Hungry Ghosts: behind the scenes

Director Shawn Seet and leading actress Catherine Văn-Davies discuss the making of the genre-bending new SBS series, Hungry Ghosts.

Seet grew up with ghost stories as a part of his culture but he never converted into a believer. However, there’s still that part of him that has doubts.

“I have to admit, I’m still spooked by ghost stories, even though my mind says ‘no, they don’t exist.’ There’s still a part of me that thinks ‘but what if they do?’” Seet reveals.

Seet cherished the opportunity to direct a contemporary Asian-Australian story as did his cast and crew.

“There was a great sense of joy on the set,” Seet says. “All those actors, they really felt that this was one of the first… project[s] that was really theirs.”

Lead actress Catherine Văn-Davies explains that during one scene, the set had some visitors.

“One of the cast members is actually… a medium and we shot a scene, the séance scene, and then afterwards she was like, ‘there were a lot of people in the room’,” Văn-Davies says. “[But] once they realised that it was make believe they kinda went ‘ugh’ and left.”

Hungry Ghosts is available to view on SBS On Demand