It's in the news today, but it was actually on TV Reload the podcast last week Nebine. Welcome back guys to TV Reload. As you may know, my name is Benjamin Norris and this is your podcast to get all the insight goss on the popular TV shows you may be watching from around the world. Undeniably, our TV sets are still a major part of our home entertainment, and yet very little is known about how our favorite shows
get made. So each episode, I've been finding 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 the biggest names in Australian television. I want to thank you for downloading or subscribing to this podcast however you've found it. I love hearing your feedback, so make sure you leave a
review or a comment on your chosen podcast platform. This chat, I'm joined by Ryan Core who is back in Australia to collaborate with the ABC Australia on a new series called in Limbo, which premiere is Wednesday, the twenty fourth of May at nine pm and then on ABCTV and ABC. I view all six episodes are going to be available to stream straight after the launch, and I strongly suggest you take a chance on this new show.
In Limbo.
Ryan does talk to me today about the role of Charlie, whose best friend dies at the age of thirty eight. Charlie is forced to face his grief in a way that he could never have imagined when the ghost of his friend begins to haunt him. The series may sound a little bit grim, and the idea of being a comedy drama might actually surprise you, but I'm here to tell you that this show is highly entertaining if you don't mind laughing and needing a box of tissues at
the same time. The in Limbo production team did an amazing job behind the scenes and they were extremely grateful to have a mental health advisory group working with them during the development of the production. And I want to offer a content warning as well. This conversation today does include topics of mental health, suicide and depression, and I'd like to offer the Lifeline twenty four hour telephone number,
which is a crisis line thirteen eleven fourteen. I will ask Ryan if this project was of a particular interest and if he said yes, because he wanted to add to the important conversation of men's mental health. Ryan will talk about the differences of working on shows like How So the Dragon overseas and making TV here in Australia,
and why he enjoys the intimacy of localized production. We will discuss how he shaped his relationship with actor Bob Morley to give their best friend's status the right authenticity that this show required. Plus, we will get plenty of exclusives from behind the scenes of this fantastic news series in Limbo, which, as I mentioned, starts this week on ABC Australia. Anyway, I'm very excited about this because I love Rank Kore and we should probably bring him into
the podcast and unpack this fantastic new show. Hey Ben, I just want to say thank you so much for doing this chat. Like I'm the hugest fan of your work, I kind of begin to tell you, and I've used this opportunity to interview you today to sort of revisit a lot of your work. So over the weekend I've pretty much seen everything.
Okay, how far back did you go?
All the way back? I'm clearly holding the man was so important to me. I read that book when it first came out, and anyway, but we're not here to talk about that. We're here to talk about in Limbo. How did you become I'm involved with this series.
Got sent the script as per usual.
I'd worked with Bunya before, but never Jennifer from Ers, and I.
Had a pretty visceral reaction to the script.
I think strangely everyone that's ultimately been involved with Limbo had the same reaction, but maybe laugh and cry. And that's not always the case, you know. I think within ten to fifteen pages you can usually tell if something grips you or not. But I found with this that I was sort of like laughing out loud. I could see the comedy and then literally within the next scene, I'd found myself, oh, like you know, holding back, holding back tears, and there's something very powerful about that. And
it also had a pace to it. It also sort of did all of those things while still really moving, you know what I mean. It sort of touched on these really heavy topics, made you laugh, made you cry, and got out of there, and so that was really exciting. And Trent O'Donnell, who I just think is one of the best directors in the world. Definitely one of the best comedy directors in the world who I'd worked with
on Moody's. I found it he was attached and that just sort of completely articulated the series.
So from what I.
Read to understanding, having having Trend's sensibilities attached to it, I could sort.
Of have an idea of what it might be.
But the challenge then became once Bob and I got cast and we all sat around in a room together, how do we meet that tone, which is kind of an unusual one to hit.
Well, I'm going to talk about that in a second, but I just want to say the showed completely. It just penetrated me so deeply, and I was about halfway through the first episode and I got up. I thought I was going to the bathroom, but I just leaned over the bed and had like a cry, And that has never happened to me with any movie or series I've ever seen. And to also throw something on top of that, I found myself equally having a laugh. That
was just as honest with this series. So I hope people don't think, oh, this is going to be a sad show because it's got levels.
Oh well, that's so amazing to hear. Ben, I'm so pleased it touched you in that way. That was certainly our pursuit, and I think it was also the challenge. It's also how do you deal with themes about suicide and about loss, about grief, and about coming together and not get lost in that and not find it too wallowing or overwhelming. I think, much like life I've just been saying today, I find Limbo is very much a series about life, as much or more so about life than it is about death.
It's about how.
We come together afterwards. It's about how we process these things ourselves and within our communities and within our families. And in a strange way, you can watch the whole of Limbo with Nate being a manifestation of something that Charlie's created in order to deal with the loss of his friend. In order to it's his memory of what his friend was like. It's his memory of the gags that all the things that he'd give him shit about.
So that there are those there are those layers to it.
And we also took it, you know, in dealing with themes like suicide, we also took the utmost responsibility in sitting with each other at the beginning of this and getting to know each other extremely well personally and our experiences both directly and indirectly with loss, and also sit down with the psychologists so that we knew that we were approaching this in the correct way and giving it the utmost respect. Having said all of that, I think if this series is about life as much as it's death.
In life, there are those moments, and they often come at the same times of profound sadness, you know what I mean. You can have just finished and then something makes you that your mum does something that makes you laugh in inappropriate and all of a sudden it's cathartic. And I think that balance and that sort of that levity and that weight and sort of having both of them exist is in most of our lives and in most of our relationships, and certainly something we've tried to
tried to put into limbo. It's not an easy thing to do, you know, because totally it's an unusual show.
Right.
I kept thinking, how are you doing this? Because I'm thinking about the subject matter. I'm thinking about the realities I've been in situations of unspeakable grief and those moments have been really odd because I found myself laughing. I remember my best friend's sister passed away last year and
she was laughing on the day that that happened. She looked at me like I'm a terrible person, and I was like no, I was like, sometimes that's that very fine line between something quite horrific can make you laugh, like it's a human reaction. It's in us.
When I lost my grandfather, we were really lucky. We almost lost him a couple of times and didn't, and we had him for like five years, longer than we should and in the end it was sort of like, you know, a pretty slow process, but we're all it was. It was my mum and her sister and myself and my sister all holding hands as he was going, and you know, he was a stubborn old thing, and he was sort of like you know, oh, mysh, I remember you sort of pulled his auction thing out and was
like this is the time. And as we're all sort of holy hands saying it's okay, it's all right, mate, it's okay that you go now, he made like this funny We called him Wad, my grandfather's name.
We call him dad wad Waddy daddy, and he made this funny sound. He was like something like that, and all of us.
Like from absolute you know, literally saying goodbye to the man, burst out in hysterical laughter and were of the last memories we have of each other are sort of laughing out saying it's okay, you can let go now.
And that stuck with.
Me for my whole life, and my sister too, and and I just remember it being so cathartic. It's just such an incredible experience sitting there with the people I love most in this world saying goodbye to a person that I loved most in this world together like it was almost like a passage and finding and finding this moment of absolute levity in it and life, and it was and it helped me process it, and having that experience helped all of us in the letting go of him.
And I also after that.
And I know that in the show Limbo, people explore people experience grief differently, they definitely process it differently. And I think particularly in Limbo, we meet Charlie and he's trying to put things in the ways to distract him.
He's trying to be of service.
He's trying to help, he's trying to do he's trying to dose after the family that are still here that Nates of Nates, and I think m Harvey's character is this wonderful emotional weight and this emotional, incredible tether into reality. She's she's Okay, sure this has happened, but I've got a child to look after here, and i have to get the bills done. And we're over here on the finances. And there's that way, and then there's, in a strange way,
there's the way Nates, manifested is dealing with it. It's sort of like completely avoidant and hey, let's just keep it up here, you know what I mean? Hey, no, what are we talking about? Like it's all his boys. It's avoiding answers until they sort of find them together. And what I love about it is that in Charlie pursuing answers through the series that he might possibly never get, it's the people that are left that go looking for those answers.
He actually finds a part of himself.
And so in a strange way, Nate's sort of guiding him from beyond to help him understand that he has things that he has to process to not just the grief of Nate, but in his own life. And that's sort of the ultimate sharing of love for.
Me, you know, and I think that's so important in this show. I mean, mental health in you know, is a big issue in Australia. I think we need more conversations about it, and I think scripted drama is a really impactful space to do that. You know, was this something that you particularly wanted to explore?
Well, I mean no, it's certainly not something that was like, oh yeah, like you know, a drama comedy dealing with grief and loss. But the idea of trying to make something that treaded that balance, that had both both of those things within it really appealed to me because of those experiences that I talk about, because life has been that for me and I could see that sort of coming out of out of the page when I read it.
And so the challenge became trying to try to trying to paint that, you know what I mean, trying to take it off there and try to do that. And I don't think we got it all the way right, and sometimes you know, we were like, hang on a second.
If Nate's here.
If this is Charlie's version of Nate, then wouldn't he be telling him? You know, there's a lot of complications within it, but it is a huge, huge issue, I think, particularly amongst young men, particularly in Australia between twenties and thirties, people in different minorities, people of color, like, there was a number of ratios that are really out of whack, I think, particularly out.
Of after COVID.
I think COVID was a time that for a lot of people was really difficult in the mental health space. I think it brought up a lot of things for people because we were so confined, because we dealt with a lot of loss and a lot of fear because we were around those that we love all the time and sort of and sort of you know, there was a certain I know, form me, there was a certain
claustrophobia to that. And so I think we've sort of seen a rise, you know, now that we've sort of like started to come back into the world again, there's been a rise in awareness around mental health and other people perhaps realizing that they're not as okay as they thought they were. One of the things that Limbo I think does really well is that it shows you know, what's on the surface isn't necessarily always what's going on behind, And in my experience of mental health, that's very much
been the case. And I think that after COVID, I think that time and what that sort of did sort of made a lot of people sort of reflect a little bit bit more so on their mental health, and I hope start more conversations about it, and I hope that this show is a part of that conversation.
It's going to do that.
I love the fact that it's had any of that impact for you, man, like truly like that that means that that means a huge amount, because that's all we can try and do is have that is have it land on someone and have an impact like it's had for yourself, so that it's like a.
Lift as well, Like as in for me, you don't realize you're carrying things, and I was carrying things that I didn't realize and then when you can see your self on screen in a show like this and you go, oh, that's what's happening to me. I didn't know that, and that show sort of elevated that for me, and personally it felt like an actual tangible lift from me.
So, yeah, that's so wonderful. I can't tell you how great that is to hear.
Do you think that we are making progress in the fight to combat you know, the issues in society that we have, particularly about men suffering, you know, quietly behind closed doors.
I think we are making progress. Yeah, And I think I think this show is a part of that. I think we're making I think.
It's because slowly, the ideas of toxic masculinity and being okay and stiff upper lip and you know, I'll be right, don't worry about it. Slowly the illusion of that is being dissipated, and we're realizing that true masculinity and true strength is actually being vulnerable and actually sharing. And I think again, the state of the world and what's been happening recently has really sort of focused that in a bit.
So I like to think I like to think that we're making sort of head roads in psychology and in ideas of mental health and in people understanding that there is places to reach out to for help and where they will receive it and there is nothing, there's zero shame around it, you know what I mean. I think for the longest time, it's been a generational thing. It's
just not something you spoke about. And I hope that now we're in a more articulate and open society that we do feel safer to share about those things and to reach out and get the help that we have. I don't know, I don't know if the numbers back up that that is changing, but I'd like to think that conversations like this and that shows that Nimbo can have something to do with continuing that conversation.
I think your work is really quite powerful. I mean, collectively, we don't sit down and watch a particular's actors work like I did over the weekend. But I thought that there is a hidden kind of mission statement in what it is that you've been able to achieve in the
roles that you've played as a male. And I think that that's quite courageous because that's the very essence of the whole thing, is us believing we have to be this particular Aussie bloke, where for you, you've been able to navigate what it is to be a man in your work and in the stories that you've told. I mean, has there been times where you've really questioned what it is to be a man and what.
That oh my whole life continually yesterday. Yeah, that's a really profound thing to say. Yeah, And I have been very fortunate and lucky for a number of reasons. One being able to do something that I really believe that I'm passionate about that has the artistic and creative sort of like availability to do so. But I've always had
great teachers and mentors. I went through drama school after I'd done some of those teen shows, and I had Kevin Jackson, who's just recently passed, who is May he rest in peace, who was such a giant of a man in my life, who sort of taught me that what I was doing wasn't just about coming in and doing a good job of making people laugh, for doing characters, actually about something much bigger than you. It's actually about a narrative that's been going on for you know, sixty
five thousand years plus. You know what I mean, when we ran a fire saying this is what happened on the Hunt today, all the way up until at theater, up until now. So it about elevating writers, and elevating two writers rather and two great artworks, and serving your place within that and so that sort of changed the responsibility of my job for me. You know, it wasn't just something that I was good at that, you know that I'm good attention was like, oh, there's a responsibility
to this. And I've been so lucky and fortunate too in so many different worlds to explore and research so many different worlds, you know, from the AIDS crisis in the eighties in Australia to Arnham Land and the church up there in early colonial Australia to Brisbane where I'm just dealing with something that's a little bit closer to home because I've got those friendships that are like brothers to me, and I've lost people in those friendships, and I've lost people in my life.
And I really like what.
You said earlier about you could see yourself in that family. I mean, if we've done our job well at all, everyone indirectly or directly has been has been affected by loss, and hopefully you can you can feel or see yourself in Charlie in those families or in the family as a whole. Hopefully you can receive something for your own life from that. I've just been very lucky, you know. It's an unusual thing in this job. Getting often get to it's like, this is what you are. What do
you like when you are bad? What do you like when you are wrong? What do you like when you are happy? What do you like when you're in love? What is it like when you're really dark and sociopathic?
And we are all those things? You know what I mean?
We are you know, I've just.
Got to every now and then dial up and dial down those things, and yeah, hell yeah. It's made me question at different stages, like, well, which part of this is Ryan and which part is and which parts are how much of what I just associated with or how much of what I just discovered inside myself is from my reality and how much of it is being immersed in that world? And yeah, it's like it's like like
therapy every time. And so I've really made a concerted effort to between those jobs and do the things, to do my own therapeutic process and to just make sure that I remain grounded and aware of who I am as an individual, as a person well explored.
I feel really repulsed about myself. Sometimes I'll do things which I don't agree with, and I'll be like, why did I do that and my part and we'll bring it up. He'll be like, some of this behavior is not okay, And then I loathe myself, you know, I think, oh my god. And it's taken me a long time to sort of try and appreciate who I am as a person and not beat myself up for those things. Because we are all of these things, you know what I mean, we are all doing them feels more potent,
I guess when you do it to yourself. But I won't, at the age of forty, beat myself up for some of those things that are within me because I can't help them. And I think a part of my own mental health struggle is having to come to terms with them and try to change them a little bit.
When did that change for you? Because I know for me personally, I very much like you. I have the most incredible inner critic and a lot of the time I found over the years that was ultimately it was some of my some of my biggest downfalls was just like this voice that you know, this voice of shame
ISSLLWD in your head. But I remember having the conversation much like you, with myself sort of saying you need to be kinder with yourself, and you need to take you there is enough precious from every other than to add the more to yourself and to honor yourself and to have space and love for yourself, you know.
And it wasn't until I.
Like early thirties and I think I really started to even think about this. How many thirtre now is like, you've been pretty hard on yourself up until this point, and there's no reason to be. And there's part of me that wants to reach back into that. So anyone go hey, man, like you know, like take him under my wing and sort of go like, listen, these are things that you don't need to be fearful low and you.
Have to keep reminding yourself of that kind of stuff. I mean, for me, I noticed that in certain friendship circles that I saw some repeated behavior that had me going they're the problem and being forced to recognize that the similarities between that same problem I was facing was happening with multiple people. So I must be the problem. Not to quote Taylor Swift, but hello, it's me on the song, isn't I remember I said that to my
partner last night. We were talking about something, you know, personal and I was like, you know, it's me, I'm the problem, and you know, it was a tense argument. It was a tense comsation to have. And we laughed because we were like, yeah, you know, that's that Taylor Swift song. But it's a song because we can all recognize it, you.
Know, exactly, it's a tailor as all as time because we can all recognize it.
And I think that's a really big moment.
I think it's a really big moment when you realize that the things that you're projecting possibly onto other people or onto other parts of your life potentially are actually coming from somewhere closer to you and.
Yeah, from yourself.
This podcast wasn't supposed to be like a therapy session for the book. I think it is and I'll publish it so people will probably be driving and their cars are going for their walk and hopefully thinking, oh, these two nut jobs.
They're like, I wait to watch this comedy.
No, but there's so much comedy in it, like it's in Bob Molly and like you, the relationship that you have is you know, it was so elated, you know, and I thought, how are they? Did you spend much time working on a friendship behind closed doors before trying to actualize it on film, Like.
Yeah, definitely, I don't think you have you know, you can't pretend to be too better friends, you know, and that are that close with each other, with that heart without doing all of those things.
But I think also there was something to the rhythm of this piece.
There's something to do with the the you know, the rat a tat tat, and I think all comedies kind of rhythm, all comedies kind of like a debt. So it was kind of this interesting balance between really making sure that those the dramic moments or the or the the more weighted moments were very much caught in truth. And you could sort of also couple that with, you know, with things that rhythmically sort of make you laugh, like I say, And yeah, as I said, I think I
think in life that happens. And so yeah, we works off them like a plane, you know what I mean. We'd sort of like we'd have these lines so down that we could sort of start playing with each other and articulating.
We had to.
Find that polarity. I think Nate is Charlie very much holds Nate's on a pedestal. You know what I mean, he's his he's his idea of of alpha and of cool and of charm and of kindness, and I think he very much holds him above himself in that regard, and possibly Charlie has to do a bit of a bit of soul searching to to be able to understand
himself in that level, and then he possibly doesn't. I think a big part of Charlie's losses he feels like he's lost that that part of his life that you know that that represents all of that to him, and I think he discovers in trying to look for answers, he finds more out about himself.
But do you think about the banter though, that people have, Like if you think about the banter that you've got with your best friend or I've got with my best friend, or when you're listening to people at the pub.
Slapping on the air, there's a real.
Like maybe it's an Australian tone that I recognize, But then to watch it being actualized on film, like in particular in this show, I was, yeah, I was. It was delightful.
I really liked there was something that Lucas wrote in there. It was like almost while they worked in the backyard together with the wood and with his meage making the cubbyhouse for Anna Bell. There was almost a poetry to the movement. And I've grown up with trade. All of my best mates, my nates in my world are all trades.
You know what I mean that too.
I've sort of used to sort of invest into this relationship, and there absolutely is there's something beautiful and poetic about working with your hands and about about creating things out of nowhere. And I think they really you really sort of see that in that friendship. You see the sort of this fluidity that they sort of this ease that they have with each other that I think comes after
years of time and years of trust. And we also we were really fortunate we sat down together for a number of weeks at the start Lucas and with Bob and Trent myself and just got to know each other and now each others sense of humor so personally so that we could so that we could have that familiarity, so that it wasn't forced, so that we you know, when we're actually trying to make each other laugh, we're
actually trying to make each other laugh. And I think with Trenny is so incredible that coming there, a scene starts as an idea.
He comes in, then he sees and then.
He's like, yeah, all right, stop there, right, yeah, now say this, yeah, now, Bob, say this to this, now go back, say this and there, and you can sort of see him working in the moment and everything. Every idea is sort of funny. And we're also lucky enough to have Lucas there on set, our writer, who was it was just so collaborative, and any ideas that we had to sort of to focus in, to focus scenes in, or to make them funnier, or to just to just
get something out out there. We're completely welcomed and open and so you could sort of feel all those different all of those different textures I think, I think in the final product, I hope so anyway you can.
But I mean also I think that a very Australian friendship is about challenging you mate, and I think that that's what you can see as well. You both are challenging each other, even in the very first scene where we aren't aware of the situation completely. It's not until you walk in in that you know in the funeral home that we realize the actuality of what's happened, but
just in the scenes that then continue. There is a way in which I think we all, if you feel safe enough to do so, and I hope everyone does, then has a friend like that. You know, there's that safety in being able to, you know, hold up a mirror against your best friend and challenge.
Them exactly because it's not always it's Yeah. I think I think we should we should promote that in each other, you know, I certainly do in my friendships. And I think that should wed provide each other be better and to to open up, you know anything, if anything.
This series should be about that.
And I don't know, I'm sort of talking about this often. I don't know if it's a quintessentially Australian thing. I mean definitely being Australia and growing up in Australia and then being the males that have been in my world. It certainly seems so. It certainly seems this idea of stoicism, I know, it'll be right. No, it doesn't hurt that much, like you know, sort of like an avoidance almost of vulnerability or of completely articulating how you feel.
And it seems isolated. It seems isolated to Australia because it's colloquial to us, you know what I mean. Yes, I'm living Australia, so I see it. I hope it's global. I hope other communities.
And you know, ratio wise, when it's not, it's not, I hope it's global. I do think ratio wise Australia, you know, it's not too fantastic in terms of numbers, and I think particularly within a certain age age demographic, it's particularly bad. And at the root of all this is, you know, like, let's investigate as to why that may be.
Let's start some of the conversations as to what may lead to things like that, or what are some of the signs that may be not completely visible to us that are there for us to investigate.
Have you been wanting to work with the ABC in particular? I mean, this home for this show is perfect and I have an honest belief in thinking Australia has ABC has a particular stronghold on the social consciousness of Australian people, which means that it lands really well. I don't know, I'm pretty sure the project was written for ABC. But did you feel like this is the right home for it.
I definitely do.
And I think it's because exactly what you've just articulated, I think, I think, and I think it's over the last ten years, it seems to have changed somewhat.
ABCMS seemed to be at the forefront of.
Stories that are taking a bit more risks, that are a bit more edgy, that are going there, and they're quintessentially Australian and they're looking really well classed done in the newsreader only so recently Total Control. You know, these are all varying, varying series. Fisco was watching recently and I've just seen some of the latest Ai Donna stuff, you know what I mean. This is really quite edgy stuff, you know what I mean. And we haven't seen a
number of our other networks. And I really remember when I first read the script, I was like, who's gonna Who's going to allow us to do this? You know, dildo jokes and we're dealing with suicide.
I'm doing it, you know what I mean. It's like and I was really impressed. And though there's a channel that my grandma watches, do you know what I mean?
And I think there's the years we've thought you can't say these things to different generations. But if you say that to your grandma, she'll be like, well, you know you.
Kidding me, mate? You think you wrote the book on this.
Yeah, you thought I did it before you, Matete, Where do you think you get it from? Exactly right? And people want to see real, real recognized as real, And I think that that's about wanting to explore ourselves. And I think ABC have always been very good at it, but particularly there has been a shift which I've noticed.
You mentioned a lot of shows Significant Others, so many other shows that I've seen recently where I'm just like, I feel I feel seen, I feel like and I want to laugh at this and I want to laugh at inappropriate things because life is like that, nothing's nothing's I've not been censored by the real world, So why should I be censored by the art that's created in storytelling? You know? A men?
And I think you know, and kudos at the ABC for allowing that. That's you know, I mean, it's not always unless it's sort of like happy ending, squeaky clean, you know, it can often be so hard to make. So I really, I really, I really, I really admire producers and creatives that are willing to sort of back ideas that aren't that are a little outside the box.
Do you know what I mean?
Because I think it's in that that you can you can potentially find things that are that are brilliant and fresh and new.
You know, is there more reward I don't know the best way to describe this. Is it more rewarding it as an actor to be able to well, I guess say, is there more satisfaction in a part, like a smaller role in a production at home in Australia to then
doing something like House of the Dragon. I mean what I mean it's a very broad question and obviously these different types of work, but I just I kind of mean for yourself, is there something more rewarding about being able to investigate something like this at home then you know something as Grandios's House of the Dragon.
It's sort of it's sort of project dependent. I wouldn't say there's something more appealing. They're just entirely they're entirely different in one way and they're exactly the same in another way. So what I love about here in Australia, and this is what the rest of the world loves about Australia. We can get things done world class in a quarter of the time with a quarter of the money, and we do it like this, right, we shoot sixteen scenes a day.
We can get it.
Everyone's like four in the morning, let's go out till six and rock and we get it done.
We get it done bloody well.
And our cruise and our creatives are so incredible at doing it, Like overseas, come down and you're like holy, it's like, yeah, we can do that. When you go overseas, that same project takes four or five six times the amount of time, Like you'll do half a scene over a week as opposed to sixteen a day. And so your job actually, the way you can serve your energy becomes different that you're the way that you on Limbo. We do there every day going okay, we're gonna do
this nineteene. That's that's really important. That's hard, and that's and there's that gag seene at the end of the day, can we do that after here, because we're going to be sweaty up, you know. Over there it can often be waiting for half a week thinking you're going to shoot on the Monday, waiting for half a week until you come in and shoot a quarter of the scene.
Just it's a lot more separated, it's a lot less all in one for all, it sort of feels a bit like a wonderful traveling circus of gypsies here in Australia where we go around you make little pocket families for six months or three months, whatever project you're making, you dive into that world, you dive into research of it.
You're each other's families literally sleeping, eating, living together for that time, having left your families at home, and you try and make something beautiful, and then you go and then everyone goes and does it in different places all over again, and it's sort of like you come in, you will try and create something and then go and
then leave. Over there, it's a bit more so you rock up and just just do your job and and you know, there's not nearly as much sort of like crossovers and being able to hang out with your crew and get to know them as on personal level.
And that's just because of scale. It's just because there's so.
They're doing things that are so much bigger, so much more, that they're literally a separation here. I really love the personal nature to what we do here. I love the camaraderie. I love I love the feeling of when everyone's leaning into a script. And I also love, you know, the challenges sort of getting there and like having to use all your engine and we get it done. I like less the having a sort of conserve for one half a day over over three months.
Do you know what I mean?
They're just different things, but ultimately they're the same. It's about connecting with another actor, and it's about trying to serve your function in a narrative that's bigger than you and hopefully make the story good.
Well, don't get me wrong, I think that you're consistently brilliant in the stories that you tell, so regardless of the process, whether it is global on one of those big sets, or whether or not it is more confined to you know, the comforts of being in a smaller set, it always comes across. It always lands the same way for me as an audience, as someone as someone in your audience.
What's about well, and that's that's a lovely thing to say. It's about It's about culture. You know.
I grew up in the in the Australian industry, and Around the Twist meant the world to me, do you know what I mean? And I'm very I'm very passionate about being a part of the culture which I'm a part. So I don't think it's it's it's less. It's just it's always about the project specifically, it's about it's about what they're trying to do, and where that is a sort of is very much circumstantial.
I love that you say that about Round the Twist. I love it when act to say I never forgot that particular moment or I never forgot that.
Deal is all scenes, you know.
Oh my god, another show that I watched a bit of over the weekend. Anyway, I literally I went to the Smaugers board of Ryan Core. I had a great time and I never threw up, which is always what a pizza hut mums like. You can eat as much food as you like, but just don't spew. Everyone who joins the podcast asked this last question, and that's something.
What is something from behind the scenes if in limbo, something of a kind of like a behind the scenes something we won't know as an audience, might be something funny that happened on set or something of a funny anecdote I don't know, like something that we won't have seen.
Oh look, there are a number of them. Bobby and I. I love it's appropriate to say yes, it is always Bobby.
And I had this one seed that we could not get through to the life of us, and the crew ended up getting shitt of.
Us because it was like it was this really important moment.
It's like where his mum, his grandmothers couldn't make it to his funeral because she she's not well, and and Nada to turn around and Bobbit to turn around and say no, Charlie, Nana needs to come, and we couldn't. Now I know it's juvenile, but we were talking about something else to come for far too long, and every time we turned around, go no, Charlie, Charlie, and it needs to come. We were to go too far, far
longer than it should. I'll also tell you that you know the work that's going on behind the scenes, the amount of love that's gone into this show overall.
Like I said earlier, everyone who's read the script wanted to be there from the bottom of their heart.
And you can really feel that leaning in nature, that that warm nature in in in what you see, I hope, and so I think that what peple won't see is how much genuine love and care went into the articulation of something that hopefully, hopefully you know, moves you or makes your love well.
It is extraordinary work. It is a very funny, very heartfelt production. I'm so happy for ABC that it's coming out and for people are listening to this now. It's great that we can sit here as men, different types of men, talking about mental health and hopefully that sheds a light on, you know, some of the complications we've had along the way with being able to express ourselves openly.
I really hope.
So, I'm really I'm overwhelmed that it's touched you like that. That's sort of exactly what we're aiming for. So yeah, I hope so too,