Out of the Question with Adam Zwar: Recent Episodes
Adam Zwar
'Out of the Question with Adam Zwar' features in-depth interviews with the most interesting and accomplished people in entertainment, politics and sport.
It's an update on the original '10 Question with Adam Zwar'
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Tom Hollander is in my top five actors of all time. A rare beast who can do comedy and drama with equal, effortless brilliance. He lands a line so dry you need a glass of water just to recover—then, in the next breath, breaks your heart with those devastatingly eloquent eyes. And now, thanks to The White Lotus, he has also proved himself outstanding at dying. A Napoleon of the screen—compact but commanding, wielding presence like an emperor wields an army—he strode through Season 2, a vision of louche menace and debauched charm, before being so cruelly dispatched that I half-expected him to rise from the waves like some Mediterranean revenant, clutching an aperitivo and a bon mot. But no. Gone. Finished. Season 3 will have to stagger on without him, and be the lesser for it.
So, in pre-mourning his absence, I give you two small consolations: a video in which he bemoans sharing a name with a very rich man, and possibly the greatest Life in the Day feature ever published. Read it. Read it twice. Then go and watch Rev. again, because honestly, nobody does it better.
This appeared in The Sunday Times - Sunday, October 04 2020,
I wake up generally at 3 or 4am. Not because I’m like Margaret Thatcher, but because I need to pee. I pee in the darkness using my phone screen to illuminate the target, then often take half a sleeping pill (antihistamine), turn on the World Service very quietly and try to go to sleep again.
Sometime between 6 and 8 I wake again, turn up the Today programme gently. If my girlfriend is there we hold each other in different positions. If she isn’t I wrap my arms around a pillow and continue listening to the bad news. Whoever gets up first will go downstairs and start baking porridge. It’s like a savoury flapjack and was recommended to me by a very healthy-looking nutritionist. It takes about 40 minutes to cook and we eat it in such large quantities with olive oil and salt that we negate any nutritional benefits. But we enjoy it. And while it’s cooking it gives us time to look at our phones.
Sometimes in this waiting period I try to do three slow sun salutations to stretch myself out, but often I don’t. I brew the first of many coffees. Which mostly involves heating up the stuff in the cafetière left over from the day before. If it’s a slow day I make it in one of those Italian alloy things that students always used to have that involve a lot of assembled parts and washing up. Owing to forces beyond my control, life has not been as busy as it used to be.
After we’ve eaten and my girlfriend has gone to work I look at myself in the mirror and try to see what others see. Examine my bald patch, weigh myself and pull my stomach in. Then let it out. Then pull it in again. If I’m feeling positive I might get dressed at this point and go for my second coffee on the street below. I’ve lived in the same flat for 20 years and one of the rewards for this loyalty is that I know all the shopkeepers and stallholders on the street, for whom I have become like a piece of the old furniture they sell.
Hello Glen, hello Kris, Ghino!, hello Brendan, hello Fati, wave at Ray, turn the corner, bonjour Raschid, ça va? (keep going ’cause I can’t really speak French), hello Hassan, hello Reg, morning Dave, yup still here Tony, hello Beatrice (she doesn’t notice), slide into Porto: “Maya four-ter take away please” (phonetic Portuguese). Then take it home and leave it on the sideboard with any post that has arrived from my stalker.
Then I might call my agent. “Isn’t she? No, no, nothing important… just checking in…”
Soon it’s time for my midmorning nap. Followed by the preparation of lunch, which I start at 12.15pm. And at 1pm I turn on the radio again to listen to World at One and hear politicians lying or reports of the world ending.
Whatever I make for lunch I eat too much of, which makes me feel a bit lethargic, so I make some more coffee and turn off the radio as The Archers starts so I’m ready to begin the second half of the day.
The afternoon is time for hobbies and extracurricular activities. If it’s sunny I might go for a cycle ride down the canal, if it’s raining I might masturbate and doze, or speculate on the extraordinary injustice of Philip Green’s knighthood, or look at that app that tells you which celebrity you most resemble (Tom Hardy). Sometimes I read long-form articles about the collapse of western society and the destruction of the planet.
From about 5pm, assuming I haven’t mislaid my house keys or mobile phone, it’s possible to surf through the rest of the day on the news feed while preparing food, eating it and digesting through Newsnight.
Then it’s time to go to sleep again. Cracking a little sleeping pill in half in case I need it later, I turn on the radio very quietly. If my girlfriend’s there we hold each other in various shapes. If she’s not I put my arms around a pillow.
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One of the funnier moments from the Alan Jones era. Warning: It does contain the voice of Mark “Chopper” Read. And the voice and face of Alan Jones.
PS: The studio audience was so polite!
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Robert William Hoskins, actor, born 26 October 1942; died 29 April 2014.
It didn’t matter that this guy—who left school at 15 to become a bouncer, porter, window cleaner, and fire-eater—went on to become ridiculously famous. He was always down-to-earth: "Actors are just entertainers, even the serious ones. That's all an actor is. He's like a serious Bruce Forsyth."
Hoskins could play serious and scary, then turn on a dime to reveal sweetness and a big heart.
A chance audition led him to the theatre, which opened the door to roles in BBC dramas and a beloved ad for British Telecom, where he delivered the catchphrase "It's good to talk." Around that time, Francis Ford Coppola cast him in The Cotton Club (1984), and suddenly he was in movies. Brazil followed, then Sweet Liberty, his Oscar-nominated turn as an ex-con in Mona Lisa, the blockbuster Who Framed Roger Rabbit, Heart Condition, Mermaids, Hook, and Oliver Stone's Nixon, where he played J. Edgar Hoover.
"You don't go to Hollywood for art," he said in 1999. "And once you've got your fame and fortune—especially the fortune in the bank—you can do what you want to do. It's basically f**k-you money."
In 2012, at 69, he announced his retirement after being diagnosed with Parkinson's. Two years later, he died from pneumonia.
Miss you, Bob Hoskins.
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This week’s guest on Out of the Question is the comedian and TV host, Tom Ballard. You all know Tom from Triple J, multiple hosting and guesting engagements on the ABC and Channel 10 as well as the iconic Tonightly with Tom Ballard. We talk about that here. There’s also his stand up and his book, I Millennial. And now he’s back with a new Melbourne Comedy Festival Show, It Is I, which is at the Victoria Hotel from March 30 and ALSO Yes/No – A Comedy Lecture, which is also at the Victoria Hotel from April 15. Tickets at the Festival website.
Tom on Tonightly being cancelled.
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Too much has happened since Dave O’Neil recorded this episode of Another 10 Questions back in the peak pandemic days of November, 2021. The point of Another 10 Questions was to invite guests back onto the pod as a catch up or check in. And since Dave was on the very first episode of this podcast back in 2015, there was a lot to talk about.
Most listeners will be familiar with Dave’s work on Spicks and Specks, Agony, Randling, The Nugget, and more recently, great cameos in Utopia and Fisk. He was also the head writer on Totally Full Frontal, and with the screenwriter, Mark O’Toole, he wrote the feature films Take Away and You and Your Stupid Mate.
Catch Dave’s new Melbourne Comedy Festival showOverweight Lightweight at Morris House from March 29 to April 9. Tickets here.
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This week’s guest on Out of the Question is the comedian Mel Buttle. I’ve been a long-time fan and this is our first ever chat. I particularly love her Mum character, which she occasionally releases on social media. We talk about the genesis of that here. We also talk school, jobs, growing up in Queensland and the Great Australian Bake Off which Mel co-hosted for five years. Stay tuned for her handy baking tips.
You can also check out Mel’s new Melbourne Comedy Festival Show Let Me Know Either Way which is at the Melbourne Town Hall from April 11. Tickets at the Festival website.
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“I feel like I'm a very, very big energy in a world that wants you to be a little bit smaller.” - Nikki Britton.
This week’s guest on Out of the Question is the comedian Nikki Britton. Apart from her live work, you might have seen Nikki on Have You Being Paying Attention, The Project and How to Stay Married.
She’s returning to the Melbourne International Comedy Festival with her show, Getting Out in Front of It, from April 11. You can get tickets at the Festival website.
We had some tech difficulties in this chat, which I hope aren’t too obvious. I was stuck in a motel in Castlemaine, where I’m filming a TV show, and Nikki was in her car after doing some sort of fitness thing. Also, I had food poisoning. Which probably didn’t contribute to anything.
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This week’s guest on Out of the Question is writer, comedian, and musician, Sammy J.
It’s a great chat. How could it not be? We talk about Sammy’s start in comedy, some of the formative shows he was involved in as a writer performer, the sitcom he created with Heath McIvor called Sammy J & Randy in Ricketts Lane, and then his transition to political satire with Sammy J's Playground Politics. Now he’s taking a live version of his political satire featuring stand up, songs and storytelling around Australia. For bookings check out Sammy-j.com
Right now, you can hear him host Breakfast on ABC Melbourne.
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This week, I’m extremely excited to have Osher Günsberg on the show. Most people know him from hosting the Bachelor and it’s associated spin offs I was more an Australian Idol guy who loved the on screen chemistry shared by Osher and James Mathison. But that’s just me showing my age.
During our conversation, we talk about all that, as well as his radio days, as well as getting back on the horse when you’re down as well as the extreme heights he hit hosting TV shows in the US.
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This week’s very special episode of Out of the Question is a Wilfred reunion episode with my fellow Wilfred creator, Jason Gann. We talk about the origins of Wilfred and where Jason is in his life right now. I met him as an acting student at the University of Southern Queensland. After graduating, he performed for the Queensland Theatre Company and the Twelfth Night Theatre in Brisbane before moving to Melbourne and appearing in The Wedge, Wilfred, and also the feature film Rats and Cats, which screened at SXSW. He then went on to make the Channel Ten series, Mark Loves Sharon, before moving to the US where he starred in, executive produced and was one of the writers on the US version of Wilfred, which ran for four seasons on FX.
Don’t forget to check out our Wilfred Australia tribute page.
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My guest this week is satirist, humourist, author and stand up – Titus O’Reily. Titus used to be called Alex Twomey. He was a corporate guy who specialised in crisis and issues management. As we discover in this interview, Alex started writing a blog while still working in his office job and gave himself the pen name “Titus O’Reily”. The blog was hilarious and it turned out I wasn’t the only one to think so. He was soon asked to write books and perform live shows and more success followed. Now you see him regularly casting his jaundiced eye over every AFL season on radio and his regular appearances on The Front Bar where he mocks his own team, Melbourne, for being posh and my team, Carlton, for everything. His blockbuster podcast Sports Bizarre with Mick Molloy, in which Titus tries to bamboozle Mick with the strangest stories to occur in world sport, is back for another season. So check that out. This conversation looks under the bonnet of how you transition from a real job into becoming a comedy professional. It’s full of wisdom and revelation, but always returns to the theme of hard work.
Check out Sports Bizarre here.
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This week’s guest is my long time pal and work colleague, Sarah Wilson.
Sarah is a multi-New York Times and Amazon best-selling author, podcaster, international keynote speaker, philanthropist and climate change advisor.
She founded the I Quit Sugar movement – a digital wellness program and 13 award-winning books selling into 52 countries. And in 2022 she sold the business and gave everything to charity.
In what seems to be a lifetime ago, Sarah was the editor of Cosmopolitan Australia; host of Season 1 of Masterchef Australia; was a journalist at the Sunday Magazine, which appeared in the Sunday Herald Sun and Sunday Telegraph – and that’s where we became mates.
I always leave a chat with Sarah feeling a little wiser than I did at the start. I hope you enjoy.
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I’ve been lucky with the content offered by the guests on this podcast – but this guy has an unusually inspiring story. Working class boy, becomes a political operative at 19, works his way up to being an advisor in the Rudd and Gillard Governments before pivoting to cricket commentary and becoming one of the best-known cricket broadcasters in the world. His name is Adam Collins, and in 2018, he saw there was no Australian radio presence covering the test series between Australia and Pakistan in the UAE, so he used the money he was saving to buy a house and bought the rights to broadcast the series. He talks about the stress of that deal here, particularly finding a station he could on sell the broadcast to, as well as overcoming tech and censorship issues. Right now, the whole saga is being developed into a feature film.
Quick shout out to The Final Word - the best cricket podcast going around hosted by Adam and his on-air partner, Geoff Lemon.
I hope you enjoy this chat. Check out the exclusive bonus video below where Adam discusses the two funniest cricketers he’s met.
Links:
The Final Word Podcast
Adam's collaboration with Wayne Swan which set his career pivot to cricket journalism in motion.
BONUS VIDEO: THE FUNNIEST CRICKETERS ADAM COLLINS HAS MET
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This week’s guest on Out of the Question is writer, comedian, and musician, Andrew Hansen.
He’s the member of The Chaser who sings and sometimes gets into trouble for the lyrics he sings. I think he’s hilarious in the style of a shorter Cleese or a stronger jawed Tim Brooke-Taylor – while, at the same time, being completely his own thing. He’s also been a radio presenter on the ABC, Triple M and Nova. And he’s toured his live stage shows around the country many times. In fact, you can catch his new show Andrew Hansen Is Cheap in Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, Adelaide, Canberra and Launceston in the next few months. Just type in bio.to/andrewhansen and all will be revealed.
Alright. We had a good chat. He’s a decent man, Andrew Hansen. Before the interview proper, I told him how great I thought his Billy Connolly impersonation was and we started talking about impersonation comedy in general.
A serious moment when Andrew talks about what it’s like to be sued over a joke.
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This week’s guest is the former Western Bulldogs great, turned AFL commentator, turned radio host, Luke Darcy. In 2002, Luke was awarded the AFL Players Association Most Valuable Player Award, the Australian Football Media Association Player of the Year Award, and the Herald Sun Player of the Year Award. He represented Australia in the International Rules Series against Ireland that same year and was captain of the Bulldogs in 2005/6. When he retired he proved he had a natural talent for broadcasting and remains one of the Seven Networks biggest stars – not just with its Saturday Night AFL coverage, but also hosting the Olympics. Luke recently found time in his busy schedule to launch the Empowering Leaders Podcast, where he and his guests break down the fundamentals of a 21st century style of leadership, touching on themes such as collaboration, integrity, and innovation. Episodes drop every Wednesday. I started our discussion by asking Luke, how his colleagues would describe him?
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Welcome to the 100th episode of Out of the Question, the show formerly known has 10 Questions.
It’s been a wild 100 episodes recorded over seven years – the most recent 50 coming a lot quicker than the first. I’m not going to mention individual episodes, but I want to thank all the guests who have come on and revealed their most personal stories and opinions. I’m so spoiled that when an interview subject doesn’t bear their soul, I’m left wondering why. So thank you to all the generous guests.
Quick apology for the sound quality in first fifty eps. No Zoom in those days. You either had to be in the same city or record the episode over the phone and no one wanted to do Skype. I’m sure there were other options, but I just didn’t have the bandwidth to seek them out.
Now to help celebrate the big three figures, I’ve invited back the first ever guest on the podcast – Dave O’Neil.
Over the past 100 eps, Dave has been on the show twice and gets mentioned in passing by guests every other week. We recorded the first ever episode in August 2015. In fact, we had to record it twice because we had phone problems. So, for this landmark episode, I’ve asked Dave to list the five biggest events in his life since that day. We start proceedings with the fifth biggest event and move on from there.
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It’s been seven years since I last interviewed Ash Williams for this podcast. Back then, the former Hughesy and Kate co-host had recently returned from LA, where he’d made guest appearances on Anger Management, The Exes and You’re The Worst. He also sold photos of his feet, appeared in tickling videos and worked as a shirtless waiter at a gay bar. We’ll hear all about that in this interview. But in recent years, he’s been a morning television regular, fronted colour reports for the Australian Open and hosted Miss Universe Australia. But probably his biggest gig was appearing in I’m a Celebrity Get Me Out of Here. We talk about all that in the interview and you can also check out the related video content at adamzwar.substack.com.
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It was a treat for a sports nuffy like me to interview the football and cricket commentator, Mark Howard.
I think Mark, or Howie’s as he’s commonly referred to, is one of cricket’s strongest ball-by-ball commentators. He’s always prepared. He’s got insight. And he brings out the best in the former stars offering special comments.
During our chat, I learned he started his career in television as a crew-guy on the Forumula One broadcast. He then took a job as a reporter for Ten Sports, before becoming a boundary rider and commentator on Ten and Triple M’s AFL coverage. But perhaps his biggest break was commentating the Big Bash on Ten, before moving to Fox Sports – where he now commentates the network’s cricket and AFL coverage. He can also be seen hosting Fox Footy’s new late night show – Best on Ground.
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This week’s guest is one of the enduring stars of Australian comedy. He’s good-hearted, infinitely likeable, smart and funny. I speak, of course, of the great Peter Helliar.
I’ll take it for granted that we all we Peter best for his on air partnership with Rove McManus as well as his work on Skithouse, Before The Game, co-hosting The Project and his super-star alter ego – the final pick in the 2004 AFL draft, Brian Strauchan. There are also his successful TV shows, It’s a Date and How to Stay Married. And then there’s his stand-up – which is consistently funny, and also forms a heartfelt connection with the audience.
Don’t forget to check out Pete’s movie podcast You Ain't Seen Nothin' Yet, where he talks to movie lovers about classic and beloved movies they haven't quite got around to seeing.... until now.
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This week’s guest has been part of our lives for decades. The high school debating star studied law, science and maths at university before winning Raw Comedy and embarking on a stellar radio career – first on Triple J and then on 702. I speak of course of the guy who hates being called “a math’s genius”, Adam Spencer. Still, Adam’s pretty good at maths and has written five books on the subject, including the recently released Maths 101.
Adam’s TV appearances include Good News Week and The Glasshouse as well as weekly sports wrap, The Back Page. And apart from always being in-demand for corporate gigs, he’s also co-founder of Dry July which has raised over $75 million for adult cancer services.
BONUS CONTENT: IF ADAM COULD GO BACK FIVE YEARS, WHAT ADVICE WOULD HE GIVE HIMSELF?
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This week we’re talking to the playwright, author, and Guardian columnist, Van Badham. Over the course of our chat, we cover her humble beginnings to early steps as a playwright at the University of Wollongong to studying theatre in Britain and having multiple award-winning plays staged over there, to her residency at the prestigious London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art, and being appointed Literary Manager at Britain’s renowned Finborough Theatre. We also discuss Van returning to Australia, and taking a job working at the Malthouse Theatre in Melbourne before The Guardian and television punditry came calling. It’s been a wild journey, but it was a journey Van always knew she’d be going on.
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I’ve met this week’s guest many times over the years – generally at gigs or in the green rooms of TV studios, and I never waste the opportunity to tell her how great she was on the iconic late 1980s early 90s sketch show, The Big Gig, or the spoof hospital soap opera, Let The Blood Run Free. I speak of course of the legendary Jean Kittson. INnmore recent years, Jean‘s popped up as a regular on The Einstein Factor, The Glass House and 20 to One. But her main vocation has been writing. There have been regular columns in the Sunday Telegraph, and the SMH, and two successful books – her DIY guide to life, Tongue Lashing, released in 1998, and You’re Still Hot To Me – The Joys of Menopause, released in 2014. Now, in what can only be put down to as just plain excellent taste on behalf of Channel Nine, Jean is appearing as a contestant on Celebrity Apprentice Australia starting at 7pm on May 22. As usual, I started off my chat with Jean by asking her how her fellow workers would describe her.
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It was quite an emotional day when I interviewed this week’s guest, the former rugby international turned best-selling author, Peter FitzSimons. Because it was the day after my father died. I’ve written about my Dad, Desmond Zwar, a lot on social media. He was the author of 20 non fiction books, including The Loneliest Man In the World about Rudolf Hess, In Search of Sir Keith Murdoch, This Wonderful World of Golf, where he went on the golf tour with Peter Thomson, and the runaway best seller, Golf: The Dictionary with illustrations by the great Jeff Hook. Dad, an avid reader, was in a nursing home towards the end of his life, so I ran his Kindle account. Whenever he wanted to read another book, I would buy it and sync it into his Kindle. And the last book I bought Dad, and the last book he read, was Peter FitzSimon’s biography of Ned Kelly. So it was strangely appropriate that the day after Dad’s passing, I was interviewing Peter. I didn’t tell him the situation. I didn’t want to make him feel weird. But the coincidence was not lost on me.
Some would know Peter from his seven rugby tests with the Wallabies as a lock forward from 1989 to 1990. Others would know him from his columns in the Sydney Morning Herald. But most would have read, or at least threatened to read, one of his 27 books – many of which have become best sellers. There have been the rugby books, which we’ll talk about later, joke books, a book on Nietzsche, historical biographies on Nancy Wake, Kim Beasley, Douglas Mawson, Kingsford Smith, Breaker Morant, and James Cook, and then there have been the books on big subjects like Gallipoli, Kokoda, the Batavia and the Eureka Stockade. And now he’s written The Opera House :The extraordinary story of the building that symbolises Australia.
In this interview, we get into the guts of how Peter came to be a writer, the word he most overuses in his books, and how he gave up the grog and managed to fit even more into his day.
PETER ON GIVING UP THE GROG
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This week’s guest is Andy Lee - one half of Australia’s most popular comedy duo ever. He and Hamish Blake started off doing TV and radio at university, before making their commercial radio debut on Fox FM doing the 10pm-to-midnight slot on Mondays. We discuss that in this episode as well as their network TV debut on Channel 7’s The Hamish and Andy Show. As of this moment, Hamish and Andy have enjoyed nearly two decades of unparalleled radio and television success with their drive show on Fox FM often reaching 2.5 million listeners and their TV shows such as Real Stories, Hamish and Andy’s Gap Year, True Story with Hamish and Andy, and Hamish and Andy’s Perfect Holiday getting huge ratings and playing all over the world. In the past few years, Hamish and Andy have branched into more solo work, with Andy hosting The Cube on Channel 10 and The Hundred on Channel Nine. During our chat, Andy and I talk a lot of shop, deep dive into his friendship with Shane Warne, and conclude that there’s no reason you can’t eat pasta on consecutive nights. Please forgive my croaky voice during this episode. You’d think I’d shut up because I was unbearable to listen to – but, no, I seemed to have a lot to say.
Andy discusses turning into his Dad:
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This week’s guest is one of the elders of podcasting in Australia. Back in 2010, he and Wil Anderson started making the podcast TOFOP – as well a collaborating on other podcasts, including the enduring and iconic, Two Guys One Cup. He’s also a well-known actor, starring in Blue Heelers, McLeod’s Daughters and Home and Away. I speak of course of Charlie Clausen.
This episode was recorded in the aftermath of the Northern Rivers floods in which Charlie was on the front line of the rescue effort while I stood in my borrowed gumboots many lines back. During our chat, Charlie details the perils of acting and podcasting and how to deal with people offering up unsolicited criticisms along the way.
IT DOESN’T MATTER THAT CHARLIE DIDN’T GO TO DRAMA SCHOOL:
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This week’s guest on Out Of The Question is Masterchef judge, Andy Allen. Andy was an elite basketball player and full-time electrician before becoming a Masterchef contestant and then winner, in season 4. After that, he became a trainee chef at Three Blue Ducks restaurants, head chef at their Rosebery establishment, and then a co-owner of the group.
In 2019, he returned to Masterchef as a judge. And that’s where he is today, while also working every spare moment he can get at the Three Blue Ducks restaurants. This is a conversation with a guy who seems to make the most of every second of his life.
BONUS CONTENT: ANDY TALKS ABOUT GETTING THE MASTERCHEF JUDGING GIG
SOCIALS: ANDY ALLEN VS MARCO PIERRE WHITE
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Our guest this week is the brilliantly laconic comedian Dan Connell. I first saw Dan perform at Dave O’Neil’s Fun House in around 2014 and was immediately struck by his super-relaxed delivery and use of old school lexicon. Dan grew up in the rugby league heartland of Bateman’s Bay on the New South Wales South Coast, which was hit by the terrifying Currowan fire in 2019 that ended up burning for 74 days and nearly took the house that Dan grew up in.
When not worrying about his parents having to fight fires, Dan is steadily growing his career. It’s kind of like his comedy, just sneaking up on everyone. He’s made multiple appearances at the Melbourne International Comedy Festival, including the opening night gala. He’s toured Australia many times, as well as Asia and Edinburgh, and his TV appearances include Comedy Up Late and the Oxfam Gala on the ABC.
In this interview, Dan talks about his reaction to a terrifying moment when his wife was giving birth and how injuries prevented him from having a career in professional rugby league.
As usual, I started off by asking Dan, how his fellow workers would describe him.
Subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Spotify or the podcast app you like best.
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The lawyer-turned-comedian and television creator, Nazeem Hussain.
If you’re anywhere near TikTok you’ll see that Nazeem’s sketch shows Legally Brown, which first screened on SBS, and Orange is the New Brown (Channel 7), have gained a whole new, obsessively loyal audience.
But Nazeem’s not thinking too much about creating any television right now.
He’s just become a father for a second time and his stand-up show, Hussain That? is currently playing at the Melbourne International Comedy Festival before he takes it around Australia.
In this episode, we revisit a story Nazeem told me in 2015, in which he and his family narrowly escaped death.
We also talk about his problem with punctuality, and how former Prime Minister, Bob Hawke, once sent him fun sized Snickers bars.
As usual, I start off by asking Nazeem, how he thinks his colleagues would describe him.
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Pretty excited to have the British comedian Mark Watson on the podcast this week – not only do I find him hilarious, but I also like the way he explores the formats in which comedy can be presented.
He’s won Perrier awards, Time Out Critics Choice awards and been nominated for Barry Awards at the Melbourne International Comedy Festival.
He’s appeared on Never Mind the Buzzcocks, Mock the Week, Would I Lie to You, and Michael Mcintyre’s Comedy Roadshow. AND, he’s also written five novels.
Mark is back in Melbourne right now with his new show This Can’t Be it – where he tries to cram a year of pathological overthinking into an hour’s stand up.
Mark’s plane to Melbourne, which also had Adam Hills on board, was delayed by 24 hours due to a catering issue.
We talk about that here.
We also talk about him using a Welsh accent when he first started in comedy, and the fact that it’s necessary in an industry where you need to create your own work to continually tell yourself to keep going.
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Pretty excited to be interviewing a duo this week. Possibly, Australia’s funniest duo.
They are Melbourne Comedy Festival favourites, they’re winners of the Edinburgh Fringe Perrier Award, and they made two hilarious seasons of their sitcom on the ABC.
Throughout this interview with Colin Lane and Frank Woodley we talk about how they started off as a trio called The Found Objects with a writer-performer called Scott Casley.
They also talk about performing comedy when you’re grieving, as well as performing comedy immediately after a partner has given birth.
And they also reveal that in 30 years of working together, they’ve never told each other to get fucked. But that may or may not change during the course of this interview.
On a serious note, Lano and Woodley are about to embark on their most ambitious show yet – a comic, demented (their description), version of the Herman Melville novel, Moby Dick, which is touring all over the country.
As usual, I start off by asking Colin and Frank how their fellow workers would describe them.
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Annabel grew up on a farm, graduated from the University of Adelaide, became a journalist at the Adelaide Advertiser and moved on to The Age where she worked in the paper’s London bureau.
Then, when she returned to Australia in the mid 2000s, she wrote books, won Walkley Awards and also appeared on quiz shows (Randling) and panel shows (Gruen).
And from those beginnings, a stellar TV career emerged in which she wrote and starred in such shows as Kitchen Cabinet, where she would prepare a meal with a politician while interviewing them, The House, about the inner workings of Parliament House, Back in time for Dinner – about a modern family discovering how Australians shopped, cooked and ate in the olden days, and now the returning Tomorrow Tonight, where a panel of guests work out how to survive a ground breaking hypothetical news story.
Our chat was short and funny and moving and only slightly hampered by builders reattaching Annabel’s roof to her house.
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This week has been a hell of a week for anyone living in the flood effected Northern Rivers region of NSW, so I thought it was appropriate to talk to author, comedian, and now Green’s candidate for Richmond in northern NSW, Mandy Nolan.
All week she’s been helping the rescue effort in the region, so I was lucky to get her on Zoom for a chat.
She’s one of the funniest comedians in Australia. She’s definitely Australia’s funniest non-celebrity comedian.
Anyone in the business knows that it’s foolish to immediately follow her on stage.
But becoming a household name has always eluded her.
We talk about that here. We also talk about growing up under the shadow of domestic violence and how her Dad dying meant her life could officially start. And we talk about how The Greens finally convinced her to run.
If you want to help out with victims of the Queensland and NSW floods, the Give List provides many options.
https://www.australianphilanthropicservices.com.au/queensland-nsw-floods-2022/
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Our first guest under the new Out of the Question moniker is the screenwriter and satirist, Chris Taylor.
Post university, Chris started off as a cadet journalist for ABC news in Melbourne before moving back to Sydney and writing full time for the Chaser newspaper.
He soon became a fully-fledged member of the Chaser and was a distinctive voice in all the group’s iterations.
Other works include being a presenter on Triple J, writing shows and songs with his Chaser-pal Andrew Hansen, creating the half hour drama, Upright, starring Tim Minchin for Foxtel and now being a team captain on the Australian version of Would I Lie To You, screening on Monday night on Channel 10.
I loved this chat.
Smart guy, Chris Taylor.
As our talk unfolds you get why the Would I Lie To You team have put him in the David Mitchell chair.
I started off by asking Chris how he thinks his coworkers would describe him?
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The smart, talented and hilarious Chrissie Swan.
She was an advertisting copywriter before going on Big Brother in 2003.
After that came a stint on regional radio in Queensland, then Vega and Mix FM in Melbourne, and now Chrissie, Sam and Brownie on Nova.
In between, there were long term TV stints on The Circle, Can of Worms and The Great Australian Spelling Bee for Channel 10.
Now she’s back on the network tonight – Februaty 28 – hosting the Australian reboot of Would I Lie To You.
In this interview, she talks about the psychological transformation she’s undergone over the past year and how it’s based on getting an adequate amount of sleep.
We also discuss the rigours of radio performance reviews and the joys of being sacked.
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10 Questions with Adam Zwar is produced in part by Nearly Media.
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I first came across the Adelaide-raised Anthony “Lehmo” Lehmann when he teamed up with Wil Anderson for their national drive show Wil and Lehmo.
I loved his work on Before the Game where he cracked football-wise alongside Dave Hughes, Peter Helliar, Andy Maher and Samantha Lane.
Since then, he and Joe Stanley took Gold FM’s breakfast show to number one before being fired – he talks about that here – and he’s since moved on to hosting breakfast on SAFM.
I like Lehmo’s work ethic and the fact that he’s performed to Australian troops in army bases in East Timor as well as across the Middle East.
He talks about that here as well in an extremely moving way.
His new show is called Be Nice and it's at the Rhino room at the Adelaide Fringe, starting on February 22.
Lehmo said it was originally going to be called Don't Be A Fuckwit but he thought that might scare people off.
More about Lehmo here - lehmo.com.au
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Adam's book Twelve Summers is out now.
Twelve Summers is the story of those big memories and the big matches that accompanied them, told by one of the funniest writers in Australia.
Australian audiences know her best for her work as “Patricia Saunders” on Love Child, “April” on No Activity and the showstopping “Stevie” on The Other Guy.
But since moving to the US, Harriet’s career has reached even greater heights – first she starred in The Inbetween, a supernatural drama for NBC, then came the box office hit, The Invisible Man, and she’s currently appearing on the new NCB sitcom, American Auto.
Harriet and her husband, Patrick Brammall, are back in Australia filming a sitcom they wrote and created for Binge.
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Welcome to our short 10 Questions spin off, The Top Three.
I choose a topic and ask guests to list their three favourite things about it.
On this episode, comedian Lawrence Mooney details his top three beverages.
Get the full series here - https://www.patreon.com/10QuestionsWithAdamZwar
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Adam's book Twelve Summers is out now.
Twelve Summers is the story of those big memories and the big matches that accompanied them, told by one of the funniest writers in Australia.
This episode’s guest is one of my favourite comedians, Lawrence Mooney.
I love Lawrence because he says the things I dare not think.
He’s an actor, a writer, a stand up and of course a radio host.
I’ve known him since we made the pilot for the Agony series back in 2010 and it was about 30 seconds into interviewing him that I knew we had a show.
So I’m extremely grateful to him.
Other career highlights for Lawrence include hosting the tonight show, Dirty Laundry Live, the Paralympics for ABC2, and Moonman in the Morning for Triple M.
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10 Questions with Adam Zwar is produced in part by Nearly Media.
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Adam's book Twelve Summers is out now.
Twelve Summers is the story of those big memories and the big matches that accompanied them, told by one of the funniest writers in Australia.
After starring on such Australian TV shows as Moody Christmas, Strange Calls and Offspring, Patrick Brammall co-created the Stan hit No Activity with Trent O’Donnell.
They took it to the US where it played on CBS All Access for four seasons.
Brammall, who also starred in the US remake, appeared alongside such luminaries as Will Ferrell, Amy Sedaris, Amy Schumer, Jesse Plemons, JK Simmons, Bob Odenkirk, Kevin Bacon, Jessica Alba, Will Forte, and Matt Walsh.
Now Patrick’s appearing the CBS hit, Evil, before returning home to film a new sitcom which he writes and stars alongside his wife, Harriet Dyer.
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10 Questions with Adam Zwar is produced in part by Nearly Media.
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Adam's book Twelve Summers is out now.
Twelve Summers is the story of those big memories and the big matches that accompanied them, told by one of the funniest writers in Australia.
Today we’re joined by former advertising copywriter turned social commentator turned novelist Jane Caro.
\It’s impossible not to feel wiser after a conversation with Jane If you suffer anxiety or insecurity and want to turn your life around – then listen in.
I first came across Jane on what used to be The Gruen Transfer, then invited her to be on Agony, and was immediately engaged by her clear thinking and the effortless way she gets her message across.
Here she talks about the days when being a feminist wasn’t cool, how to freak out someone who is shouting at you, and the wisdom she was taught the morning after her daughter nearly died.
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Adam's book Twelve Summers is out now.
Twelve Summers is the story of those big memories and the big matches that accompanied them, told by one of the funniest writers in Australia.
Writer, director and producer, Trent O’Donnell, is one of Australia’s most prolific comedy creators – co-creating such shows as Review With Miles Barlow, Moody Christmas, No Activity and Squinters.
He moved to the US in 2012 where he directed and executive produced New Girl. His other directing credits include Brooklyn Nine-Nine, The Good Place, and the new series of Saved By the Bell.
Alongside Patrick Brammall, Trent reimagined No Activity for an American audience on CBS and is now the set up director and executive producer of the US’s number one comedy, Ghosts.
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Adam's book Twelve Summers is out now.
Twelve Summers is the story of those big memories and the big matches that accompanied them, told by one of the funniest writers in Australia.
Those who only know today’s guest Ed Kavalee from television are getting just a fraction of his personality.
His close friend, Josh Lawson, used to call him the unofficial mayor of Melbourne.
If you needed to get into a popular club or restaurant – you’d talk to Ed. I’d go further than that, if you needed a kidney, you’d talk to Ed.
Certainly, if you need someone to give you a rousing speech that will make you feel like you can lift a mountain, Ed’s the guy to go to.
Ed came up through theatre sports and worked in radio promotions before becoming Tony Martin’s co-host on Get This.
Then, when Get This was inexplicably pulled off the air despite bumper ratings, Ed became the co-host on Nova’s Hughesy and Kate.
Many radio gigs followed, as well as a stint in LA and now he’s hosting Hughesy, Ed and Erin on 2dayFM.
His TV credits include being a series regular on Thank God You’re Here, TV Burp, Santo, Sam and Ed’s Cup Fever, and now Have You Being Paying Attention.
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10 Questions with Adam Zwar is produced in part by Nearly Media.
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Adam's book Twelve Summers is out now.
Twelve Summers is the story of those big memories and the big matches that accompanied them, told by one of the funniest writers in Australia.
The first politician I ever interviewed – way back in 1993 – was the former leader of the Australian Democrats, Cheryl Kernot. And I’m delighted she could join us here.
Cheryl was the Democrats’ Senator for Queensland from 1990 to 1997.
She then left The Democrats to join the ALP, where she ran for and won the seat of Dickson in the house of representatives. It was a seat she held until 2001.
I always liked Cheryl’s easy-going manner and it was during her time as leader of the Democrats that you always felt - given the right conditions, they might just challenge one of the major parties.
In this interview, Cheryl discusses the highs and lows of being the third party option, the pressure politics puts on a marriage, suddenly realising you’re famous and how her nine year old grandson requested to go to question time in Canberra for his birthday.
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I’ve known Dil, as he is often called, from around the comedy traps for quite a few years and watched him graduate from open mics to headlining, and from bit parts in TV shows to main roles.
I last spoke to him in 2015 before I moved to LA and while I was gone he released two hour-long comedy specials, won a Logie and lost more than a third of his body weight.
During this interview we talk about growing up in Sri Lanka, Melbourne University, being an account at KPMG and then moving into stand up.
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Adam's book Twelve Summers is out now.
Twelve Summers is the story of those big memories and the big matches that accompanied them, told by one of the funniest writers in Australia.
More thrills and spills from my chat with Kate Langbroek.
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Adam's book Twelve Summers is out now.
Twelve Summers is the story of those big memories and the big matches that accompanied them, told by one of the funniest writers in Australia.
Our returning guest is my old friend Kate Langbroek, whose bold and hilarious banter is one of my favourite things about Australian broadcasting.
And she’s a great writer too.
She started out on Neighbours, then had a column in The City Weekly and then in News Corp’s Stellar Magazine.
Now she’s written a book called Ciao Bella where she charts the highs and lows of her and her family’s relocation to Italy for two years, which took in a pandemic.
Most of us know Kate from her radio partnership with Dave Hughes, which went from Nova to Kiis, to the Hit network and then eventually ended in Italy.
Because Kate and I had been living overseas for a period – we had a lot of catching up to do.
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10 Questions with Adam Zwar is produced in part by Nearly Media.
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Adam's book Twelve Summers is out now.
Twelve Summers is the story of those big memories and the big matches that accompanied them, told by one of the funniest writers in Australia.
Legendary Australian batter and captain, Gregory Stephen Chappell.
When I was growing up, I used to wear a t-shirt with his face emblazoned on it.
I also had a Greg Chappell towel and a Greg Chappell hat.
Chappell has just written the book called Greg Chappell Not Out, which takes-in his career post-cricket, including coaching, selecting and commentating as well as reflections from his playing days.
Here, we talk about all that PLUS rooming with Rod Marsh.
More - https://www.nearly.com.au/10-questions-with-greg-chappell/
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This time we revisit one of our most popular guests, my friend, the comedian, broadcaster, architecture enthusiast and design aficionado, Tim Ross.
Most of Australia knows Tim from his stage, radio and TV partnership with Merrick Watts. But more recently, he’s travelled the world performing live shows with a focus on architecture and design. I was lucky enough to see Tim’s longest running show - Man About the House - at Robin Boyd’s Walsh Street house in South Yarra, Melbourne, and it was one of the great, heart-warming, soul cleansing nights of theatre I’ve seen.
As well as the live shows, Tim has also hosted and produced the acclaimed ABC documentaries Streets of Your Town and Designing a Legacy, which profiles the Australian psyche via the houses we choose to build and live in.
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Arguably Australia’s most popular comedian over the past 25 years.
He’s played to packed houses all over the country and hosted radio shows on Nova, KIIS and now on 2Day FM.
TV shows he’s either hosted or been a regular on include Hughesy We Have A Problem, The Project, Before The Game and of course ABC’s, The Glass House.
During our chat, he talks about living in the moment, the occasional regret of not giving America a proper shot, sobriety and I also pick out some of my favourite moments from his comedy canon.
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I’ve known Meshel Laurie for more than 30 years.
She was easily the funniest and most talented person in the first year of her acting course at the University of Southern Queensland in Toowoomba.
I distinctly remember her doing a monologue for her end of year assessment and having the whole auditorium in hysterics but for some reason the lecturers didn’t let her graduate into second year acting.
So she was shunted into the drama course where she learned to be a drama teacher. It was one of those early moments in my life where I realised that there’s rarely any such thing as justice.
From Toowoomba, Meshel moved to Melbourne and started doing stand-up comedy. Her one-woman show The W***e Whisperer, which charted her time as a receptionist in a brothel, was a huge critical and commercial success playing at the Melbourne International Comedy Festival, the Adelaide Fringe and the Sydney Opera House.
From there, she started doing radio on Triple R and then on Nova and Kiis. And TV stints included This Week Live and The Project as well as her stand up piece on ABC’s The Smallest Room in the House, where she talked about her time at University. Now she hosts the hugely popular Australian True Crime Podcast, which is an international hit with 1 million downloads per month.
I feel like this episode is sometimes less of a podcast and more just two old friends catching up.
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Matt is one of the most recognisable faces in Australia due to his role as a judge on Masterchef.
But his story started in England, going to boarding school, then the University of Kent before following his father into journalism.
Matt wrote about television in Britain before the company he worked for sent him out to Australia to write about TV here.
He then segued into writing about food for The Age, News Corp and the magazine, Inside Melbourne.
In this interview, Matt tells us about the random way he won the gig on MasterChef - a juggernaut of a show which played in 110 countries to an audience of 180 million people.
He starred on MasterChef for 11 seasons and now he has written his eighth book – Matt Preston’s World of Flavour where, among other things, he has uncovered the genesis of spaghetti Bolognese.
Spoiler: It’s actually an Australian invention. Or more accurately - a South Australian invention.
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Welcome to a special episode of 10 Questions – called “Another 10 Questions” - which gives me a chance to have guests return to the podcast.
On the first episode is Dave O’Neil, who was the first guest on the show back in 2015 – 64 episodes ago.
Dave O’Neil’s a veteran comic, radio host, screenwriter and definitely the person who gets name-checked the most on this podcast. You’ll know him from everything – and by “everything” I mean Spicks and Specks, Agony, Randling, The Nuggett and more recently, great cameos in Utopia and Fisk. He was also the head writer on Totally Full Frontal, and with the screenwriter, Mark O’Toole, he wrote the feature films Take Away and You and Your Stupid Mate.
We start Another 10 Questions with – How do you think your fellow workers would describe you?
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ANOTHER 10 QUESTIONS:
1: How do you think your fellow workers would describe you?
2: What the most unhelpful feedback you’ve received?
3: What is the failure you most cherish?
4: if you could go back five years, what advice would you give yourself?
5: What about your job keeps you awake at night?
6: What’s an obstacle you had to overcome?
7: Which word or phrase do you most overuse?
8: How do you remain calm under pressure?
9: Career high and career low?
10: Do you have a motto?
10 Questions with Adam Zwar is distributed by and part of the Nearly Media Network.
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Dave grew up in Geelong, took his first steps into stand-up comedy in his early 20s, and his gift of the gab was quickly recognised by Nova and then Fox FM – where he hosted various shows including the top rating Fifi, Dave and Fev.
On television, he hosted This Week Live and appeared on such shows as Talkin’ About My Generation and Hughesy We Have a Problem.
Personally, I was always grateful to be able to cut to yet another hilarious piece of Dave Thornton wisdom on the Agony series.
These days he’s bringing up two girls and doing some of the best stand up of his life.
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Welcome to the 63rd episode of Ten Questions where Adam talks to Shaun Grant - the multi-AACTA Award winning screenwriter of Nitram.
Shaun’s debut film, Snowtown, about the infamous Snowtown murders in South Australia in the 1990s – won multiple awards and screened at Critics’ Week at the 2011 Cannes Film Festival.
And that’s when Shaun’s career took off – writing the feature films Jasper Jones, Berlin Syndrome, Penguin Bloom, The True Story of the Kelly Gang and Nitram.
He also wrote for David Fincher’s Mindhunter on Netflix and the mini-series, Deadline Gallipoli.
He’s possibly Australia’s most in demand screenwriter, known for his willingness to tackle the weighty emotional subjects that others might see as too dangerous or too difficult to make.
Nitram premiered at Cannes a few months ago where the response to the film was unaminously positive. And that’s where my conversation with Shaun started.
When asked about the time he was most happy, he said “now”. And he wasn’t just referring to his professional success, which he credits as being partly due to his continuing working relationship with the director Justin Kurzel, but also the fact that he’d recently got married.
"The violence isn’t on the screen. It’s not that what interests me. It’s what leads to it."
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This week’s guest is the actress Georgina Haig.
Selected credits from Georgina’s fabulous career include the first season of Underbelly, Queen Elsa in Once Upon a Time, The Crossing and Snowpiercer.
And now she’s back in Australia playing Rachel Rafter in Packed to the Rafters for Amazon Prime.
In our chat we get into the weeds of what it’s like to be a working actor and to have a father who wrote the Australian classic BMX Bandits.
I’ve known Georgina, her husband, Josh, and daughter, Greta for quite some time and we talk about all of them here.
As usual I started our conversation by asking George when she was most happy.
Back To The Rafters is available exclusively on Amazon Prime Video.
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Four-time Logie Award winning actor, singer, and dancer, Hugh Sheridan.
Hugh grew up in Adelaide with six brothers and sisters, studied ballet with the Australian Ballet, sang with the State Opera of South of Australia and went to acting school at the National Institute of Dramatic Art.
Hugh’s major break was playing Ben Rafter on the Channel Seven hit, Packed to the Rafters.
What followed was the limited series INXS: Never Tear Us Apart, House Husbands and Five Bedrooms.
Right now Hugh’s in Brisbane launching his new stage show, HughMan, which is a mixture of disco and old school cabaret, while a new series of Packed to the Rafters returns to Amazon Prime.
In our chat, we talk about religion, spirituality and the importance in coming from a tough Irish Catholic family.
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Dr Chris graduated from the University of Sydney in 2001 with First Class Honours in vet science.
After practicing in Sydney’s North Shore as well as remote communities in the Northern Territory, a chance meeting in a pub with a media manager helped him land a presenting role on Harry’s Practice in 2003.
After that, he went on to win a Logie for Most Popular New Talent and write the best-selling book, The Family Guide to Pets.
Then, in 2008, came the all-conquering reality show Bondi Vet, which chronicled Chris’s life at a Bondi Junction clinic.
Along the way, there were shows for CBS and Animal Planet in the US before broadening his hosting palette to include The Living Room and I’m A Celebrity Get Me Out of Here.
During our chat, Dr Chris tells some glorious animal stories and recounts a botched meeting with Nelson Mandela.
As usual I started by asking Dr Chris, when he was most happy.
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Back in 2018, Christian was the most popular breakfast host in the UK – with three million people listening to his show each morning.
Then, a combination of panic attacks and wanderlust made him decide to leave his top rating show, uproot his family and move to Australia to become the breakfast host on Melbourne’s Gold FM.
In his book, No One Listens to Your Dad’s Show, he charts his experiences with mental health, his decision to move to Australia and then the battle to take his show to number one.
I loved the book, and here we dig even deeper into his hilarious struggle to make friends in his adopted country, how he cries nearly as much as I do and the sessions he had with an unconventional therapist.
Right at the end, I asked what I thought was a professional question about how he acquired such a resonant voice – and the answer was surprisingly personal.\
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We talk about her broadcasting beginnings from newsreading on Channel 10 to co-hosting The Today Show opposite Karl Stefanovic, the controversy surrounding her departure from The Today Show, her battle with post-natal depression and her mother’s battle with bi-polar disorder.
Jess and her mother, Penelope, would go on to write the book, The Best of Times, The Worst of Times, which charted her mother’s struggle .
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This episode is the Denise Scott episode.
It’s such an honour to have her on the show.
Yes, she’s hilarious and an icon, but she’s also one of the most generous and supportive performers in our industry.
She started off in a clown troupe, gained national recognition on The Big Gig and Tonight Live With Steve Vizard, put in several Most Valuable Player performances in the Agony series before writing a couple of best-selling books and touring the nation with her comedy bestie, Judith Lucy.
In this interview, she leaves nothing in the shed. For your reference, “John” is her husband, and her children are “Jordie” and “Bonnie”.
And “Judith” is of course Judith Lucy. As usual, I started by asking Denise, when she was most happy.
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Nick Boshier’s entry into showbusiness was via community radio and managing the singer-songwriter, Lior.
Then, in 2008 he made Youtube viral sensations “Trent From Punchy”, which is currently sitting on 9 million views, and “Beached AZ”, an animation about a Kiwi whale, that reached 10 million views, sold 80,000 T-shirts and won the hearts of The Flight of the Conchords.
After those early videos, Nick went on to develop the ubiquitous Bondi Hipsters with Christiaan and Connor Van Vuuren, the ABC comedy, Soul Mates, and now the Amazon series, The Moth Effect.
Here Nick talks about the pitfalls of all-boy private schools, the influence of his father and his determination to work with great people.
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He’s one of the few performers on Australian television who has fans from multiple generations.
First, there were the Comedy Company fans who loved him as Uncle Arthur, then there were the Russell Coight fans – and then the Kath and Kim fans who were beguiled by his multiple outings as Kel Knight.
I speak of course of the great and enduring, Glenn Robbins.
In this episode, we chart his beginnings in performance – from turning his back on being a town planner, to taking a drama teaching degree, before appearing in commercials and then becoming one of our best known and funniest actors.
There’s the public side of what Glenn does, but there’s also all the work he does behind the scenes nurturing up and coming writers and performers – most notably on The Ronny Johns Half Hour and Thank God You’re Here. His advice has been invaluable to me over the years and he’s one of those people who makes you feel better about the world after spending time in his company.
It was an honour to have him on the podcast and as usual I started by asking Glenn when he was most happy.
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One of the people I’ve known longest and admire most in the Australian entertainment industry and that’s Dan Ilic.
Dan’s had success on Australian television thanks to writing and starring in such shows as The Ronny Johns Half Hour, Hungry Beast and Can of Worms, and then taking on the grown-up jobs of executive producing and showrunning ABC shows Tonightly and At Home Alone Together, which could really do with another series right now.
He’s also had stints producing satirical comedy for Al Jazeera and Fusion in the US. But because careers in entertainment don’t progress in a linear fashion, whenever there’s been a down time, Dan has always gone back to generating his own work whether it be live comedy, documentary, or satirical ads and his output is always slick and funny and creates a splash.
Perhaps his most enduring work is his award winning comedy podcast A Rational Fear - with its overarching focus on Climate Change.
In this episode, we talk about that plus we discuss Dan proposing to his fiancée, that time his firing from a major news organisation became major news and his extraordinary parents, how they met, and how his father’s interest in comedy and social justice gave Dan a framework for his own career.
https://arationalfear.substack.com/
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One of my favourite actors – a performer who can do comedy and drama, stage and screen, and that’s Kat Stewart.
Kat got a degree in marketing and arts before attending the National Theatre drama school at night while working as a publicist during the day.
After graduating, she started making guest appearances on The Secret Life of Us, Stingers and Blue Heelers before landing her first leading role on BBC’s Supernova opposite Rob Brydon.
After that, came her award-winning turn as Roberta Williams in Underbelly – followed by Newstopia, Tangle, Offspring, Mr and Mrs Murder and now Five Bedrooms.
We discuss most of those shows in this interview and a few more.
But before getting to the questions, we talked about our childhoods and Kat happened to mention she went to school with Portia De Rossi.
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Looking for another podcast between episodes of 10 Questions?
The Junkees with Dave O'Neil and Kitty Flanagan
Somehow Related with Glenn Robbins and Dave O'Neil
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You’d know Mark from his brilliantly observed sketches for The Roast on ABC 2, The Feed on SBS and most recently for 7.30 on ABC.
He’s also hosted the channel 10 quiz show, Pointless and, along with his co-writer Evan Williams, has written the book On Politics and Stuff.
Which is bloody funny.
I don’t want to generalise, but in comedy, people are generally scoundrels, but Mark’s one of the decent ones.
And sorry to completely embarrass him, but that decency shines through here.
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Jan Fran was born in Lebanon, came to Australia when she was a kid, grew up in Bankstown, went to the University of Technology in Sydney, then started working for SBS current affairs shows Dateline and Insight before becoming a foreign correspondent and filing from Bangladesh and then Uganda.
When she returned Australia she became a presenter on SBS’s the Feed.
And it was her work on a Feed segment called The Frant, which won her a 2019 Walkley Award.
Since then, Jan Fran has appeared on Q and A, The Today Show, Studio 10, and is a regular on The Project.
We talked about her superman husband, her father’s dislike of television even though even though that would end up being his daughter’s career, and her burgeoning squash game.
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Scott rose to prominence in 2005 with the release of his micro-budget independent feature The Magician – a mockumentary about a hitman called Ray Shoesmith.
We’ll talk about how that came into being as the show unfolds.
Then more than a decade went by before Scott and Nash Edgerton, one of the producers on The Magician, turned Ray Shoesmith’s life into a TV series called Mr InBetween, with Scott writing and starring and Nash directing.
The show was picked up by FX and since then Scott has won plaudits all over the world for his acting and writing, including winning AACTA and Logie awards.
Where to watch Mr Inbetween - justwatch.com
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Most people know Merrick from his long-time radio partnership with Tim Ross, who I interviewed for this show in October 2017.
Merrick and Rosso started on Triple J in 1998, moved to Nova in 2001 and ended their 11-year partnership in 2009.
During that time, they also made the TV shows “Planet Merrick and Rosso” and “The Merrick and Rosso Show” for the Comedy Channel, “Merrick and Rosso Unplanned” for Channel Nine, and “The B Team” for Channel 10.
When their partnership ended, Merrick went on to host radio shows on Triple M and 2Day Fm including “Merrick and the Highway Patrol” and “Merrick and Australia” which turned into “Merrickville”.
\As an actor, Merrick appeared as an adviser to the Prime Minister in Working Dog’s 2008 series “The Hollowmen” opposite Lachy Hulme and Rob Sitch, and Marty Johnston in 2009’s “Underbelly: The Tale of Two Cities.”
Last year, Merrick was one of three celebrities to pass “SAS Australia’s” gruelling two-week challenge – with the comedian leaving many elite athletes in his wake.
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Nell started her career writing for Spy Magazine and Vanity Fair. Since then, she’s written for The Simpsons, Letterman, Murphy Brown, Newhart, NCIS, she created Sabrina The Teenage Witch, she was the executive producer on Charmed.
She has written jokes for Obama. She co-wrote Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg’s best-selling book, Lean In. And her autobiography, Just the Funny Parts, is an enthralling book. If you’re ever stuck, or feeling alone as a writer, dip into Just the Funny Parts, and I’m certain it’ll bring you out of your funk and inspire you to stay the course. It certainly did that for me.
I interviewed Nell in Sydney in front of a live audience at the invitation of Jungle Entertainment where she is working with a bunch of Australian writers.
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In light of the Melbourne International Comedy Festival we're replaying a handful of shows.
This episode was first published 9 December 2015.
He's since morphed into the sitting Prime Minister on occasions.
Check out the videos.
2018 MICF Show
Lawrence Mooney: An Evening with Malcolm Turnbull
Running until 22 April 2018
Athenaeum Theatre Two (map)
Tickets - $30 to $42
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In light of the Melbourne International Comedy Festival we're replaying some comedians who've answered 10 Questions.
2018 MICF Show
Fiona O'Loughlin: "Gap Year"
Tickets available now.
Shows available on 10th and 15th of April.
Melbourne Town Hall, Lower Town Hall
Price: $25 - $37
This episode was first published 13 February 2017.
The interview takes place after Fiona was in a coma for a month, then a stint in rehab.
Lately, Fiona won the fourth season of "I'm a Celebrity... Get Me Out of Here"
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In light of the Melbourne International Comedy Festival we're replaying a handful of shows.
This episode was first published 29 Feb 2016
Sam had won the Barry Award in 2015 for his show "Spaghetti for Breakfast".
2018 MICF Show
Sam Simmons Radical Women of Latin American Art, 1960-1985
Running until 22 April 2018
Fairfax Studio, Arts Centre Melbourne.
Tickets - $27 to $42
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The doyen of entertainment journalism, Angela Bishop.
She’s been with Network 10 for 29 years and she’s interviewed everyone from U2 to Julia Roberts and she was one of the last journalists to interview the legendary Audrey Hepburn.
Not only has she been on the news every night for nearly three decades, but she’s always on the red carpet at the Emmys, The Oscars, and the Golden Globes as well as all of the Australian award shows and premieres. She was on Hinch, Alan Jones Live, she was the resident entertainment reporter on E News and she was a permanent guest on The Panel. Basically, if you’re an international celebrity coming to Australia, I would suggest it was a wasted trip if you didn’t talk to Ange.
Her mother is of course the well known and long time Liberal politician Bronwyn Bishop.
Her father was a judge. She talks about her parents in the interview. And she also talks about her husband Peter, who tragically passed away in November from a rare cancer. His passing leaves Ange and their 10 year old daughter, Amelia, fighting the good fight and Angela says Amelia is the best and bravest fighter she knows.
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The champion Australian leg spinner, Stuart MacGill.
Now, I’d probably be happy to devote more of this podcast to cricket, but I’ve held off because I wanted to speak to a cricketer who thinks a little deeper about life and the world than your average test legend.
In cricketing terms, Stuart was an incredibly gifted leg spin bowler who turned the ball a mile and had a brilliant test average, and who just happened to come along at the same time as the greatest of all leg spinner bowlers, Shane Warne.
But MacGill never tried to compete with Warne. Warne was all bravado and glamour – whereas MacGill held his emotions in check. The facts are that MacGill is the seventh quickest in history to get 200 wickets – getting to the milestone faster than both Warne and the all time greatest wicket taker, Muttiah Muralitharan.
Outside of cricket, Stuart’s a voracious reader – famously reading 42 novels on a tour of Pakistan. He is politically aware – once boycotting a tour of Zimbabwe because he wasn’t comfortable with the Mugabe regime.
In 2000, he married the Australian actress Rachel Friend and the couple, who separated in 2013, have two children together.
Since he retired in 2008, he’s hosted a TV show about wine and been a coach for hire.
He’s had a few public ups and downs, but now he’s getting back to a good place and I encourage you all to follow his witty and polemical Twitter account @scgmacgill.
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Tracey Spicer was my favourite newsreader in the 90s and 2000s – back in the days when you had a favourite newsreader because there were only about 12 of them.
But I had no idea what was going on for her behind the scenes – the general harassment and discrimination.
All this she talks about in her book,The Good Girl Stripped Bare, which has just joined the best seller list.
Since her newsreading days for Ten and then Sky News, Tracey’s been a columnist and documentary producer. But more recently, she’s been an advocate for women in the workplace which has led to her high profile investigation of sexual harassment in Australia media.
The investigation has left Tracey physically and mentally exhausted. She talks about that in the interview. Tracey’s got broad shoulders – and over a thousand women who have been horribly treated by work colleagues are relying on her to tell their story, which in turn, will hopefully bring about a seismic change in how people interact with each other in a professional setting and, more particularly, stop men using a position of power to sexually exploit women.
But we get to all that later because I had to start off by asking Tracey when she was most happy.
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Thanks to this episode's sponsors
Tim Roger's new book "Detours"
"How to build a universe" by Brian Cox & Robin Ince.
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One of the best things about moving to the US is that I’ve met so many great Australians.
That wasn’t the plan. But that’s how it’s worked out.
And one of the greatest of these Australians is the best selling author, wild-life documentarian and former Paratrooper, Bradley Trevor Greive.
BTG, as we call him, has sold 30 million books in 29 languages across 115 countries. The Blue Day Book is certainly what launched him, but more recently there’s been Penguin Bloom, which is being made into a movie starring Naomi Watts.
BTG’s also an animal expert. He used to be one of those rugged Australians who’d showcase animals on Chelsea Lately and The Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson.
These days he hosts documentaries for Animal Planet about bears. But before that and the best selling author stuff, he was Platoon Commander in the Australian army.
Me, BTG and one my cats sat down for this interview in my living room and I started by asking him when he was most happy.
Get The Blue Day Book by BTG on Amazon.
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Thanks to this episode's sponsors
Tim Roger's new book "Detours"
"How to build a universe" by Brian Cox & Robin Ince.
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My guest is former Australian Prime Minister, Kevin Rudd.
For those who live outside Australia, Kevin Rudd was Prime Minister of Australia from 2007 to 2010 and then briefly again in 2013.
The circumstances of his resignation in 2010 and reemergence in 2013 is a dramatic story and familiar to every Australian. And every Australian has an opinion on it. So if you like Shakespearean- style histories, then I invite you to do some research.
Kevin Rudd’s first memoir Not For the Faint-Hearted: A Personal Reflection On Life, Politics and Purpose is out now thanks to Pan Macmillan.
I chatted with him via Skype from Oxford, where he’d just spoken to some students and, as usual my first question was, “When were you most happy?”
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Former advertising copywriter turned social commentator turned novelist Jane Caro is filled with wisdom. If you suffer anxiety or insecurity and want to turn your life around – then listen in.
I first came across Jane on what used to be The Gruen Transfer, then invited her to be on Agony, and was immediately bowled over by her clear thinking and the effortless way she gets her points across.
For those wanting to hear Jane speak beyond this interview and her regular spot on Sunrise can check her out when she MCs the Global Atheist Convention in February next year. There, she’ll be speaking alongside Salman Rushdie and Richard Dawkins.
More information - http://atheistconvention.org.au/
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Today’s guest is the broadcaster and comedian, Tim Ross.
I made a show back in 2011 on the ABC called Agony Uncles – and Tim was literally the first person I approached to be on the show.
I’d been a fan of his since he was Triple J with his comedy partner Merrick Watts. And I’d followed him through his various radio and TV incarnations and felt that he’d be perfect for Agony Uncles as he had an always hilarious perspective on the Australian male.
These days he’s all about architecture and design – having made the hugely success ABC show, Streets of Your Town, while touring his live show Man About The House all over the world.
10 Questions with Adam Zwar is produced by Nearly.
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Everything Tim Ross you can find here - timross.com.au
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Smart guy. Dux of his school. Studied law at university. But quit Law for comedy. He was soon picked up by Triple J and hosted its breakfast show for four years before quitting that for comedy.
Since then he’s hosted an episode of Q and A, The Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardis Gras on SBS and the ABC panel show, Reality Check.
And along the way, he has performed some ground breaking and award winning one man comedy shows.
In the interview, we talk about his comedy influences, his sense of social justice and he says that even if Australia votes No in the marriage equality postal survey, the fight for equal rights will go on.
10 Questions with Adam Zwar is produced by Nearly.
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Here’s my new 10 Questions interview with Tim Minchin at the Australians In Film headquarters at Raleigh Studios in Hollywood – the home of Charlie Chaplin.
In this interview, Tim talks about wanting to leave Los Angeles, the ups and downs of an artist’s life and refusing all invitations from Andrew Bolt to appear on his show.
As most of you know, Tim is a singer, actor, composer, writer and comedian. He won the Perrier award for best newcomer at the Edinburgh Fringe in 2005.
He is the composer and lyricist of the Olivier and Tony Award-winning show Matilda the Musical.
His new musical Groundhog Day, based on the 1993 film, opened in London in 2016, winning his second Olivier Award, before going to Broadway.
Lately, he’s caused a massive splash with his two protest songs Come Home Carinal Pell and I Still Call Australia Homophobic.
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Socials
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Facebook - Adam Zwar / Sam Simmons
10 Questions with Adam Zwar is produced in party by Nearly.
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Tony Martin
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Adam interviews TV and radio star, Chrissie Swan
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Adam sits in his car, interviewing (arguably) the best sports broadcaster in the country.
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Adam interviews the Chaser's Julian Morrow.
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Adam talks to comedian, TV Host, author, Wendy Harmer.
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Adam talks to playwright Lally Katz.
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Adam cross-examines comedian Dave O'Neil.
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