Real-life couple Rafe Spall and Esther Smith discuss portraying their fictional counterparts in the fifth season of TRYING
Whenever it’s time for Esther Smith and Rafe Spall to jump back into Trying, the two can’t wait to embody their longtime characters Nikki and Jason. “It’s like putting on your favourite coat,” says Spall. “I love doing this show. I can honestly say it’s my favourite thing to do. I get to hang out with my favourite person all day — Esther — and I get to do a thing that I really care about.” For Smith, Spall’s partner in real life as well as onscreen, the show never ceases to feel like home. “I love playing Nikki and I love the world,” she says. “I loved it particularly this season because the house just feels mature. It’s lovely to have these conversations with all the characters that have become family now.”
On the heartwarming comedy series, which in season one started as a couple’s journey to adopt after struggling to have a child of their own, Nikki and Jason have now spent seven years together with their adopted children Princess (Scarlett Rayner) and Tyler (Cooper Turner). They are feeling solid as a family unit, until the children’s biological mother, Kat (Charlotte Riley), turns up. It is Nikki, in particular, who senses trouble ahead. “What’s on her mind is, ‘How do we navigate this chapter?’ ” says Smith, whose character is forced to face her insecurities about being sidelined. “With Princess, there’s always that slight tension of, ‘Am I enough for you? Am I doing it right?’ It even makes me quite emotional talking about it. It’s like Nikki never feels like she’s quite got it with her, which is heartbreaking because she really tries.”
In good old Trying fashion, the way Nikki first tackles her personal issues is humorously, by digging deep on the internet. “She’s desperate to find something [on Kat]. She feels like, ‘I know there’s something wrong. I’m having to pretend, but oh my gosh, I will find something on you,’ ” says Smith. Of course, it is a misunderstanding that forces her to course-correct. “She comes to understand, ‘This is so out of my control. I’ve just got to let this happen,’ ” says Smith. As chaos enters their household, Jason is the one called upon to be the port in the storm. “If Nikki’s the ocean, then Jason is a rock in the middle of it. That’s not to say that he sometimes doesn’t get overwhelmed by the ocean, because he does,” says Spall, whose character is also stretched from pursuing a career as a social worker. “It’s a really sweet full-circle for them, and for him, because Jason’s a great guy, but he’s never really found his purpose outside of the family,” says Spall. “It’s more difficult than he imagined, so you get all of the shenanigans that come with someone thinking that something’s going to be easy and it isn’t.”
As if their anxieties regarding kids and work weren’t enough, the bond between Nikki and Jason will be tested this season — much to Smith’s initial dismay. “When I read the scripts for this season, I was like, ‘Oh God, is there a threat here?’ ” she reveals. “They’re so strong, but I think it’s that inevitable thing within a couple that have been together for a long period of time that you don’t want it to just get stagnant. This season, Nikki just wants to be seen as Nikki and not just as a piece of furniture.” But the sometimes-uncomfortable growth of Nikki and Jason’s relationship is something to be expected, as the show continues to evolve and present new challenges. “You’ve now got these relatively young parents of teenage kids,” says Spall. “And even though it’s funny, there’s these moments of connection where I actually cry watching the show because I just think it’s so good.”
In its fifth season, the show’s enduring quality is its ability to warm the hearts of viewers despite navigating often heavy subject matter. “I think it has to do with the individual characters themselves,” Smith muses. “Every single character, they’re not bad people and they’re funny. Marrying them all together is what I find comforting. I find it hard to watch the things that I’m in, but I don’t find it hard to watch this. It sounds cliché, but it’s just a warm hug to be in.” Spall believes that it’s the bond between Nikki and Jason that plays the biggest role in the show’s draw. “The writers have crafted a central couple who really are aspirational,” he says. “They’ve been together for a really long time. Their relationship is often compromised. Trusts are sometimes broken. They argue, but they figure it out. I think that’s something we can all aspire to. Long-term relationships are complicated and life is complicated and they’ve got a deep love and affection for each other, but, also, they like each other.”
If the couple at the centre feels like the real deal, the fact that the two also spend the majority of their time together, offscreen, is likely to play a part. “It’s weirdly all we’ve ever known,” says Smith. “It’s just hilarious coming back home to the person that you’ve been opposite all day, but that person was called Jason and this person’s called Rafe. Sometimes you stop yourself because you’re like, ‘I slightly feel like we’re in an episode of Trying right now.’ ” For Spall, there is no one else he would rather spend all day with. “I love watching her skill as an artist, close-up, because she’s really good and I love being around good acting,” he says. “It’s one of the great joys of my life, to be as close to her as someone who I think is one of the very best at what she does. And then I get to go home and drink a very dry martini with her after shooting. It’s pretty great.”
Trying streams Wednesday on Apple TV