On New Year’s Eve, 1999, armed with a bottle of time travelling tequila, Minnie (Emily Browning) arrives at the swanky beach house of her long-time friend, Rodney (Ashley Zukerman), only to discover that her former flame Joe (Sean Keenan), has brought his new girlfriend, Jenny (Aisha Dee). When Minnie takes a shot and is suddenly transported back to the moment she arrived at the party, she soon realises she has a bottle’s worth of chances to win Joe’s heart. But as she tries to rewrite the night, things quickly spiral out of control and no matter what she does or how many times she resets, she can’t escape herself.
Such is the plot for the new Australian time-loop comedy One More Shot. Following its screening at this year’s SXSW Film Festival and Melbourne International Film Festival, as well as its local streaming release on Stan, global audiences can now rent the film on all major digital platforms.
To coincide, our Peter Gray spoke with Zukerman, Keenan and Dee about their respective roles, touching on some of the specificities of the 90s setting and internally tracking their characters’ movements in the larger scale of unknown repetitiveness.
I wanted to ask one of the sillier questions, I guess, early on. Obviously “Coco Jamboo” is featured prominently in the film. It really takes you back to a very specific time. Is there a song for all of you, regardless of its cheese factor, that would absolutely get you moving like it does these characters? No matters the time or place…
Ashley Zuckerman: Oh, there’d be so many. I’m just so bad, my memory is terrible. There’s so many that would take me back to pre-2001. That was my musical time.
Aisha Dee: The one that’s coming to my mind right now is “Work It Out” by Beyonce from the Austin Powers film.
Ashley Zukerman: This is hard. This is horrible, but “Who Let the Dogs Out” came to my head, which I don’t want that on record, but that’s the song I’m choosing. But also, like, “Teenage Dirtbag.”
Sean Keenan: This is a shout out to an Australian band, but Machine Gun Fellatio, “Rollercoaster.” Do you remember that song? It’s not really well known, but it was played a lot in the 90s, and me and my sister would be jumping on the trampoline with that song blasting out. That’s what would actually get me up.
My mind immediately went to, like, The Vengaboys…
Ashley Zukerman: Oh, totally. What else was there, “Barbie Girl”, who was that?
Aisha Dee: “Mambo No. 5” or “I’m Blue, Da Bee Da…”
Ashley Zukerman: Such a strange period.
Well, one of the things with this film is that it lives in this loop of nostalgia, regret and second chances. Are there parts of your early adult years that you would just not want to revisit on a loop?
Ashley Zukerman: That’s such a great way to ask that question. We’ve been asked, often, what we would redo, but to hear going back and what would we want to avoid is good. I don’t think I’d want to revisit a good chunk of my 20s.
Sean Keenan: Yeah, me too. I think my early 20s, some costume mistakes, parties that went too long. Classic stuff.
Ashley Zukerman: That’s what touched me about this film, in that getting older, it seems like so much of the work of ageing is acceptance and looking back and dealing with regret in a way that’s actually meaningful. Now I’m on the other end of that, it’s a nice thing to come to terms with.
Aisha Dee: I don’t know, I’m still stuck on the fact that I straightened my bangs in high school. I gave myself a straight fringe. I’ll never get over that. You just gotta delete all the photos and hope no one ever finds them.
Going off the loop, obviously the character of Minnie is the one aware of what’s happening. For you, was there an internal mapping for your characters? Did you have to track continuity as you were doing it?
Ashley Zukerman: It’s difficult not to overthink in any scene that you’re playing, because we’d do these scenes from anywhere between four and 10 times. Every take should be alive and different anyway, but I think that was the hack with this film, to not think of them that differently and just keep going deeper into every take. It was just responding to different things. But you’re right, I think as the different timelines extended, we had to be conscious of the changes, both emotionally and practically.
Sean, do you think your character, Joe, realises how much power he has over Minnie? Or do you think he’s oblivious to it?
Sean Keenan: I think their past has always been that Minnie wants maybe what she can’t have. But once she gets it, she doesn’t really want it anymore. So Joe’s come to terms with that. I think he probably had a bit of a crush on Minnie, but it was never real. It was always something born out of partying, high adrenaline, high-stakes relationship stuff. It’s the opposite of where he’s at (when we meet him in the film). He’s used to that behaviour (from her). This kind of, “Let’s go to the bathroom” chaos. He’s more aware that it could happen from the start. He’s more wondering, “How am I going to navigate staying grounded?”
Jenny walks into this nostalgic, almost slightly toxic friend group. This micro-climate. But she walks in with such confidence. How do you build a character who feels grounded, but she’s also the unintentional emotional disruptor for Minnie? Do you have to forget about what these other characters are going through because you’re the new energy in this dynamic?
Aisha Dee: I think initially it would have been really easy to just kind of play into this stereotypical version of two girls duking it out over a guy. But I think that Minnie is the only one who’s in the fight. I think it’s Minnie in the ring by herself, running circles around herself, and Jenny is off to the side clapping like, “Hey, what’s happening?” I don’t think she really is one to play into the drama in that way. I feel I had a pretty easy job of staying consistent. I think she’s a pretty grounded and confident person, so I just tapped into the part of myself that is grounded. Most of me isn’t (laughs), but some of me is, so just tapping into that and letting that lead. But I also feel like I was so blessed. We were all there together every day, so it felt really easy to just observe what was happening and what was available to us and be truthful. It all flowed easy from there.
And Ashley, I like that Rodney is the guy who defuses tension with humour, but he stirs the pot, almost accidentally. What part of Rodney’s personality felt closest to you and what part felt like a challenge to honour without turning him into a caricature?
Ashley Zukerman: I think that’s a good observation. It’s a good way to look at it that was trying to defuse situations with humour. What we learn is that he’s actually a guy that just can’t deal with any conflict, and he doesn’t really know how to connect with people or dig into issues. Obviously that’s the reveal later on, that he’s lived a life where he’s been unable to do that. For the first time in his life, he’s actually had to choose conflict and connection. I spent a lot of time thinking about that. I found that a very meaningful thing to meditate on. I think I, like many others, drive to comfort rather than conflict, but conflict is usually something far more rewarding. That was how I spent my time.
One More Shot is now available to stream on Stan Australia. It will be available on all Digital platforms and On Demand in the United States from December 12th, 2025.
