Award-winning Succession actor Sarah Snook has joined the growing trend of Australian A-listers to take on behind-the-scenes jobs as executive producers on films and TV series.

In Melbourne for the premiere of Adam Elliot’s Memoir of a Snail at the Melbourne International Film Festival on August 8, Snook, 36, is also in town to start filming her next heavyweight made-for-television series, All Her Fault.

Adapted from the best-selling novel of the same name by Irish author Andrea Mara, this will be her second combined EP and lead actress venture (according to the IMDb database), after steering the ship on the Netflix horror movie, Run Rabbit Run, in 2022.

Fellow Aussie stars including Margot Robbie, Nicole Kidman, Naomi Watts and Rose Byrne have set the pace for buying screenplays and pitching them for the past 15 years.

As have Russell Crowe, Eric Bana, Sam Worthington and Hugh Jackman, all taking on executive producer roles as well as being the on-camera star for box-office success stories.

Double act

What’s behind the trend, which is now on every star’s CV?

Flinders University’s Dr Claire Whitley told The New Daily Robbie, whose production company LuckyChap Entertainment made Barbie and I, Tonya (she played lead roles in both), “intelligently traded on her star power to get projects across the line”.

“ … she has consistently positioned herself as a producer [rather than lead actor], which is very telling in regards to where she sees the most career longevity and the most fulfilment,’’ Whitley said.

“In Hollywood, popularity is measured by profits and increasingly by clicks and ‘minutes watched’ … because of this, Robbie is one of the most successful producers operating at the moment.”

Robbie could be seen “as a next-generation Reese Witherspoon [Legally Blonde) … [who] was a trailblazer as an actress who turned to producing enormously successful series and films”, Whitley said in February after the European and US awards seasons were finished.

Snook role

On August 6, it was announced Emmy nominee Dakota Fanning (Ripley, The Equalizer 3) and Abby Elliott (The Bear, Saturday Night Live) will star in All Her Fault, and play series regular roles.

Jake Lacy (Apples Never Fall), Sophia Lillis (Dungeons and Dragons) and Michael Peña (Narcos: Mexico) also star.

Filming started at Docklands Studios in Melbourne in late July.

Snook, who shares a daughter with husband and Melbourne comedian Dave Lawson, will play mother Marissa Irvine in the upcoming Peacock series.

She has also been listed on IMDb as executive producer.

‘Terrifying situation’

“It opens on a plausibly terrifying situation that eventually unearths the deep secrets of a community,” writes Deadline.

She arrives at “14 Tudor Grove, expecting to pick up her young son Milo from his first playdate with a boy at his new school”.

“But the woman who answers the door isn’t a mother she recognises. She isn’t the nanny. She doesn’t have Milo. And so begins every parent’s worst nightmare.”

As news of the disappearance filters through the quiet Dublin suburb and an unexpected suspect is named, whispers start to spread about the women most closely connected to the shocking event.

Since Succession wrapped in May last year, Snook has been busy making multiple films, voicing animation for Memoir of a Snail, and shot a feature-length comedy drama with Zach Galifianakis, The Beanie Bubble.

She was last at London’s Theatre Royal Haymarket on The West End for The Picture of Dorian Gray.

She’s won two Golden Globes and an Emmy for her Succession role, and received the UK’s top prize, the Olivier Award, in April.

Eric Bana on the set of The Dry sequel, filmed in the Yarra Ranges in Victoria.

Bana busy

Australian actor Eric Bana, who made his film debut in The Castle followed by Chopper in 1997, has 10 producer credits to his name.

Most recently, he’s enjoyed the success of starring in and producing The Dry (2021) and Force of Nature: The Dry 2 (2023).

He’s about to star in and EP A Sacrifice, in which he plays an American social psychologist who investigates a cult connected to a disturbing event.

When asked about taking on dual roles in film, he revealed his motivation to Awards Radar.

“I feel really attached to the source material and very protective of it,’’ Bana said.

“Second, I had known the people involved for a very long time. I knew [producer] Bruna Papandrea, and my dear friend Rob Connolly [director] had also known Bruna for a long time, so I knew this team was really solid.

“From a practical level, we were making the film in my back yard here in Australia, in rural Victoria, so that presented me the opportunity to do more in that space than I normally would.

“I was able to be involved in all of the pre-production and the post-production, whereas on another film I’m here in Australia at a distance from it all.”