It's in the news today, but it was actually on TV Reload the podcast last week Their Life. Hey guys, welcome back to TV Reload. I want to thank you for clicking or downloading on today's episode with Chief Reese Dua, the man in charge of the Hunted Control Room Hunted, which is back of course on Network ten this week. It has actually already started and you can catch up on on ten play right now if you missed the
first few launch episodes. My guest today is the new chief at the Helm, with over twenty years of experience in the Australian Defense Force and having been awarded the Order of Australia for service to the Special Operations community. He has really owned his stripes and is up to the task on capturing this season's contestants. I mean contestants,
I mean criminals. You know, let's lean into that. I will ask about his promotion and what he thinks he brings to the top job that maybe sets him apart from his predecessor. I will explore the nature of the contestants this year and if he's worried that they will have picked up on too many ideas from season one and two. The HQ Chief will also share his thoughts on the new highest concept and how he's reacted to
the show's evolution with Australian audiences. I will even ask him if he leans into the drama and if he acts up to the cameras, so if he treats this show the same way as he would if he was like actually chasing after criminals. There is so much to unpack with some fantastic secrets along the way on this show today. So sit back, guys and relax as we get to go behind the scenes of Hunted season three.
I know I'm doing really well, but I think that's hilarious because I've been sitting here nervously all morning thinking do I call you rees? Do I call you missed?
You know?
How do you want me to refer to you with your title for what it is you are on the show?
I do prefer res I am Chief on the show.
That well, great to chat to you about this new series. It's great to see it back for its third season, which is very exciting for Australian viewers.
Yeah, it is. It's really great to be back, actually, and I think it's got a really really interesting twist and something that makes it a little bit more believable as a monster. When we talk about hunting fugitive, what.
Was your reaction to hearing about the concepts evolution and hearing about this whole heist concept.
Look, the initial time I heard about Huntred, I thought it was an absolutely awesome concept. I really did. Obviously, the show has been played in the UK and the US and brought to Australia you know through my brother in arms Benny Owen. But I really love the concept and what they've done with it now in regards to season three and the bank heist, it's phenomenal. Actually taken it to the next level, makes it more believable, makes it realistic, and we really are hunting futuitives.
What are your thoughts on these people that have signed up for season three? Do you think that they should have done their homework and watch series one and two? Like, what's your thoughts on that?
Look? I think they have this year look where we're tested and continue to be tested throughout the series. But once again, we have some new investigators brought into the team as well. With our lead investigator, Cec. We have our cyber expert and cyber lead in LP. We have young lukers and cyber analysts been brought on as well, and the usual team of aren't a headquarters personnel. We've definitely learned some new tricks, and that's what I'd expect
from anyone that was going on and run. Hopefully they learn from their predecessors. But once again, that just makes us better at our job and it makes us think more laterally, and obviously we have to come up to get these guys in the back.
You've been given a promotion this year, so congratulations. What do you do differently? What do you do differently? You know that's different to your predecesse.
Then yeah, look, I'm probably just with my background and everything like that, I'm probably a little bit more aggressive and forward leaning when it comes to the apprehension or the hunting or fugitives. That's what I bring to it. However, in saying that, you know, once we do capture the future is we make it. You know, we have that human interaction again, because at the end of the day, they really aren't fugitives for the show, so for hunt that they are, and that's the way I've got to
treat them. And it's about bringing in that mindset to be able to hunt and capture futuitive.
And your resume, which I've got in front of me, is amazing. But in terms of your skill and what you bring to the show, what would you say is your most unique asset in terms of like what you bring to the table.
Look, I'm a team player. I've worked with professional professionals throughout my career and one thing that I've always been mindful of and thankful, I'm not the smartest guy. You know, always say you're the smartest guy in the room, room and wrong. Run't So when working with the dynamic team like this that bring their own professional background, experience, and knowledge, you've got to learn to leverage on that. You may have a good idea, but someone's got a better idea
than you. My job is to hit it through all those ideas, bring it all together, and then execute on what we need to. But once the decision is made by me, we get the job done.
Do you play favorites with your crew? Like do you have people that you've got on your team this year that you think are doing better than say others?
Like?
How do they suck up to you? I guess being the chief?
Well, not at all. They're all individually confident and professional in their own life. You know, we've got a dynamic team with cyber analysts, intelligence analysts, ground hunters, you know, psychology, criminal psychologists. I don't know their job, they don't know my job. We bring it all together and that's what makes this such a dynamic team.
I was talking to my friend on how massive this show is, and she actually got a little bit of a sneak peek for Studio ten a few years back on how it all comes together, and she was like, so surprised at how professional and how real life fit is that there's not really that many television cutting corners to get the show going. But I was curious about the hours, like, is it a nine to five job for you? How many hours are you doing a day? And how many weeks are you required to be on this show?
Yeah? Look, so we are funny enough. When we were doing the first season or season one, ifually thought we were hundred sixty is twenty four hours a day because that's what I'm used to in my previous life as a specials a special Ops soldier and officer, I was hunting terrorists twenty four seven. You didn't get a break, so I took that same mindset into the first season and then productions like no, no, no, no, we're not hunting. In twenty four seven, I went, oh, okay, so how
long are we doing this for? And they see ten hours a day for twenty one days. So the way my mind works is I just turned around to take now, it's two hundred and ten hours, that's what we're hundred foursolutely, Well, what twenty one days? And I said that it's two hundred and ten hours. So that frames it's completely different, and it also shifts our mindset to what we actually have to do because it's quite a condensed time frame now, so the pressure is actually on from the day we start.
Knowing that the show is a TV show. I guess I was curious about your mentality about it all, Like, you know, are you conscious of the cameras? Are you behaving any differently within that ten hours of filming, you know, compared to how you would be Let's just say if you were hunting real people, real criminals.
Look, look, the short answer is no, I can't change you will make out or be something I'm not. So I don't need to see the cameras. We used to call it flicking the switch. Once you slick the switch, you're on. You're on the job and you've got to get the job done. It doesn't matter what's around you. You're there to do a job and hunt terrorists or hunt futitives, and that's what we do. So no, there is no there's no make believe in this. We treat
this as really we possibly can. We have cyber professionals and intelligence prefessionals out there that are gaining that information for me to turn it into intelligence, and then I get my ground hunter to act on that intelligence and capture our futuives.
If it was me and I was you, I'd find myself sort of knowing it's television, sir, sort of leaning into things. So I'd be doing my best Tommy Lee Jones from The Fugitive, and so I'd sort of be mimicking some of that behavior to make it more traumatic.
Yeah, look, some people do that, right. The only thing I say is probably one thing I don't know in my past life, I wouldn't have celebrated the way I do one hunt. That's just the way it is. That's dynamic of it all. But as far as the actual
hunt and that really isn't behind the information that we glean. So, just to put it in perspective, when we first get a photo that you see on the photo board in the actual show, that's all the information that we have, and then it's up to us to actually find that information out on all the fugitives. That's where we bring
the side of the team in. That's where our intelligence anelyts come in, where you know, Doc Carla carp comes in and talks us about the mindset of the individuals that are actually on the run, and then that builds what we call a target pack for me and then fashionable intelligence, and then we go to work.
Wow, I just it's so complex, you know, and it's such a such a big task to do. Like I feel like even the first time I was explained about this concept, I just was sort of blown out of the water. And how much of a commitment this whole experience is for both sides of this, you know. And it's interesting everyone's debating about who they're going for. Do you find that that conversation comes around to you a lot where people are saying to you, are you going
for the hunters or the hunter? Like, you know, does that question circle back to you a lot, and more commonly, are people going for your team or are they going for the supposed criminals.
Look, I think in seasons one and two it was a little bit of a debate on who you actually going for, Yeah, but I think season three has really separated that so because people are now saying that they have actually committed a con, they've robbed a bank. So now there's that clear delineation between whether you're on the fugitive side or you're on the hunter side.
I think I'm on the hunter side. I don't know why, what does that say about?
Now I'm on the hundred side. But what I love about the dynamic of the fuity is did he actually see the human pressure that they put on themselves part of the show, And that's the realism behind this. You know, everyone thinks they can get away with something, but at the end of the day, that human factor, that that mindset that they need, and the phusical and emotional pressure they put on themselves when they're actually on the run, you know, sometimes to look up and that's when we did them.
Last night. We saw some pretty fun twists with some of the cast really aligned to the jobs that they had. You know, it was interesting with one of the girls, deb she was able to reference her father who was a real criminal, Gary Good or Good I can't remember exactly how to pronounce you curtain, but I thought that was really genius in the way in which we see how this show comes together, because that's a really interesting
person to cast on the show. Did you know anything about the real life Australian criminal Gary Good?
Look? Initially, no, we didn't. And now I go back to that investigative piece. Is that, you know, once we get the name of an individual, then we dig into their past, you know, giving given the powers from the state that we have or we've replicated as part of the show. And I always make the mention that we have an umpire that's above us who is a former assistant police commissioner, and he made sure that we are
bide by the walls. So everything that we have we do on the show is replicated a normal or a real live law enforcement a chase or hunt. We have to submit warrants and everything like that. So when we were going through Dead's background, that's when we uncovered that her dad was actually a safe cracker, and that was the first time so I really did put an interesting stin on it.
Did she use any of her father's tactics? I mean he did go to jail but in the end, But did she then borrow some of the things that her father must have done? I mean that would have been fascinating.
Yeah. Look, I think it's one of those things. And the funny thing about the human side of it is maybe she wanted to experience what that feeling, that anxiety, that pressure that maybe her father sel when he was actually doing live Johns himself, I know, you know my reactions to a live job and what we're doing now on the show, they are mimicked similar feelings and emotions, So you know, it's quite real for the people who
are doing it. Whether you're a hunter or your futuitive, it's emotionally real.
I love the idea of finding out that you've got the Joker or the penguin's daughter, you know, involved in this process.
Well, you know, if you're dealing with the Joker in the Penguin, that means I'm batman.
Hey, you're fine with that. What I was going to talk to you about was the fact that you now have been through this process and you've seen these contestants applying and getting onto this show and saving a certain way. Do you have a sense from doing the show as to which state has better criminals?
Well, actually that's a really good question. But I think the people that actually come on the show are quite ingenious in some ways. You know, they are thinking outside of the box, and that's what forces us to think outside of the box as well. And I think, to be honest, I think it's Australian nature, right, Yeah, it's one of those things where I think, you know, the criminal around the world and the criminal mindset. You know, we're a country of convicts, you know, if we wanted
to go back that far, you know. So I think it is in our nature. It's it's Australian's nature to push the limits and push law enforcement. But unfortunately, sometimes law enforcement wins overall generally.
All the time, maybe the criminal and all of us like maybe I mean, I'm just I'm thinking of my feet here, but I'm thinking whether or not people watch this show and think I could be a criminal, Like not that they show is inspiring people to be criminals, Like that's not the purpose, But I wonder whether or not it does make I think about it, well, I.
Think you know, there's a lot of TV shows, you know, on movies that are out there. I'm sure that it does spark a little bit of intuitivenessing people to think that they can actually go and do something. But the reality is it's a lot harder when you're actually in the moment doing the crime. Like you know, you saw the emotion and the feeling of some of the fugitives when they are actually robbing the bank, you know, and then they get in the car and they're actually exhausted.
You know, that's the emotional toll. So yeah, it's an interesting dynamic. I love being part of it.
Actually, did you think that these people did a good job of robbing the bank though? Like, that's what I was watching last night. I was like, Okay, some of these people are doing a really good job, Like, you know, were you surprised, well they were able to achieve what they did?
Well? Credit? Where credits you When you get a bunch of you know, amateur bank robbers trying to rob a bankming up with the plan and then executing on that. They did the best that they could with the tools that they had knowledge they had, So yeah, cut us to them, but it's not going to help them the long run, We're going.
To catch it's good mentality. The game, I guess of Hunter has only really just begun for us. You know, as an audience, do you think that this year we will see the most skilled contestants? Like are you preparing yourself for the hardest battle yet? Or what is the what's your mentality to this at the moment? Yeah?
Look, great question Again, then it's my mindset has to be different every time, so they are learning as well, and I think the contestants this year may give us a one for our money. That doesn't mean they're going to get to the end of the line because I'm going to do everything in my power to make sure that they do not get to the extraction point. But I definitely think, yeah, they've bought their ow game.
Did you think this is not a spoiler? Ether because I don't want you to say any names, but when you started out and you put these people's faces and names up on the board, do you predict who was going to be good and who was going to be bad at this game? Did you have a feeling just from being able to see the stats right at the start who is going to be a better criminal.
Look not right at the start. That's one of the realism of what is so realistic about this is, you know, we literally do get a picture and name and where
the person is from what state. What happens then is obviously we use our cyber analysts and our intelligence personnel to do with those backstories and those networks that they have, and then that's when we actually start getting a bit of an impression on who these sugities are, what their skill sets are, what their backgrounds are, and then I can actually narrow it down and say, right, yeah, you know, suturey pair AE may give us a bit of a
run for their money because of their background. So an example of that is if I see or we hear of any law enforcement personnel, any emergency service work, is people like that that actually spice my interest because I know they've got skill sets, I know they've got a background, and generally speaking, I know the training they've done to get into those services. So yeah, that's probably the biggest thing that sparked my interest when I hear.
Did you give them any feedback at the end of this on what we could do for season four? Did you go Okay, the heighst was good. The Robney O this is great, But I reckon we should do this, like, are you allowed to give you know, the people, the powers that be some you know, some insights or some ideas for what we could do next year.
Look, I think it's going to be bigger and better. That's what I'm going to say to that. There's always, you know, more we can do. And look, there's so many distant scenarios out there that we can use as part of a part of hunting. And I'll did say seat and four we all knock it up another knos as well.
My last question is something I ask everybody who joins the podcast. What is something from behind the scenes, something that we as an audience wouldn't get a chance to see. What's up behind the scenes, secret that you like to get out when you're sitting around the dinner table, when you're with your friends, what do you tell.
Them, mallam Dan, I'm drink a lot of tea.
A lot of tea. Okay, then you spill a lot of tea about how the show is made. I have to let you go because.
There is a lot of discussions around.
The cup of tea. I am so fascinated by this show, and thank you so much for taking the time and being so generous and talking to me today. I am on the hunt with you guys and watching it with you. Thank you so much, and I look forward to talking to you next year. And you're trying to, you know, wrestle up some more criminals.
Yeah, thanks, thanks you, saying man nowhere is at all