REAL REALITY - LIZ ELLIS - GLADIATORS

It's in the news today, but it was actually on TV Reload the podcast past Leep Theline, Get a Podcaster enthusiasts, thank you for clicking and downloading. On today's episode of TV Reload with Liz Ellis, we will be talking about Gladiators, which is out now on Network ten and you can

Five o'clock?

The alart went off today and yesterday, so that hurt, especially since last night I was going to get an early night and then I light in bed after watching Gladiators, of course in my hotel room, and then I started watching Succession and eleventh thirty.

I went, shit, what season of Succession are you up to?

I just finished episode three last night, so I've literally just started.

Well, we'll get you back and we'll do a debrief on Succession later.

Succession. I'm bloody loving it, though I'm feeling a.

Little worse for wear today, but that's because we stayed awake and watched all of Boyce Swallow's universe, which is on Netflix and I have to recommend that to you. But anyway, it's not a different network. It's so good.

That's okay. Did you read the book?

And I found the book really harrowing because it was quite bleak, and I always get quite sensitive when parents can't look after their children. You know, there was a couple of books I read that year that were a bit like that where the show has a lot of because I'm from the eighties, I grew up in I was born nineteen eighty, so anyway, I grew up with all of that music that I was the eighties rock. I don't know, I just the show's brilliant, So all right.

I'm looking forward to it because I loved I loved the book. To me while to get into the book to understand it. But once I got into it, I was like, oh, okay, a little.

Bit melodrama, but yet said in our world.

I love his books that they're written in like said in Brisbane.

I haven't read any of his other books, but I was in Big w as we are always in Big who buying our books because they're like sixteen dollars, and I saw more of his books, so I was like, I've got to read it, so.

Yeah, you do.

How strange I was talking to you immediately after you came out of the jungle and won. I didn't think I'd be talking to you so soon afterwards. But Liza, I have to tell you, there was a lot of downloads on that particular episode, and the people that loved you on that show really translated to my chat with you. It was oh wow, Yeah, it was quite amazing.

I wonder why, maybe because you brought out the best in me.

No, I think it's because you know what, It's the same with Gladiators. When I heard you were doing this show, and I thought back to Mike Hammond and the people that hosted that show before. They were able to bring a lot of their personality to the show and a lot of the humanity or relatability that I think that you have. So I think this casting for Gladiators is just perfect for you.

Oh thank you.

I actually I loved filming it, and what we loved when we were doing it was yes, it's entertainment, and yes we do it's a lot of tongue in cheek and we poked fun at things. But at the end of the day, these contenders are stepping up and this is their World.

Cup and you have to respect that. So you have to.

Bring out the best in them and let them show their personalities and really display that they're not just on a television show. They're doing something that means a lot to them. And that was I think really important. And I think we saw that last night. You know, in the first episode with Magadonka, you saw what it meant to hurt or win through the heats, Like it's not just a silly TV show for her, It's a massive achievement.

I feel like with her name when she applies, we just did. The producers go, well, she's got to be on the show, Like, you know, what else is she going to do with her life with a name like that. She's a gladiator.

Yeah, she was fantastic.

And you know the fact that she turned up with a photo of her and Vulcan when she was five, it just goes to show. You know, the thing that I love about this show is that it means so much to so many people. And just in the last couple of days, I've had so many conversations with people who were like.

Oh my god, I love this show.

When I was a kid, we used to go to school and there was a hill and we used to pretend we're on the pyramid and we had to throw each other down. And I love that, but I've also loved watching my kids, Like last night, my kids were so engrossed it, and my sister sent me a photo of her kids, who were fifteen and ten, watching it, and I said, do they like it?

She goes, I ask them, but they're two engrossed to it.

They can't answer me, and I'm like, yeah, it's like this whole new generation of kids going, this is the greatest thing I've ever seen.

I remember watching it like it was event television for us growing up, So that first run of it in the nineties before it came back in two thousand and eight, which I might have been a bit too old or thought I was too cool for at the time because it would have been in my twenties. But I just remember we used to have furniture that we would stack up to pretend it was the pyramid, and I love it, but we would try to climb it as though we were you know, we were just literally wrestling on you know,

Yeah, and you know, there's not a lot of television around that is family viewing, family friendly viewing where you can all sit around and you all have a bit of a laugh, but you all enjoy the spectacle and you all enjoy the contest. And I think that's a number of gladiators is at it's very heart. It is it's a contest, but then it's wrapped in entertainment, and it's wrapped in entertainment that the family can really get into.

So yeah, I love it.

I feel like I need to apologize to all the parents out there whose kids are going to start doing stuff like putting the pillows up and making the pyramid. Any last night, in the last ad break before the eliminated, my kids just started spontaneously wrestling each other.

So I'm like, oh my god.

If Elie is responsible for broken arms all over Australia.

Well hopefully they don't do that, but don't trump out of a couch.

I'm probably responsible for some untidy land drones, but you know they did get Channel ten, did get Phoenix at the very start to do the whole Hey, kids, don't try this at home, which spending your eyes like a red flag. The kids go, yeah, I'm going to try this at home.

It's just nice to know that there's more vulcans and storms and there's a new breed of these people coming back. You know, what was your reaction to being asked to do this show? I mean, because you were so popular coming off The Jungle, I'm sure Channel ten bev McGarvey scramble for something for you to do. And sometimes when someone who as popular as you coming off a show like that, they just slapped them into something where this is like the right Manutia, like this is the right

I was really excited, actually, and I was really wary of that because I wasn't that keen initially on doing Celebrity, because I thought I've spent all these years building up this series, sporting sort of resume as a commentator and a panelist and a host, and then.

To do reality it's a bit like, oh, I don't.

Know so, and then I love doing it as one of the best things I've ever done, but I sort of thought, I'm going to be really careful about what I do next because I don't want to just go for a reality TV show to reality TV show. And then Ten came to me with Gladiators, and I thought, God, it's perfect because it allows me to do something completely different, but with the DNA of something that I'm really used to. So, you know, it's entertainment and it's a bright, shiny, flashy show,

I was like, yeah, go back and original, Like, were you going back and watching the original? Yeah?

And I went back.

And the other other thing that I watched, which was really great, was watched the Netflix.

Doco Muscles in Mayhem. I don't know if you've watched it.

It is fascinating and it's about the start of Gladiators, so about the actual conception and how they sort of made it up on the run in the eighties in America and how you know, the people who like the talk show hosts were like, this is this is the death of television.

This is the end of television.

Because I'd never seen anything like it, and like, it was so fascinating. But I loved it because you know, I'm a student of history.

I love history.

When I was Captain of the Diamonds, I made sure that we that I introduced things that gave us a real understanding of where we'd come from. So to watch that doco and get a real understanding of where Gladiators has come from over the last forty years was fantastic.

So I actually.

Felt, really I felt really privileged after watching it going, Yeah, Wow, they've ten of entrusted Bow and I with this, and at the end of the day, Bow and I just a couple.

Of idiots on the sideline. But you know, it's all part of it.

How did you get along with bo, Because, like, he's been hosting a show by himself, so he probably almost could have been a little bit selfish in the way that he could be a host. But there does seem to be a bit of a bond happening. There is he naughty schoolboy to your strict teacher, like, what are the dynamics?

That's probably he's like this over energetic puppy who just bounces around and he's so screamingly funny that the whole way through every day, I had to get my makeup, my eye makeup done two or three times because I kept laughing till I cried, and then.

I make up and cry off.

But to his eternal credit, you're right, he's used to hosting TV shows by himself. But he was so generous, he's so good at his craft. It's the first time I'd hosted a show like this, and he gave me so much information and helped me understand where the edit points were and helped me understand what you do to the camera and how different it all is to just sitting commentating a netball game or sitting on a panel show and hosting it or anything like that. So he

But honestly, though, Liz, this is the best thing about it was that we've got a news headline today about Brendan Favola, and I'm wondering whether or not you got into trouble for revealing that Brenda Vivola auditioned for this, like has fev reached out to you? So for people who aren't reading the headlines that may not know this story, Liz was on what his breakfast show? No, what is it? His drive show?

Any drive show? Yeah?

Yeah, So then he asked you, you know, obviously you got the gig first, did they screen test you with people? And you revealed that you actually screen tested with Brenda Vivola before bo got the gig. There's Brenda Favola. Because it's kind of like a taboo thing and acting, you're not allowed to say who you've screen tested.

Again, Yeah, well, I wouldn't have said anything, but I'd done fev's breakfast show that morning and he brought it up, he said, so when he said that, I was like, oh, okay, we can talk about it. Because I walked in, I thought, God, this is going to be awkward because I knew that he had auditioned, and he knew that he'd auditioned because we did it together. And I thought, well, I'm not going to say anything because that's like you say, like you know, you don't say you didn't get the job.

I don't mind who I work with.

They're both fun and they're both good values, so they both bring different things. So yeah, but it was like yesterday when I walked into Feb's breakfast showing, well and I was like, oh.

It's gonna know a little bit of goss on this from what I was told that Bo had auditioned. To be on I'm a Celebrity, Get Me out of Here with Julia Morris, And if that had happened, I think FEV was going to host with you.

That's what I was, you know more than me.

Was just Beth mcgarvy's going to email me later and say, how do you know this stuff?

You know way more than me. I'll get to say a lot of our numbers this week because I like those as well.

How much teleprompting was there? I mean was a lot of ad libbing all.

Ad libing, So we had some basic scripts we didn't have We didn't have an AUTOQ or anything like that. We had some basic scripting that we'd go through and we knew where we needed to get to with everything, but pretty much off the cuff.

And you know what's also great about this format is that you're allowing us to get to know the gladiators. And I feel like more so you're doing that with this reboot than when they rebooted it in two thousand and eight. You know, they kind of just tried to sort of action action action the whole thing. Where I'm enjoying that we're getting dialogue continuously from the people that are competing in the show, but towards you, which allows those personalities to grow and for audiences to feel more

And we want the audience to all in love with the gladiators. There's a gladiator there for everyone, but we also want them to really admire their contenders and to fall in love with them, because at the end of the day, they're who you're cheering forward to get through. And so I'm wrapped that we're we're able to spend a bit of time each show getting to see the silly side of the gladiators by getting to see what doing this means to the contenders as well.

Did you know what sort of changes they were going to make to this time around or do you know were you part of those sorts of conversations as to whether or not it was going to be a strict sort of remake of what it was in the nineties, Like what sort of conversations were there about any changes that may needed to have happened to have it here in twenty twenty four.

Yeah, Well, when the idea was like first floated with me, the way it was floated was that it would be it would be largely true to the nineteen nineties version, but it would be fun and there'd be a fun element.

There would be an element.

Of behind the scenes, and that's what you get with the gladiator's locker room and the contender's locker room, and that Bo and I or whoever the hosts were, it would be our job to really or the personality out of the contenders and to you know, bounce off the

But I think as well, you know, the two of you love people like you're both curious, and even in presenting in acting, I find that word comes back to me a lot. And that's where you do your job so well, is when you stay in that curious space where you want to know more about people, it comes across very authentic. I think, thank you.

Yeah, well that's and you know, all of our contenders have really great stories and they're not TV people, right, so we had to make sure they were comfortable to want to talk to us because suddenly they're in the studio, there's lights, there's cameras, there's stuff going on, there's someone doing their makeup. Like it's just like, well, actually there's

So you know, that was just so nice.

It's lovely, and they're the connections that make your job really fun to do.

How long are you How long does it take to shoot an episode? I think people love to know that kind of stuff. You know, last night we watched it on television, you know, with ads and everything. And so it's you know, an hour and a half. But are you able to shoot it quite quickly or does it take a lot of time?

Thanks for over So each episode took us a day to shoot. Wow, yeah, so a full day. So filming we generally started about midday, so you get in early. You'd have all your meetings, go through all the scripts and everything, and work out where you want to get to with each segment.

Hair and macer wardrobe. I took longer than bow obviously.

And then it's like that when he wakes up. I've been with them him when he's gotten up in the morning and I'm like, are you wearing any makeup? And he's like no, And I'm like, you just normally look this good, Like it's quite scary.

It's just a beautiful human, whereas I turn up looking like this. It's a process. So yeah, So we would start filming the cameras and start rolling about midday and we'd finish any time between ten pm and one am.

So it's a long day, so very very long day. But I mean it's such a it's getting to be a kid again. So I guess that's the thing that would help you with this show. You just turn up like it's totally fun.

I've got a friend who works in she's a nurse in the emergency department at a major hospital, and I'm like, she works the same sort of ships. She doesn't have anyone doing hair and makeup or bring her food or you know, looking after a wardrobe. So I was like, I'm so privileged to be here. There's no way I'm going to wind about doing a long day. I've got all the energy in the world, so especially if you keep feeding me chocolate and coffee, I'll be fine.

I'm terrible to wake up, but once I'm awake, and I did three years of breakfast radio, so I learned this. I don't like the alarm, but once I'm up and I've had the shore and the coffee, I'm ready to go. Yeah.

Totally, right, totally, So you can absolutely do it. And because it was the first time the show had been made by anyone who was working on it, we just we shot a lot more than we did And if we get to go to a season two, it'll be a bit tighter the days, I would imagine, because we'll know what we're doing.

Well, do you know what that's really a good segue to the question I was going to ask you about this prize. There's a prize this time around that's never been there before, which is that the ultimate winner gets asked if they will they get the chance to become a Gladiator, which I think is amazing. Do you know if that's something that they all want though, like they.

Oh my god, they are so desperate for it.

You wait, so as we get through to the quarter finals and the semifinals, it hates you can really see how much they all want it. They are so desperate to be to be part of the Gladiator's crew. And don't forget for like some of the contenders they're into things like CrossFit and some of our gladiators are CrossFit gurus. So our contenders are so desperate to get there. They

I feel like for me, if I got there to the end, I'd be like, can I exchange my Gladiator title for more cash?

Like, you know, maybe maybe you could like put it on email or something.

Yeah, try and trade it over and see what about.

The ten thousand dollars, thank you.

Yeah, I'll just take the ten thousand dollars. I don't want to come back and you know, risk and injury, so you know I need to put an extension on the house. Yes, well, this is a terrible question to ask you at this point, but have you picked a favorite? Have you picked a favorite gladiator? And you know they're probably not going to listen to this podcast, they may do, but who have you connected bits?

Oh yeah, well it's like my children. I always tell my children I have favorites. It just changes every day depending on who's best behaved. So I had different favorites as he went through. Like, of course, I loved Phoenix from the get go because he is just magnificent and he's so tough and you know, big and strong and yeah, and he's you know, he's so good at what he does,

Viking is just beautiful.

So you know, those three, and you know, and then Maximus, they're all just lovely.

They've all got really beautiful sides to them.

Cobra Cobra is nearly my age and so he's what forty eight, and he's still amazing. And then for the women, Like initially I was really like, I was really drawn to Chaos because she's so chaotic. You can't take your eyes off her. She has just mad energy and she's so strong. She's the strongest person I've ever.

Met, like from another world.

Yeah, yeah, right, And Halo's beautiful.

I love Halo because she's like, she looks really beautiful and she's probably the most finally built of all the of all the gladiators, but she's got that Mma stunt woman background, so she's really deceptively strong, and I love that about it because you get so much more than what you think you're going to get. Arrow is magnificent. My little girl walked in straight away and just love fell in love with Arrow.

You know.

I bonded with Raven and Electra because they're both mums and so were all there missing our kids going oh you know, and Electra her babies were really little, so's she was really missing her little boy. So you know, they've all got different aspects and you know, different days you'd be like, oh, they were my favorite today. Then tomorrow you get in and there's like, oh they are

They just were inhabiting it, loving it. They were like, yeah, that's me is that was cool.

I'm wondering whether or not you and Bo had any conversations about your IMA celebrity experience, because he really didn't enjoy doing the jung call. Did you guys swap notes on that? And did you Sunday morning quarterback him on what he could do better?

No, no, we didn't talk about it.

We had so many hours sitting around waiting for lighting to be reset or something to happen. So yeah, we talked about it, and our experiences were very different. But you know, I don't want to give away anything, but he was just a bloody joy to work with, so you know, we both came from really different experiences in that television show to be on this one, but straight away we just clicked I love it.

Well. Something that everyone gets asked, and you've been asked this before because you've done the podcast before, but what is something from behind the scenes of Gladiators, something that we as an audience won't get a chance to see, kind of like a Gladiator secret if you will, that you could share with us from your time hosting the show.

That's a really good question.

Probably just how much the gladiators really liked each other, Like they all got along so well. They're all staying well, most of them were staying in a hotel with each other, so you know, we'd hear stories about them just bonding and having fun. And it was just so nice because the way that it shot, it could have been really competitive, and I made and that the wrong personalities, like Channel

Maybe they just psyched them to make sure that they're not actual killers, you know what I mean, Like, you know.

Yeah, that's probably a good idea, one of.

Those really expensive psych tests. Liz, I am such a big fan and I've grown up with you over the years. I just love that this is your job now and I look forward to there being another season of this and I love being in your audience and just seeing what you're going to do next.

I think, OK, been, that's so lovely. It's been a enjoy chatting to you this year. Thank you so much.

I know it's so exciting. I'll be back to talk to you about another show. I'm sure payroll bankrolling you now.

Let's just talk even if there's no show.

Hey. I love it enjoy chatting to the media about the show today, and I'm crossing my fingers about the ratings. So anyway, after yourself, thank you