“I want to embarrass myself”

Emily Browning said she’s not worried about people comparing her new show Class of 07 to the Showtime hit Yellowjackets.

“That’s fine with me,” Browning, 34, told The Post. “Because it’s not like you look at one and don’t need the other. If you look at “Yellowjackets” this is sort of a lighter, warmer counterpart. Less scary and spooky and murderous.”

‘Class of 07’, now airing on Prime Video, is a half-hour comedy set in Australia and following Zoe (Browning) who is living off the grid after embarrassing herself on national TV – in a dating Show mishap, it goes viral on the internet.

During her time in isolation, she sees a warning that an apocalyptic wave is coming that will engulf everything. Escaping to higher ground, she unknowingly stumbles upon her ten-year high school reunion, where she reunites with her estranged best friend Amelia (Megan Smart) and former classmate Saskia (Caitlin Stasey, “Please Like Me”). Zoe joins the party rather than adequately warning everyone of the impending wave that will anger all women when disaster strikes.

Together, the former classmates search for a new way of life at their old high school in a “Lord of the Flies” environment.

Browning has worked on a variety of drama projects, including Sucker Punch, The Uninvited, Legend, and American Gods, but this show marks her first foray into comedy.

“I had to do a solid week of improv games and a comedy boot camp to learn how to loosen up because I’m used to acting,” she said. “I’m usually quite reserved when I’m performing, and I’ve had to let that go completely.

“When I read that opening scene, I automatically thought, ‘I’ve never played a role like this before, I just want to embarrass myself and do something outside of my comfort zone.’ I was excited about the idea of ​​doing comedy. I was just trying to bring out the most uncomfortable, embarrassing version of myself. Zoe is definitely in me.”

Even though “Class of 07” covers natural disasters and dystopian themes, it focuses on the relationships between the former classmates who have held grudges and grudges with one another for years.

“It’s really exciting to have these big epic stories that affect the whole world and then just watch the interactions between a select group of people and how they go about it. It can be a bit difficult to process, but this is a very low-key story. It’s about the end of the world in a big sense, but it’s about how we deal with it. There’s a sci-fi element to it because it’s apocalyptic,” Stasey, 32, told The Post.

“What I think most closely resembles our show is ‘Orange is the New Black.’ It’s a comedy set in a high-stakes setting, but it’s really about relationships. And all of these apocalyptic shows that we see are well constructed but mostly dramatic. It’s a Grittines Sand sadness. That’s pretty gratifying, even given the circumstances.”