within that period of time in Australia, but as I started to do my research, it really just opened up a world – it wasn’t just people that were working in the goldfields, the community expanded way beyond that.
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“It was quite confronting, to be honest; the othering and the vilification of that community within that time period was something that I really wanted to honour within playing Harry.”
Beecham’s mixed ancestry – his pastoralist father married a Chinese woman – raises the stakes for his increasingly precarious position as droughts and recession take hold. On the cusp of Federation and the White Australia policy, Chung says Harry never forgets the conditional nature of his acceptance among New South Wales’ squattocracy.
"The othering and the vilification of that community within that time period was something that I really wanted to honour within playing Harry."
“It’s only his standing in society and his affluence that give him a sort of societal immunity and protection … he’s very well aware of the world and the way that he needs to navigate it, so it definitely adds another layer of tension and stakes.”
Most of the time, however, the show wears these complex histories lightly – there’s more immediate drama to be found in the love triangle between him, Sybylla (played by Phillippa Northeast) and jackaroo Frank Hawden (Jake Dunn). It’s a plotline that gives Chung the chance to work his way through a bucket list of period drama heartthrob tropes – and be wilfully objectified by the female gaze of the camera, often while dripping wet or shirtless (“Sun burns off the dew like drying sweat on a man’s collarbones,” narrates Northeast when Sybylla first glimpses Chung’s Harry).
“It is a big undertaking,” he says of early discussions with director Alyssa McLelland. “She said, ‘You don’t have to worry about any, you know – we’re going to light you beautifully, we’re going to frame you beautifully, you’re going to have the most incredibly fitted costumes, the most gorgeous hair and makeup. You just need to worry about servicing the story.’”
When Chung first heard about the role, the now London-based actor was experiencing a breakout moment after several years playing Roddy Ho in the wry Apple TV spy drama Slow Horses. Over five seasons Chung has transformed what could have been a standard genre archetype – the resident computer whiz in the chair, literally phoning it in – into a “defining moment”.
“Harry is probably the person Roddy thinks that he is, in his deluded mind,” Chung laughs.
Ho’s arrogant, unlikeable, but strangely compelling persona is perfectly captured by his final line in the show’s first season: “They tried to cage me up – but you can’t cage a dragon.”
For Chung, it’s a moment that carries even great impact: he ad-libbed the line himself, and its subsequent embrace by Slow Horses showrunner Will Smith reflected a willingness to let Chung take ownership of the character.
“It gave me a lot of agency, [the] ability to speak, and to have my voice heard in a way that I don’t think that I’ve ever had in a job prior to that,” he explains. “To have someone hand over that kind of authority to you is so empowering.”
With Slow Horses’ sixth season due to land in September, it’s a role Chung says came to him at the right moment in his career – and a chance to seize the narrative that Franklin’s Sybylla might appreciate.
“I think there’s a reason why certain opportunities come to you at certain periods in your career,” he reflects. “If it had come any earlier, I probably wouldn’t have been ready for that experience – and the same with My Brilliant Career.”
My Brilliant Career is streaming on Netflix from August 13
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