CHRISTIE WHELAN - We Interrupt This Broadcast - Comedian

It's in the news today, but it was actually on TV Reload the podcast last week.

Airline.

Welcome TV Reload listeners. My name is Benjamin Norris and this is your podcast to get all the inside goss on the popular TV shows you may be watching from around the world. Undeniably, our TV sets are a major part of our home entertainment and very little is known about how our favorite shows get made. Each episode, I find guests that want to dive just that little bit deeper into the shows they're currently making, so that you can hear all their exclusive stories and gain access to

Thanks for chatting about this new show.

Well, I'm a huge fan of yours. I've been loving you in pretty much everything that you've done. I've watched you in theater, I've watched you in movies and in television. You basically need a restraining order against me.

Well, let's see how today goes. Now, think about it.

I don't think anyone nailed their reincarnation of the Muriel's wedding characters as effortlessly as you did. I don't know why I'm starting the podcast with this, but I want to know did Sophie Lee get to see you in that role and did she give you any feedback?

She did, and I was like I had literally stolen her performance for the film in every every syllable that she did. So I was scared that she was there because she I thought she was going to be like Leaf, but she was, like she was just so generous and nice and like, yeah, it was just amazing to me because she's a fool genius she.

Is, and she's actually like a really really smart woman. I've actually met her a couple of times. Very intelligent lady but also.

An artist, and like, yeah, she done it. All.

Well, I just want to also say I was so nervous when I heard about this sketch comedy show coming back because it's been a long time since we'k seen sketch comedy and the last few times we've seen it it was cringe you know where the latest one is Comedy Gold, Like it is so funny.

That's so cool, because I agree like the thought of sketch comedy in Australia, you know, back, like when you think of Full Frontal and Fast Forward, you know, they were amazing shows, but it has been a while since we've seen one that was legitimately making people loll.

So I was like, oh god, I don't know.

But as soon as I got there and saw the cast of actors and read some of the scripts and like, oh, I think we're on a winner here.

This cast are brilliant.

But how old would you have been when you know, Comedy Company, Fast Forward, Full Frontal? How old would you have been when those shows were in their prime?

Well, I was a baby of my family, so you know, like I was watching things that I shouldn't have been watching.

So I'm sure I was too young to have seen.

Them, but I did, and I remember there was one called Let the Blood Run Free?

Do you remember that one?

Absolutely? And funnily enough, I've just been talking with Julia Zimiro about that exact same show on yesterday's episode.

Yes, well, yeah, that one not just sticks in my mind. It was just like sort of like way out there, you know, stuff we don't really see on Australian TV that much. So I just remember that vividly. And then in my career, I've got to work with Sean mccarloff, Gena Riley, Mark Downey, Steve Wizad, you know, and I always am asking them about those days because they wrote all those sketches themselves perform them.

They were all so.

Incredible and funny and I'm not obviously comparing us to them, but I'm you know, it was just cool to be a part of a new generation making sketch come in this country.

If you had said this to me before I'd watched the first two episodes of this series, I would have been like, how very dare you? I Honestly, the first episode of People Listening, I was lolling and I was like, this is good, this is quite good. Second episode, I was crying. I was literally on the floor. You'd been the Kadashians, you'd been in Survivor, you'd ripped all of these amazing characters. But it wasn't just that we were

Thank you.

I mean again, I wasn't comparing myself to those guys, but you know, I just I it was just like a really fun job, and there were days where I couldn't get through it because it was so funny to me. We did just get It's called Horn Bay High and it's we did a full day of it, and we were all dressed as like teens, you know, funky teens, and it's like, I don't know, if you get the opportunity to go back to high school. We all went there and somehow we became immature and one of the

I haven't seen them yet, but they do sound very funny and I think One of the things about this show which really got me is isn't it fun to just do dress ups and be silly? Like have we kind of forgotten to do this? And watching you guys do it as well is kind of cathartic in a weird way.

Yeah. Well, those Kardashians.

We've spent a long time in hair and makeup for those Kardashians, I tell you, And we wore skims like a version of skims as our costumes, and we had to have the false nails put on. And let me tell you, I have newfound respect for those Kardashians who are pulling skims up and down with nails longer than they should be. I think, you know, we're really underestimating those girls and what they're capable of.

You know what I also thought was, I think, I think it's really hilarious how little needs to be changed, you know, to these real shows for them to be fucking hilarious. Like exactly, it's literally like you're you're doing the exact same things that these shows actually do. Very little dialogue's changed, but it is brilliant, like it's so well done.

Because a lot of these reality shows have become parodies of themselves, you know, like I remember that first season of Maths. You know it was it was like the first season of anything Big Brother Idle. You know, we didn't know what to expect, and then as time goes on, people do know what to expect, and we need a villain and we need it whatever, so.

They do become sort of a parody on themselves.

You know how much of these shows did you have to go back and rewatch, because like, you're on nearly all these skits, Like I don't know how many skits you thought you were going to be in, but obviously the director and the editor fell in love with you because you're in all of them. And then I was like, oh my god, this poor woman's had to like sit there and rewatch every show that's currently on television and every show that's ever been on television.

Well, there was some that like what is that? I can't even think Game of Thrones. It's like there's a Game of Thrones on. I've never watched Game of Thrones, And before we were filming this, I still hadn't watched any of it.

And I was like, so, who is this person? And who is Carl Lacy or whatever my character.

Everyone was furious at me because I had no idea and so they were shouting at me what I needed to do. So I was just youtubing a few references on the day for that one, but most of them, you know, like.

Love Island, I was before I had a baby. I was a regular on the Love Island train. You know. I loved it. Now I don't have the time, sadly, but I'm a bit of a and I hate watch the Kardashians.

I can't help it, Like I can't stand it, and yet I can't turn it off.

So look, let's be honest. I've done all the research.

You've been doing research for years without even realizing that you'd be doing.

Do you.

I'm going to say what my favorite is because I just feel like I need to. But like, I want to know who you enjoyed the most being able to rip. But I thought it was so subtle. But the Australia Survivor character Chevn that you play is so funny and it's not even in the dialogue. It's actually the faces that you're pulling, because they're the same faces basically the people pull on that show. And it feels real.

What I like, I don't even remember who Chevorn is. They all had a name. We're doing like twenty people a day. I couldn't tell you Chevonne in a lineup? What was Chavonne doing?

Sorry, I have to laugh because you know how long ago did you film this?

At the end of last year?

Okay, all right, fur months ago? So Chevorn, I'm going to tell you that. So Chevron is this Irish contestant that's in Survivor and she's worked out a secret on how not to get chucked off the not to be booted off the cast, and her secret is that her name is Chavorn. And the rest of the cast is so dumb they can't spell Chevorn. And so it's honestly, I could not stop laughing at the spellings and the way in which they tried to spell Chevorn. It was just clever.

But it's true that I remember, like, being a younger, me and my friends were going through the McDonald's drive through and we saw the girl's.

Name tag said Chavorn, and we were like, oh my god, Sioban, what a weird name, And so like it rings true this ketch. I think that's probably why I could really play that role because I've lived it.

Mcmack's drive through.

My best friend who I lived with for quite some time, we were at the shops once and I was like, that soup looks disgusting. Who eats Kilari? And she was like, says, Celery.

Were you an adult at this time?

Yes, I'm shamoul, But isn't it.

So horrendous when things like that happen and you know it's Celery, but something in your brain just in that moment, and then you fear that people think you're dumb forevermore.

I'm going to have to own it, though, because the thing about stupid things that happened to me is I know I should cover it up, and I know it's should pretend that no one's ever seen it. But I love telling people all the stupid shit that I do. Like, I just think, come on, we've all got to have a laugh.

If we can make people laugh with our stupidity, then it's been for something.

I absolutely agree. Now, the scripts when they turned up, did you have to be word perfect or were you allowed to improvise or was it just circumstantial as to what sickets you were sort of taking on board.

I think most of them.

We stayed pretty true to form because the writing was so great, but we had lived a little bit. Like one of the guys in the cast, Ben Russell, he trained at Second City, you know where Steve Carell and Kristen Wigan, the.

Amazing people trained in Chicago.

He's the most amazing improviser and he's just incredible. So with people like Ben, you would just let him go and we'd all just try.

And keep up.

Were you able to keep a straight face? Because I mean, I'm watching you in a lot of these sketches and kind of one of my favorite things about SNL is where like mayor Rootolph or Wig would almost break because you could see the sides of their mouth starting to turn up, like the laugh is on its way. And I did notice that in one of your sketches, and it made me laugh just that little bit harder. But on set, were you able to try and keep it together?

No? Absolutely not.

My favorite thing is at Blooper like I will watch the extras and the office bloopers just.

Like regularly because watching people laugh when they're not supposed to laugh is one of the best things ever.

So I think they should just release a bloopers episode, because yeah, like, messing up lines and making each other laugh is the out of joy of the job, and I'm sure, I'm sure it's worth an episode in itself.

Well, I'm so glad that we've got to quickly talk about this. I mean, honestly, I could talk to you about this show all day. I hope that people get a chance to see it. All the tags for this chat will be at the start of the podcast and at the end of the podcast. But everyone that comes on, I ask them this one thing. What is something from behind the scenes, like something that we won't see? Was there anything ridiculous all crazy that happened behind the scenes while you were making it?

Yeah, okay, here's one.

So we had to for the Kardashians, we had to wear colored contacts and this I was Chloe, and.

I wore some like green, I don't I don't even know. It was very close to my own eye color.

But we had to put these colored contacts put in and it was quite uncomfortable. And at the end of the day one day I left and left with them in and forgot about them. And I was in the bar that night and I was like, God, my eye is hurting, and I started just rubbing and rubbing and rubbing and rubbing my eye and then went.

Fuck the fucking thing that I had rubbed.

I'd rubbed it like back into my brain and it was too like and I was like panicking.

I had to go and get all this liquid to flash out my eye and try and fish it out.

It took me forty five minutes of sticking my finger in my eye anyway, got it out me in.

I love that. Yeah, it took you a bit of time to some of these characters, so to speak.

Chloe is still with me somewhere deep in my in my eye permanently there I can taste it. Yeah.

Okay, well I'm really looking I'm going to hit you up on Socials to ask you, you know how everyone's reacting to this because it comes out on Tuesday, and I think you're going to just get be bomb parted with people.

Everyone loves it, yeah, and has a laugh as you say, life's too serious, too tough.

Sometimes just get dressed up and had a bit of a laugh.

Mate. Thank you so much for your time. Thank you.

Thanks