I have to keep reminding myself this is real life and I'm not watching a scripted scene.
But the video call I'm on with Tom Ward and Emily Barclay feels like a live version of a Please Like Me reboot written, directed and produced just for me. The lines between the real Tom and Emily and their characters Tom and Ella are inextricably blurred.
Offscreen similarity to onscreen character is unsurprising when it comes to Tom; the now-cult 2013 comedy-drama he starred in was (very loosely) based on comedian Josh Thomas' life, and Tom and Josh have been best friends since they were 12.
But with Emily, it feels surreal.
Josh and Tom wrote Ella into season three of the show as the perfect girlfriend for the fictional version of Tom nine years ago.
Within days of meeting, Tom and Emily's shared future felt inevitable to both of them.
This is the story of how their relationship started between takes, led to two babies and, finally, marriage — nearly a decade later, at the ages of 35 and 33, respectively.
When did you meet and what were your first impressions?
Tom: We met for the first time at Emily's recall to do a chemistry reading.
Emily: Did you think you had chemistry with me?
Tom: We had chemistry.
Emily: No, but, did you think you had chemistry with me? I was being professional. Did you think, "Phwoah!"
Tom: Ah…
Emily: You didn't?!
Tom: No, I can't remember. I think I was starstruck. Anyway, of course, Emily got the job.
The first thing we did after that was this full-cast photoshoot and Emily immediately took to tormenting me.
She was getting this prop tomato sauce squeezy bottle and shooting the plasticky air from the nozzle in my nose, laughing hysterically and convincing me to let her do it again and again.
I remember thinking, "Oh, I'm in trouble here." Because I definitely liked her, but she was also infuriating. And that's a dangerous combination.
Emily: I wasn't infuriating! I was cool as hell.
I remember being very excited about teasing him and thinking, "I'd like to kiss that boy."
How did things progress from there?
Tom: We started shooting not long after that and the first scenes we had together were for this holiday episode, where every character in the show was sitting around the Christmas dinner table.
It took three days to film that scene, so we had to sit next to each other for three days, which meant we got to know each other very well, very quickly.
At some point we started kissing … on set, in Josh's fake bedroom … which is so unprofessional!
Emily: Tom moved into my serviced apartment and made it his pick-up address very quickly and word got around after that. The script supervisor described the situation as "untidy".
Tom: Filming a TV show is already so much fun as a cast member — people treat you like a baby and drive you around everywhere, so you can just be so irresponsible and immature.
And then on top of that we were having this fling. It was a highly charged time.
Emily: We went out partying so much.
I'd just come out of a three-year relationship and I remember speaking about the break-up with Keegan Joyce, who played Arnold on the show, and saying, "I should be feeling sad. I should be processing this, I should be grieving the end of the relationship. But all I want to do is hang out with Tom and be happy."
And Keegan said, "You should just be happy!"
And I was like, "I should just be happy!"
It was this moment of revelation.
How has life — and your relationship — changed since then?
Emily: We're very tired parents most of the time now.
Tom: Yeah, we have many responsibilities so we share very mature conversations about stuff.
But, for a while, life was a blur of different cities. We were in Melbourne, then we were in London for a bit and then LA.
Emily: Then we lived in the countryside in New Zealand near my family because we wanted a bit more support when we had our second baby and that was amazing. And then in the midst of that Tom got a job in New York so it was, "I guess we're moving to New York now."
Tom: I'm working for Amy Sherman-Palladino and Dan Palladino on their new show and it's just so cool. So we've spent the last six months adjusting the family to a whole new lifestyle in Brooklyn.
And we're on strike at the moment, but Emily is developing a show for Amazon…
[Everyone stops talking as Emily and Tom's youngest begins to stir somewhere in their house. Emily hops up from the couch to check on him]
Tom: This is our life at night-time. The baby wakes up once or twice … I might have to go help in a second. Yes, I'm going to have to go help now, can you call us back?
[About 15 minutes later, they rejoin the video call]
Tom: Yeah, so we were once doing redacted outside a Chapel Street Fitness First. Now, I bounce the baby to sleep and then slowly pass him over to Emily…
Emily: So I can put a tit in his mouth and he can fall asleep…
Tom: …In the king-sized bed, where I cannot sleep because I need to sleep with our five-year-old to make sure he doesn't wake up. He can somehow tell when I'm not there. We have crazy fun, don't we, Emily? We're not like the other parents!!
What made you want to get married, nine years and two babies deep?
Emily: Health insurance! It was not a romantic decision. To get on Tom's health insurance in the US, we needed to be married.
Tom: But then, as [our wedding] day got on, it started to feel really nice, didn't it?
Emily: We did it at City Hall in New York on the fifth of July. It's a very unromantic venue. You go through a metal detector, you get a number and you have to wait like 45 minutes.
Tom: It's like Centrelink.
It's not even at City Hall anymore, it's in the City Clerk's office.
But it does feel really "New York". There are people from all over the world…
Emily: …All getting married for different reasons.
Tom: Some of them don't look that happy, to be honest. Some of them looked very, very happy. Some people were wearing full-on wedding dresses and others were wearing T-shirts.
Emily: Then we went into a little registry office and there was a marriage celebrant and it was in and out, the whole thing was so quick, but when she said, "I want you to just stand and look at each other", everything suddenly got quite overwhelming.
Tom: When she started doing the spiel saying "Do you, Thomas, take Emily to be your lawfully wedded wife?" we both started crying immediately.
Emily: Then we had a little party back at our apartment with our New York friends, which was chaotic but really special. There was something nice about it being just the people who are part of our everyday life here.
Tom: Josh was able to come because he lives in LA and it was a short flight, and Emily's aunt and uncle happened to be in town from England, but it was too far and too late notice for our parents.
What's married life like so far?
Emily: It's quite nice being married to Tom.
Tom: It is nice! We have rings on, we're wearing rings. And when you see them, it does make you feel good, actually. I didn't think we'd ever do it, but now we've done it and I really like my ring.
The other great thing is I can now call Emily "mY wIFe". And when I do, people say, "Sorry, what was that?" And I say, "Like Borat." And they go "Oh" and walk away.
I can't wait to see how you spell, "my wife" to make it sound like Borat said it, Yasmin.
Emily: Please include this in the article.
Tom: "And Tom said, in Borat voice, 'My wife', and then he wondered how I was going to type that and that just went on and on for the rest of the interview."
But yeah, to be honest, we're just parenting and going through it. Our life is just planning activities to keep our children busy and holding on until they go to sleep at night.
Emily: So we can have one moment of peace.
Tom: And our nightly lovemaking. Just want to get that on the record.
Emily: Sometimes multiple times a night. Full penetrative sex.
Tom: Nine years in, the lols? Still lolling.
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