Evans in first adult role in CrowniesBest known to Australian audiences as a teenager in Home and Away, Indiana Evans is putting the character of Matilda Hunter behind her with her very first adult role in the legal drama Crownies.
At 20, Evans is relishing her role as young solicitor Tatum Novak in the new Australian drama, set in the Department of Public Prosecutions.
"Since Home and Away I did a kids series and a few guest roles but this is the first more adult thing I've done which is really great," she says.
"It's nice to have some older dialogue. It's really refreshing."
She has also been reunited with her former Home and Away cast mate Todd Lasance who plays Ben McMahon in the series.
"He was the only one (in the cast) that I knew so that was great to have someone familiar when I first started," she says.
Evans says her character, at 22, is the newest and youngest member of the DPP and is often underestimated by her colleagues.
"She brings a bit of youth and Gen Y into the office," she says.
"She's unshakably confident and sure of herself and smart and funny and lots of people underestimate her and think she's a bit of a ditz but she's the kind of person who will surprise people."
The series also plays on the generational gap between Generation Y and their older colleagues.
"It makes for a lot of the comedy within the show," Evans says.
"I've got a lot of scenes with an older character and basically they just don't get on and they lock horns."
Unusually for a legal drama, Evans says Crownies really doesn't spend a lot of time in the courtroom, with the creators preferring to concentrate on other aspects of the lawyers' lives.
"It's more the preparation of it (court) and how hard these guys work."
Much of the humour on the show is dark, which Evans says they picked up after spending some time with members of the DPP.
"They were saying that their humour, to cope with the really full on cases that they get, is quite black so the show really shows that," she says.
"Sometimes you see it and it can seem a bit cruel but I suppose it makes sense if you're around it all the time. That's what they do to get through it."
Evans also found that many of the storylines were familiar because they were based on real cases that she'd read about in newspapers.
"There's some moral dilemmas in there which I found really interesting... you'll read scripts and you'll find you've read something like that in the paper, that cases like that have really happened."
And while the show may be marketed at a younger audiences, Evans says there's plenty in there for everyone.
"We also have some older characters and they've got a lot of great storylines and a lot of interaction between the two generations so I'm hoping it will appeal to lots of people," she says.
* Crownies premieres on ABC1 on Thursday, July 14 at 8.30pm.
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