An American brother-sister duo arrives in Australia dreaming of launching a booming spray-tan empire but one disastrously bad decision at a rundown budget motel sends their plans spectacularly off the rails.
Martin (Will Forte) and Vicki (D’Arcy Carden) Marvin quickly learn that Sunny Nights motel is not the glamorous gateway to success they’d hoped for.
One wrong move leaves them entangled in Sydney’s criminal underworld and when they try to flee, things only get worse. Their getaway attempt accidentally results in a murder, forcing the pair into a frantic scramble to stay alive and out of jail.
As travelling actors from California, Will (MacGruber, Saturday Night Live) and D’Arcy (The Good Place) are no strangers to questionable motels, and their real-life horror stories rival anything their characters go through.
“I had three nights in Florida, and I walked in the first hotel room, and the fridge was sour it smelled so bad,” D’Arcy, 45, tells TV WEEK.
“I asked to change and the next room I opened the bathroom door, and somebody had just like smoked a cigarette in there – I asked to change again. I felt like a princess.”
“When I was filming The Last Man on Earth, I stayed at the closest place to set, where a domestic situation happened,” Will, 55, reveals.
“I was nervous about gunfire; I called the police – it was scary.”
It’s chaos that mirrors how Martin and Vicki wind up in deep trouble in the series – but beneath the madness lies a surprisingly meaningful message: spray tan is a safer alternative to sunbaking, with the series inadvertently raising awareness about the dangers of skin cancer.
“It’s nice that that message was a byproduct of the series,” D’Arcy says.
“It’s just funny because I think Martin’s in it for the right reasons, but I don’t think Vicki is at all.”
“There is so much going on in this series, so many different genres weaving in there that each one feels like they’re fully realised,” Will adds.
“It’s very fun that you can get a message like that across without it being preachy at all.”
And despite appearing freshly bronzed throughout the show, Will reveals one final twist.
“I never wore any fake tan the entire time,” he says with a laugh. “It was just a bunch of makeup applied by the best in the biz.”
You can watch Sunny Nights on Stan.
