Sunny Nights: Will Forte and D’Arcy Carden on ‘falling in love with each other in a friendship’

In 1983, Olivia Newton-John opened a boutique on Melrose Ave in Los Angeles. It was a slice of home with Australian products such as lollies, chocolate and casual clothes. She called it Koala Blue.

The logo, a cartoon koala donning a wide-brimmed hat, was designed by Ken Done, and at one point, there were dozens of stores around the world.

That Los Angeles store stood for nine years, and during that time, future actor and comedian D’Arcy Carden would visit with her mum whenever the family were visiting the sprawling lights of LA from their home in northern California.

“There’s a fascination with Australia, especially in California,” Carden told The Nightly.

Carden didn’t make it down under until 18 months ago, when she found herself shooting a scene on Bondi Beach, alongside a personal comedy hero, Will Forte.

Neither had been to Australia before, and both were thrilled at finally been given the opportunity. It was work, but it was really more like a “paid vacation”, as Forte described it.

Carden and Forte had both been approached by Trent O’Donnell, a prolific Australian director they’d previously worked with – she on The Good Place and he on the American remake of No Activity. He was going to start work on a new series and he wanted them both on board.

The show was Sunny Nights and, happily for all involved, it wasn’t going to require either Carden or Forte to try an Australian accent. They play Vicki and Martin, two adult siblings trying to launch a self-tan product. They figure that if they can make it in sunny Australia, they can make it anywhere.

The pair aren’t exactly loaded, nor are they master businesspeople. But they do have a knack for hustling, although it doesn’t go as they want.

Vicki and Martin find themselves in a sticky situation when they end up being extorted for all the money they have, by a local crime gang headed by Rachel House’s Mony, a fearsome boss whose brother ends up in the belly of an exploding crocodile.

Yeah, things get weird.

Sunny Nights is tuned in to the exact pitch of Forte and Carden’s comedic energy, and given their easy and baked-in chemistry as brother and sister who not only love each other but are frustrated by one another, it’s hard to believe that not only had they never worked together previously, they’d never even met before.

“We had one dinner before we got on a plane and went to Australia, and in maybe the week or so leading up to shooting, we did a lot (of stuff together),” Carden recalled. “My husband wasn’t in Australia yet, so Will and his beautiful wife, Olivia, adopted me.

“We would go to the zoo, we would go out to dinner, I would go to their place. It was a really sweet way to get to know this family. It was so easy, it was too easy to click in.

“It didn’t feel like we were getting to know each other, it was almost like we already knew each other.”

Forte jumped in, “(Carden) is just somebody who’s fun to be around”. He added, “(We got) to fall in love with each other in a friendship, we’re both married, our families were both down there, we got to mesh them together and experience all this new stuff together with each other.

“It’s just one of the best experiences of my life.”

Carden is a self-confessed “die-hard” Forte fan, “which is funny now, because my actual living brother”.

While the prospect of jetting off to the other side of the world for a bucket-list destination had plenty of upsides, there were still considerations of lugging their families a day away from home. Especially for Forte, who has two young kids.

There was also the factor that he had only seen the first two scripts.

“It was a scary thing to commit to an eight-episode project when you’ve only read two scripts,” he said. But he was intrigued by what he had read, and had the reaction he hopes the audience will too at the end of each of those first two episodes – where is this going?

“Then you’re at a point when you just have to trust the other six (scripts), and that’s a lot of territory, and there are a lot of shows that start out strong but don’t stick the landing, and we had to trust (that Sunny Nights would).

“But Trent O’Donnell is the kind of person you can trust.

“It’s like, OK, this is going to be an experience no matter what, we’re going to go over there, we’re going to have this experience, it’s basically a paid vacation, and if somehow the rest of these scripts turn out as well as these first two, this could be an amazing show.

“It’s a lesson in trusting your gut.”

On top of that, because of his family’s time here, Forte swore they talk all the time about moving down here.

Carden too was effusive. “It was an incredible experience. If the film burnt up and no one ever saw it, it was still worth it.”

Sunny Nights is streaming on Stan from Boxing Day