Australian comedy Austin starring Ben Miller and Sally Phillips is about to land in the UK – and its star Michael Theo has opened up about the most “stressful” year of his life
The star of BBC One’s new comedy Austin has opened up about his horrifying bullying ordeal before landing a role in the series. Michael Theo rose to fame as a contestant on reality show Love on the Spectrum before making his acting debut in comedy Austin.
The show stars Ben Miller, 59, as kids’ author Julian and Sally Phillips, 54, as his illustrator wife Ingrid. Julian is on a book tour in Australia when he’s confronted by his 20-something autistic son Austin (Michael Theo) – who he had no idea existed. For Michael, breaking into acting was a dream come true after facing relentless bullying in his previous jobs.
“My first full-time job was sanding doors in a kitchen manufacturer, working with carcinogenic chemicals,” he said. “I was called names every day by one of my colleagues – at one point, he even called me a waste of oxygen. It was one of the most stressful years of my life.”
Ben Miller and Sally Phillips took inspiration from The Gruffalo’s author and illustrator, Julia Donaldson and Axel Scheffler, for their roles in BBC One comedy Austin.
The series follows Julian and Ingrid as they process Austin’s arrival, while dealing with a publicity nightmare after Julian accidentally reposts a tweet from a white supremacist.
Bridget Jones star Sally, who has a son with Down’s syndrome, admits that she and Ben watched Julia Donaldson’s BBC Maestro course on writing children’s picture books in preparation. “Although I know all of Julia’s books by heart,” she said.
Ben wrote the series for autistic actor Michael, 31, after watching him on Australian reality series Love On The Spectrum . “Me and my wife Jess binged it and I started wondering if Michael would be interested in doing a comedy show as he’s so funny in Love On The Spectrum ,” he said.
“Then Sally got involved – very early on. I knew she was an advocate for representation and she’d have a lot of wisdom as well.”
Austin was also inspired by Ben’s experience in publishing, being a children’s author himself. “It’s a fascinating world because there are superstars in children’s publishing and nobody knows who they are really outside of children’s books – it’s a very funny world,” he said.
“I think Sally suggested that we should be an illustrator-author pairing, which is fun because there’s an odd dynamic between someone who does all the work for picture books and someone who just writes, ‘Swoosh.’”
While filming Austin , Michael was given the opportunity to work with one of his idols – Ghosts star Jim Howick. “Michael has an encyclopaedic knowledge of all the English-speaking world’s best voice actors,” Sally said. “Ben and I do not feature on it, which is gutting because we have been in animations.”
Ben added, “When Jim came on set, it was like Tom Cruise had walked into the room.” Michael jumped in saying, “It’s because he voiced one of my favourite characters on Thomas The Tank Engine – Hurricane.”
Michael was a script consultant on Austin and he feels passionate about the representation of autistic people on-screen. “Michael was talking about The Big Bang Theory and Young Sheldon,” Sally said. “He finds them irritating because they represent people on the spectrum as being without emotions and enormously selfish. Whereas Michael is one of the most generous people you’ll ever meet and has deep, deep feelings but he just tells the truth, which we regard as shocking.”
Michael added, “I believe Sheldon Cooper is more a stereotype of people on the spectrum and I didn’t want Austin to be as such.”
In fact, Michael often came to Sally and Ben’s rescue while they were filming in Australia. “It made us laugh so much that there was all this anxiety around what Michael needed – we need to have an accessible set and Michael needs special this and special that. Michael needs nothing,” Sally smiles, revealing he regularly drove her around.
“His entourage is way less than most stars of anything. When Ben forgot his driving licence to hire a car, Michael had to break into his hotel room, get it out of the safe and take it to him.”
Austin marks Sally and Ben’s first time working together and features the second sex scene that Ben has ever filmed.
“I haven’t done a lot of sex scenes,” Ben says, adding, “We had an intimacy co-ordinator and oh, my God, it was fun. The whole thing was choreographed from start to finish and it was so much better than it would have been.”
Sally adds, “They asked if I wanted a co-ordinator and I said, ‘No, I’ll be fine.’ But Ben said to me, ‘If anyone ever offers you anything, say yes.’ Which is a really good policy – I’ve been going wrong my whole life!”
Austin airs Friday 4 April at 9:30pm on BBC One and BBC iPlayer.
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