Imagine being Perth actor Bailey Spalding. You land your first feature film and it’s the title role, no less. There’s just one problem – said title is Penny Lane Is Dead.

“It is quite funny when you get an audition brief, and it’s like ‘We want to see you for the film Penny Lane Is Dead, for the role of Penny’, and you’re like ‘Oh, I wonder at what point I die’,” Spalding laughs.

Speaking exclusively to STM ahead of the film’s theatrical release this month, the 28-year-old reveals playing a character who is purportedly deceased (no spoilers) isn’t as easy as you’d think.

“When we shot it, it was the middle of winter in the Adelaide Hills, so it was freezing. But we were shooting a summer film, so, for me, I was in these plastic, jelly sandals and had a tiny mini romper and a bikini, and I did a lot of corpse acting in bushes and it was freezing,” she says.

Hard to say if corpse acting was part of the curriculum when Spalding studied at the Western Australian Academy of Performing Arts but nothing can really prepare you for demands on set.

“There was one take where I had to hold my breath for a really long time and, when the camera came off me, you’d hear someone say ‘You can take a little breath’,” she recalls.

“But I remember one take, someone had forgotten to say it, and I was kind of like ‘Oh my God, when do I go, when can I do it’.”

Penny Lane Is Dead is the debut feature for writer-director Mia’kate Russell, who envisaged a blood-spattered tale of female empowerment set against a vibrant backdrop of 1980s Australia.

Spalding’s Penny is one of three friends celebrating the end of high school, and the start of a new chapter in their lives, with a private party at a secluded beach house.

This poignant moment of friendship is rudely interrupted by the arrival of Penny’s volatile cousin, Kat, played by Sophia Wright-Mendelsohn, the daughter of actor Ben Mendelsohn.

What should have been the time of their lives becomes a battle for survival, as Kat’s dodgy male mates rock up with menacing intentions.

“I always describe it as a punk rock, 80s, Australian, slasher, horror-romance,” Spalding offers.

“There is a lot of bloodshed. I must say they didn’t hold back on that at all.”

Making her debut in a gory slasher flick is a far cry from Spalding’s first major gig in the screen industry — as a series regular on the kids TV show, Hi-5.

“Yeah, wow, that was one of my first ever jobs, really,” she says.

“I graduated high school . . . and then straight into that. I grew up watching Hi-5 when I was a kid. I went to the Hi-5 concerts, I had Hi-5 merch, so getting to do that was a full-circle moment, to be honest, it was so fun.”

Technically, that Hi-5 job wasn’t the first time the nation saw Spalding on TV.

That would be singing a cover of David Bowie’s Heroes on a 2016 episode of The X-Factor, which saw a then-18-year-old Spalding fall just short of making the Top 12.

“Sometimes I forget that I did (that show) . . . but that it was a crazy experience,” she admits.

“I’ve always loved music, and I’m still doing music to this day, currently writing an EP, which is exciting, and I think in the next six to eight weeks it might be dropping.”

Just in time to leverage the release of Penny Lane Is Dead.

“Yes, exactly,” Spalding laughs.

The laughs continue when the interview turns back to playing dead, and whether Penny Lane ends up in a Weekend At Bernie’s scenario – Spalding has never heard of it.

“I wish I knew what that was,” she laughs. “I need to write this down. Weekend At Bernie’s.”

The actor was born at least 10 years after Weekend At Bernie’s was released but, upon hearing the premise, gets the reference.

Working on a movie set during that period of Australia’s history was similarly education.

“It was honestly the coolest thing to experience because the set and just the way they committed to everything and the costumes were unbelievable,” she says.

As we see with so many movies and TV shows these days, there are other benefits to setting a plot in the not-too-distant past.

“I think the fact of even not having mobile phones adds to the suspense of it, you know,” Spalding explains.

“It’s a survive-the-night film, it’s three girls trapped in a house. You don’t know what’s going to happen, and they can’t contact anyone.”

Setting the film in the 1980s wasn’t just about mobile phones — Russell chose this timeframe because it was a period of unbridled optimism, especially for young women.

And it’s this hope and promise that make the prospect of it being snuffed out by brutal blokes hit so hard.

“It’s amazing you’ve said that because that is 100 per cent a touchpoint in the film,” Spalding reveals.

“It’s a big theme about female friendship and romance, even. So, you’ve hit the nail on the head there.”

Spalding’s next film, Black Prince, will see her stay in the same genre, which says as much about the sort of films being greenlit in Australia right now as it does the Perth actor’s personal preferences.

“I love my horrors,” she says. “It’s such a fun genre to act in, because the stakes are so high all the time, but it’s so grounded in truth and every moment is so important to these characters, so it’s really, really fun.”

Could this former Hi-5 star be Australia’s next great scream queen?

“I would love to be a scream queen. Absolutely, yeah, it is one of the coolest things to get to do,” she says.

“I mean, there’s so many amazing scream queens out there. I love Mia Goth. I feel like she’s had such a cool trajectory in that sense. So, yeah, that would be the dream.”

Another dream she’s keen to manifest into reality is starring in a musical, preferably directed by Damien Chazelle, whose previous work includes La La Land, Babylon and Whiplash. Or maybe a period piece like Pride And Prejudice. Or a rom-com like How to Lose A Guy in 10 Days.

In the meantime, Spalding is content living her original dream of being in a maiden feature film, which she sincerely hopes audiences will love.

“The last few screenings I’ve gone to, you have people laughing and people are screaming and people are cheering, so it’s cool to see the audience interact with the film,” she says.

Penny Lane Is Dead is in cinemas July 23