Then director Madeleine Gottlieb asked her to audition for the role, since she “could act”.

“This was news to me,” says Diviney with a laugh. “It was really quite surreal.”

When she eventually landed the role, Diviney worked with a dramaturge and there was an intimacy co-ordinator on set, but it’s still one hell of a role for a debut; as well as a series lead, Diviney performs in a sex scene, a first for Australian television.

“It’s definitely a big one. I have to say, there was a little bit of hesitation for me towards the pointy end because so much of Sarah’s experience reflects my own, in terms of the insecurities that she has and the … lack of experience that she has, if you catch my drift,” she says. “I wasn’t sure how performing that would be … having someone repeat my worst insecurities back to me as part of dramatic tension would be. But I’m really glad I did it because it’s probably been the best experience of my life.”

Given the discussion around inclusion and diversity in recent years, Latecomers shouldn’t feel so radical, but Diviney says this speaks to how poorly disabled representation has been across the film and television industries, locally and globally.

“To have two scenes with both of us doing it in such different ways and dramatic circumstances is really cool - not to mention that we both have different types of cerebral palsy and it impacts us both very differently, so to see two representations of that is pretty remarkable. I’m so excited for members of the disabled community, who have deserved this sort of representation for so long, to see it.”

When it comes to inclusivity, people tend to forget about disability, Diviney says.

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“I think partly that comes from it making people uncomfortable. We’ve made some huge strides in the last couple of years and I’m incredibly privileged to sit on the shoulders of some incredible disability activists who don’t get the recognition they deserve because they worked at a time when social media activism didn’t have the visibility that I do now, for instance,” she says.

“But it’s special for me to be at the frontlines now in so many different ways and I think Latecomers is going to be one of the things that absolutely blows the conversation open – and hopefully, based on that, and also the worldwide success of Heartbreak High and its diverse representation, this opens up the floodgates for this to become the norm and not some fantastic exception.”

“(The show) doesn’t ... assume that disabled people aren’t interested in having lives and relationships. And we aren’t always sweet as pie.”

Actor and disability activist Hannah Diviney

Viewers should not watch the series hoping to be inspired, either - the characters in Latecomers swear, drink and aren’t necessarily always pleasant.

“That’s part of why I loved this show - it doesn’t ever infantilise the disabled people, and it doesn’t do the other thing I hate, which is (to) assume that disabled people aren’t interested in having lives and relationships,” Diviney says. “And we aren’t always sweet as pie. We’re people, we have bad days and we f--k up, we make bad decisions, we piss people off – we do all the human things.”

Latecomers premieres on Saturday December 3 at 8:30pm on SBS VICELAND and SBS On Demand.