You're listening to a Muma Mia podcast.
Mama Mea acknowledges the traditional owners of the land and waters that this podcast is recorded on.
For me, happiness is like it's like the absence of stress.
Hello, and welcome to that.
Are you happy? The podcast that asks the questions you've always wanted to know from the people who appear to have it all. Josh Thomas is a comedian, actor, and writer who wrote and starred in the beloved ABC series Please Like Me. He is also he admits poor with his time management.
I mean, I didn't come to this interview today.
How is it?
Lunch starts at half an hour, leads I didn't know what was happening, they told me, But I needn't know what's happening.
I really wanted to invite Josh on the podcast because he's experienced enormous career success on television and on stage and in Hollywood. But the subject matter of what he creates is steeped in the uncomfortable complexities of life. He's portrayed suicide on screen, grief, dysfunctional relationships, abortion, He explores neuroses and neurodiversity, and sexuality and disability, and he does it with humor and compassion, but I haven't really heard
Josh Thomas asked about him. Here's my chat with Josh Thomas. Josh Thomas, you are one of Australia's best known comedians. You're also an actor, writer, creator, showrunner and right now you're in the midst of the Melbourne Comedy Festival with your show. Let's tidy up about how your brain struggles to do the small stuff. You're off and on stage and on our TV screens and in our phones, and
you're funny and you're very clever and very creative. But putting aside all of that stuff, we can see what is your life like right now day to day.
So last week I've been losing my voice a little bit. That's very scary because that's what I do for a living. So mostly I've been laying in this room that I'm in now, and I have two like very like remedial looking steamers, and they just like steam up the room and it gets very very hot in you and I just lay in here like like and then a bay Marie like a little dumpling rolling around in a bay marine.
I've really been liking it, to be honest and then I go and do my show and then I tell everyone that I can't go out because I'm losing my voice, and then I do Yeah.
Right.
And when you're in Melbourne, do you stay with friends, stay with family or are you.
In a hotel?
Like?
What do you do when you're back in Melbourne.
I'm from Melbourne, but I'm in a hotel at the moment. Yeah, I'm in a sad, reary hotel.
Shouldn't you be it like.
The Crown or something. Aren't you famous enough that you stay in all the fancy hotels?
I think I should send some emails about the truth is. The truth is I've been I've been onto her since so from October till September, I'll be on to her. I'll be home for maybe eight days in Ali for the whole time. And I just actually like, this hotel is sad, but like posh hotels to me, don't they have no they feel nothing, like, no character, They have no joy, but like the fact that they're posh and like all the stuff that you pay for really doesn't
make me that happy anymore. They just feel like very small actually, and there's no washer or dry hour in them.
Yes, yes, that's good import to me enjoy.
On month six, it's just being able to wash my clothes.
Your current show is about the kind of brain you have, and you've been diagnosed with ADHD and autism, and it was actually by making the TV shows you've created that audiences watched and almost diagnosed you with autism. What in hindsight were the hallmarks of that? Like, what do you look back on and think, oh, yeah, now that I've got that diagnosis, that was probably autism.
I mean the really obvious ones, like the most present ones, the ones that like you know, like you know, the psychiatrist has decided, like at forty seconds. And I don't like eye contact, Well that's not true. People think autisty people don't like eye contact. Eye contact to autistic people feel very very intense. So I I love eye contact. And if I'm talking to somebody that I feel really safe with, that I'm really comfortable with, then eye contact
can be great. But generally it's like just very daunting and it just feels like, I don't know how to explain it. It's just like a physiological reaction to it. It's just a bit extreme, like you were doing something a bit dangerous and you can see that when you see me talk for anybody, my accent is like very autistic or to see people have like weird accents. And I don't think that most people are in their head
as much as I am. In social situations. A big thing is sort of not really understand I think a very good instinct for social interactions or like understanding other people's ill to see people generally aren't very good to understand about the people are coming from. And I mean that's like such a generalization. I feel like people will be mad at me anytime I'd say anything that autistic people are. But and then you have to do like a lot of processing to think about why everybody did
the stuff that they did. And I'm always just trying to figure out I'm always trying to put together the puzzle of why people are doing what people do, and like, at this age of my life, I'm the best person of the universe at it at like telling you what people were thinking in a particular social situation and what they want. I'm like really good at knowing what people want now in like a creepy way. But when I was a kid, I had like no instinct for.
It so is it almost like you understand it now and probably through writing characters and being in writers' rooms you understand it from an intellectual perspective, but instinctively it wasn't there. Yeah.
Yeah. The other big thing actually they made me realize I was autistic when I was playing because I made a TV show about it, is I was so much wisked when I was younger, and when I left high school, my social skills were so low, Like definitely, I started stand up because, like stand up comedy felt like a more safe way to explain who I am than like talking to people at a barbecue like that was less anxiety and joicing. I want to say I was an anxious person. I just like I just didn't know how
to do it. I couldn't figure it out. I'm never anxious. And the kind of improvement that I've made at being able to have these social interactions, that's actually not normal, Like you're not meant to improve on a bell cuev in social interactions in your life, and autistic people do that because they're always trying to work things out. They're always trying to make up for that lack of instinct.
All autistic people extroverted autistic people are doing this and then sometimes get much better at social skills than people who have a good instinct for those people haven't really been self noting themselves so constantly.
Do you think it's also because you found your thing so young and you found your thing and maybe as a result, found your people.
I think I'm really lucky that I'm famous, and like, I like, I really think that, like it's really helped me. I didn't like it when I was younger, but like going into social interactions and people kind of knowing who I am and what I'm about, having like a sense of like what it's going to be, that really helps me socially. Like that's great. People just knowing that I think that I'm funny. It's like really helpful people meet talking to people who don't know that I think that
I'm funny, They take things really weirdly. They think I'm being really intense or like mean sometimes. Did you know that I think that I'm funny? That's like a really helpful introduction in life.
It's incredible that you've almost got this built in level of intimacy with people you meet because they know who you are, they know where you're coming from.
You're right.
They know that you're funny. So if you say something dry, they know that that's meant to be a joke.
Yeah, they know the intense. I mean they might not think that I'm funny. And look, I don't want to sound like I think everybody I talk to knows who I am. But like now people do that I can kind of skip the weird, the weird introduction of trying and explain myself.
How about your ADHD when you look back on childhood adolescents anytime before you were diagnosed, what was ADHD that you didn't recognize?
I mean, I would say the ADHD at this stage in my life is like much harder than the autism, even though people would think the autism is more hardcore. I mean I didn't come to this interview, did I was at lunch starts at half an hour late. I didn't know what was happening. Love it it all mean, but I didn't know what's happening. I mean my house is like you've seen out there, how much stuff there
is just like everywhere, Like there's just stuff everywhere. Turns up at the Art Center and there's a suitcase there. From Channel to end of just like stuff that I left backstage at this show that we filmed. I just got an email from from Chloe, my manager's assistant, asking where I wanted to send the stuff that I left at the other show that we found. Like there's just like stuff whirring around me in circles, like pretty stuff. I just can't keep track or anything.
Do you describe yourself as incredibly honest and straightforward and that's contributed to a lot of your success in comedy and TV because you're incisive and direct and you tell
the truth and it resonates with people. Over the years, when you've been in the public eye and the culture has changed a little bit where it can kind of be scary to be honest, because what if just earlier, when you were talking about autism you sort of said, oh, some people don't like me talking about autism in this way. Do you get nervous about being at the center of such hot button topics like sexuality and mental health and neurodiversity. Do you get scared about getting things wrong?
Yeah, everyone's so scared of being canceled, But then everyone's been canceled so many times by now, Actually that Ukraini of realize is going to be okay. I think that like era of like Twitter, everyone's trying to take everyone down is kind of softened because everybody's been taken down and everyone realize that it's not worth it. Right, Yeah, anyone was ever trying to take me down.
I was.
Two weeks later, I've looked back and they've had their own kafuffle because I started set up when I was seventeen, and I thought, when I was seventeen, I don't know anything about the world. I'm a child, and it's going to be so annoying for everybody to hear me get up and give my opinions about things. So I'm just going to talk about my life and just like share what I've done. And that was like, actually, I just can't believe how smart a thing that was for me
to realize when I was seventeen. Seventeen year old's a stupid Actually, it's just like one moment of like insight that I had. So I've always just felt safe for talking about myself. So the reason why I'm like oversharing is you can't get mad at me for telling a story about you know, you mentioned mental health. I did a whole show about my mum attempting suicide, and that's a personal story. That's a safe story to tell as long as she's happy about it. I'm sharing something of myself.
Like where I started get nervous is when I start talking about the world or what other people are doing, because I don't know.
That's such a smart way of putting it. And I think you're exactly right that by telling your own story that's kind of impenetrable. People can't say that your truth isn't true. But then you've done Q and A a few years ago with Bob Catter. It was so funny you talking to him because I think he believes there's no homosexuals in Queensland.
What worries me when I hear you talk like this and I spent let's say, googling you and you're adorable, is you say a lot of really important, powerful things right, like what you've said tonight. I hear it and I think this is a guy that cares and it's really important.
When I hear you talk about dairy farmers and you say people in the cities should spend more than two dollars on milk, I agree with you, but then when you go out and you deny the existence of homosexuals in North Queensland, they exist.
There's an apphole grinder. I'll put it on your phone. Yeah, he said there was no gains in North Queensland. It was one of against gay marriage. We're on a mental health episode and I just I really went. But I don't think I would do that anymore. I posted that clip recently in afscments. I wrote, this is back when I was brave, But it's just I just I don't want to be on the attack anymore. I'm so tired of seeing people attack people actually online and in these
things I think everybody is. It's not nice. It's actually not nice. Even if you're right and you're yelling at somebody about their opinion that you think is wrong, that's a drag like it's just not a nice way to live. So I'm trying more and more and more to just focus on sort of saying what I want to say about the world. I'm like, what I think is like showing the word how I want to show it and
kind of ignoring what other people think. Because the other thing about queenness actually is I'm just a bit sick of us begging for people's approval. Fuck them. I don't need buff Kada to like gay people. I don't care. Why does that matter? If he wants to go around not linking gay people, that's his problem. Who cares? What
jk rowling thing? Why are we like listening to her when there's so many people in this world that like us and things that're went gool that we can hang out with and I want to go for lunch with us. Let's gope for lunch with those people and ignored jk Rowling. Yeah, she sucks? Who can?
Yeah, that's a really interesting way of talking about it, because the Internet, I think, especially when you're a public figure, can become something that really dictates your art. And I can imagine for you there's probably been even in that bobcat A moment, it's funny you felt like you were going him, But to me it didn't feel like that. It felt funny and light and honest that you told him you'd get him on grinder and he'd be able to say that they were gay people in Queensland.
This is one of those weird things when you realized, like, why, I really my memory is so unreliable. I always looked back on that moment and felt like I had lost my temper on TV. And I only rewatched it recently after like sinx YenS, And in my memory, I screamed at that man and I was so fired up, and I watched it back recently, I'm like the nicest, sweetest person in my like, I'm being so gentle to this homophobic guard.
You keep telling him you like him.
I think I told I like him. Yeah, I have no idea why. In my memory, I was so mad.
Coming up next what it felt like to be publicly piled on, and why celebrities in LA aren't happier than us, and a story about a huge Hollywood party. There was a moment a few years ago, I remember where you found yourself at the bottom of a very quick moving temporary pylon. How does it feel to be in the moment when people are shitting on you? Does it feel all consuming?
There's a real frustration that you feel when you link. That's like a particular clip you're referencing, and it was old and it was small, and it was absolutely like I was being disgusting in it and everything I said, and I regret, like you could have shown me that clip ten minutes later, and I would would have been like, was he talking about there? I don't understand. And it's like people do this thing in these times where they think like, oh, this is the worst thing we've seen
you do. This must be the truth, this must be
like the man behind the way you've shown yourself. You have all of the right wing people on Twitter trying to find more clips because they want to cancel the canceller, and then you have all of left wing Twitter trying to find clips because they want to I don't know, they just want to prove their point that people in the world to mean and there's nothing else, like nothing else has come up, and I don't know, there's just this really frustrating thing where you feel like you can't
defend yourself. All you apologize and I apologize and I meant it, and you don't really get a chance to defend yourself because the more you defend yourself, the more you're creating a press cycle.
Yeah.
Also, I mean in that period of my life, I was about to go to season two on a TV show for Disney that was like that was about me talking badly about diversity. We added to first cast with the first ever autistic girl ever out autistic to be a lead on TV show. We had a diverse cast, with a super diverse crew, Like I had really like taking all the lessons and like and acted and like the really the best I could in this new show. I divorced writers room. I had an all female writers
room in season one. Like we were really like like like we were really really trying to do everything. I was really my second TV show, and I really like learn how to do all this stuff, and I was working out how to do it well. And I know, I mean Disney never said this, but I know that as this cancelation is going on, that they're having conversations about canceling the show, about all those people getting fired because of this thing that I did. That's really really scary.
It did change my attitude to how I entreat public figures. Actually, I mean, I think I'd already decided this years before, like that I'm just not going to be mad at people who make mistakes publicly. But it really like that experience was so it was so bad.
And I think you're right that often in those moments is actually ironic if you look at the bigger picture, that you're like, hold on your pilot on a guy who's made a show about autism and is currently creating the most diverse show and has created one of the most diverse shows in Australia. Like, it's incredibly infuriating, And I imagine that must be such a hard position to be in because you're right. You can't fight back because that makes it worse my.
Backup makes I do agree with them. I do agree that the clipe was really bad. If I saw someone else do the clip, I'd feel really mad. So what I said on that clip, I'd feel really mad at them. I'd probably want to tweet about how stupid they are. I just don't really understand this thing in human nature where people think that because they've seen the bandside of somebody, that that's the truth of who they really are. I haven't really understood that about anybody really.
That is such a brilliant point that the worst thing somebody has done is not a reflection of the complex human being that they are.
And it also kind of.
Leads to the bigger idea of this show, which is that things can look a certain way from the outside and be very very different behind the scenes, behind closed doors in reality. So I wanted to ask you, you obviously live this incredible life, your very Hollywood. It's pretty amazing. Has there been a moment where the world told you you'd be happy and you actually weren't.
Hanging out with Uber's successful people? Sucks?
I mean, I was just going to say, like I wouldn't know, but I just offended everyone in my life.
The thing about Ali that they don't link and he complaining about Ali because everyone complains about Ala, and I didn't know what it was when I moved there and I made a TV show, I thought it was gonna be really cool. So this is like, really the answer to your question. It just is so empty. Everyone's striving, right, everyone's thinking about their five year plan in a way that I've never experienced in another country. Right in Australia,
everyone's just trying to have a fun party. I'm like, if were working on a project, actually make project work. But everybody there is thinking about their next step. But this is like at the club, right's still on their mind. They're still thinking about who's in the club. And I just don't want to lift like that. I find it really boring. And also the other thing is you have a bit of a success, but it's never as big as what you feel like you could be doing or
what people around you are doing. I mean, Ali is designing. There's like the Hollywood Hills. They literally put the rich people on the hills to look down on you and link. Everybody feels like they should be doing more, and I just I don't know why people think that if they weren't doing more, they would be happier, because it's just not true. And I think actually you can just get the biggest show or be more famous, Like I don't Beyonce is not that happy, is she? I know?
That's literally the point of this podcast is Beyonce happier than the restaurants. Have you found yourself caught up in that in La, Like, do you feel yourself absorbing it?
By Osmosis?
Yeah, I mean you feel like, I mean, I'm just not an ambitious person. I'm not link out there doing this stuff like I really want to be able to make TV shows like doing it like I'm not like making moves to the claim a ladder or anything. And you do just always surrounded by it. You start to feel like maybe you're not doing enough, doing enough? What like I couldn't have a pool. It wish I had a pool, I suppose, but I don't know. I would have been in the pool with kids.
Yes, okay, I also wish I had a pool. I think about that a lot. I think my goal in life is to have a swimming pool, but I don't think I ever will. But yes, in La, yes, your pool may be full of cuts.
We have such a better time getting one of those fifteen dollars ones from Big w and blowing it up and feeling out with water and yeah sardy, Like I just I was surprised how much I was like, oh I got to get out of here, how much I supped to feel like I was feeling. I'm feeling absolutely not like you start feeling why and I in Marvel or something. Yes, I would hate to be Actually, I don't tell them.
Man, You'll open to the opportunity if it arrives. You auditioned to be Greg in succession the.
Only audition I've ever done.
Yeah, and you didn't get it? Greg is Greg? And is that the sort of thing that Hollywood makes you think, like, oh, what if I had got that? What if I'd ridden that train? What if I was now I can't remember that actor's name, and I know your name, so maybe it doesn't even matter.
But yeah, well, let's say they light to you. The thing in Alien is they just light to your face. And I'm always seeing Australians come over and they do all these meetings. They book their meetings for the first two meets and they're so excited. Sorry, I sit them down and I see they're lying to you. I love you. Maybe things are going really well. I'm sure they like you. But until there's like a contract. They're taking meetings so that they can tell their boss that they took a meeting.
The agent sending the meetings so they can tell you that they set a meeting, and then you're now in this meeting and the meeting is not for any reason other than so that they all tell each other that they took a meeting. So I mean, I don't do any meetings anymore unless there's like a real project on the table, like unless it's a script or if it's somebody that commissions shows and we're pitching trying to sell
a show. That just is places this weird game with you where you feel like, yeah, you always feel like someone's about to give you a movie.
What has it been like when you meet people who have massive profiles and have had the big break? What does it feel like to meet your idols in that way?
We're happier, they're not.
No, no, no no.
Are they different to how you'd expect? Are they confident? Do they come across the way you'd think given public profiles?
They don't seem like they're having an easier time making friends. And actually, definitely what happens is really famous people and really rich people get into this dictator's dilemma, you know, where it seems like everyone really loves them, but they have no choice but to love them. And you see that a lot with like every super rich person. They can't trust that anybody likes them for them. Wow, and it's incredibly sad. Yeah, are you staying out with this?
Director of those counseled terms. I was really really bad guy and I did a show about it in I did a sorry about my last show, and he just couldn't handle having that much power, didn't know what to do with it, and then became a real bad villain. And then other people that just went to brunch a one famous person's house. I don't want to tell you who.
Then it was like just because I'm talking about that, they were really funny and nice, but like I looked around the table and I was like, oh, that's your producer, and these are like three girls that you barely know, and like, I'm here, you don't know me, Like you don't really have friends.
Yes, it's like people who travel with like their hairdresser and their makeup artist, and it's a little bit like are they your friends or there your stuff?
Yes, exactly, like a creepy middle crown.
Yeah.
You have a TikTok video about how you're at a party and you saw somebody wearing a John Meyer shirt and it was actually john Nyam.
Yeah. I was really annoyed, and let me go to this straight pani. So this party is so straight that boys isn't. John may emerged and it was John Mayer. You've actually had drinks to John Mayer. He's really funny. I really like John Maya, and he does sort of seem like he's having fun. He's just like scowlsing around town, popping in. Okay, the most fancy party he went to. Seth McFarland. He's the creator of Family Guy yeah, yes,
his holiday party. And he has this same holiday party where they build like a giant white tent over his tennis court, and he hires the La Philharmonic Orchestra to play all night and people sing in front of the La Philharmonic Orchestra for some reason this year, not that many people saying, it's kind of like a karaoke night, and like Christina Aguilera was supposed to get up and she got nervous, so he mostly just because he likes to crew, and so he mostly just sings the whole night.
And there's lots of famous people that I'm sorry, I just can't remember that many of them, but I think like zac Efron was there.
Oh my god.
I got the story though, So my boyfriend he looked like Dave Grohl. My boyfriend, he tells me on the jouder and he says, I just saw Courtney loved Tap Marilyn Manson and freak out because you thought I was Dave Grohl. And it turns out that these two have like a long running feud. Okay to do with them Cobain And I said to my said, Josh, his name is Josh with the same name, except I promise you when never moved one this story for the rest of all life. I will not say that it's not true.
But that did not just happen. And then he re done, Like maybe twenty minutes later, Marilyn Manson had torn his pants off. He's just walking around in torn.
Pants because he really did think it was Dave girl.
No, they did it as a joke.
That's pretty such a weird thing to do, but also something I fully believe Marilyn Manson would do.
Oh my gosh. See those parties, like they're not fun.
Everyone's just standing around, just looking around with their eyes. Like even the famous people you're standing around looking around with their eyes, thinking about when they'll tell the story on the podcast like I have now. That party was a million dollars at least, and it's not the best party I've ever been. Yeah.
Yeah.
There's often talk about toxic positivity, and I feel like it's a little bit American. It's a little bit the idea of just you can't say anything bad, you can't be self deprecating, because you just have to be positive, positive, positive all the time. And sometimes that toxic positivity can really contribute to making you not feel happy because you feel crazy that you're not actually experiencing positive emotions all the time. Have you had any experience with that, especially in America?
Obviously, I don't like toxic positivity. People think that things need to be green all the time is crazy. Things are supposed to be average, things are supposed to be just fine. If things are fine, then that's good. If things are fine, we're not complaining about them because fine, we'll take this day. We'll take this day. That's fine,
and we'll enjoy it. I don't wanting about people winging about their length unless it's like really bad, And I don't want to hear people talking about what they're missing in their life. I feel like a lot of the podcasts when other people talk about it, I'm.
A little bit like rethinking by this entire podcast. But also, the idea of things being fine is exactly right. And I think it's the expectation that we're always going to be elated and that every experience is exciting, and that there are going to be these days that are the most perfect days of your life. I think that is actually what really messes with our happiness and our well being.
Yeah, we can't live in link a romantic comedy monitors. Yeah, retiring, Yes, I actually wouldn't want to.
I always think that with traveling, that it's like you go somewhere, you go to the place you've seen on Instagram and you go there, but it's like you need to pee, you know what I mean, Like you forget that. It's like you get in the moment, but it's not a photo. You're a bit hot and it's crowded and you need to wear Yeah, at you.
Just because you keep being you all on vacation.
And it's fine and it's just fine and that's okay. After the break, Josh talks about his mum's bipolar and how she felt when he wrote his show and made a character based on her. So you're growing up in Queensland and your mum had bipolar, but you didn't know that when you were growing up. You didn't know that, not obviously, and please, like me, you grappled with bipolar and there was a suicide at the end of the season.
What do you think having someone close to you who lives with bipolar disorder has taught you about happiness?
There's all kind of separate to me because I see it. It's like they're not thinking straight right, Like she couldn't help herself. It's just just just no way that she could help herself. No one could help her, and she couldn't help herself, and she had to work out how to help herself. As something that I worked out after a few years. I think no one can help her.
I mean, like, of course we can turn up and stuff, but it's not really like something's got to change in her brain one day or something and she's great.
Now, how do you work out what you want to share and what you're actually not comfortable sharing.
I mean, I'm happy to share anything about me. Really, I don't feel ashamed. I don't have that emotion. I don't think, and I'm always surprised when people are like, oh, you're really oversharing. I'm like, what do you care if you know about this?
How liberating to not have shame?
I mean, do I have shame? Sometimes I feel sharing other people's story is scarier my mum and mental health stuff. I always want make sure there's a reason, Like I feel like I'm telling this story and it'll help people, and I don't want to say it like that, but like I say, it's a story that hasn't been told before, and I feel like I could show people this side of mental health. That's why she let me do please let me in the first place.
Was she happy with that representation?
So she read the script so my mama like she was a full approval because because my character saints Josh, she's a mom like for defamation reason. She she had the highest level of approval on the show.
Wow.
She watched it alone and was really unsure about it. That was tough. And then it went to air and so that's a script stage. She has approval, she doesn't have approval of other cuts. Obviously reshoot things, and she got really excited and now she really really loves it and it's like on board. But it's very hard when you haven't when you've seen a show that your son made that's about you attempting suicide, and no one else in the world has seen it, and she's just wondering how they're.
Going to take it.
She wasn't corrased about herself. She just doesn't. She doesn't really like the idea of like a drama need her. It's like a little bit it's not to her taste, you know, She's not of that generation. Yeah, yeah, you just couldn't understand why it was sad.
Sometimes, do you think having experienced something so scary as your mum having a suicide attempt, do you think it kind of puts things into perspective and makes you realize what is and isn't important.
No, thank you for your honest chancel.
Yeah.
I never thought that, and I mean, this is how I survived it. I thought, whoa, this is mental illness. I feel like so many people after a suicide attempt of like a friend or a loved one, they get obsessed with trying to figure out why the person did it or like or they think, like if I had done something different for this person, would they have wanted to commit suicide? And they're trying to find logic and this decision that this person has made it was illogical.
This person's mentally they don't know why they're doing it. I mean, I almost my mum about it now and I've written about it in the show, and I just want to understand what her thinking process was. And there was stupid. It doesn't make any sense. You can't look at it from the outside. You can't look at mentally ill people from the outside, and think that you, as a non without that specific mental illness, are going to understand why they're doing what they're doing. That's the point.
It's very, very silly what they're doing. It doesn't make sense.
Do you feel like you are in any way predisposed to depression or anything similar because of genetics and because of your mom?
Yeah?
Yeah, yeah, well I'll probably right.
Do you think that there are strategies that you live by that actually stop you from getting into that place?
I don't actually think I got the mental illness gene of bipolar gene. I don't think I have it, but who knows. Things could turn. I feel weird saying this a lot, but I know that, like, the two big things in mental illness are delusions and paranoia. These are the tool thing. If you're writing a character that's mentally ill, it's gonna be delusions of paranoia that the two big sayings. And sometimes I'll just feel myself. I don't know, I'll just feel myself and I'll realize, like, oh, for like
a few beans, they've thought everyone hated me. That's not actually probably definitely not true. And just like try and like switch something up in your life and the scene with delusions. That's scary to me as well. So I'm just like very aware of those two thinking patterns and trying not to, like really early on, be conscious that they're not good ways to behave.
It's like when people have panic attacks, and as soon as they learn that it's a panic attack and not a heart attack, the panic attack jobs, and for you, it's like you can actually recognize this is paranoia, and so it stop like that's actually incredibly powerful. But it sounds like you've got a lot of kind of insight and a healthy mental attitude that has maybe been formed
by your own life experiences. I saw a TikTok video where you were talking about the hardest part of being in your thirties being that everybody has babies and you have to pretend to like the babies when babies are actually slugs. And I have a four month old, and I agree babies are actually slugs. You're not wrong on that.
But having grown up and you've got your family and siblings, do you think that we're told that happiness needs to be contingent on having a family, having kids, having a partner.
Oh god, I have no idea. I never really have never considered having a family, not even a little bit. I've been asked for my spam four times to donate my spam.
Oh really yeah, I.
Said, nah, absolutely not. I don't even like me that much. I don't need to donate my spam. Like I think I'm doing fine. Like that's because I mean jeans. It's just hard because friendships are so important to me. Friendships are so like a lot of gay people. But that seems like a weird thing to say. Friendships like really a link rock star. And if you're not having kids in your thirties, it's kind of like you need to find other friends that aren't having kids, right so that
they have the same priorities of you. Because of course, like once someone has a kid, I'm not going to be very high in their numbers of priorities. That's like how it has to be, which is understandable, but it's not that fun for me. Not that fun for me to be fourth priority. So a lot of my friends since high school or since there's in my early twenties, so once they have children, what are we going to do together?
Yeah?
To be clear, I go, I see them, but it's not like it's like, oh, like I'm not your main friend anymore. You're not going to be my main friend anymore, Like I have to find another main friend, and that's a cutbreak.
Actually, I think that that's actually an important point that you feel, even when you do have kids, that you know that the nature of your friendships is always going to be different, that there's always somebody else you have to consider before that. Do you ever wonder, ten years down the track, twenty is down the track, if you
will want kids? No, Because there's definitely a kind of movement in around women thinking I don't want kids, and I'm fine with that, and I love it, and I think it must be really exciting to be able to rewrite the traditional narrative of what of what life should of what life should be. I think that's really liberating.
I've never even considered having kids, Like it's not even like this is the first time I've ever considered that. It's weird because conversation right now, even my mom said to me. My mom said to me a few years ago, she said, I never thought you'd have children, She said, even when you were a kid, I thought he's not going to have kids, And I thought, trust all, that's not a compliment. Is it you're looking at me at eight years old thinking that I'm never going to be
a kid. Like if somebody looks at you and says, wow, he'd be such a good dad. That's a nice thing. You're looking at me at eight years old and being like, he's never going to want to have kids. My brother and my sister she's always like, no, you will one day. And me she's always been like, you old and I haven't to do what? Where aware? Watch what?
Absolutely not.
I think kids would absolutely love you, though, And that's what's so funny about it, that kids must just be like that guy's fun and you're like, nah, I don't have the time. Is there anything in your professional life or your personal life that you look back on and consider a failure that you learnt from because you were really young and doing stand up comedy? Did that ever affect your happiness? Do you ever feel like your happiness was contingent on how well you were performing?
You just have to train your happiness in this way. And I feel like I don't know how to really describe it, but you get so used to when I was younger, so like the first gig I did on my only first seventeen, I won the one Morall comedy, right, So I had like a confidence, right, which is helpful. I think like if things went bad, I was like, oh, that went bad, and I never sort of thought I can't do this.
You're coming from a baseline of white people say I can do this.
Yeah, people say you can do this, right, And that's so nice. Like having that base level of confidence, I never would have survived otherwise. Yeah, you just get used to rooms, so people hating you, and and then I just sort of like you would make you really depressed
for a while. But then I just eventually, after a little while, you're just like, no, this isn't I would always think it's not allowed to go to bed, out of the out of my system before I go to bed, and then there's no point thinking about this thing anymore. You like train yourself to do that. I don't know how to explain it. You just train yourself to move on.
But the flip side of that is I don't think I also can't take to bed like things that are exciting, because you don't want to be like living in the winds of the highs and the lows. Because also like the idea of like learning a lesson is like creative work is so complicated, and you're doing stuff because you think it's going to be a vibe. Like I just think it's gonna be a vibe. I think people will think this is a vibe and then they're like, it's
not a vibe. You can't really sit down and like there's not a spreadsheet you can go through each joyce and see where, like what decision went wrong? You can't really you just have to get up and think about what do you think the next thing will be a vibe again? That's the only way you can survive. Does that make sense what I'm saying?
Yes?
And I think it's actually incredibly mentally healthy.
Yeah.
I think it's actually really healthy sitting down and thinking why did that go wrong? That was so bad? Maybe next time I need to do this different or that different, or maybe this show didn't connect with people because of the demographic or something. It's like, well, there's no point, it's done now.
You do seem to have a very healthy attitude towards your work and creativity, which is not overthinking. Just do it, Like I just tell my story. That's what I do when it comes to happiness, and I assume you get some of your happiness through your work and through the meaning of the work you produce. What does it mean to you? Like when you think about looking back as an old man, what do you think it will be that made you happy?
I mean, I know, definitely know what I like to do, Like to hang out with my friends, hang out with my boyfriends, eat little snacks, have some drinks. That's what I want to be doing. I have a little dance, right, That's what I'm like to be doing. And for me, if I have access to that, I'm sweet. I'm great. To me. Happiness is like it's like the absence of stress.
I think that idea of absence of stress is so universal. Like it sounds like you're not very neurotic about your work, like you kind of just get it done.
I do it. I mean, I'm really meticulous and we're building it. I'm like, oh, I never lose my temper on set. When I see people lose their temper on set, I go up to let him, like, bab were at work, chill, that's not my show. That was in their temper about something going wrong about my own show. It's like we don't need to do this. Yeah, that's relax. You don't need to cry here. There's no reason. It's a TV show. Yeah, everything's so random that you can't really know if it's
going to be good or not. So that's in making a TV show where you're trying to create like a special little moment of chemistry and a warehouse where you've got all these men and gaffer tape and equipment and you're trying to get this little kiss that feels magic to people. I don't really know whether that's going to work in the warehouse when we're there or not. I find out another day, and there's no point stressing about it while we're there. But I think it's the same
in life. I think people who try so hard to manufacture happiness, and this is kind of everything what I was trying to say about these people in LA They try so hard to get this thing that they assume it's going to make them happy, but they don't know what's going to make them happy. Often people get it and they're not happy. And actually it's just like making the most of what you're doing and just trying not to do bad things.
Yes, yes, I think that's exactly it. And that is literally literally the idea of this podcast that I think a lot of what we think will make us happy actually doesn't, and the things we take for granted are the things that make us happy. Well, Josh Thomas, you have a wildly impressive career. You have fans all over the world. You fell theaters with people who want to hear what you have to say, and you have people watch shows you starre in with the words you wrote
and the ideas you had. But are you happy?
I'm really happy. I'm having a good time out here.
You seem bloody happy.
People say they're happy at the end. Who says they're not happy?
We've had a few people say that they're not happy. But I think you learn a lot from people who are really happy in their lives right now. Interestingly, I think a lot of what you've said is you're not happy because you have all the shiny stuff. You're happy because you're doing what you love.
Yeah, I'm going out and doing fun thing.
Yeah yeah exactly.
Not because you're in the fancy restaurant. Since I interviewed Josh, I have not been able to stop telling people that things are just meant to be fine, it's so funny, but it's also really quite profound. I'm really grappling with the fact that what complicates our lives and our experience of the world is our expectations. We want to feel euphoric on holiday and bursting with joy on our birthday, and ecstatic on our wedding day, and we want to cry when our baby is born, and sometimes we don't,
and there's absolutely nothing pathological about that. It's just how life is meant to be. It's our expectations that end up crippling us. I think the metaphor of Hollywood is a clever one because, as Josh says, it's a bunch of people thinking that the thing that will make them happy might be just around the corner, and as a result, they're never living in the now and what they're searching for might never come, and even if it does, it
probably won't feel the way they think it will. Josh Thomas seems to be happy because he doesn't expect to be Join me next week for a conversation with actor and Gowerie Rice, who you might know from Spider Man and Mean Girls that also involves her mum. We talk about what it's like to be a teenager working in Hollywood and her recent experience of landing her dream role in Mean Girls and being trolled for it.
I'm going to take that experience and hold on to it as something that was ultimately really positive for me, and I don't want other people to ruin that positivity that I got from that experience.
And Gowy is clever and passionate, and her mum, Kate, offers a fascinating perspective about deciding to encourage her daughter to pursue acting when her own experiences with the industry were not always positive. That's next week on But are you happy? If you enjoyed the podcast, please review and subscribe wherever you get your podcasts. If you'd like to suggest someone for the podcast, you can get in touch
with me directly. My Instagram handle is Claire dot Stevens with two s's, or you can email us here at podcast at mamameya dot com dot au. This episode was produced by Tarlie Blackman, with audio production by Scott Stronik.
See you next week,