Netflix, Dive Club: Manly's Georgia-May Davis starring role

The 26-year-old actor grew up and still lives in Manly, and admits she was "obsessed" with performing from a very young age and being on set with her mum, TV's golden girl Alyssa-Jane Cook, fueled her desire to enter the industry.

In the late 1980s and early 90s, Cook was a regular on soap opera E Street as the character Lisa Bennett. She also starred in Above the Law and Home and Away, along with numerous presenting roles.

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And now Davis has her own growing list of acting credits, including her latest venture, Dive Club, streaming on Netflix. The 12-part fictional series is about a group of feisty teen scuba divers forced to search for Lauren Rose (played by Davis), who discovers the town's hidden secrets before mysteriously disappearing.

"It's a teen mystery show that is this perfect balance of parents and children watching," she says.

"A parent will actually enjoy the storyline for once, and a child will just absolutely love the characters, the high stakes, the music and the costumes."

The four-month shoot took place in Queensland's Port Douglas from October 2020, and Davis says the COVID-19 pandemic helped to draw the cast closer together.

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The cast and crew, who were mainly from NSW, not only completed two weeks of mandatory hotel quarantine together, many of them also stayed together for Christmas.

"We exited and landed in this tropical paradise where there were no tourists, no humans, just basically us and the crew of a couple of hundred. It was just unlike anything I had ever experienced," Davis says

"It really was quite an immersive experience: you literally lived and breathed everything Dive Club. That's what makes the show special because it was such a unique experience, unique story and everyone became this makeshift family for one another."

Davis is also proud to be involved in a production that employed many Port Douglas locals in the crew and as extras, at a time when Queensland's tourism industry had been hit hard.

Davis may only be 26, but she's already been in the industry for more than 20 years after her mother finally agreed to let her take singing lessons all those years ago.

"I forced my mum to take me to singing lessons and auditions," she says.

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"There was none of this stage parent, holding hand thing. I always say 'why can't you have been a stage parent, you could have been one of those psycho stage mums and maybe I would have had this huge career by now?!'"

Her mother's advice? If you're pushed into the industry, you'll soon fall out of love with the craft. With hindsight Davis agrees. "I feel I would have lost interest by now if my mum had forced me to do this growing up," she says.

Prior to Dive Club, Davis had already appeared countless ads, the 2012 revamp of Young Talent Time, and on Disney Backstage Pass as a presenter, where she hosted multiple red carpet celebrity events.

When not in front of the camera, Davis said she has a "normal person job".

"I'm a producer and I work across a range of different networks, essentially being behind the scenes producing television," she said.

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"I cannot get enough. Finding stories and ready scripts and being in a super collaborative creative community is what gets me out of bed in the morning. When I'm not acting I'm literally just reading - I read so many books, I read so many scripts, plays and then on my Fridays I just love going to the theatre."

Davis has another project in the works, that she can't talk about yet, and is hopeful of a long career in the industry.

"My dream is to produce a show and star in it, that is my end goal and to work with some amazing directors and scriptwriter is obviously a big goal as well," she said.

"To have my name in the credits as a producer and an actor is definitely something I'm working towards."

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