If you watched the first season of Stan’s orginal series The Other Guy, then we bet you absolutely fell in love with hot-mess Stevie (Harriet Dyer).
Best friend of lead character AJ (Matt Okine) and all-round messy ratbag, Stevie’s a massive drinker, takes recreational drugs and has more (daddy) issues than Vogue.
When it comes to her personality, she’s all over the place, so when Dyer, told me that she wasn’t dissimilar to her character, I was a little shocked.
My first encounter with the 31-year-old was hearing her distinctive voice in the corridor, announcing that she couldn’t wait to get out “the f–k” out of the uncomfortable dress she’d been wearing for the past five hours of press.
“That’s not something you should say when you’re about to walk straight into an interview,” she laughed when we greeted.
Instantly, I felt at ease with the actress, who was closely followed into the room by (the insanely down-to-earth) Australian “Otto” family royalty — director Gracie.
It felt like we had all been friends for ages, talking about everything but the highly-anticipated second season of the hit show — and it was here that Dyer admitted that she was a lot like her character, Stevie.
“I’m not really a lady,” the 31-year-old admitted, who even did her own car stunts during filming.
“I mean I’m from Townsville and I’m a bit rough around the edges. So there’s totally a part of me in there [in Stevie].
“You know when I’m up north in Townsville, I talk more like her, I don’t care as much about what people think of me. She’s probably my more ‘Townsville’ persona.”
Dyer has just returned home from a stint as the lead actress in NBC’s The Inbetween where she played psychic medium, Cassie Bishop, however, unfortunately, the show was cancelled.
And while she enjoyed the life of being an actress and living in LA, “there was a polished version of yourself that you have to present.”
“You don’t want to lose control of how people perceive you,” she said.
“You just want your special people to know who you really are, like you can’t give it all away otherwise you feel naked.”
But, Dyer insists that it’s not all her when it comes to Stevie.
“So, there’s totally a part of me in there but it all comes from the writing,” she admitted.
“I mean Becky Lucas, who’s a co-creator, she really crafted Stevie before I even auditioned, so there was already this, like, boss chick just ready to be kind of puppeted.
“It’s definitely what they gave me and I’ve just kind of sprinkled a bit of idiosyncrasies and stuff on top but she is kind of me.”
When The Other Guy returns on December 13, Stevie and her best friend AJ will reunite after five months of being apart, with their first encounter putting them on a bizarre mission to build a fake dick. We kid you not.
The show is certainly up to its same old tricks, with just one exception — Otto is now at the directorial helm, taking over from acclaimed Australian director Kacie Anning.
“I was definitely in awe of her [Anning],” Otto admitted, before saying that Anning has been incredibly supportive.
“She was actually great because she was about to do [another] show and she emailed me and said: ‘you know, call me if you need anything’ and then she sent me her entire show bible and deck that she had for her season, which a lot of directors wouldn’t do.”
“She just gave me her take on things.”
After her first few days on set, Otto, 32, had fallen into a groove with the talented cast and crew and became as, Dyer says, “the mum”.
WATCH: The trailer for The Other Guy, Season 2
So, with an incredibly talented director and a hilarious cast, the pair are determined that the second season is something to look forward to.
“I think it’s just young people making TV for young people,” Dyer said of the appeal of the show.
“To make TV, you have to get a lot of things right because it’s very easy for something to become tight and polished; and so to keep it loose and accessible to people like us — who are just trying to make ends meet — you know, it’s a real art to keep it so kind of loose.
“In Australia, we’ve just had, you know, a lot of network comedy and network drama, and that has to fit within an inch of its life to a demographic from like eight to eighty; and everyone just has to like it a little bit — but this show is just for us, and it’s okay if a 15 year old doesn’t get it and it’s okay if a 75 year old doesn’t get it, because we don’t care.”
All episodes of Stan Original Series The Other Guy (season 2) are available on Stan December 13.
