The gripping new Stan Original Series Bad Behaviour will leave you gasping for breath.

Do you remember when you were 15? 

Do you remember feeling invincible and yet so afraid at the same time? Do you remember yearning for something - or someone - you couldn't have? Do you remember the friendships forged... and lost? Do you remember trying to understand the world and your place in it? 

The Stan Original Series Bad Behaviour encompasses all this and more in their four-part coming-of-age series, which will leave you gasping for breath at the brutality... and wiping your eyes in tearful recognition.

Watch the trailer for Stan Original Series Bad Behaviour. Story continues below.

Based on the memoir by Rebecca Starford, and led by an all-female creative team, Bad Behaviour features knock-out performances by its female cast, including Jana McKinnon (We Children of Bahnhof Zoo), Markella Kavenagh (The Lord of the Rings series), and Yerin Ha (Halo series).

The story follows McKinnon's protagonist Jo as she navigates her way at an exclusive boarding school in the middle of the wilderness, where she must choose between being bullied... or becoming a bully herself. To exacerbate matters, Jo has a very complicated relationship with the head alpha bully, Portia, played by Kavenagh.

It's an unflinching look at what happens when you let a group of teen girls run amok with very little adult supervision - a female Lord of the Flies, if you will.

That's what caught the interest of renowned Australian producer Amanda Higgs (The Secret Life of Us, Mustangs FC, The Librarians). After reading Starford's book, she knew she had found her next project.

"It was mostly that I had never really read that story before about young women at 15, acknowledging what it was really like, both in that dynamic of friendship slash relationship," Higgs tells Mamamia. "Fifteen is such a hard age. I think women have such complex relationships with each other at that age. And in this instance, Rebecca herself describes it as the most vulnerable and the most volatile people put together. And then it becomes an exercise in who survives."

Portia (Markella Kavanagh) sits at the head of the table, literally and figuratively.

The timeline of the drama series shifts back and forth between the perspectives of then 15-year-old Jo and now 25-year-old Jo, allowing the audience to see how the events of the past have shaped the future. 

The catalyst for Jo reliving what happened at the isolated school is meeting Alice (played by Yerin Ha) as their older selves. Alice was picked on mercilessly by Portia and her crew, and Jo was caught in the crossfire.

Playing the ages of 15 and 25 was part of the reason why McKinnon, who is Australian but lives in Austria, Germany, wanted to play Jo. "It's such a challenge," the 23-year-old tells Mamamia over zoom from her apartment in Germany. "I thought, I'm not sure if I can pull that off."

Spoiler alert: She most definitely pulled it off. McKinnon's turn as the vulnerable and angry Jo was the glue that held everything together.

"I remember clearly being [15]. Oh my god, it's horrible. It feels like the world is ending all the time. I can't describe it any other way. That's what it was. That was my experience," she said. "Everything is so much larger than life, every conflict is super threatening to your existence and everything is so dramatic and big. I can still remember that feeling... I tried to channel that. I know how it feels, to feel like you don't belong and to try to belong."

Jana McKinnon as the troubled Jo.

Kavenagh, 23, also remembers vividly what it was like to be 15.

"I think tapping into that felt quite familiar," the actor told Mamamia. "Hopefully, the series will resonate with people of all ages, because we can see that even though sometimes we like to put teenage hood into a particular box, there are behaviours set up at that age that may linger."

Kavenagh's portrayal of antagonist Portia is an exquisite study in light and shade.

"She's just so unpredictable. And she can be volatile, she can be ruthless. After exploring and kind of delving into her backstory, I think she's just a deeply, deeply lonely person," Kavenagh explains. "And I really wanted to ground her in a longing for connection, but she's unable to free herself from a fear of being abandoned. And so she self-sabotages by manipulating people's efforts to understand her, as she herself hasn't taken the time to do so."

While those in front of the lens are female, those behind the lens are too. Bad Behaviour is directed by Corrie Chen (New Gold Mountain, Homecoming Queens), produced by Higgs, written by Pip Karmel and Magda Wozniak - in an adaption of Starford's memoir of course - with casting directors Alison Telford and Kate Leonard. 

The director of photography is Tania Lambert, the editor is Maria Papoutsis, and the composer is Caitlin Yeo.

Higgs believes the industry is changing for the better. "There is more inclusion and representation, especially on a series like this," she tells us. "All the story elements and the themes that we're touching on, who these characters are, who they are at 15, who they are at 25 as queer women... we're trying to represent and include as many people behind the camera whose experiences we're exploring in front of the camera. Corrie and I were quite careful to choose our team. It's a very bespoke team."

Behind the scenes with Corrie Chen and Jana McKinnon. 

Having such a close-knit team allowed McKinnon to feel safe in expressing the vulnerability she had to bring to the screen.

 "In a scene where there's two people talking, there's like, 40 people standing around you," she says. "Corrie and Amanda really knew the importance of choosing the crew. And they really just chose the most amazing people. A lot of them were female or trans. And that was a very special, very supportive environment. And I just felt I was able to be so vulnerable in that setting. I was never left alone. I always had support if I needed it. I'm just so grateful for that."

While McKinnon has worked on German productions before, this was the first time she worked with an intimacy coordinator - and it was a revelation for her. 

"It was just the most incredible experience. We had Amy Cater, who is just amazing," McKinnon says. "She comes from a background of erotica photography, and she's also a therapist, and she knows about what goes on inside you when you do these scenes. She knows how to make things look good. She communicates so well about boundaries, and about how close you can get to each other... It blew my mind."

McKinnon and Kavenagh as their 25-year-old characters.

Bringing Australian stories to life is something Higgs, McKinnon, and Kavenagh are all keen to keep doing, especially if it allows them to work together once more.

"I did an internship in America many, many years ago, and people would always say to me, why don't you just stay in America, but I wanted to have that experience and then return with the kind of ideas and observations I'd made there and how we can apply them to our own stories," Higgs says. 

McKinnon reveals she has just watched the series and what she enjoyed the most was actually being able to watch all the other cast performances. "On set, it's really busy, there are loads of people, it's very hectic. You never really get to sit down and appreciate your colleagues' work," she explains. "So just seeing what the other cast did and all the amazing performances... I was feeling so proud of them. They've all performed so beautifully. I'm good friends with Markella, we talk a lot. And still, when I watch her in this, it gives me shivers down my spine when she like, twitches with her mouth. Although I know her, and I know that she's the nicest person in the world, you know?"

The admiration is mutual, and thankfully, their real-life friendship is much less complicated than their on-screen one.

 "Jana and I definitely bonded," Kavenagh says. "It's so lovely to be able to make friends that are also based here and based wherever in the world. It's great to go, 'Oh, you have a play on next week? Well, I can see it because we're both here'. To be able to support each other as well is just so wonderful."

Every episode of the brand new Stan Original Series Bad Behaviour is now streaming, only on Stan.

Feature image: Stan.