Sarah and Henry - Lego® Masters - Reality - TV Contestants

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Welcome back TV Reload listeners. My name is Benjamin Norris, and this is your podcast to get all the insight goss all 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 yet very little is known about how our favorite shows get made. However, each episode, I've found guests the 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

Oh thanks for having us mate, It's going to be a cracking season.

I think we've done things that we've nobody's ever done before with Lego, so that's going to be amazing.

Sarah, was it a surprise to get a call and be asked to return to the show.

It was a little bit, and I had a lot of stuff that I was doing out of Lego, so I wasn't one hundred percent sure whether I was able to do it. But then I found out that Henry was going to be my partner, and that was just a given.

So therefore I dropped everything.

And ran You're a sweetheart, mate. It wasn't a surprise for me though, Ben I am the original in US, so not me.

Henry is also super humble, as you can tell.

Had there ever been mentioned to either of you that there would be an All Stars, I mean, had there been conversations at any stage along the way that you know, sit tight and maybe you'll get a chance to come back.

It was always into that, but again, like anything in TV land, you're never certain. Then you just can never be assured until you're actually there. So until you actually step on set and you're like, oh this is happening, now.

You're going to wait you've got to be there on set and actually doing it exactly.

And there's always all these little whispers in the Lego community about what's happening, like there might be a Lego Master's kids, there might be a Lego Master's Grandmasters.

But you're right, we don't know until it happens.

Well, Sarah, what was your experience like last time from being on the show?

I actually really really enjoyed it.

It was an opportunity to be super creative because I'm a very very creative person, because I'm an artist in my normal life, and I met a bunch of really great, motivated artistic people as well.

So I love the whole experience.

And Henry, what about you. I mean, obviously you had a very good experience and the outcome is great. It's a bit of a silly question, but what was it about your first experience on Lego Masters that made you go I want to come back into it again.

Oh? Look, the first time I went on, I had done nothing like it, and I was probably still a little bit new to Lego. I wouldn't say that I've been a lifelong fan of Lego. I was like anyone else who had it as a kid and sort of just then got back into it when I had kids. That sort of that was my story. But my wife was the one who pushed me to go on it and said, you know, you'll regret it if you don't. Just have a crack. And it was just about having

And you know, mate, I was going to just stay with you with this question because being a part of the first series and then coming back, but is Hamish still the old Hamish? I mean, is he up the ante with some of his weird antics because I've watched every series and I think he just gets more and more stranger.

Oh yeah, he's It's funny to watch how much the gags have evolved. You would have never seen Hamish in Amurmaan costume in season one. You would have I don't think you would have been game to do it. And then now it's just like, oh yeah, I'm wearing a murmaid costume.

Doing the Murmuran costume in season five is what's he going to do in season sticks It could be a Noodi run, no Lego involved.

I heard a rumor that he wanted to do the Mermaid thing in series one, but it's took him five seasons to get his body looking like Sophie Monks, so they had to delay it.

I've seen the Daily Mail article about Hamish's beach body, so you can tell he's been putt in the work.

When he was on goggle Box, they really went to town about his what do they call it, man spreading. They said his legs were too far apart throughout the goggle Box couch moments, and I was like, oh my god. Well the Daily Mail will write about Hamish doing basically anything they will.

I mean, he's popular. He could be eating a cake and they'd love.

Him exactly, right, Sarah, what was the process like informing you both into one team?

It was interesting because we've never worked together before.

We both knew of each other.

It was a few phone calls before we actually started to try and sort of have a chat and see where.

We're both at. But we got on really really well, and I think that really helped.

I mean you can see that the two of you get along, which is great, But I thought, do they send photos of potential people? Did they send you like a list of three and said pick one of these men out of a lineup?

I think you're maybe thinking of, you know, that other show Married at First Sight. But definitely, if there were three photos, I definitely would have picked Henry because obviously he is the best looking, most intelligent, and has the most going for him out of any other contestant.

There would have been three photos of me. Then they would have been three photos of me different angles.

We're giving you options, and they've got three photos of Henry, maybe with like really cheap disguise on, you know, to make him look a little different in all of them.

Henry with different haircut, Yes, different haircut Henry I've got.

I've had the same haircut for about fifteen years. I love it.

I love it. But I can still imagine them getting out some you know, lego wigs for you to.

The lego hair right on the minifing. You know, you just put a cap on and it's just like snaps on.

It's like pick the Henry.

I had no idea I was going to have this much fun chatting to the both of you. No offense to the pre pregame chat, but you guys are both hilarious. Did you spend a lot of time together to have this kind of chemistry?

Yeah, I think we spent like we would have post episode dinners and talk like you know, so we and we actually have a lot of similarities in our personal lives. Like we both have three kids and they're all a similar ages, and we both have like a younger one that sort of came a little bit later than we wanted to both have.

One of the accidental children.

Yeah, so we were like, oh, you have one of those as well. I love it.

It's in the DNA. It's the lego DNA that is keeping you both together and living the sliding doors life.

I think it's great.

It's brought it together. You know, what are the similarities between your builds? I mean, do you both have a similar type of interest in building things.

I think what my interests are outside of the show in terms of lego building is really different to what we build on the show. My specialty is like I love Japanese culture, right, I love anime all those sort of things, And it's probably a lot more accepted now in terms of anime is pretty much mainstream now, like with a lot of you know, a younger generation in that, whereas it was a little bit of a niche hobby when I was a kid. And so I love building

Right, Like a lot of the stuff that we did I've never built before, exactly the same as Henry. The only thing I think that we both like is we both like a lot of color, yes, And I think we're pretty clever with our color choices and our color decisions. And I think that's where we're compatible on what we build.

But our building styles are totally different.

What would you say the differences? I mean, do you both clash at any point, like you're both having to work out how to compromise with the way in which we are building.

Not really, it's just I think it was a massive learning curve for both of us, and we just work together really really well. Henry's building styles different, my building style difference, so we kind of had to blend both in. But we got on with that really really well. And I kind of trust Henry's experience and he trusted me with decisions I made, and that's why I think it worked really well.

I can imagine for me if I was wanting to stop someone from doing something, I'd be slowly, you know, moving the red pieces away if I didn't want that to be used Henry.

Henry did not do that to me once, not at all.

Imagine that he'd be like, all of a sudden, Henry's got all the red bits in his pocket, just giving it away.

Honest.

Henry at times did it like the way that I built things, and may have altered them slightly.

Okay, Sarah would come back and go, oh that's changed.

I'll be like, yeah, this is like pulling the small brick from the bottom and watching it all collapse, you know, for people listening to this at home.

He would make the smallest like when we did our build with the Monster and we had all the little shipping containers where the monster was coming out of the ground.

I used a certain part.

He didn't like that certain part.

So I go to the brick pit and I've come back and that certain part wasn't there before, and I'd look.

At it and I go hmm. But I totally didn't mind. I mean to be honest, the things that he changed were better than what I did.

So we're all good with that anyways.

Right, and both still talking, so you know, the friendship hasn't crumbled. It's totally fun.

And I'm a massive perfectionist and I think Sarah is too, as being an artist, like a work's never done right, like a piece of arts never finished. So you have to be a perfectionist in those situations because being on Grand Masters, every single little detail matters.

It does.

Yeah, well, we've seen three builds so far. We saw the shipping container city attack. I think I'm remembering that off the top of my head. And then there was the duck smash yep. Then we had the coat hanger. Yeah, that's right, like a game of memory, you know where they moved them all around.

But he's done very well.

I've seen five episodes, so I kind of have to remember what you've done before you know, what was your favorite out of the three of them, Sarah, did you have a particular favor that you were really proud of?

Okay, I'm going to say that the closed rack probably was the one that I would be most proud of, only because now I'm not a great technical lego builder, so for me, that was super challenging. But the fact of it was a pole and it was really really heavy, and it was suspended off the ground, and Henry needed to kind of work out the engineering to get those four legs, which were on an angle, to actually be

It was amazing what he actually did and then it actually worked. It was cool.

Do you both get frustrated on what we don't get to see, because you know, like I have to say, I'm going to admit I've watched the first three episodes twice, and that was only because the second time I went back, it was because I was preparing for this interview, so I was scooping the episodes to go back, and only watch your parts, and then I was thinking as I was doing that, I was thinking, God, these contestants would get really confused or frustrated sometimes with not having the

Yeah, absolutely, you know, a ten hour build being condensed into five minutes of screen time, You're always going to struggle to get the parts that you want, you know, and you just have to trust the process of the show to show you in the best light. And ultimately that's what happens, right, you know, I do. I do get the feedback a lot that you know, the audience wants to see more building, more building, you know. You know, one are the techniques that you use from the you know,

I'm not Look, I'm just going to say this right off the bat. I'm not a big Lego nerd. I had Lego as a kid, but I have to agree with the Lego nerds on this one. And I think as if you were you know, I think that is what we're interested in seeing more of, you know. But we are absolutely talking about the same thing in the sense that it's such a short time to compare so much into so it's a hard job for them to put it all together. But absolutely I agree with you.

And I think as the teams, as you get less teams, you get more of that. But when everyone's on the floor still, it's a bit hard because you have to share the screen time with eight other teams or sorry, seven other teams, including yourself.

It's interesting doing the interviews as well, because Henry is very, very reserved and I never ever think about what's coming out of my mouth and all of a sudden it pops out. So we'd be doing interviews and Henry would be going, don't say that, don't say that, and I'd be like.

Like, they screened something the other night.

I think it was what's the inspiration behind the monster that you're building? And I flippantly said, oh, obviously my mother, And then I thought, oh.

My god, oh I've had those moments as well. I've had those room.

It's the best reality TV is all the stuff that you say without thinking, you know, because it's the relatable moment to the audience, because we all do that. We're all watching the show and we all go I've said that before, you know. I always talk to my mum about this. My mum and I share the same thing. We go to bed at night time and we think about all the dumb things that we said that we shouldn't have.

Oh yeah, you're talking about my entire life at the moment.

Oh wow.

There was a funny one that we had where we will be interviewed by a current affair and they said what's your you know, and they said what's your secret weapon to me and Sarah, And straight away I just blurted out diversity. I just said, diversity is our secrets.

Because we're really good looking as well.

That question has to be a stitch up because there are so many things that are wrong that you could say with that. So, you know, look that you know. I think you both did well to answer.

What you did.

I think.

So I didn't think that the diversity one would actually make it to air.

And I was like, that's too good not to go on.

I loved it. It was very very cool.

You know, Henry, I was going to ask you about the duck smash. Brickman gave you some advice about that, and I thought, you know, it could have been a little bit harsh. But how do you go with Brickman offering you that advice? Can that be sometimes quite frustrating? And do you always agree with what he's saying?

I think he always comes from a good place, And I think it's always hard to put yourself, even for Brickman to put himself in your shoes, because I guess it's a little bit different pressure, right, Like you're the only one that feels that pressure at the moment. And the way a build starts, where you start, that's where it'll like, you know, like an exponential curve. Where you start, you'll end up somewhere totally different depending on where you start.

The thing with Brickman.

Every time Brickman gives you some advice, you pretty much have to do it right. So if he says, you know, I don't like the color, you change it because you know that he's going to pick up on that in the end when judging comes. But sometimes he leaves the advice right to the last minute, so you've got like half oh.

It's great TV, but you've got half an hour to go and you're like, oh my god.

What are we going to do?

So you've got to kind of work out whether you change something or whether you just leave it because you've got no time to finish.

And it makes amazing TV because everybody's rushing.

Obviously, are there other influencing voices or anything else that happens through the production of the show. I mean, are they out the contestants of bring you any advice? Or only the producers saying thing?

I think the first time you go on, and Sarah,

Guys, think about that. I mean, you know, having so much to do with the show over the five years, is there an understanding because you'd be the best people ask this question. Is there a way they could up the ante with it? I mean, it is a very tight show of it is quite familiar to go back to it. I think that there's obviously some nostalgia and popularity, and that are there ways of looking at doing this show a little bit differently.

More prize money, actually.

I agree with that. I wreckon more prize money and free cars for everyone.

You get a car, you get a car, You get a car.

Now, guys, somebody's got a car under their chair today, but we're not going to tell you who it is.

That would so much better for me.

Actually, you know what, Ben I thought about this as well, like to up the ante? What would be like it's already done for this season, but like I mean, what would be funny is if you brought people on like the Grand Masters, And I thought this could happen where we all walk in the room, sixteen of us and they just go, you're all switching partners. Now, Yeah, that would be Antie.

The old married at first sight. You're meant to be with that person. But we'll start you off married with this one, and you will definitely end up with that one.

Yeah, build do to builds with your partner, and all of a sudden you've got a partner swap.

I don't know how people would cope with that.

I actually think that that would be quite amazing television. I think they would add a different dynamic to it, you know, it would How long are they shooting these episodes for? I think you might have revealed this a little bit earlier. One of you might have let out a little squeal about this. But from the time you get on set to the time they let you go home, how long are you there for?

Well, it's a long day because you start relatively early. So we were getting picked up sometimes at five thirty Henry, and occasional nights we get back about nine nine thirty.

Oh, that's too much lego. That's too much lego for anyone.

You've got all the set up as well, and obviously we eat in between that.

But you know, you've got all the setup and all the mic up, and you know, walking through the door and getting all the right angles, so things can be done multiple times. So with the filming and also the Lego they are really really long days.

Does everyone have to stop to take a bathroom break? If like just one person stops for a bathroom break, did they stop the clock or what do they do? Do they kind of get you to all hold on and then just go at the same time. What's the toilet rule?

Oh Ben, There's there's so many funny stories about toilet rule, Like we all get so accustomed to going to the toilet. When you're allowed to, you know, everyone's like, you know, the production managers like okay, now you can all go to the toilet, and everyone's like okay, cool, and then you come back on the floor and then when you go home, you're like, oh am I allowed to go? Now? Do you want need to ask someone?

It's like being in primary school and going it.

Takes about Yeah, it takes about eight weeks to adjust your bladder to Lego mast off the Lego master's clock.

It takes about eight weeks to get someone to notice it. You need to go to the louver.

And when you're my age and you've had four thousand children going to the loo, it has to be I need to go within five minutes because if I don't go between five minutes, then everything's off the table.

From that point, it's just yellow blocks across around the ground where you've been standing, just like yellow blocks.

And I've never run as fast in my life, let me tell you that much.

I also have to ask you about these builds, because I've been watching this for five seasons and I've wanted to note, do you get to keep some of these lego builds? I mean, obviously not the ones that you smash, but are you allowed to keep some of these builds because they're quite amazing?

Unfortunately not, because it seems the brick pit is unlimited, but it's not. You need to restock it. So this was something that was quite evident on grand Masters because we're all using very similar techniques because we're all I guess grand masters. Yeah, Like we're all using similar bricks, similar things. So we would chew through certain type of bricks and we'd be like, we need them from our old build. Go smash it, just get it, like that sort of thing.

I think we used every brown tile that was in the brick pit to do our hatstand.

I just want to quickly say that hatstand was so amazing because my mum has the same hatstand in her house, and it was just quite surreal. People be like, Ben, stop talking about yourself. No one cares. But I don't mention that your mum's got the hatstand. But she had the exact same hatstand at her house. So I was like, it was unbelievable. What you guys meant to do with that.

We actually modeled that off your mum's hat stand.

Oh you went there first, Yeah.

We did.

We took her hat stand. We took it.

We took it to Lego Masses.

We use that as our model.

Hell, mum, that hat stand is gone, and I noticed took it. They're on television. They're probably going to win, they might get more money. They owe your hat stand goodbye. I guess another good question to ask you, guys is about the relationship that you have with the other contestants. You know, some seasons it looks like there's more of a camaraderie than others. You know, with the game being at this next level, what was the vibe between all

I think there was. We all definitely were fans of each other, like definitely, like you know, we will all be like, oh wow, like I love this thing you do or I love this you know, like we're all fans of each other. The funny thing was, and Sarah will attest to it, because there was an age gap between a lot of our the contestants. There's definitely an adults table and a kid's table.

Yeah, I totally agree with that. There wasn't an adult kids table. Yeah, they just had chips and nuggets and we had like the seil on Stak.

The boys that won last year. What are their names?

Johssin Henry picked them last.

Year to do this chat, you know, as the first week happened, So you can't reveal anything because I'll get myself into trouble and so were you. But I wonder whether or not picking you guys means that I've picked the winners again.

Totally obviously obviously obviously.

Well, just before we go, every time everyone that joins the podcast asked this question, what is something And I don't know which one of you wants to answer this? What is something from behind the scenes, something that fans of Lego Masters wouldn't necessarily know, Maybe a funny story, something that happened behind the scenes that might be like a funny anecdote.

I've got one right, you know how Sarah was saying that, you know, the bus would pick us up at five point thirty in the morning and that sort of think. Usually it's a really drab, you know, community service bus, right that just comes and picks you up and says takes you set. For some unknown reason, this party bus picked us up and it was like a full on

All of the time o'clock in the morning.

At five o'clock in the morning, Owen picks like some full techno hardcore song to put on the bluetooth speaker on the bus and it's like a full on dance party in the bus at like five thirty in the morning, and we were just like everyone was just going off like it was like wow, this is a full on like party right now that.

It makes me want to leave phill It was funny because we kind of enjoyed it.

But he never came back after that city.

No, he did it. It was just like, was he actually meant to pick us up? Or was he just some guy that just took it.

No, Henry, you've got a lot of pool. You've got a lot of pool. You've put in a letter. You put it a letter of complaint.

To the wise.

Never do that to me again. Goodbye.

Another funny thing is we also always used to be tired, so when we're in our green room, some of us would actually pull asleep, and Scotty would go around and take photos of people when they were asleep.

Did you get one, Henry?

I did? I did, and I slept a lot.

Like I said, he's been twelve months. You know the twelve month calendar of Henry sleeping?

Now you probably could.

Can I just say, I've had so much fun talking to the both of you. I knew this would be a good chat, So don't listen to what I was saying before. I can't wait to watch the rest of this series. It seems like a lot of fun and I hope I am right. I hope I am right, and then you guys take out the competition, banks bed banks bed