After ''The Castle'' there was a string of comedies trying to replicate that success with cardboard cut-out characters, which really annoyed me. That's what we were working against in ''Ten Empty''. That surface wit. Men cracking jokes instead of dealing with their emotions. What happens when you run out of jokes? The people I grew up with kept things to themselves, but they'd open up too. The average Aussie bloke is not just a beer-swilling idiot, and we wanted to show that.〔("Ten Empty - Interview with Brendan Cowell & Anthony Hayes", ''Time Out'', 9 July 2008 ) accessed 22 December 2012〕