Jenna Rosenow, best known for her role as Amber Turner in Australia’s longest running television series, Neighbours, is heading over to Netflix with Firefly Lane. She stars as Kimber Watts, the hip, young editor of the ‘Seattle Monthly Magazine’ attempting to make a name for herself. Firefly Lane is now streaming on Netflix.
“At the core of it, Firefly Lane is a love story between two best friends. It’s equally the ‘coming-of-age story’ and the ‘growing old together story’ because the show spans across three decades. So it starts off in the 80s, and then it ends up in the early 2000s.”
“[Kimber] is a really fun role to get the opportunity to play. So, Kimber is the editor of ‘Seattle Monthly Magazine,’ and she plays Kate’s new boss. Kate is played by Sarah Chalke and it was incredible to work with her. The relationship between Kimber and Kate was quite a fun dynamic. She’s a young socialite, definitely a bit self concerned, her wants and needs always come before anything else and she is willing to do whatever it takes to get what she wants and she doesn’t really see any issues with that… But I love Sarah, she’s the best. I was a huge fan of Scrubs growing up so when I realized that I would get to work opposite her, I was so excited. Honestly, she’s so nice. She’s so friendly. She’s hilarious and she’s so fun to work with.”
The relationship between Kate and Kimber is definitely interesting.
“It is a very interesting dynamic, obviously being that Kimber is quite a bit younger than Kate and Kate has experience in this industry. She was a journalist, of course, and she went down the marriage and kids path so she’s more than qualified to be doing this job but Kimber definitely uses her for very menial tasks.”
Jenna says we’ll just have to watch and see exactly what is meant by menial.
Firefly Lane is based off of a book by the same name by Kristin Hannah. Fans of the book will not be disappointed. The series follows Kate (Sarah Chalke) and Tully (Katherine Heigl), who meet as young girls and become inseparable best friends throughout thirty years of ups and downs. When an unthinkable betrayal breaks them apart, the two women go their separate ways and it’s unclear whether they will ever be able to reconcile.
“I guess with anything that’s based off a novel, there are liberties that are taken. Kristin Hannah, who wrote the book, is absolutely incredible. She’s actually one of the executive producers on the show so she did have quite a bit of an input into things, but for example, my character isn’t actually in the books. So she was added purely for the show. So it’s not following it completely, they’ve definitely taken a few liberties with it. But I guess it does follow the book quite closely and I think that fans of the book and fans of Kristin are going to be very happy with the show.”
Since was added for the show, Jenna said she got to have a lot of fun playing around with the character and making Kimber her own.
“Yeah, which is quite fun like it’s always interesting when you do something that’s based on a novel. With that novel, you kind of got both that and the script to kind of guide you into creating that character, but when it’s a character that’s not in the book, and it’s purely added for the script, then it gives a little bit more freedom of what you can do with that so I love that… My process for preparing for roles is fairly much the same on everything but one thing I do remember about my audition, and this role is what I wore. I remember getting the character description, and it said that Kimber was the ‘epitome of early 2000s style complete with a tiny dog in her purse.’So instantly, when I read that, I got Paris Hilton vibes. I remember picking out an outfit and matching jewelry and makeup that was just so painfully early 2000s. And then I was like ‘great I’m crushing this I’m killing this.’ And then when I got to the audition and I was seeing other people in the waiting room. I looked around and had a moment of panic being like, ‘Oh, am I wearing the completely wrong thing for this character?’ But it turned out okay.”
So can we expect to see very early 2000s wardrobes? Jenna says YES!
“Yes, definitely. I think that the wardrobe department and the hair and makeup department have absolutely killed it on this show. And they had a lot to play with obviously, coming across the three decades, but it must have been so fun for them putting all the looks together.”
Jenna says her least favorite early 2000s trend was low rise jeans because “what were we thinking?”
“Those are the worst. I guess my favorite [early 2000s trend] would probably be just the general mishmash of different things that people would wear, just like layering up with those little scarves that weren’t actually scarves, just like basically tiny bits of material that are completely useless.”
Other than the nostalgia of early 2000s trends, Jenna says views will love this show.
“Honestly, I feel like audiences are going to love this show. It’s such a beautiful story about friendship and about women supporting women. It’s such a nice show that’s got nothing to do with pandemics, no one wearing masks, so it’ll be a nice little escape for people.”
Jenna is also in another show based on a novel called One of Us is Lying. The show will stream on Peacock later this year.
“I don’t think I can say much about this yet. We have found out that it’s officially been picked up for series. So far, it’s only the pilot that’s been shot, but yeah, we’re waiting for more news on that. I guess COVID has kind of impacted that like it has as many other things… It’s super exciting though. It was another one that I read and I was like this is gonna be a really great show.”
Firefly Lane is now streaming on Netflix! You can follow Jenna on social media with her handle @jenna_rosenow on Twitter and @jennarosenow on Instagram.
