It's in the news today, but it was actually on TV Reload the podcast last week. They're right. Hey, guys, welcome back to TV Reload. I want to thank you for clicking and downloading on today's episode with Vic Zerbst and Jenna Owen, who are the content creators and stars of Nugget Is Dead, a Christmas Story which drops ONSTAN Australia today. I have always found the Christmas movie phenomenon
to be quite unbelievable in its popularity. I have friends who live for the holiday season just to watch endless amounts of new Christmas movies that drop across all of the streaming platforms, and I usually avoid them like the plague. But this year I was excited to join the craze because of the people behind Nugget, who are whip smart, hilarious and have their finger on the pulse of social commentary. It's almost the anti Christmas movie in a way, and
I have to say I'm here for it. Vick and Jenna talk about their own experiences with Christmas and why they think all families at Christmas are a hotspot for hilarious content. We unpack some of the film's influences and find out if Muriel's wedding was something that made an impact on the writing of Golden Nugget. I will get to find out if this story is based on something
that actually happened to either Vik or Jenner. You guys are going to get so much out of this chat in terms of how we view our own family, why Christmas makes us a bit nutty, and why this film is the perfect pre Christmas homework. There is actually so much to talk about, with so many inside revelations on how this film was made. So sit back and relax as we unpack the wonderful world of the stand original
film Nugget Is Dead a Christmas Story. So excited to talk to both of you because I was doing this show with like a digital breakfast show, very COVID time, like it was very bizarre, but we were always mining for like good content and funny content, and anyway, we came across all of your work and we were just sitting my co host Alana and I and watch your stuff. So when this opportunity came across my desk to talk to you both about this film, I was like, Oh, this is so exciting, that's.
So nice, that's so nice. Thank you so much.
We're so proud of that, that your are, that body of work. It was not an easy and easy time. I don't know why we, of all people were allowed to keep making things.
It was so good because you know, I grew up with a family of our Sunday lunches, was always sitting around talking about politics. But at the same time we grew up watching sort of fast forward in the comedy company. They were doing all of that. They were mocking politics at the time, which when I stumbled across your work, I was like, oh, they are doing something very similar to what I grew up enjoying.
Oh that's not dreams, that's saying exactly the people and the show.
So we relied. Thank you, Thank you so much.
You know, I thought that this film is also a very interesting subject matter for you because social politics and politics itself is actually very close to family politics, and that is really the essence of what we're talking about here today.
Yes, that's exactly right.
Basically, this film it's you know, we had this big era at the feed, you know, doing our political satire, and then this film is kind of definitely like a departure from that.
Emotionally a little bit.
It was something that we kind of just wanted to be able to have an experience that was warm and beautiful and made us feel vulnerable, made us feel like, you know, happy, was something that we could watch with our parents, who would also leave that movie feeling.
Lighter instead of heavier.
So that's kind of like how we felt about the writing process, but also like being on set with you know, all the most amazing Australian actress you've ever seen in your life.
And I think for us it was moving from kind of a political satire space into like social satire or social commentary. It's like, yeah, character based comedy and all those same insights that you have into the way.
That the world works.
Like, I mean, everything is inherently political, but it's just leaning into the human side of all the things that affect us.
Yeah, I think that's what our life is like. You know, there's so much silliness that goes on and some of the most awkward moments are the funniest things that happened to us.
Yeah, Like my family makes me laugh more than anyone else, Like the specific things things that they say after a while, I mean it is in the movie.
But I you know, I always laugh.
My parents just have no concept of anything secondhand. Like they are always saying that my clothes look like they've come out of a bin, or like that my furniture, Like I remember when they first saw my share house and I was like, you know, trying to do that mid century thing that's actually you know, a reference definitely in the movie.
I remember my dad was like, it wasn't good then and it's not good now.
And I was just like, so funny to talk about like the things that I consider aesthetic or important and those cultural differences.
And that's also what this movie is about.
The journey for both Vick and I a feeling more resentment over those differences. I definitely when I first moved to city and I was trying to shed that kind of skin. And then I'd come home and I thought that some of my friends were having these like very cultured, elegant, worldly, amazing Christmases where you know, everything was mid centrally modern and it was all you know, the curated from model ANGI you know, cookbook kind of Christmas.
That thing. I used to feel really resentful when you know, my.
Parents would make that comments about the fact I was wearing a sack or that you know, I smelled like Grandma's closet.
But I think now I just find it's so funny.
And I also see like how they're right in a lot of ways, not necessarily about aesthetics.
I would never say my family is right about aesthetics, but.
I would say that their heart and their values and their ability to read people is quite accurate. And I think that was something that I was lacking when I first moved to Sydney. I mean, you see it in the film with the way in which Steph is like and you've had a similar experience with these like upper echelons of society.
You're very wooed by them. Actually you come up.
On a pedestal and then you go back home and you just go I wish my family was like that, or I wish that I would more comfortable in these spaces.
With these really you know, smart, worldly people.
But it's never really your authentic self, And it's just accepting and learning to love kind of where you come from and seeing the value in that that makes you an authentic person. And it very much is about like how to turn up authentically in a space. Because the character's staff is chronic people please are always trying to say the right thing.
And I think that.
She has got so much resentment towards her family for having to play a certain role, and she doesn't want to play that role anymore. And believe it or not, like sometimes really a difficult events or like coming together over the sickness of a dog, makes you actually have to turn up authentically because you don't have the time
and energy to put on airs and graces. In the process of being authentic and speaking truth, like being honest about where you are and not lying to your family anymore about you know, what your life is and whether your boyfriend's borrowed money from you or not. It actually forces you to come to terms with like being authentic, because real connection can only come from that authenticity, and connection based on a fraudulent part of yourself is never
going to feel as good as what it means. They're really connected to who you are, and that is part of connecting to where you come from.
You know, there's this middle ground, Like I think that if I completely pleased my parents with my actions, I would have remained somewhat regressed in you know, my emotional state.
But I think there was.
A level of growth that happened that for me, for anyone that kind of moves from, you know, their hometown to the city.
That was quite inauthentic.
And I think, if there's one thing I can say about my parents, they don't always get me in this way that we like try to kind of straw man sometimes. But whenever I have brought a partner home, or whenever I have been in an unhappy sort of relationship, be it romantic or with work, like, it's so clear for
them and it's quite painful for them. And it's something I've been talking more about my mom to my mum about recently, of that weird feeling of kind of seeing your daughter and knowing their knowing their heart, knowing their nerdiness, knowing their you know, hang ups, and seeing them with a new partner that's just so feel so disconnected from the person.
That you know they are.
It's almost like a more loaded version of how your friends feel when they see you, you know, with that partner. It they're like, why do you speaking like that? Why are you talking like that? Why are you dressing like that?
Like why are you suddenly caring about that?
Like it's exactly you feel like you that thing, and that's basically how Steph comes home and the family is actually, I would say in the movie, is more even subtle and accepting of that than even like I think sometimes when I've.
Come home, they're like, what the fuck is up your us?
Like, you know, that's what you nail the most in this You nail that feeling inside of all of us. I think when we go away from our families, the more time away we start to think about how embarrassing they are. And then you go back to Christmas in particular, which is just a gold mine for this kind of content, and you slowly realize that you are these people and
that is kind of comforting. And so I relate to Steph in that way where she's like, you know, she comes home, she's like, oh, yeah, you guys are kind of embarrassing, and I I'm trying to be this person. And the more she tries to be this person that she's created in her head, which sort of distances herself from her family, the more of an asshole she kind
of comes across as. And yet there's a bit of an aha moment which I don't want to give anything too much away, but she then realizes this is her tribe, these are her people.
Yeah, it's an idea of like fairweather friends as well.
I think it can be applied to just relationships in general in your life, Like this is not like a fair weather family, Like they're not necessarily the family that you're going to have fun with day to day, but when things go down, like they are going to be the ago that to have your back.
And I think that's a really important thing.
Like we've all had relationships in our lives if it's romantic, and in this movie, that's part of it. When Step starts to feel when Step asks for anything, when like she has needs and expresses them, like, that's when the zeb relationship starts to crumble because it's kind of like, hold up, I didn't sign up for this, whereas like family, for all their flaws, they did sign up for that, and they know they've signed up for that. And I think it's like sometimes that is a safer space for
a family to be in crisis. I know for my family, like day to day is hard, mums and you know nagging me, like it's you're snapping at each other. I'd rather do the day to day with my friends but sometimes like the real crisis moments, you can really have those with your family because that's where you're all leveled and.
There's not through the bullshit, don't they With our friends, we've sort of also got a lens that we put over ourselves where we're like we have to frame everything so people understand where with your family, they can literally be there at a crisis and straight away have all the tools to access everything because they literally have the blueprint absolutely.
I mean, it's just like where the crisis can actually unfold. I think we're so all used to putting on some level of a mask, you know, away from family, and I think it's it's funny. It's like why the Christmas like crankies are like such a thing, because it's like you spend this whole year being like having all this poison, having like going and going and like having this big mask on and like, you know, being around people who in a lot of ways know you better than your
family does. But then you go home and literally like I will just times get on the couch and not move for like five hours, and my mum will sort of help her around, ask me questions.
I'll snap at her and then.
She'll kind of bring me a cup of tea and then be like more chill. And you know, that's the kind of process. It's learning that there's different people for different things, and I think that's really important. Like I don't think that, you know, my family is ever going to satisfy that like deep culture. I'm not going home and having my mum share, you know, an incredible poem that she's you know, stumbled across, and I'm not having this conversation with my dad that's like what do you
think about the latest Archibald Winner? Like, you know, I'm not having those conversations, but I can find those conversations and.
Seek them out in this new world.
I think that what this movie is kind of about is like, you know, reassessing the value that people have and putting that on the same level.
And also updating the stories that you have around your family. I think it's an interesting place. We call this a bit of like a set in Return film. Like Seth is a character who's returning back to her family and has noticed that since being away, dynamics have shifted and families aren't always the same narrative that you grow up with. Sometimes, you know, you come home and your brother is so much more mature and so much more able, and so much more.
Emotionally intelligent than you remember.
Sometimes your parents like they're newly separated but still living together, so their dynamic is also shifted, and you have to update your narrative with what that family is and your role within that. So we call it like a Christmas story, and it's about very much the idea of like updating the stories you have about yourself and your family, because
you can come back and things can change. You're not stuck in these fixed positions in this Sometimes that dynamic requires that truth of like I used to feel this way. I don't want to feel this way anymore. How do you make space for this new version of me? And that's not just Step, that's everyone's family unit kind of
growing and changing together. And it's usually around the Christmas time, especially if you spent some time away, you notice, oh my god, there's massive shifts in the family dynamic.
I think what was really interesting for me and I think for what viewers will find. I think anyone that comes across this film will see this is see themselves in a lot of this. It reminded me of something that I'd never thought about since it basically happened, or maybe it's just been lying dormant in the back of
my head. But I remember on one Christmas my uncle, who was sitting next to me, started talking about wigs, and I was like young, and I hadn't come out and was very closeted and very unsure of my sexuality. And he just all of a sudden turned to me and said, well, Ben, if anyone here knows about wigs,
it would be you. And I was like what It was so like the entire table looked at me, and I just nearly was swallowed up, and he was like, you know, we're in Sydney and we're walking down the street and we saw all of these shops on Oxford Street and these drag queen's wigs. And I was like, well,
why are you saying that to me? The whole table was like, bekiuse ye're gay, but they didn't say that, And I just isn't it interesting within that family dynamic is that we all try to bring we try to Maybe my naive or maybe this is untrue, but I think we all try and help bring people along with who they who we as family think that we think they should be, do you know what I mean? We
bring this out of them in a way. And I just felt like as I kept watching this film, there was just more and more of those moments that sort of reminded me of that. And in some ways, it's kind of the anti Christmas film. We've been watching it Christmas films for so long, where it's all perfect and you're like, h hague myself because that's not my Christmas. Where this reminds you of all.
Of that, it makes me so happy. That's like the most apt kind of Really. I think you're so right. I think family, rightly or wrongly, have this idea of us, and they feel this ownership over us and our identities, and I think they drive us forcefully sometimes into that version of ourselves, and we're just never that. It's never that simple. Like there's things that they are right about, and there's things that are just so much more nuanced
that they'll never understand. And I think it's that's the pain, right when you're getting driven by your family into something you are this kind of person. There were so many parts of my journey, same as you, that were really hard for my family to swallow.
Because they were just like, no, no, no, no.
That's not that's incorrect, that's you're being influenced by X y Z, but you were actually this person, and you kind of go that is rooted and I was this person. There's parts of me that are this person, but I'm also this person. And it's them learning to let go of their expectations of you, whilst also you like taking some having some ability to listen to you know who they think, your heart, your core is, and I think
that's really important. It's really easy to lose your core when you have all new friends in an all new city, you know what I mean.
And it's just opening up what that story is about who you are and your identity, knowing that so many things can be true at once and we just kind of grow larger and more expansive and who we become, and instead of having a fixed idea of one thing, it's just allowing more and more space for the multiplicities
of dynamics and people and the chaos within that. I think you're right and saying it is a bit of an anti Christmas movie because it does try to lean into those moments of imperfection, like nothing is easy it's chaos and it's real. I think we were really we really cared about the details and the specificity and the truth of the characters. All of the actors just brought out the truth and just it always felt so real
and we were there. It felt like you're in this big families, big ensemble that would all move in one kind of blob, like we were always moving around from location as this unit, and it felt like it actually really did feel very connected and very family like. Also, just working with people from all different age groups and just different different experiences like that adds so much to the complexity when you come.
Home to family life.
It's some of the only times now we have to be around people who have very different day to day experiences from us, and it's having to contend with all those differences. That can be so ripe for comedy because you're having this conflict. But I think that's one thing and so we get all you know, and society we're not having as many of those moments because we're siphoned in these groups and areas where we feel safe in
this version of ourselves. But like Christmas is one of those times where like actually you have to talk to your own people who you know works in engineering and has no idea about this in this but how do you connect to him? And I think this movie is very much about connection and like the kind of vulnerability you have to offer up to find that connection exactly.
And I hope this movie is coming in a good time for like that exact thing. I predicted that this Christmas is going to be hard. I think there's lots of things happening in the world that are going to make for really hard conversations. I think it's like, you know, when we're in our city slicken little bubbles, it's pretty easy to like sit in the echo chamber and just kind of like go around and around saying the same thing with all your friends who will agree with you.
I think it's like a different thing entirely to go home to Christmas and know how to stand your ground with like softness and empathy. And I think that's definitely what we kind of wanted this movie to be about. Step give some You know, she brings softness, she apologizes, but she also stands her ground on things that she
still deserves and needs from her family. But I think you touched on it, like the other thing for me is like I just remember, for no reason other than the unrealistic expectations of social media, I have always carried a bit of shame and guilt around Christmas. I feel the shame of not having, you know, the family, the artist kind of ilk upper echelon family that I think that I always dreamed of when I was a kid. I feel shame about that, and I have the guilt that I don't actually spend.
More time and value my family more So.
It's this absolute weird mix of these emotions of like, you know, the thing that I snapped most of my family about is when they kind of go be nice if you stayed a bit longer, you know, that.
Kind of thing.
I also don't want that as well, because I can also say to you that I went out with this guy for like five years and he was the opposite of my family, Like my family is literally this family from this movie. Yeah, I was always like and sorry my boyfriend at the times family was exactly the opposite, which was the family that we were constantly sort of comparing yourself against the family that we have in our mind that even doesn't exist that we're comparing ourselves against.
To be like that's what Christmas should be, where we've always got that. But I went there to this fancy Christmas where everyone sat far away from each other and they all had gin and tonics, and I remember after five hours, I went in their laundry, into his laundry, his parents' laundry, and screamed into a basket of dirty laundry because I was like, I can't fucking do this anymore, like as in exhaust it wasn't what I wanted as well.
And then I mean I did break up with him. Sorry, James, if you ever listened to my podcast, I'm I'm pretty sure you don't, but I just remember being like and like the relationship crumbled from that point of that moment realized that if I was to stay with this man, these are the people I will be in twenty to thirty year time, and I would prefer to be with the shag carpet of my embarrassing family's home than these wooden floorboards and conversation that was just as wooden as the floorboards.
You know what I mean, You've just nailed it, like, you've just nailed it that exact thing, and I've definitely gone.
We've both gone.
Through through that asically what you've just described, it's just this pedestal. It absolutely and that's so good about getting older, Like I think it's also a film that's like you know, we say, well you say more so, but since steps in her Satin return in this movie, it's that like you know that twenty seven twenty eight where you're still just like having the growing pains of like who am I?
Like, what do I actually value? It's all that identity stuff.
And then it is nice getting older because exactly what you said, you kind of like all these.
People come off the pedestal, like all of them come off the pedestal, and you realize what makes you feel good.
You connect back to your feelings about things and when you feel like you can feel it in a space where you don't feel good and you used to in the like in the past, even I just feel like I pushed past that feeling, so I go, that's actually what's right and I'm wrong and like the world is right, but I need to be better or is it a switch being like maybe I'm like fine and I'm okay and I can be myself and the world that I'm in maybe.
That's just not it.
Yeah, And I think it's that switch that is the biggest switch, and it's the most helpful switch you could do, because you spend your whole life being like I've learnt my whole life from the movies, from the TV, from everything around me, that this is these are the kind of things I need to do to be, you know, a good person, or to be a valued person in society. But then it's like, actually, the value, it's a questioning values movie.
The value is much more.
Suited to people who actually see you, who care about you, who are present for you, who might have imperfections, but they care and they try. They want to understand you. And I think that's always the conflict is the you know, Steph's family. They want to understand her, they want to be in her life, they want to ask questions, they try to connect, and sometimes that tension is just like their attempts don't really fit in with her, like what she needs or how she feels that she needs to
be connected to. But there is never an absence of care and love. And it's being able to see past. And this is the main thing going back to family, being able to see past all the superficial kind of things that you see that shadow what it is is like true people just trying to connect. Yeah, and our whole Like when we're doing political sat type was always like what are the human stories?
What are the human experience?
Is one of the empathetic responses to what's happening politically And if we can find a way to connect back to the human and to see someone like I to eye first and know all of this stuff is decoration and noise and silos and information, But what is it the core of this? And do we both care about, you know, caring about each other, caring about you know, people like I really do believe people do care and they do have an open heart. When they're told they don't,
they will be very defensive. And I go work playing into that same dynamic. But if we say I want to see you, I want to connect to you, can I come with love and softness?
Yeah, you guys get it. You guys get it so well. Like honestly, it's just so fun to watch. I always think of your work. Well, I will continue to think of your work as you find the murial in people. If you love Mural's wedding, and I don't know if you.
Do, but it's sure it's.
My favorite austrained film. But yet I always think the best humor to me is Finding the Murial, and that is that Muriel was actually not a great person. She was kind of flawed, and yet there was some real humor, but there was some real depth in that humor that meant that not only were you laughing, but you felt seen. And I think the two of you, with your work so far up into this date, I just I feel it's really exciting because I relate to that. I feel like you find the murial in comedy.
Saying that means the absolute world honestly, which is like that's all we could have really dreamed of.
And I think that this movie was, yeah, departure for us from like more of a cynical brain that satire sometimes operates, and more of it just like what is at our core is like trying to bring people together and have conversations that are you know, maybe help people remove some tension, can make people laugh, but like remove
that spikiness that we feel. Yeah, like everyone relates to that feeling that comes up when your mom or dad says something and you just do that politically incorrect and you just shut down and you're just like I am shamed and I hate it here and I hate you and you're an idiot and there's like no further conversation to be had.
And I've had so many of those screaming crying in the room, like you know.
But I think what's what we wanted from this movie is Yeah, that's softening.
Like I think, and that's the healing, and that's what we've all experienced.
I think we love characters so much because I think Vick and I have both had so many different stages as people personally, like literally like transformation like every year. And I think that we can tap into different journeys between the two of us quite well. But yeah, and I think that's in I hope that's in the movie.
Yeah.
Well, it's a good thing for people to watch. If anyone that's listening to this right now, I honestly can say that you should watch this film because it will help you with your own Christmas.
That's the true family move. Watch it with the family.
And I don't think the conversations that come from it, I would imagine are good ones.
Not a conversation. I don't want to watch it with my mom because I'm afraid that she's going to ask me all those questions. No, I'm kidding.
My mom's seeing it for the first time on Monday, Like I'm quite nervous.
Yeah, all our.
Parents conversations, conversations that we've both had with our.
Moms, Like family from Western Sydney's coming.
I'm interested in you know, they are very heavily inspired the like Rodinson side of the family in the movie. I'm interested to see how they feel. I mean, we're feeling vulnerable because the week's about to begin of like, you know, the people in our lives seeing this movie and like be interesting to see how they feel those representations are. But you know, it's just it's just funny for non TV people as well to just be like, oh is that what is that? Is that mean?
Is that I want to be there for this screening? By the way, I just want to watch the family. You know. I finished the podcast every time with a quick question, and that is something from behind the scenes and something that maybe the audience won't get a chance
to know. And I was going to ask you guys, if there's something in this film that you've actually borrowed from a real life situation that's made its way to the film that maybe you might be a little bit nervous about having in the film because someone's going to see this and realize it's then.
The juiciest one apart from the obvious the film is based on a Christmas you know, I actually had with my family and the dog.
The jusiest one, or one.
Of the juiciest ones, I would say, is the boyfriend said intonation and way of speaking I think would be quite obvious to people that know me about a certain x.
Yeah.
Yeah, his therapized language that he likes to kind of throw out. So that's probably and you know we've all had that. Yeah, that is one thing that makes me nerves, I guess.
And just the certain styling certn styling choices. He's a cool guy, he's a We hope the character Sab. We want every girl to be like, oh my god, hi, i'd and it is.
It's it's a stranger than fiction. Yeah, I just hope that my SEB doesn't feel too attacked.
You know, there was this whole thing on set like Justice for Seb, like some people with Team SEB.
I don't know, so you know, people watching go he's not that bad.
Well, he exists in the real world, and all of these characters exist in the real world, whilst they be leveled up or amped up a little bit. The film does what it says on the box nugget is dead Christmas story. It's kind of the anti Christmas film and I can't wait for people to enjoy it. Girls, thank you so much for being here and chatting with me today about this film. I am obsessed and I'll be in your audience.
Thanks your luck to meet you, and thank you for your amazing questions.
It were so good.