Netflix‘s new period drama My Brilliant Career is determined to get you swooning. Based on Miles Franklin’s landmark 1901 semi-autobiographical novel of the same name (which, yes, inspired the classic Judy Davis/Sam Neill film), My Brilliant Career follows the spirited Sybylla Melvyn (Philippa Northeast). Sybylla has grand ambitions of being a great writer, but her family has other plans. Sybylla is sent to live with her wealthy grandmother Mrs. Bossier (Anna Chancellor) and widowed Aunt Helen (Genevieve O’Reilly) at Cattagat, so the sophisticated women can “truss her up like a turkey” to attract a wealthy husband.

**Spoilers for My Brilliant Career, now streaming on Netflix**

Almost as soon as Sybylla arrives at Cattagat, she attracts the attentions of two young men: Harry Beecham (Christopher Chung) and Frank Hawden (Jake Dunn). Mrs. Bossier thinks that Frank, an Englishman working on her ranch for management experience, would be an easy, obvious match for Sybylla. And indeed, the two eventually become friends. However, when Sybylla is invited by Harry’s Aunt Augusta (Kate Mulvany) to spend time at the Beechams’ grand estate, Five Bob, she develops feelings for the earnest, yet dashing Harry.

My Brilliant Career Episode 2 “HE” specifically plays up the attraction growing between Sybylla and Harry, showing them bonding over books and chores, music, and even sensually cracking a bullwhip. Naturally, Augusta, nicknamed Gus, soon points out an impediment to Syb and Harry’s burgeoning romance, but it’s impossible not to root for this couple throughout My Brilliant Career‘s run. That’s all thanks to the incendiary chemistry between series leads Philippa “Pip” Northeast and Christopher Chung.

Most American audiences will best know Chung as the obnoxious Roddy Ho on Apple TV’s Slow Horses. Here, instead of playing a repellent hacker, Chung is the textbook definition of a tall, dark, and handsome heartthrob. When DECIDER caught up with Chung over Zoom recently, he shared how excited he was for audiences to see this other side of him, before he broke down some of the most intoxicating romantic moments in My Brilliant Career — including that Episode 2 bullwhip scene.

DECIDER: First of all, I just fell madly in love with this series. It’s so good. You’re so charming in it. Are you ready for the world to just fall in love with you as this iconic Australian heartthrob? 

CHRISTOPHER CHUNG: No, don’t say that! Yeah, I guess I’m quietly optimistic that that’s the way that it will go. I think the thing that I’m most excited about for me, personally, is being able to show people a different side of my acting performance because I think people are so used to seeing me as being an obnoxious prick in Slow Horses. So it’s nice to be a bit more charming.

Yeah, for sure. For sure. I’m curious, having watched the series, is there a moment that you can pinpoint where Harry either falls for Sybylla or he begins to notice her in a different way? Is it the poem in Episode 1 or something else? 

Do you know what? Having watched it back, I think the moment where he first really takes her in is when he drops his apples and he sees her in the tree. There’s a really lovely moment of energy and connection there when he’s untangling her hair. He’s like, “Oh, there’s something about this girl and I don’t know what it is.” So for me performing it, that was really when I thought for Harry, oh, he’s really taking her in. Because he does see her initially when he passes her in the carriage but he doesn’t consider her at all because he’s business first. So I think that is a really profound moment.

Then obviously the way that Sybylla is able to turn Harry’s emotions very quickly by calming him down when when she’s jumped into the pond and then he storms off. She puts her hand on his chest very much like she’s putting it on a horse to go, “Whoa.” I think that moment as well is very important and special to the two of them. 

I’m thinking about Episode 2, I feel like that’s such a great masterclass in slow burn yearning throughout. There’s so many moments, whether they’re sitting and then they’re eating the apples, they’re working on the farm. There is, you know, the song. But I want to talk about the bullwhip moment because that is so interesting and so charged. And the way it’s edited, it just kind of heightens everything. What was it like filming the bull whip moment and did you need to go through your own lessons to learn how to use the bullwhip?

Yeah, so that was one of the first things I did when I came from London to Sydney to start prep for the show was learn how to whip. And there were definitely a few duds there because it’s all in the wrist. There’s nothing about power. It’s just how well you can use your wrist to flick it out to crack the air. But when you get it, the satisfaction that you get when you crack a whip nicely and it makes that proper earth-shattering sound that goes out against the landscape is just wonderful. 

So I think when we were doing the actual day, surprisingly, I don’t know why, they wouldn’t let me crack a whip next to Pip. I was really good at it by then, too, so I was surprised that they wouldn’t. I guess we still had to get through the rest of the shoot, and we did that in the first week. So me and Pip hadn’t really done much work together at all at that point, so we had to find that chemistry very, very quickly. But we were both really game to make sure that we did these characters justice. So it was the way that [director] Alyssa [McClelland] had told us how the shots were going to be, we knew that it was going to be very suggestive and it was gonna be used later on in montages. So we kind of knew what the moment had to be charged with so that was that was really fun and also, like, if you start your shoot from that point having that chemistry, it takes all the other awkwardness away. 

I want to ask about the reveal that your character is engaged to Blanche. He never brings this up to Sybylla and she feels very deeply betrayed by it. Do you think he was right to keep it a secret? Do you think he was really lying to her? How do you see the whole Blanche dynamic? 

Well, I think he’s trying to navigate… There’s a really great line that he has about what is more important: Is it love or honor? And it’s him trying to navigate that question continuously throughout the series. You know, it’s the honorable thing to continue to keep this promise to Blanche, but also knowing that it’s beneficial to him and his family and his state in the world and his finances, all of those things, to be engaged to her. But then also knowing that he has this growing love for Sybylla each and every consecutive episode. I think for him, I always was under the assumption that he knew that relationship and that arrangement was always going to dissolve no matter how much Gus wanted that for him and how much it would help his financial status and his predicament. So I think he would be more willing to throw caution to the wind and be more like Sybylla in that way where he’s not governed by societal expectation as opposed to just going along with what’s in front of him. 

The New Year’s Eve episode is so fun. The barn dance is just like literally a barn burner. What was it like shooting that scene? You’re both dancing in the tuxedos — it’s so charming to watch on screen.

She looks so great, doesn’t she, in the tuxedo? It was chaos and dusty and it was a good amount of fun. It’s really funny because I think whenever you put some kind of choreography in something, even when actors are not dancers, it’s really interesting to see how they navigate it because I guess a lot of times I’ve been in scenes with actors that are not natural movers. They either really ham it up or they make themselves very small. And everyone on that set made themselves really big, as you can tell through the scene. So it was great fun. I think it came, as well, closer towards the end of the shoot. So everyone was just really up for a good time. And we had to work really hard because there were so many shots that we needed to get within that because it was so technical. Obviously, with all things in filming, you never get enough time to do it, but I think it came out better than I had expected it to. 

Yeah, and as a follow-up, the race scene is so cute and there is something so fun, the way they’re kind of competing with each other and quietly flirting. It’s so obvious, to even Blanche, that there’s something going on there. What was it like filming that race in the barn? 

I think it’s really nice because at that point in the journey, they’ve made up from the barney that they’ve had previously about him not telling her about Blanche, and they really just want to have a good time. And when they put all of their baggage aside, it’s just very evident that the chemistry is still there between them, so they can’t even deny it themselves even when they’ve tried to. So that was a really lovely moment to be able to play with Pip because we were able to find that nuance and give those little breadcrumbs to the audience throughout that scene. 

In the next episode, she’s engaged to Frank. You come and give her Moby Dick. What possessed him to give her that book? It’s almost like his last way to beg for her back, right? 

Well, I think because he knows that when she comes to Five Bob, it’s one of the first books that she picks up. So he knows that she knows that it’s something that has great tremendous weight for Harry. For him to be able to give that to her as a parting gift, as a part of him, is one of only things that his father gave to him that he still has. So I think… Being able to give that to Sybylla, she was able to really feel how much he cares about her. Because she knows how much he cares about his family so he wouldn’t just part with something like that if he didn’t love her. Really, which makes it quite disrespectful when she throws it at his head. But, you know, she’s so hot-headed at that point in time. There’s a really nice bit of, I guess, symbolism there.