Zoë Boe on the 'trickiest' part of playing a teen wrapped up in Western Sydney's juvenile justice system in Stan Original Series Critical Incident

EXCLUSIVE: In Stan's latest Australian Original Series Critical Incident, Zoë Boe's character Dalia spends a lot of time running – both physically and metaphorically.

In fact, it's running that kicks off the six-part crime drama series' storyline. While on patrol for a teenage suspect, Senior Constable Zil Ahmed (Akshay Khanna) pursues Dalia, and in the chaos and confusion of the pursuit, a bystander is critically injured.

You can catch watch the thrilling trailer for Critical Incident in the video above.

Zil's world comes crashing down when he discovers Dalia was in fact not the perpetrator. His immense guilt, coupled with the pressure and scrutiny of the situation, makes Zil obsessed with pinning something on her.

Meanwhile, Dalia has had many odds stacked against her even before facing police scrutiny: she lives in a group home, has clearly had traumatic experiences before we meet her and has limited access to resources that can help.

For Boe, the show is Dalia's "story of survival".

The Stan Original Series Critical Incident will premiere August 12, all episodes at once and only on Stan.

All of this makes it surprising to learn that for her, the most important scenes to film were those that didn't actually address any of that.

"It was so important to me to have Dalia be someone that did have moments of joy," Boe told 9Entertainment.

READ MORE: Everything you need to know about Stan's new psychological crime drama Critical Incident

"So much has happened to her character that shouldn't happen to someone her age. But she's also a kid that has a boyfriend, her first boyfriend and first love. She has friends at school. She goes to parties, you know, she's just a teenager.

"The scenes where I'm at my boyfriend's house, out with my friends, going shopping – things like that. Those were the most important scenes to me because enough bad stuff is going to happen to her."

Boe, who made her film debut at age eight in The Tree and walked the red carpet at Cannes Film Festival, said not only did those scenes show another side of Dalia, but presented her with a unique acting challenge.

"They sound like the easiest scenes, but they were actually sometimes the trickier ones because you come off the back of filming a very emotional scene, to then have to go through a scene with your two best friends at school – breaking myself down from all the tension that my character had, and then going into a place of 'that's actually not important right now' [was challenging]."

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Critical Incident was set and filmed in Western Sydney, inspired by creator Sarah Bassiuoni's real life experiences working as a lawyer in the area's juvenile justice system.

Boe said Bassiuoni was an invaluable resource for the cast and crew.

"The biggest thing Sarah said before we started filming was 'this is not a cop show'. It's a story about real people, and when things go wrong, and how do you break through from that?" she shared.

"And I think that what, collectively, all of us really wanted to unite on and portray was that this is a story about real people and that we don't need to put shiny glamour all over it in order to have an impact. This is a conversation that's happening today and we're so lucky to have someone that's experienced similar situations in her own life."

Boe said she hoped viewers would see Critical Incident as a story about resilience.

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"I think constantly we see so many of these characters on screen who are just affected by trauma, and that's sort of all they ever will be, all they are," she explained.

"I really, really didn't want Dalia to just be that. I wanted to give her the ability to play a part in her own story and take control of her own story."

The Stan Original Series Critical Incident will premiere August 12, all episodes at once and only on Stan.

Nine Entertainment Co (the publisher of this website) owns and operates the streaming service Stan.

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