EXCLUSIVE | 'Class of '07' star Megan Smart reveals why filming Amazon series felt like 'life imitating art'
CANBERRA, AUSTRALIA: It’s been a while since viewers haven’t seen a comedy that’s absurd but also thought-provoking at the same time and if you are looking to watch a show like that, then Amazon Prime Video has come forward with an insane comedy series that is set on a backdrop of a disaster. Titled ‘Class of 07’, the Prime Video series follows a group of former classmates who face an apocalyptic tidal wave during a ten-year reunion of an all-girls high school. The series has opened to universal acclaim and critics as well as audiences can’t stop praising the performances. However, one performance that is receiving a lot of love from everyone happens to be coming from the supremely talented Aussie actor Megan Smart.
Smart plays Amelia on the show. Her character is a no-nonsense girl who doesn’t back down when she is challenged by difficult circumstances. Smart, who also goes by the name of Megan Hajjar, began her acting career in 2016 by doing short films. Over the years, she has done a lot of extraordinary work in several genres and now has delivered another knockout performance with the absurd Prime Video comedy. To discuss the show, MEAWW caught up with Megan Smart and got to know about her character and why it was so difficult to film the show in Sydney throughout the pandemic.
RELATED ARTICLES
Congratulations on the universal acclaim for the 'Class of 07'. Over the years, you have worked in different genres and now you are doing a disaster comedy. What made you interested in this project?
Megan: When I first got the script, it was so incredibly funny, and it's so rare to laugh out loud. When I was reading the script, I was just sitting there giggling along and absolutely wanted to be a part of it. I was super thrilled to be cast in it and it was something that we don't see a lot of in Australia. In general, we don’t see a genuine comedy with such a unique tone, but particularly in Australia, we don't do a lot of high concepts, we do a lot of laid-back Australian comedy, but this, you could kind of set it anywhere, and, it would still translate. It's wild and wacky and really quite absurd. The series was so new and fresh, and something that I just really wanted to be a part of.
In 2019, you took the big decision of changing your name to Megan Hajjar, in order to honor your mother. What kind of changes did you feel in your professional career when this big change happened? As sometimes actors with such names or ethnicity only receive certain roles.
Megan: Yeah, well, I think the industry is changing so much and we're seeing so much more diverse casting nowadays. It's so great to know that you can be open to a lot more roles. The industry is slowly changing and it is great.
You are playing the role of Amelia in the series who seems to be a no-nonsense girl. How did you hear about the role and what was the audition procedure like? Is Amelia pretty similar to you?
Megan: Amelia is very much like me. My best friends always say about me that ‘you're a very straight shooter, you know? You know, Megan, like, we know exactly what you think all the time.’ I feel that no one should sugarcoat things for better or worse. The audition process was quite simple for me, actually. But a lot of the girls auditioned for like four different characters and went through multiple multiple rounds of call-backs and chemistry reads and blah, blah, blah. But mine was quite simple. I auditioned only for Amelia and then I had the second round, but it was just another self-tape because we were shooting auditions during the pandemic. I just had a couple more scenes to do and then I did one call-back that went for like 10 minutes. I did each scene twice. You know, I barely spoke to Casey, and then yeah, like the next week, I had the role. So it was pretty straightforward and painless, really.
You are working with such a badass group of women. Emily Browing, Caitlin Stasey, and others. What kind of relationship do you share with them off-screen? Did you play any pranks on each other?
Megan: Any pranks? Gosh, I wish I had. Every day, we would go to work and we were just mucking around with our brands and playing you know because it's a comedy, right? So we were keeping it very light on set and just trying to make each other laugh in between takes. We all became incredibly close because it was like life imitating art right? We were stuck in the show with only each other and we were shooting through the pandemic. We weren't allowed to see anybody else on the weekends and we were at work all day together. Meanwhile, at home, we would only hang out with each other and on the weekends, we were having sleepovers. We were in each other's space all the time and we were all incredibly close.
You have worked with a lot of traditional production houses and now you are working with a streaming platform. Did you feel any difference while working?
Megan: This is an Amazon Prime Video show, but it’s also a Matchbook show. Apart from Amazon, it was also produced by an Australian company, so it felt like a very Australian production. But actually, I thought that it was going to be, you know, because it was Amazon, we were going to have so much more time and blah, blah, blah, but it was actually the opposite. This was the fastest shoot I've ever done and that is so challenging in a way because we were shooting during the pandemic. So you know, there was the lockdown to compete with because we were shooting in London and it was raining all the time. We had to change our schedules all the time. You'd go outdoors to shoot a scene and then all of a sudden it starts raining. So you pack up and go, ‘Okay, well, what can we shoot now for the rest of the day’ and because there were so many people in the scene, the amount of coverage that you need to get is crazy. Even one or two takes would a lot of time and then we moved on to the next setup within the scene. So, it was so crazy like we didn't even have time to sit down and everyone was like ‘Let's go, Let's go.'
What would you like to tell the fans who haven't watched this series till now?
Megan: Watch it, ASAP! Strap yourself in. It is super easy to watch and super fun. Watch it all in one go and just get ready to laugh.
'Class of '07' is currently available for streaming on Amazon Prime Video.