What was it about the “long-lost half-sister” dynamic that intrigued you? Suze and Sare didn’t grow up together; they’re strangers when they meet as adults. So, does the fact that they’re related by blood really factor into their bond at all?
SUSAN: Well, you know, when Sarah and I met over 20 years ago at drama school in London, she was this bright-eyed Canadian and I was this gritty, cynical, bitter, 800-years-of-oppression-on-my-shoulders kind of woman. We essentially couldn’t be more different.
We were in each other’s classes and we very quickly started to realize that we had this deep, deep, deep connection. Our first major bonding moment was over a Leonard Cohen song, “Famous Blue Raincoat.” I couldn’t believe that this person with an incredibly sunny disposition got Leonard in the same way that I did.
SARAH: I’m the Canadian, and he’s our patron saint!
SUSAN: He’s your patron saint! We realized we had this connection — not sure, at first, why. Of course, as we got to know each other, we realized even though we were raised in very different ways, there was an element of our childhood based in trauma. Trauma and humour connected us. And we were always interested in trying to write a story about these women who were polar opposites, raised across the world from each other, but had this connection.
We started researching and reading about people who’ve been separated at birth or found out later that they were siblings. And there’s this beautiful story about these twins, and the first time they meet, they nap for an entire day together — and it feels like the most natural thing in the world. They’re so comfortable with each other, even though they are actually strangers. So, that’s how the story was born.
SARAH: Yeah, we were always interested in the idea of chosen family, because our chosen family in our own lives has seen us through so much. And our bond, in many ways, has been as deep or deeper than family. But we added a layer of blood relation — and we’re still honestly exploring the question of, “Does that make things deeper on a cellular level, or is it something else — spiritually or through experience — that really brings these women together?”
And I think in the show it’s kind of both. There is a bond that forms, much to their surprise and maybe in the beginning against their wishes, that this thing is undeniable — the bond that they have and the ways in which they can see and understand each other and help each other grow. We were interested in chosen sisterhood and biological sisterhood — but the question remains, really . . .
But everything we read, people who did find each other later in life, even if they were wildly different . . . I read one story about a Floridian Trump supporter whose brother was a left-wing, East Coast liberal. They couldn’t be more different and they found love in a hopeless place. We were interested in that. What is it? What does bring people together?
Season one ended with a distinct lack of resolution. Sare left Ireland, and Suze, behind without a proper goodbye. Speaking as writers, was it always clear where you’d go with a season two?
SUSAN: Hadn’t a clue! Sarah and I, we were hoping that we would make two seasons. We really wanted season one to be in Ireland, where Sare’s a fish out of water, and then season two to move to Canada, so we could see Sare in her world and have Suze and Sheryl [Sophie Thompson] as fish out of water.
But, you know, life is full of things that are “unresolved.” And if we only made a season one, it was important to us that we did leave it where things weren’t just tied up in a bow and you were left hanging, basically.
SARAH: And season one obviously has the clear drive of they’re looking for their father, and instead find each other. Season two . . . we wanted to explore life on their own terms, whatever that looks like — that the only path to happiness and health is through living life on their own terms, rather than living life as expected of you.
SUSAN: And it doesn’t have to look a certain way. Because when we meet Sare at the top of the season, obviously very quickly we realize that there’s a crack in the veneer — but on the surface, her life looks much more together than Suze’s. But actually, Suze has agency in her life and is taking the reins and is living more honestly. So, that was also thematically something we were interested in. It doesn’t have to look perfect to be bearable.
How different is the experience of acting in something you’ve also written? Sarah, for you in particular on something like Barry, you were no doubt heavily invested in that character. But do you feel a more profound investment when you’ve built the show itself from the ground up?
SARAH: Well, I can tell you it’s a lot more stressful! We both worked as actors for a long time — and what a beautiful and lovely profession . . . when you’re working. You’re entering a story, you have one focal point, one tunnel through that story that you are responsible for. You’re working with a group and building something together, and someone’s telling you where to be . . . sometimes they’re even driving you there! It’s actually a lovely job, as poor as some people try to make it out to be.
Making your own thing from the ground up, it was humbling. We both wanted to write for a long time. When we were at theatre school, we used to write projects together and we both had a passion for it, but it was challenging being out in the world, forging acting careers and hustling a million other jobs to try to sustain ourselves. And so, we really procrastinated. It was in 2016 that we finally sort of . . . we took advice from this Ira Glass quote that was like, “It takes a long time for your talent to match your taste, but it’s not an excuse.” And we thought, “OK, let’s just bash some ideas around.”
At the time, I was doing Barry, and that was such an incredible job. I learned that there are no bad ideas. We used to improvise a lot on that show and we came up with a lot of character stuff as a group. Sometimes you’re throwing out 10 bad ideas before you’re getting to a good one. So, that was very motivating.
But we were equally frustrated that we were getting terrible scripts sent to us with the “worried girlfriend” part. I mean, I have a litmus test: if “I’m so worried about you, babe” is a line in the script, it’s an immediate pass. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve come across that line in one form or another. So, [this show] was also a bit born out of frustration and feeling like we have stories to tell, we’re not necessarily seeing those stories fully represented . . .
And it took a long time. It took six years to get the first season made. Then, when we were actually shooting, it was a real baptism of fire. Suddenly you go from being in charge of one little avenue through a story to being responsible for every decision — down to the colour of a character’s shoes or the angle of the camera . . . and you’re dealing with fires every day that you can’t anticipate.
It was incredible. We were on such a high from it. We learned so much. We had to learn quickly. The thing that was really different about it is you’re asking everyone to be there. You’re throwing the dinner party and you’ve got to make sure there are three courses, that the chicken is cooked and not going to poison anyone. You have to be responsible for everyone’s well-being. It was a big, steep learning curve for us and we loved it, we want to do more. To be the creative outside eye as well as to be inside the story was such a privilege. I think sometimes switching hats really quickly — like when you’re panicking at lunch over losing a location and a budget issue and then suddenly you’re crying about your dead mother in a scene five minutes later — that was hard, and it was real fly-by-the-seat-of-your-pants.
But it was a gift and we’re so grateful for the experience . . . and mostly proud of the fact that we’re still friends at the end of it [laughs].
SisterS, airing Sundays on Crave1
MEMORABLE ROLES:
B.C. native Sarah Goldberg exploded onto the international stage in 2018, via HBO’s smash-hit hit-man comedy Barry, playing ambitious actress turned criminal conspirator Sally Reed. Sticking with HBO, she recently played calculating portfolio manager Petra Koenig in season three of Industry and, at this very moment, you can see her as JoAnne Felder — ethically compromised therapist to sociopathic tech geniuses on AMC’s The Audacity. Describing herself as a “gritty Dubliner,” Susan Stanley has spent the bulk of her career in small U.K. theatre and TV gigs. No doubt, SisterS is her breakout project — the realization of a long-shared ambition with Goldberg, whom she met when they both matriculated at the prestigious London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art.
CURRENT GIG:
Real-life besties Sarah Goldberg and Susan Stanley write and star in this poignant road-trip dramedy. Goldberg plays Sare, a Canadian who, upon her mother’s passing, heads for Ireland to find the dad she never knew, only to stumble across a long-lost half-sister (Stanley). After season one ended with the siblings split back apart, season two reunites them in Toronto, for Sare’s wedding. Airing weekly on cable channel Crave1, all six episodes of season two are available now on the Crave streamer.