Welcome to First things first, I'm brooked. Let my pronouns are sen.
I'm Maddie meals and my pronouns are he and him. And before we get started, we'd like to acknowledge the custodians of the land on which we record and for us today it's the Gaddigel people of the Urination. But we also have a very special guest on today's episode. It's one of those EPs where we get to interview someone deadly and today it is the Mista Travis Cardona.
Yeah, good, thanks for having.
Me, Thanks for coming in.
Well, who's your mob are you from? Let's kick it off with that.
Yeah, so that used to be mild. Yeah, so Travis Cardooner, My mob's Mullock from the Northern Territory, so born and bred on Larychie Country. And yeah, it's really nice to be here today in the studios at Nova. Just seen Tribal Warrior over there on.
The side, so it's a pretty good view from here. Hey. Well, the people that probably can't see it from the listening in their airports, but we sit right beside Pimont Bay and we look out of the water. So yeah, Trouble Warriors, would you call it.
A cruise ship. It's a tour ship. Yeah, the two was around the harbor, but no, it's beautiful spot. So thanks for having me, guys, Yes.
So welcome of course.
Well I just want to put this out there.
You know, I'm so glad that we can have you on this pod because you actually gave me my first ever presenting job. So now it feels like a full circle moment where I'm like hosting you, you know what I mean, Like this is a bit surreal for me.
But well, what was that job? Can I ask?
It was?
At first?
It was just like an ad hoc Facebook live gig.
Really, yeah, do you want me to tell the stories? I love it. I think it was like twenty seventeen. It was the first time at an ITV we've done a Facebook live live broadcast from Mardi Gras. And it was the empty First Nation's float, which was made up of all these mobs from Darwin and everyone from like
Crystal Love, Miscellaneous, cousin Josie Baker. It was just like all the black excellence from the LGBTI community that came down for it and Miscellaneous, who's also my cousin, Ben Gratz shout Out was supposed to be hosting, but because it's so loud and the first time we've ever done at Facebook live broadcast with a backpack, so we wore a satellite backpack on our back and remember was following me, and we had and I had the microphone and I
was passing to Miscellaneius. Anyway, she lost her voice, so I ended up having to take over and I was exhausted. And I saw this person with lots of energy actually dancing with my cousin, Warren McGrath, wearing very little clothing and sounds like and I was like, hey, do you want to hold the hold the micro a bit? And so I remember Maddy grabbed the microphone and skipped along Mardi Gras and was talking to people asking him how
that Marti gra is nappy Marti Gras. And I thought to myself, I'm going to get this guy next year. So I was like twenty eighteen, Maddi Webb and Johnny Jeffrey shout Out came on and did that Mardi Gras tour and then Mardi Gras broadcast to Facebook and we were the first to do it as an ITV like SBS had the major broadcast deal. But we were the first just to go live and just be with the mob and be with all the community on ground, and it was just it was a fun time, right.
It was so fun. I never knew what you were going to expect. Yeah, you know, you never knew what to expect. Like you were going up to people and some of them, you know, were answering, you know, is live so like it live TV, Like it's a risky game, like you don't know what you're going to get. And some of it, like I remember, some people were just so lit, you know, like it's Mardi gru People were just off their face. But it was that energy of celebration, euphoria.
It was.
It was a good time. But the next year was more planned and I loved it. Yeah yeah, but so thanks thanks Trav.
But knockdown memory lane.
Yeah, I'm not talking about me. You know, you've had a pretty stellar career. You know, you started off at acting school and now you're back there. A bit of a full circle moment for you, Right, What are you doing over at NIDER.
Yeah, so I'm the director of First Nations and Outreach. It was only that was never there when I studied at nighter back in two thousand and six to two thousand and eight. So I did the three year BFA acting course and the unit that we have now is the First Nations unit. We have Uncle Matthew Doyle who's
an unclean resident, Annie Road Roberts who's an advisor. We have Andre Daniel who's a human woman who's our project coordinator, and then me who looks after everything the team does external stakeholders and internal with all the students and First Nations clients. And yeah, like it's a it's quite an exciting thing because when I studied at night, we didn't really have any First Nation support. Yeah, and it was just us that the First Nation students that were there.
So Miranda Tapsell, Sharry Seven's main white guy, Simon, all of us were in the same cohort together.
What a cohort?
Yeah, So yeah, and their careers went great and I ended up working at NV. Well there's a story to why. But I think you know, we've done a lot in a small space of time. We've had a First Nation's approach to the curriculum where we've brought in what it is is getting students to understand what connection to country is and that it's not just a First nation's thing. Like all people all around the world do have a connection to wherever they are. They might have been born there.
You know that warm hug that you get when or that smell that sort of draws you into that place you grew up in. That is a connection to country. Everyone has that, And so we're trying to get our students, who are mainly artists, understanding that, like it's a real thing, and hopefully that gives them, you know, respect and empathy and understanding not just for First Nations people, but the environment as well, and understanding that within the environment around us,
there's stories everywhere. So one thing I like to always talk about is Centennial Park. There's a series of ponds or through there, and there's these eels that live in these ponds and they're really sacred to the dreg and Duryl people and Bigical and Gradigald people. Those eels have survived living in this giant city, you know, this place
that was built on top of their wetlands. And the wetlands used to run from Centennial Park all the way out to Botany Bay, and that's why they built a whole series of golf courses because back in the day people like, oh, it's just swamp lands, so let's just turn into golf courses. But the water still moves through there, and these eels still migrate through those wetlands, make their way through drains behind Nier and all the way out to Botany Bay, where they swim to New Caledonia. Wow,
which is like and cloms a way offshore, right. They swim there and breed, and then their little babies, little translucent little slug things, swim all the way back and get to Centennial Park and then they grow again.
For like wow.
Like, so we teach our students like that's the story of survival and resilience but also amazement, and it's all there's there's things everywhere. Yeah, you know, Disney will make a eel cartoon about it, obviously finding nemo El.
I mean, but yeah, I know of those stories, and I like, I worked with Maddie Uncle Maddie Doyle on a couple of those stories when I was doing the tour of the Harbor Bridge for the Borrower Climbing. So I remember hearing that, hearing those things and just being like wow, like thousands and thousands of thousands of like years of storytelling, you know, like and culture practice that I feel like, if you even look at the city as a whole, it's like a blueprint built on what's
already been here, you know what I mean. So I love that, like not even just First Nations kids, but young people who were going into night or they don't have to be young.
These days, do they.
They can be anyone.
No, yeah, I'm going through night.
I get that next level of experience because I went to Wapera and I did the original theater of course, and I remember that there was a disconnection between us and the rest of the school for sure, the campus, but it feels like it's all sort.
Of yeah, and we do it too to remove that cultural load when we were at night back then, you know, back in the day, if there was anything First Nations topic that came up, all eyes came on.
Oh yeah, that reminds me of school.
Yeah. And I was like a nineteen year old kid from Darwin that just was like I just wanted to be a Stormtroopers.
Yeah, I don't know anything really, you know, like I knew where I grew up and my mob is and you know, I love going fishing and hunting and all that stuff, but like I don't know, politics and stuff.
Still so much pressure, hey, like responsibility put on you at at certain ages. I know throughout my life, like yeah, they'd be like, oh yeah, you know this one brooked it.
I'm like yeah.
And I moved from Canalvin to Perth, so I was still finding myself. I went from being in a community like having my family surrounded by me to be the.
Only black person in the white family.
So I was like, I don't know these stories and it was an until later, I guess, going to university and then you knowing that I was educated.
But those stories are so sacred, Like I feel.
Like we don't acknowledge how the transference like down from you know, our generation, like how sacred they are. And I love that. I guess now working in like film and TV, that we're seeing a lot more of it so we can share it and we're not having that responsibility to tell it and do justice. It's like, oh, well you can actually watch some things now, like yeah, I think that's the beauty of storytelling. But then again they still are sacred and we have to like protect them.
I think as.
Well, it's really good that ABC SBS organizations like that, they have really strong cultural advisory strategies within their commissioning process. Yeah, so a lot of the stuff being made today, you know, you have to have a first nation's cultural advisor that's connected to that area or was working with that community and traditional miners to tell stories. And so that's what we try to you know, do within Nighter as well.
So you know, we know that for me, even uncle out, we don't have mission to tell other people's stories, but if we can just provide a safe space for Indigenous and non Indigenous students to explore, but they don't have to have the answers. It's just how do you explore what stories are out there in a respectful way and that you're not putting your artistic interpretation and on to change anything, and you're just doing it in a way
just to learn so you can have respect. The most important thing about most stories is just respecting the country and the environment and the language. And like you were saying before that the thousands of years of it going on, you know it was ever written down.
That's what we are and we're so grateful that we've got the podcast to like yearn about these things, but like the depth and storytelling and also like different perspectives and everyone has like every time sometimes we interview people and it's.
Like you learn so much in that hour that like, yeah, I.
Don't take for granted. I think it's so nice. You've been in acting for quite a while. Was it inspired by stories that you went into acting or was it something that you like you said you wanted to be a storm trooper.
Yeah, I think like it all started, you know. So when I was in primary school, I was just in trouble all the time, and my grades went very good, and they had a drama activity one day. There was a drama activity about Jesus and they're all asleep on the boat, and I just remembered that my character was supposed to be asleep on the boat.
On this is giving me PTSD from another thing to bring up the Bible, but I just remember that, and my teacher said to me, hey, you did really good there.
You remember what your part was supposed to do, and so I went, oh, okay, So someone compliments that he did well. And then this performance troupe came to our school a couple maybe a year later, and these these guys and women. The three of them. They came up on stage and they had all these wigs and costumes and they were just being silly and having fun. They were like being in drag and everything.
And then I was like we all had to do that, you know, like I normally get in trouble for being a cloudy. And then I thought, oh, they said, well you should, maybe you want to be an actor one day.
So I just really enjoyed doing, you know, present like, you know, being fun and showing off to people. And then I was about fourteen and there was a play Richard Franklin wrote that was coming to Darwin and they're looking for understudies and it had Aaron Pederson and Durman harden Reich in it. Durmod was They were both in water acts at the time, and so I sort of knew who their names was. And this audition opportunity came out and Mom said, you want to go for it.
So this was like two thy like twenty four years ago, right, And I auditioned and I got the role as an understudy. And these were hard plays. One was about deaths and custody, Harry's War and No Where to Forget yeah, So one was about death and custody, which was no way to forget, and the other one was about return servicemen from World War Two that were first nations that weren't recognized as citizens.
And so the first ever play I did outside of you know, school or whatever was this real hard hitting player. I remember being emotionally caught up not understanding about you know, suicide in you know, performing these characters and how soldiers weren't even allowed to go into the RSL and have a beer and they went to fight to get their citizenship but they weren't even recognized. So I really got thrown in this deep end. But that's where my passion came in. I just working with Aaron at such a
young age. I was like, man, I just want to be like him, and he just took me under his wing like straight away. You know, it was like a big brother, and you know, it's funny, like it was a small period, this age of fourteen, but like that just changed my whole trajectory of what I wanted to do with my life. So I just kept doing youth arts,
youth theater. That's when I met Miranda. Me and her were at Kurrat our youth arts performing in plays and yeah, and then we auditioned for NIDA when we were like eighteen nineteen. We worked on our like audition pieces together Cargret and youth Arts, and here we got in. It was crazy.
So that must have been a big moment though, because it's two kids from the same place. That doesn't happen often. Like you know, it's such a tight exclusive group that gets into Night really, you know what I mean, it's like the most talented in the country.
Yeah, for two of you to get in.
That must have been amazing for you both.
Yeah, because you're moving from Darwin.
You know what I mean.
Yeah, I didn't think I was going to get in. And I remember we had to sing, so they asked us to do our audition and you had to do two auditions, like a Shakespeare and a contemporary and then you had to sing something some some silly voice warm up thing that I learned while I was doing Yeah something really was something in Italian. Yeah that I had no idea what it meant, but it's all I could come up from.
Now I kind of like can relate to that only in the last year, but that would make no sense to me.
And I'm pretty sure Miranda did like Billy Jean by Michael Jackson coming with the one, and but yeah, look we got in and it was an amazing experience. Like the teaching stuff for NIDER that taught us back then are no longer working there anymore, some have passed away. But it was what they said was like, you know, that was you know the era of NIDER where you know, it's changed a lot since then. Yeah, it was very hard. It was just very straight up, straightforward. There was no
mucking around. Yeah, and like today is very professional and all of that, but it's just a different time, totaling almost eighteen years ago. Yeah, but yeah, look it's that's what happened. And then I worked as an actor for a while. I did a show with Nikir Lewis This Heaven? I did a show with Griffin Theater Company. I've just got a role on All Saints. No one probably knows what All Saints is anymore. You yeah, yeah, younger generation,
the youngs a TikTok. Yeah yeah yeah. And then like yeah, I was doing a development show with Wesley Innock and it was called Black Diggers, and I was like, yes,
this is going to be awesome. It's about you know, First Nations men that went to fight in war, and they took all these stories together and it had a great cast like Luke Carroll, Main Whitet, David page Ress in Peace, you know, And I was about to go on this tour and then this other thing came up at SBS where they had a one year contract to work at SBS and it came with training in screen and media and I was like, and you know, it was a struggle back then, there wasn't as much First
Nation's content being made, Like you know, we were all of us mob that were in the industry were all turning up to the same auditions or going for the same roles, and you know, being light skinned as well, Like it was really hard to cast me, Like they didn't know how to cast us back it was. So I took this yeah, one year contract with SBS and then yeah, I did a Certificate four and screen of media at Metro Screen and ended up becoming a producer
in the end. I think some of the highlights though working at it TV, like the First Nation Fashion Awards. It was the height of COVID. They had their inaugural First Nation Fashion Awards happening and they had no way of putting it on, and so we came up with a way where Rachel Hocking was hosting it at the time. We did it all from in studio. We set out stringers to go shoot a whole bunch of nominees who are actually the winners, to tell their story and yeah,
we put that, you know, we created that. I'm pretty sure it was twenty twenty or twenty twenty one. Yeah, but you know, that was one of the highlights for me of n ITV because it was telling all these mob stories and all the great work they're doing, plus helping the first nation's fashion industry which is now booming yep, and it's so important that, you know, we celebrate art and culture, especially through fashion. So it was like a
massive one of the most exciting things I did. But I worked on all of the GAMA Festivals, the National Music Awards.
The funny to go back to typecasting because I feel like that's really interesting because with your experience and I guess you know, seeing and just hearing you say, like you guys were all auditioning for the same roles and the same films, and you know how much has it evolved in a good way in a bad way?
Both talk to me about typecasting, like both of you.
I mean, I'm not really I'm an actor, like just new but I can't really talk it from.
Like a Black Fellows being pigeonholed. Yeah, I suppose you can talk to like how much it's evolved over the Yeah, I think it has changed a lot.
And it's because more First Nations people are the writers, directors, producers of content.
Yeah.
Yeah, And you know, in the last since like twenty thirteen, you know, there's been so much work that's been created. So people who are casting are getting the brief from a First Nation's director and producer and writer, you know, and so it's not a non indigenous casting agent working with a non indigenous producer like we need this guy who fits this Aboriginal wale and what their idea of
what an Aboriginal person is. You know, we all who are a very diverse group of people across a large continent.
How many times would you have heard can you sound more community like.
An actual thing?
Well?
I think in the past it has been. It's where you walk into an auditions space and they're like, yeah, but you don't sound Aboriginal, can you sound more community? And it's like, well, what community are you talking about? And our friends know this too well, like you know, light skin like Sharis Evans, you know.
Oh yeah, I can imagine her experience.
Yeah, Like it's just I think you're right, it has changed. But I also think there's accountability now. Yeah, mother more confident to be vocal about their experiences as.
Well to call it out.
Yeah.
I guess that's what my interest is.
I guess for future young people who want to go into acting, like how to sort of have enough confidence to be like, oh, actually, like sorry, not like you're not for me, you.
Know, Like, yeah, it's tricky though, because you want you want the job. You know, you want the job.
Fine line to work like, because I've never really fit into like I've always been challenged on my looks, Like I don't know what I'm going to be typecasted for.
I have no idea.
I think it's like an important thing that only recently I had this conversation with my new management. I said, I don't want to be boxed into a lane. I don't want to just be given first nations roles like.
I don't want to feel like that too.
Yeah. Yeah, Like even when I came down from Darwen to Naida, when I was a young guy, like you know, there was a tick the box that you're Aboriginal, And back then to us was like, why are you making me tick this box all the time? Like I am Aboriginal? What do I have to do? I have to prove this? And I guess it was a statistics thing back then, but we didn't know like nowadays, like yeah, just so we you know, we do that too.
So we know statistics.
Yeah, yeah, I guess, yeah, And but back then it was it was weird, like well, I'm just dude from Darwn. Yeah I'm Aboriginal, but you know, I'd love to play anything, you know. But I think that's the thing, like the identity of this country is starting to really understand that we are a multi mix of peoples from all around the world and this idea that was just an Anglo society and then the Aboriginal people lived here. Yeah, and
then there was multicultural. That's not true. There was multi There was people from all all countries around the whole world coming here since before even the first flee you know what I mean. So yeah, there's trade routess, you know, the average people in like East Arnham and across we're trading with Maccassens who were probably people of Muslim heritage well before the Dutch landed and well before the French
landed here. So I think it's a thing now with the going back to the industry and going back to typecasting and performances and how you fit and how you look. You know, we're living in a world where it should just be about do you fit the story and do you fit the text? And can you fit the truth of it? And that's why I love sci fi, Because sci fi you can have someone who is the captain and the Japanese and the first mate is someone who has an African accent or whatever. No one questions it.
It's just they're the people on this giant spaceship, you know what I mean. And so now in this modern day world and these big cities, that's how we do look, you know what I mean, Like the people around here
from all different backgrounds total. Twenty years ago, you know, the guy playing your producer, they might have made it a white guy, you know what I mean, was a film, But nowadays it's you know, there's people of all different backgrounds and cultures working within this country, so it's quite exciting.
Like and I always think about, you know, should I go back to acting, because now I can play the dad, the angry teenager and the industry is just booming because so much and there's so much content like Netflix, Stand, Amazon Prime, ABC, SBS Channel nineteen that so much content is being created totally, and they're all looking for people with different looks. Do you know what I mean, cookie cutter anymore? Yeah, So that's what you know, we're going
back to. Like that's everything I was referring to. That was that was the past. Now I encourage anyone that wants to follow a career in the performing arts. Don't just think about acting though, too, Like we need more people working behind the scenes in like costume that are from you know, every community possible. You know, we need more people working in lighting and sound in a cinematography, Like I think they're.
The roles of radio.
We don't get offered though in high school.
Like I think when I talk to my kids about the film industry, like they ask me so many questions.
And I love when kids are curious because, like I feel like if you're curious.
You're not being judgmental. And I think we need to teach our kids to be more curious and judgmental because it cuts them off from like knowing things.
Don't you reckon?
Like if you're judgmental, you're making an assumption and you're going straight. And our kids need to learn to be like ask questions, be curious, know things. But like the roles that you're talking about, like writing, producing, lighting, costume, like they're not the roles that in high.
School you're taught to aspire to.
Be and because then they're you know, it's always like a lawyer, doctor, nurse. Like I feel like, you know, kids aren't being explorative with what they would liked, what they enjoy or like there was kind of just like confined.
Well, I feel like people would put creative in such a nonchalant like career box where it's like, oh, you can't really create like that, you need another plan. It can't be just that side thy. Yeah, No, the creative space is, as you say, booming. But I want to I want to ask you, Trev. You know you see the industry now you're in a place where you can create change obviously, like especially with the people going through NIDHO.
What is some advice that you would give someone who wants to go to nider who is the first nation's you know, creative who wants to be an actor?
Look, if you want to be an actor, No, your script, know your auditions well, fine roles that work well for you, you know, and when you do your self tapes. When your audition, make sure you look look up a couple of YouTube videos how to do them right. Yeah, But like my thing is, if you love theater and you love the perform arts, and if you love film and television, you know, start doing it. Start writing stuff, start working, and you know, start joining to your youth theater or
friends at school that are making videos. Get you know, start doing things yourself right, because that your own personal drive and passion for wanting to do it is what we love to see. But my other thing is too is find something in the industry that will keep you there. So I used to build theater sets in between acting gigs. And so, you know, studying acting, I went out and all I could do was act, you know what I mean. But I taught myself some skills so I could build
theater sets in between. So you know, doing a makeup course, a one year diploma and makeup and prosthetics. We need more First Nations people and people of color working in
the industry totally. And so you know, we've recently just partnered with Netflix and we've got five places available for any persons of Color or First Nations if you're from interstate or anywhere in the country, will fly five people down to do a one week workshop, free, fully covered, accommodation sorted, yeah, and prosthetics, just to get the interest going, so hopefully, you know. And so my thing is is
that the industry is booming. It's amazing. Australia is the place you want to be right now for the film and television industry. And you know, it's not just about acting. You know, there's so many other roles out there and a lot of them are behind the scenes, and there's a real need to get more people of color, First Nations in those roles to create culturally safe environments.
Totally.
Yeah, exactly, Well thanks, Trav.
I mean that's it's pretty cool, like know that, you know, the First Nations people over at night are in good hands. You know. Now it's a different it's a different world. I bet like they feel much safer, you know, and much more supported.
Yeah, thanks for having me and it was really nice to talk to you guys. And look, if anyone's interested in checking out night To just go to our website.
Yeah, perfect, we'll put the link in the resource notes.
Yeah, thank you so much. Thanks awesome.
That's all we have time for today. Thank you so much for listening to First things first, if you love what you're hear, leave us a rating and a review.
And if you want us to cover anything on the pod, just reach out via our socials. Brooks handle is at brook top blert in mind is it's maatty meals and Trav? What is your handle? Can they follow you? Or is that unprofessional?
Google? I don't have Instagram, I do his private Yeah, so don't follow Travis all right.
Bye