ABC TV drama Barons showcases young Australian talent and a decade Baby Boomers will never forget

This despite the fact he is talking to me from a resort in Phuket, Thailand, about filming Barons, an eight-part drama set against the backdrop of Australia's '70s surf culture.

"It was a dream job being on the beach working," Keenan says," but we did shoot it in lockdown so the production had a lot of challenges, location changes and so on."

"But to be working when everybody else was struggling, we were very lucky."

Because of COVID the shoot, which was originally supposed to be in Bali, took place in Australia, Keeenan says.

He says the series was mostly shot on Sydney's northern beaches, with extra footage at Byron Bay, Long Jetty, and Turimetta Beach, which is only 350 metres long and backed by Narrabeen Head with 20-30 metre high shale bluffs.

"There are massive swells and no one goes there. Well, they probably will now I guess," he says wryly.

"They did some neat tricks in the editing, he says, but it great having real surfers on board.

"I made it feel authentic. The funny thing is, the ambition and capitalist ideal is set against the background of this pure sport. It kind of goes against everything the sport is about."

Keenan says, "a lot of fun went down".

"We got so many good days of weather. We'd be running into the water to surf, shoot the scene, then come back out and go surfing in between the next shot. Hair and make-up were like - 'that's okay, you're meant to look salty'."

Most of the cast already knew one another.

"I had been friends with some of them for years. We had so much fun, and I think you can see that in the show.

"I met Hunter [Page-Lochard] (Reg Thompson) when I first moved to Sydney from Western Australia.

"It was Sophia's [Forrest] (Dani Kirk) first [acting] job, but we know each other through surfing. I've known Ben [O'Toole) for quite a long time.

"When we all got the parts, we went surfing together to warm up into the characters."

Keenan says some of the cast, who hadn't been surfers, took to it quickly. Plus, there are intercuts with the pro surfers courtesy of one of the executive producers - surfing film legend Taylor Steele.

Steele is an award-winning California-based director and producer who has been involved in the surfing film industry for over two decades.

"That was a massive draw for me to have him involved in the show.," Keenan says. "As a grommet, you and your mate would watch a Taylor Steele film to get you into the mood to surf.

"I never thought it would happen that I would be in something he was part of.

"Sophia really switched on out there [surfing] and she had her own board shaped. She's still surfing now. George Pullar (Bernie Hunter, Jr) is a really good surfer from Queensland.

Australia in the 1970s was an exciting time of experimentation, surfing, drugs, and ambition. So how did Keenan prepare for the role?

"I have all my dad's stories. He actually [used to] look like Ben O'Toole's character. I saw qualities in my dad and his friends that translated to the show. Plus I watched a lot films and documentaries. Sea of Darkness in particular.

"I've been a surfer my entire life, and it is a culture, where there are so many different kinds of personalities you come across.

"For Trotter, he was a bit of an outsider as he had only been in that town for three years.

"What he resents in Snapper is also what he wants. He has a bit of a complex of being an outsider, because he hasn't taken that feeling of being a surfer for granted.

"I remember getting my first board. I had one surf in particular when my mind exploded and every other sport I was involved in just faded away.

"I remembered that feeling for [my character] Trotter. That feeling is what he is selling, but he also has the smarts to know it is a commodity.

"It's a good quality forTrotter, but one of his terrible qualities is he pushes it too far and sacrifices his relationships. That's why he was interesting to play; he was quite flawed in some ways."

Keenan has done a few '70s pieces, and says the first episode of Barons show how the surfing community isn't about what is considered part of the machine, because they don't want to be part of a society they don't subscribe to.

"Surfers were kind of looked down on as dropouts. It was only when surfing began to make money did society accept it. So [in the case of the Vietnam War and conscription], why should we fight for that society. "It was seen as an over-funded war America didn't belong in."

"To really get it, you surf and surf, until you get that feeling of taking off on a heavy wave.

"More than any other sport, you are at the whim of Mother Nature. That's the spiritual side of the sport."

Barons captures the dichotomy of the opportunities presented to young, freedom-loving Aussies via a new surfing counterculture in the '70s, clashing against the spirit of enterprise.