Virginia Gay - DANCING WITH THE STARS - Actress

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

Weep that line.

Welcome back, guys to TV Reload. As you may know, my name is Benjamin Norris and this is your podcast to get all the inside goss on the popular TV shows you may be watching from around the world. Undeniably, our TV sets are a major part of our home entertainment, and yet very little is known about how our favorite

Oh my god. Well, I will try and give your gifts them.

I'll try and do my best.

Little missus clause at.

So embarrassing at last year's logis you were walking past me and I was like, I've been a huge man, just spoiler alert for a very long time, and I couldn't help myself, but I tapped you on the arm and I just said, I think I said I love you, and you've very calm, didn't act like a psycho had touched you. You just said thank you very much. That means a lot. It's a big night. So you don't remember some hideously gay man approaching you and telling you

Hiz. I'm honored, I'm thrilled. I couldn't be more stoked. And now we get to deep in.

The friendship and that's the joy, that's the real joy, of course.

I mean, you have done so much this year. Safe Home was amazing. I reckon. That's the best show that we've made here in Australia this year.

I listen. I am so proud of Safe Home.

I am so proud to be a part of it. Holy crap.

I really I watched it back. I saved watching it until it was on television because I sort of wanted the steeling of watching it as everybody else was watching it.

And it is so electric.

That is world class Telly. And I can say that because I'm actually barely in this I'm only in about seventeen, so I can talk about it like could complete honesty and be like, that is world class television.

I had to keep checking the remote control because I'm like SBS. I mean, I love SBS, but I mean it just it just felt so incredible. And it also the mission statement behind the whole thing was just so good and so and I mean all everyone that worked on it was so good. But anyway, we're here to talk about stars.

But you know, apparently apparently that's the official thy Yes back.

In time and do like a like an unpacking session of that show. You know, feel free to call me back anytime.

That's your best I love that.

So I've got to talk to you about Dancing with the Star. So it's such a good show. I actually think this has been one of the better seasons that I've seen in a while. I can imagine, yes, why did you think that? I mean, for me, just all the performances were really electric. All the celebrities we actually knew who they were.

I just loved. I loved the feeling of What is really remarkable about this show and which separates it from literally, I think any other reality show, is that the feeling backstage is so joyful and loving and really just embracing the ridiculousness of this thing that we're doing, the bunktisness and.

The bravery that it asks of you.

So their sense of backstage, everybody going like, hey, I know that was scary, but you looked really beautiful, and I really saw you when you mark when you like in those turns.

I saw how much of your.

Terms rest is last week, like how much you've grown.

And so I think there's really really good dancing in this season. And I just think everybody is really nice and funny and themselves like they're all their own their own brand and flavor, Like it's not a sort of was of people like We've got It's as silks there and we had Matt Matt Matt Cravat his Instagram name, but like you know, and then the fabulous Chrissy will and Brown and that Oh my God, and Emily Weir and Joe.

Are like in stil from human nature, Like everybody's got their own flavor and they're really working within their own flavor too, And I think that makes for a very varied and very rich show.

But yeah, I agree. I think it's just it was just good people.

That's a good thing.

How does it compare to I mean, you've just done a cabaret festival in Adelaide and so there wouldn't be that feeling before you go on stage and do that kind of stuff. Is it a different kind of feeling when you're backstage on a TV show like this and you're performing, yeah, sort of live the whole all of Australia. I mean, what does it compare?

It doesn't compare actually, partly because like my whole life, my whole performing life, which is you know, from the age.

Of that it's twelve, was when I decided I wanted to do this.

My skill set has been acting and singing and that's just that's where my strengths lie and that's where I feel comfortable. So when I feel nervous before I show, I can still say to myself, Hey, but you've been working towards this, or you know, like nearly thirty years, you know in your soul that you can do this

That my body should do that. Is that strest.

It's wild to think that we true, like I truly didn't know that I could move like that and that I could rely on my body to remember those moves and to sell those moves until I did it in

Like how do people deal with this level of breast and confusion and.

Lack of lack of assortedness, And then you then you just see the real person.

And that's again that we come back to the fact that.

Like they really were just very good, very good hearted people in that show, so that when you saw them totally in the shit, you don't go.

Or it's you know, it's Carcraft celebs and you go, look.

At you, you beautiful thing.

You look at it, right, it's really lovely.

He's say.

Still was my favorite for that because that man has never never even thought about dancing in his life, and he found such musicality and he really grew as a dancer and as a performer over the the whole season. Like I just love watching him grow and watching him kind of blossom.

Un Sage, I thought that was beautiful.

Yeah, he was good. I mean, I think you and him particularly worked out the best way to do this is to sell the performances, like for both of you, for any time that there could be a slight second where it's not going the way that you just could over sell that part. Is that how you felt about it?

Yeah?

I didn't know that that was a useful skill set that I had until somebody mentioned it.

It was like maybe like week three.

Somebody was like, yeah, but you're selling it with your face, and I was like, oh yeah, because the only times that I've ever had to dance before has been like a box step in a musical. But when you're in a musical, you don't want to let the other incredible dancers down by by drawing attention to yourself by by looking out of place. So I was like, oh, yeah, okay, I can definitely I can do up here for dancing. But I did what I didn't have the skill set for was also down.

There for dancing.

You know, the feet was the feeble, the whole different thing. But keeping the smile on my face and like that feeling of selling a dunce or selling it as selling a move or a stape. That was a really useful thing to know that I had in my skill set. But again, yes, didn't know that I had. And I think also there was something for me where I was like, oh, I didn't realize that. Actually, of course, my job as an accent is also to look at people and go,

Your shoulders a little more slump.

Oh yeah, that's probably like to look and to observe people and to put my observations of those people in my own body.

So I also think.

That that served me again surprisingly well, that I recognized that one of the things that I was doing with Ian, my partner all the time, was going, well, yeah, but what your hip is slightly?

Oh right, so you've got your so your weight is astley and.

Your back foot at that point okay, okay, So like that's literally the job as an actor is to observe other human beings and try and put those qualities on their body. So I feel like I also had a little trick I'm very grateful for.

I just have noticed and someone pointed it out recently about my favorite actors, and it all comes down to that style of acting which I didn't know was of you. I'm not an actor, so I didn't know it. You're very good in the moment, Like there's something very convincing because you can see you thinking in the role, Like even you know through I know that this sounds you're you're an actor. You're like, you're an idiot, that's what this job is about.

But no, no, I love it.

But I can see it in that you're thinking and you're reacting like you're absorbing the performance in front of you.

You really beautiful thing to say.

I really appreciate that you that's the common I think I was talking to some kids that whopper the other day because I'm a whapper girl and I was over there doing syrh at the per festival, and I was taught. I went back to my school and I spoke to the kids there that I mean, they're not kids for young adults, you know the university study. Yeah, but I was talking about how actually, that's what an audience is

It's absolutely true.

Like that's the that's the dynamics. And with them stand up to the moment.

When we can dig here, not as a.

Stand up but just doing some shows here with a lot of I'm like, yeah, that thing the thing that I do in a scene with an actor, you do directly to an audience with an audience, and you play with an audience like it's the other actor in the scene. And I found that quite exhilarating to watch and also to to just sort of unpack and be like, yeah, that's it, that's it, that's that's.

What we're selling.

But that's sort of the commodity. I mean, that's what connects with an audience. Because I remember even I was in New York and went along to this is going to be really random, so come with me. But I went to New York and a friend of mine, he works in the biz, said do you want to come along with the Lincoln Center and see Meryl Street being inducted into the Hall of Fame. And yes, of course we sat so far back that she was very small, but it was definitely worth it anyway, it was so amazing.

So a lovely talk on a Friday morning.

Up, I'll call you every Friday, Mate, I'll call you every Friday.

We'll have a come on Friday talk.

Here we go.

But you know what, it's interesting when you see someone like you. When I heard you were doing Dancing with the Stars, I was very excited about it because I'm like, I love you as an actress. I think you're phenomenal. But then I wondered whether or not you've been asked to do these sorts of celebrity shows before, because there's so many of them in this country. I'm sure that they've been asking you. What made you say yes to this one?

Yeah, great question. This is the only one that I would do.

And the reason for that is twofold one is that I have always wanted to learn to dance.

I have or it's just such a hunger in me.

And I know that my little ADHD brain I would never learn unless I did it intensively for five or six hours a day for one stretch of time. You know, my brain doesn't work in any other way.

It's called hyperfixation.

But but also my schedule as a you know, as a gigging actor, means that every single week is different. Every you know, I'm in a different state. I'm currently in Melbourne and I will only be here for two days. So the idea of going to a Saturday morning dance class just would never work for me because I would never get enough routine enough to actually to get into it, you know what, I mean, to actually really enjoy and

That's all there for joy.

It's it's a completely ridiculous, vulnerable thing to do, and it may need from joy and the vibe backstage is joyful. And that I was like, fantastic, and I'm in I have no interest in I mean, I said this before, I have no interest in anything that. Actually I didn't say this, I said this on a different interview. Like, I tried to think about this entire experience not as a competition.

In fact, if I thought about it as a competition.

At all, I could feel the joy leaching away from me. So the only job I meditated twice a day that was also a beautiful thing for me to just actually go, like just disconnect from your ego, to be just like just sit in the space and become still and quiet.

Because it's vulnerable and exposing.

So it happened to joy for me. And weirdly, as a result of that, I think I have been doing very well. Like I'm really I'm very surprised by that. I was really prepared to. I considered myself a very very bad mover, so I was really prepared to be like, do not spot at all basically.

And perfect schools, which most people never get, never in their life.

I know, and I think, like, I just picked that's because I wasn't pursuing a perfect score. I wasn't pursuing the numbers. I was pursuing joy in the act of dancing.

That's it.

It's funny that you say about calling people. I was in Ireland and got a call to do the show, like it was just an availability check. They never ended up offering me to do the show. I think it was in twenty fourteen. It was a while ago, about ten years ago. And I rang Brendan Vavola's what What's with the Stars? And so I rang Brendan Favola's wife, who she done the makeup for one of my really

You know?

Or am I beings as some sort of entertainment of a mockery? You know? Like is that we all instinctively get that straight away? You know?

Yeah? I think there was something too about coping with the sas where I had to say, I will look silly, like I can't die, So I had to also be okay with that.

You never did like you never do, not bless.

But baby, you have not seen the rehearsals. Like the packages, the ninety second packages do not do justice to where I came from.

In my Beautiful Dance partner occasionally.

Would just say do you remember you in the first week, and I'd be like, yes, see, and I do because I've lived like that my entire life. The number of times you have to say to me, no, darling, your other last yep, sorry, sorry, yep, yep, got it, got it?

Which dance was to learn? I mean they all look quite complicated. I mean it'd be easy to say that the favorite one is going to be you know what You've got your tens for? Which was the feeling good? I think it was the Fox trocke.

Yes totally sucked right, Yeah, I think, I mean I do.

I did love doing that because of the way you are required to move in that it's very much it's much more my style, very slow, very elegant rather than but powerful and dynamic as well too. And I loved the feeling that because of the place that it moved out, I had the chance to complete each stape that I wanted to make, if that makes sense, because it felt

Two minutes total, but then.

You know you've got nines across the word. I mean, that was funny. You were either all eights or nines all tens. I just love that painted black and thought because it was the first time we saw you in the in the competition. I really, for some reason, that's my favorite performance of yours. So it just goes just I couldn't be a judge because that was the one that we got love score for. So I have no idea about dancing, but I was there for the theatrics of it, you know.

I mean, wasn't that glorious?

That's Tim Chappell, who's, you know, one of the most amazing designers in the world.

How much do you have out this?

I mean, I would expeact.

Probably not enough enough.

It's an enormous amount of work.

I don't want them, but I'm just like, this man is incredible, Like these rooms are incredible. Yeah, did you You're doing the dance, enjoying the rehearsal, and they're measuring you up and there's all of that happening. Do you get any creative control over those outfits or do they just turn up? Thank you so much all the very best.

You don't get any creative control that you can say this is pinching me here, or I can't move in this, or I need to pick my leg, I would love a swift here, or you can you know, you know, you can occasionally say I don't feel like there's something about this that sits in my body in a in a shape that doesn't make me feel super confident. That's a really good thing, and that's and certainly being able to articulate that is again part of the loving feelings.

So they're not going to put you in.

Stuff that you don't feel positive about and that you don't feel common them in.

But it is like it's super exposing.

Also because you know, none of I'm not a personally were sequence like, but I'm saying I essentially dressed like a farm girl most of the time, you know, flaid shirts and gum boots, like I'm auditioning from a cloud daughters right now constantly, constantly, So that sense to like hyper sam or like high power. Even the suits that we will for the quick step, it's still like not a style that I'm used to like wearing and selling. So that's also a thing where you.

And they're also big.

They've been made for spectacle, they're not made for fashion or for your own personal sort of life. So you put them on and feel larger than life. And you know, certainly that first outfit, the Evil Queen, I put it on.

And I was like, well, fucking no acting required, Jesus Christ.

I'll just stand there and you know that in the corset and the headdress and the eye make up.

I was like, okay, I see her.

Holes wearing that.

You know, No, I didn't.

Thought about it, thought about it, just keeping out gut and I had a cigarette.

Did anybody want to cut?

I just also think you'd have PTSD for the rest of your life. Like you'd hear a tin a little bit of the music, you'd see the costume which hopefully you have a go and Ian walks past you on the streets at Sydney and you'd you know, obviously have a breakdown. Like I feel like the style of this show, because of how much you're giving yourself up mentally, mentally and physically, just just going to have a reaction with you for the rest of your life.

Absolutely, and the level of adrenaline and cort assault that floods my system when I hear the opening bars of Paint It Black, or or any of the other songs that were done to It's just wild to me.

I could still feel it.

And also, I will tell you something super strange.

I was watching it. I was watching the episode, whatever episode it was, maybe it was a foxtra. I was watching it with someone, and my body was to echoes of the movements on screen. My body was preparing, like I could feel my back muscles tense, preparing to lean back and make a shape. I could feel my I could I could feel my leg twitch as I knew I needed to take a big ship out.

Which is wild.

Wild. But do you know what's so funny? You're saying that? And this is going to people also think that I'm weird. This podcast is called When Ben was Weird with Virginia Game. I remember watching a show that I did for the ABC, and it's such an it's such a weird thing to watch yourself back. And you don't always watch your shows back, maybe for this reason. Yeah, but I was watching it back and I was shadowing. My face was shadowing what I was saying on this show. Because it's me. Oh

So like it that is really interesting.

We're just little monkeys, you know, We're just little monkeys with big brains and stupid problems, and we.

Get big brains for me, not so much.

It's big of.

Brains and monkeys, is what I'm saying, is what I'm saying. You know. But like that thing where if you're so an animal or mirror, it'll be like wait what wait wait what what? Maybe that's it. It's out it's that prehistoric part of our brains where you're like, oh, yeah, that's okay. We're just we're just little mammals, little mammals, little confused mammals.

Sometimes I think it's wild, like this whole business. Like, I think it's the reason why I've always been fascinated with it is there's a there's a human psychology. I'm now sending like Oprah or something. I'm making it sound more than it is. But you know, there's something very fascinating about the human condition of being able to explore it in different facets, even as far as dancing with the stars, you know what I mean, Like, it's it's fascinating, yeah, human watching, Yes.

Yeah, agree.

And that's again that's again when you when you watch a great scene, when you watch a great scene of the drama, you're you want to see people without their armor on, just connecting in some in some way. Right. And then this again, in a completely different way, you're

And the joy that flooded through her and Liu was just.

Beautiful to w and I was like, that's that's it, that's what we want to see.

We want to see that electricity.

And it comes in. It has to not come easily. And again that's the same thing in a great scene. You don't want to nobody automatically just goes to the heart of the matter, the truth of the matter. You find ways through with your scene partner, and people put up walls and you've got to get around them in obstacles and objectives and all of that, and then you earn something crue in the scene. And that's I think that's what you are sort of seeing in a little

It resonates, It resonates with us all. I mean, that's where those shows work best, is where we as an product can see ours alls on screen, we can feel that emotion we can relate.

Yes, exactly, because we're just mammals.

We're just mimics.

We're just creatures looking for community and going. That feels real to me, That feels like what I feel like. Maybe I'm not alone.

It's so true.

That's that's the best way of saying it. We are all looking for community. I think that's the best way I'm saying that we want to feel.

A part of something totally. Yeah.

Oh well, that's not what I thought.

I was I very deep.

I don't know. I don't even know. I had so many questions to ask you, but I'm just I'm running out of the time, so I just will quickly ask you about the judges because people always want to know about them. Did you have a particular judge that you were scared of? Did you think they were too mean? What was your relationship with them?

And I think a really useful thing to remember is that it's all theater, including the judges, like it's there.

Those people are all of them.

Very nice people, and they're playing the roles of the main judge or the you know, they're providing a bit of friction and drama. Right, So Todd and Craig are both two of the nicest people you could ever meet, and.

They are a few times and the first time I interviewed him was in person in a radio studio, and there was a small part of me that was scared, you know, I was like, oh yeah, And then he came in. He was so disarming and so kind, so generous as well, but not in the way that it probably sounds like he was generous in his conversation, like thoughtful, yes, and yeah, it was very quiet. And then I don't know, did you watch him in Significant Others as well last year?

Yeah, they're so good in that.

He was so good, that good.

In that, Like I don't know what was going on with him at the moment, whether he's going into more acting, but he is a very generous actor as well. Like his performance in Me.

I loved him in Significant Others.

Oh yeah, it was really really It was also such a great The flavor of him in that very heavy drama was so great because it was light and it was funny, you know, it was it was a really important flavor which allowed you to consume the drama.

Better, if that makes sense.

You gave you a little lightness, a little breathing point a little laugh, a little relief, and then back into loss and pain.

And that was really smart.

But again same with Craig, Like Craig has been employed to be the evil judge, the you know, the bad one, the main one, and here's a laughing, smiling, ridiculous human being in the best possible way in the real world.

And it was so nice to spend some time with.

And that's the other thing too that they actually, like they say, like they make sure that after the shows, especially when people are going home have been eliminated, that they make sure that there are these big group meetings

As a person, you know that kind of thing. So it was great to see it.

From the outside and be like, oh, yeah, we're all just telling one story, which is like, oh will it will they make it over and.

Over again, And it comes down to like the shows that rate like this has done really well. Dancing with the Stars this season's been great in the ratings, and the seven are very happy with it. And an executive said, not this one. She didn't tell me it was. Another producer said to me, if you're making television, if you're making it with heart. It rates, and so he tries

Isn't that great?

I'm so pleased that it rates, because again, that's beyond the kind of that's beyond the kind of television that I'm interested in making.

Expect week it's in the world of reality.

Like honestly, I just I'm not there for it. I have no interest in anything that pits people against each other.

I know.

I mean Pierre, who is again such a wonderful, warm, generous human.

Being and a very fucking good dancer let's say that too, like.

Good child and looks to well brilliant.

She really really, it's wild to me. She has not aged, but he you know.

He one survivor.

I know, did you watch that season one?

Mat No? It is the thing.

I don't watch it because I cannot watch people being pitted against each other.

I'm like, I don't, I don't want everybody did on and have a good job.

So the fact that kind of vibe, I'm like, I couldn't do that. And to see that Pierre, who as I said, is just a big hearted, glorious human being, could do that, I'm like, it's very impressive, but it's not in my wheelhouse. But I will learn to dance for you.

I would love to do that water thrill.

Well. The last question I get for you is something I ask every single person who joins the podcast, and that is what is something from behind the scenes, something that we didn't see that we won't see that you can reveal as kind of a bit of a behind the scenes secret of your time on dancing with the style.

Oh what a great question.

It's hard, you know what. I asked one person once and he was like, oh, I don't know, and then he just something just came to mind, and then I looked, I don't I should have Google alerts on myself, but I don't. Anyway, it was a few days later I looked and there was there was like fifty stories right across the world about this one story that he told. And I rang him and I said, have you been

Just love it.

Will you tell me that story?

So barked mine.

Oh well it was. He's the executive producer of By a Celebrity, Get Me out of Here, and he's we were watching one of the contestants one day. He was just telling a story to one or the other. I don't know what they call them, camp mate, celebrit it is whatever, and you know, he revealed a story about how he met a very famous woman and they started

Wow.

But like, you know, you can tell a story that's just even a funny anecdote, like you know, you fell over or I don't know, you know what, Ian one day I told you you were the worst dncer of all time or the best dancer. Oh, it doesn't have to be that. It's fascinating.

I know, I'm just going to think.

I'm trying to think of something like truly thrilling.

God you Gabrielle or Francis or one of your car the names by mistake.

No, he was from England.

He didn't know who I was. Blessing he was. He was starting to watch winners and losers though, as like on the plane on the way over and he was like, oh, yeah, I know, I know, I know about Francis.

I was like, oh yes, sure, sure, Like was he going, oh, well I'm dancing in this one? Well I should probably be. And then he could ask you, ye some questions like you know what what did happen to? Totally, that's a good enough secret to be honest with you. That's I'm happy to leave that in.

The that he had no idea who I was, He had no idea who you wasn't hilarious And that's also.

An extremely healthy place to come from. Imagine if you were like nervous or too tense about the person that you're working with. We did actually really get on and that is that is the absolute truth, which is a real treat because when you were also spending like six hours a day pressed up against someone, you know, it's a very particular level of intimacy. And so the fact that we just continue to boot with laughter constantly was

That's not a good secret, but it's true.

No, that's a good secret. And it's interesting that you say that because I'll let you know that I've met any a celebrity who didn't get along with their dance partner, and that really says more about them. I think whenever I hear that story, I think that says more about you than it does about them.

You know, when you go on dates with people and sometimes you feel like I can see you're a good.

Person, but our chemistry isn't right. I think that's totally viable.

Our pheromones are not speaking to each other, but yeah, on my pheromones would definitely be through another Ginia.

I just want to say I absolutely adore you as a person that I watch on television, as a person in your audience. I have loved watching you on Dancing with the Stars. Thank you so much for saying yesterd doing it, and thank you for generosity with chatting with me this morning. It's it's a bit of a hope for it because it's been.

A beautiful morning. Thank you so much, Thank you for having me