“[Infini] just looks like another sci-fi movie,” says MacPherson, “and then it just flips on its head and takes you down this hole that I hope that you never expected.”
This immersive experience is shaped through the film’s lo-fi aesthetic, with the production design by George Liddle visually evoking classic 1970s sci-fi. “[The film used] very little green screen, especially for an ambitious sci-fi movie like Infini,” MacPherson explains. “It really helped that old-school feel. You look at the control room; all the computers were old-school, the graphics were old-school, the lighting was very specific to a time in sci-fi history.”
Being cast in the lead role of the stranded soldier Carmichael in a cast that also features Grace Huang and Luke Hemsworth was a great opportunity for MacPherson. “I read the script and was pretty convinced that I wasn’t going to be the guy for the role – I was pretty convinced that this was going to go to some kind of big-name Hollywood dude,” he says. “I ended up having a very long Skype session with [director] Shane Abbess when I was in LA and we clicked. We recognised a deep hunger in both of us to do something different, to do something better, and to go and prove to the world what we were capable of.
“I got to the point in my career where I was craving a big challenge, and I was craving proving myself – hopefully, I think, beyond anyone’s expectations, including myself and what I’m capable of as an actor. And that meant throwing myself into it 150 per cent.
“Thankfully, I had Shane Abbess as a very close ally as the director and we worked very closely together … [he is] a master manipulator, a master tactician, and a real film connoisseur, and in particular a sci-fi connoisseur – he was kind of the puppetmaster throughout the set, and a lot of the reactions that we captured on camera were due to Shane manipulating the actors against each other to force authentic reactions that no-one expected. So a lot of that stuff onscreen was unrehearsed and spontaneous.”
MacPherson explains that the relationships between the characters in the film were facilitated by a rapport created in pre-production. “We had a couple of nights out together, in character, creating authentic memories that we could draw on,” he says. “One by one, we were challenged beyond our expectations.”
When it came to working on the set proper, the former Neighbours star and Dancing With The Stars host says his experience was both exhausting and exhilarating.
“This was done in a stinking hot converted warehouse in Western Sydney through the beginning of summer – it was such an oppressive, intense environment to work in,” he says. It was also emotionally gruelling. “The stuff that you couldn’t prepare for was this onslaught and this barrage of ferocity that took place on set when the entire cast were in there together. It was a ferocious set; it was a very intense set that demanded the most out of everybody. It was the single most challenging set that I’ve ever worked on and because of that it was the most rewarding, for sure.”
BY KATE ROBERTSON
