Laura, come on here.
We go.
Hello, Hello, everybody. Happy Friday, No, it is a happy Friday. But you know what, I've had my dad staying with me for the past couple of days. And my dad lives in a tiny little island off a townshill. It's called Magnetic Island. And he's like Crocodile Dundee. And now he's down here in the big smoke.
How long is he staying with you for?
He actually a week.
Your Dad's amazing, but he is like a fish out of water. He one hundred percent is crocodile Dundee in the city.
Yeah, it's like I can't describe him, but he's such a unique character. But he just likes being out in the bush by himself. So when you like take him out of.
The bush and you put him in Bondai, he gets very confused and discombobulated.
The poor guy.
Has he gone to the tourist things around Sydney.
No, God, no, he won't. He doesn't want to drive, doesnt want to go anywhere. He thinks it's freezing constantly. But also it's so good for the kids, like at least having granddad in town. It's like a built in babysitter that's trying to make them hunt in the garden.
I would not leave him alone with the children.
Throw from a crocodile. Okay, let's just take a trip down memory lane. The man doesn't know what an aeroplane is. He's perplexed by doors. I've left him with my kids.
He's so good. So he lives doors.
He doesn't live in a tent.
He doesn't.
When you say magnetic island, I picture him just hovering around a hob aball with a tinfoil hat on.
I still have a house.
He just lives in a house and loves koalas. That's pretty much my dad to it.
It's a better way to wrap him up. Yeah, we love him.
Hey, guys, we have an absolutely huge guest I'm so excited about it coming up after the break.
Asher Keddy, the one and only.
She's the star of Offspring, which was the most incredible series, but that was a long time ago. Now she is Mea Friedman right in the new Binge season of Strife. Now, Strife is based around Mea Friedman from and Mia.
It's her whole entire life.
It's her coming of age and her coming into the entertainment to the Spotlight and she's chose Asha Kenny to fill that role.
I'm so excited to talk to us.
Ash's going to join us live on the pick Up. Next, we're here for your Friday AVO. And I speak for you guys, Britta, Laura and myself when I say how excited we are for our guest today. We've been talking about this series for quite a while, anticipating it at landing on Binge. It is finally here, the brand new Binge original drama series Strife, starring Asha Kenny from the producers of Big Little Lives. We have Asher here to tell us all about it. Hello, Asha, Welcome to the Pickup.
Hi Asha, Hi, how are you guys?
Asha?
I'm going to be honest, I am ridiculously excited to be speaking to you today because you're one of my favorite Australian actresses and not just mine. You've won seven low Ye Awards, which is I mean, the proof is in the pudding. But I do have a bit of a bone to pick because I have never truly recovered from Patrick's death in Offspring. Oh yeah, and I'm sure you get this all the time.
Oh you haven't either.
Yeah.
No, I know.
I mean, it's just extraordinary reason't it that that endures. That storyline was so.
Devastating for so many people.
At the time, I was really really shocked about why we would possibly do that, But I know why we did, and it, you know, gave our character Nina another two seasons of journey.
And anyway, I'm sorry about that.
I wanted to do in validation.
I just want a validation.
I wanted the apology. Asha. You play Evelyn in the new series Strife. What was it about her character that really drew you to the storyline, to the show itself.
Look, really, it was the relatability of the actual story holistically and the character and the opportunity to create a character from the ground up. What I loved about Evelyn as a character was that I just wanted to lean into and explore the complication that is, you know, being a woman with strong ambitions, a drive that she finds impossible to push down, yet has you know, really big
fragilities and vulnerabilities. And I just thought it was a fantastic opportunity to be honest about a discussion you know that is very relevant at the moment. And also, even though it was set in twenty twelve. It was such a pivotal time and things of the landscape was changing so much as well.
Well. Many Australians will be very familiar with the story because the character of Evelyn is loosely based off Mia Friedman, who, of course love We've had a friend of our yeah, and she created Mama Mia, which is now this empire, this media empire. How closely did you work We've met in the creative process and trying to create the character that we know is Evelyn.
Look closely in the sense that MIA's stories gave us so much in inspiration. Her stories are incredible, She's inspiring. Her bravery is extraordinary when you think about it, the public and the private and what has been pulled apart
and polarized. And she was so generous with those stories, and then those stories discussion as we were developing the show became my stories and Jodie's and Brunners and Sarah Scheller's, and it was a really amazing experience to be honest about the experiences we've had as professional women and mothers as well.
Something that I think a lot of people don't know about me. She is the first person whenever brit Or, I have had something that's gone not to our liking in the media. She is the first person who will send you a message on WhatsApp to be like it's okay,
I've been here before. She's such a champion of other women who work within the media space, and that doesn't normally exist because we're always talked kind of like you get that media women are pitted against each other, we're all in competition, but it really goes against what she has stood for.
Yeah, absolutely, and we really explore that as well. We really kind of delve into female relationships and how around that period it was the beginning of a shift culturally, socially obviously and politically, but it also felt like a shift to me that has evolved enormously with women in the media, certainly in my industry. There's a lot of championing that goes on and they're the people that I want to surround myself with and I want to return that as well.
And actually, you have a son, Valentino, an eight year old son that you had at age forty one, and I say that I bring that in because firstly, obviously you can relate to the life of me where you're juggling multiple things. You are a mum, and you are running multiple businesses. You're a busy woman. But secondly, I have found it really interesting listening to you talk about and I hate the term saying an older mom because we know that forty one is an old but I
can relate to that a lot. I'm thirty seven this year. I'm freezing all my eggs right now because I feel like it's not in my near vicinity. And I've always wondered if I hit forty, would I continue to do it and what would that look like.
How have you found that?
Well, it's just been a lot because when I turned forty in my life started really accelerating professionally as well as personally. So while I was probably about thirty seven, you know, my husband Vincent and his little boy, my stepson, Luca, and things shifted a lot for me then. But heading into my forties, life was very full. And I've spoken about this. At the time when I was pregnant with val I felt really robust, I felt fit physically and mentally.
I didn't think about it at the time.
I think I made a comment which you're probably relating to not that long ago where I said that, you know, just recently heading towards fifty very soon, I have had a couple of moms when I thought, oh, gosh, well, how old is that? How am old am I going to be when VAL's eighteen or thirty or whatever. It just does an interesting thing heading into your fifties as opposed to your forties. I'm not afraid of it, and I don't feel kind of discombobulated by it.
It's just something that I've thought about.
It was a passing comment that was kind of interestingly popped all over the net.
Out of context, as things were are. But that's okay.
It's like, I'm happy to talk about it, you know. That's honestly how I feel.
So happy to have you on, Asha Ketty a true privilege. You can get the new Binge original drama series Strife, starring the one and only Asha Ketty from the producer of Big Little Lies, streaming on Binge out now.
Thank you for coming on the pick up.
I feel really uncomfortable talking about this, but what better place than national radio.
Laundry do it?
Laura?
You and I have been really close friends for a.
Long time, years and years now, Darling, Yes, exactly. And I feel very close to your kids and your husband, Matti J. And I feel like it would be remissive me not to bring up. Oh, I feel so uncomfortable to bring this up. Matt's made me uncomfortable. Matt has done something. Okay, long story short. I got to work and on my desk there was a present. It's been wrapped, and I opened it up and it was semi nude photo of your husband. And I was like, oh my god,
this is for Laura. I've accidentally opened it and I turned it over. But then there was a big card that said to Brittany, Merry Christmas from Maddie J.
And it was literally, what this is?
You know, he's sending me send me nude photos like a calendar or something.
I couldn't even look at them all.
Had you didn't even look at them all?
I felt like I was breaking some sort of friendship law.
Why is he sending me new pictures? He's not nude. I mean, look, it has gone a bit far. He's wearing his budget smugglers. Everyone, yes, he had smugglers. He's got tiny little swimmers on. And also it's not just him, there's another guy in an ash Wick. So it's the two of them.
Which was more perplexing, posing with not much clothes and okay, so to set the scene, this is a calendar that they have created.
It is called the chore play calendar.
Now, so this wasn't just an individual present for me, I.
Am to blame for this. So I have always said to Matt that the thing that women like more than anything in the world, it's not presents, it's not gifts, it's not words of affirmation. No one wants you to tell them that they're pretty. They just want you to clean. They want you to come home, they want you to clean the house, they want you to mop the floor, they want you to put away your dishes. They want to get you, pick up your stinky undies and put
them in the washing machine yourself. Women just around the country they just want their husbands to clean.
That is it's so much more sense.
So what Matt has now gone and done is he's taken that literally. But he's kind of combined the two assets that he has, one that he can clean and two that he has a very nice body. And so he's created a calendar which is called chow play, and he's doing it all naked pretty much.
Oh my god.
I actually this is so much better because I thought I had to in the friendship. I was like, I can't be friend with you guys anymore if he's sending me these photos. But so it's not just me, it's I'm not specially gets you in hundreds of other people who are receiving this Christmas.
This Yet I'm not using that calendar. I should. I think we need one in the studio.
Mitch will use it.
I was just about to say, I've got the opposite opinion to Britt. I actually will be more of your friend if you can get your husband to send.
Me that surprised, although I think it is quite telling that he hasn't sent you one. Mitch, I think it's coming.
Can I be honest with you. He text me the photos and ask for my opinion.
I thought you were just getting to the calendar with a tear away section in the middle.
In the center. Oh oh, is that the line? Is it?
Yeah?
Yeah, it is smell like Pino clean, Okay, because all he's doing is cleaning.
Yeah, true, And yeah, you're right.
Yeah, anyway, it's a bit fun. But I I stand by this. I think that every woman out there just wants a man who just will clean their house interesting in their undies.
I've got some other ideas for my men.
You need.
To do some other things.
You guys don't have kids, all right?
Everyone next on the show, and we got five hundred dollars at Chemists Warehouse. And all you need is a name. It's true, you just need to have a name.
The easiest competition you'll ever have.
Well, yeah, potentially, don't say we don't give stuff out for free. On the pick up five hundred bucks at Chemists Warehouse up for grabs.
Next, Yeah, we.
Have a five hundred dollars Chemist Warehouse voucher to give away today.
I love giving away money.
We really really good at it.
I love it.
But this came off the back of earlier in the week I was talking about, Well, you guys actually three round the bus. But I have nicknames for everyone, and they're always really weird nicknames, like no one would ever ever know where they came from. Like my dad is Popsical home Slizes, my mum's President Nixon, my sister is Shrek.
If you miss that, we paid brit out we laughed, Oh yeah.
Oh there is nobody at all? Who has as many nicknames as Britt has for everyone? And some of them make absolutely no sense.
Even my dog Delilah is squid, she responds to squid, Squidlert squiddy, We just do it doesn't even make sense kind of endearment.
But some of them are endearing, like his sister Shrek.
Yeah, she loves it, though she at.
The end doesn't because you're trying cue to fire it doesn't actually make it.
I still we wanted to know on thirteen one sixty five what is your nickname?
Best nickname?
And I also think best story, because nothing better than a nickname is actually something better.
Than how you ended up with it for one.
But I think we need to try and guess them.
Okay, let's try well.
From thirteen one o six five, we have Tanika aka cement.
Yes, hello, Hia, I'm going to guess.
First.
I reckon, you were running and then you tripped over and fell into like fresh wet cement. No that's not right.
I reckon you're you're really stubborn and hard.
No, you're a trady.
No, it's definitely not.
How did you get this as your nickname?
Okay, so I apparently just don't shut up. And everyone has said that I could literally talk under wet cement, that I talk that much.
That's actually mean to just start calling you cement though it's very silent.
One of a teacher, and it's stuck my whole life.
Don't worry.
I got there. I could talk under wet cement to water when I was in school, So I feel you.
Okay, let's got another one. Let's go to a Wendy high. Wendy, what's your nickname?
Big bird?
What big bird? She's it's a high thing.
I reckon she fell in cement and rolled around in feathers, Like.
Yeah, feathers and the street.
No, I reckon, like she's you. You ran out with like a group of girlfriends once and you wore a big yellow dress and they just decided that that was gonna stick.
What is it? No, I just told everybody it's still leaving the boys.
Was right, okay with stature, so nothing to do with nothing being yellow.
Vanessa, Hi, what's your nickname?
It's Toaster?
Toaster. I reckon it's because you're hot. I guess I.
Reckon Toaster because you love to be You did something really silly when you were younger and like put a fork in a toaster or something you like.
To be used at breakfast.
Oh my god, Mitch, what has happened to you today?
Where did your improv car go to?
What toaster? Tell us?
I was an outdoor farm kid and my classmates were not and I had some weird tan lines all the time.
But that's.
You're toasty.
That's good.
I that toaster. I reckon, who's our favorite? I reckon toasty. I think we can give it to the sunburn kids. She's going to need it to buy some more sunscreen. I also love toast from Chemist Warehouse.
Congrats toaster. Take five hundred.
Bucks so much.
That's amazing.
You're so welcome. What do you reckon? You're gonna get for yourself?
Great enough?
Yeah, I've got pretty bad skin now, so that would help make the Christmas pretty cool.
Oh no, you go and enjoy it, toaster. And that's it from us today, cementingbird.
We'll see you all Monday. Have a great weekend. We can podcast any of the show. Asha Kendy was on today Kedder as we call Katie Ashes.
All right, guys, that is enough from us.
Yeah,