Sebastian Armesto plays Patrick Day
Sebastian Armesto takes on the role of eldest brother and protective son, Patrick Day. Here, he tells us what drew him to this complex character.
Published: 5 November 2019
Patrick's default position to anything that is new or out of his quite highly structured life is met with distrust. He specifically does not react well to Benjamin.
"The scripts attracted me to this drama - they were really well written and all of the characters were psychologically rich and curious. When you first meet Patrick he has a high sense of duty towards his wife, his mother and his children. However, over the course of the drama his duty and loyalties get seriously tested."
Patrick is tested when his mother brings home her new boyfriend, a man many years her junior. Seb reveals how his character reacts to the news.
"The introduction of their mum’s new and much younger boyfriend triggers off things from their past for everyone. It brings up bad memories of an incident that occurred years ago.
"Patrick specifically does not react well to Benjamin. His default position to anything that is new or out of his quite highly structured life is met with distrust. None of Julia’s children are particularly keen on their mum’s new relationship, but Patrick starts off antagonistic and descends into deep animosity.
"When I was filming a scene with Ben (Barnes) it struck me that one of the things that frustrates Patrick is that he quite admires or secretly would like to be like Benjamin. The openness and comfort in his own skin that Benjamin seems to have is quite enviable to Patrick, so whilst of course his dislike of Benjamin comes partially out of a sense of protectiveness for his mother, it also stems from a place of envy and wishing he could be a little bit more like that.
"Julia separated from their father a year prior to the story starting, and during that time period Patrick has been the nicest possible son to his mother, always there trying to look after her or distract her and trying to make things as good as possible. So in a way, having spent the past year investing so much time in his mum, Patrick feels like her new relationship with Benjamin is a little bit like a betrayal for him."
Seb describes Patrick’s relationship to his younger siblings, Della and Leo.
"Patrick is the oldest of the three siblings and so he is charged with a sense of protection over them. The base relationships between all of the siblings is accurate in that they’re close, but a lot of their interactions and ways of dealing with each other are based on cruelty, trying to either make the other person laugh and not really engaging truthfully with each other emotionally.
"He's closest in age to his sister, Della, and he feels like he shares a lot of experiences with her. Over the course of the story Patrick slowly realises that people’s reactions to the same events can vastly differ; he learns that people don’t share the same experiences and he realises that through Della.
"That's what I really like about the show: it's about people seeing the same thing but reacting differently. I hope that anyone who does watch it will question the characters’ motives and be interested when it's revealed why they are doing certain things, and how they go about them. I hope people will be stimulated and provoked by the way these characters work."
