Welcome back to TV Reload. My name's Benjamin Norris, and on this podcast I'll be going behind the scenes with the biggest players in television. I want to thank everyone for your support of this podcast. Please press subscribe to TV Reload if you are a first timer, and for those of you who are back, please share this episode so we can extend to this little community of TV enthusiasts.
Last week I had a week off as I was going to cover Dancing with the Stars, but that interview did fall over at the last minute, as these things tend to happen. But don't worry. There's plenty more big names and shows to cover in the next few weeks. I even have Sonya Kruge swinging by to talk Big Brother twenty twenty one, and as it can tell, I'm stupidly excited for that. Anyway, I'm getting ahead of myself
as I usually do. This week's podcast, I have an experienced producer, Kirk Docker, who has worked on You Can't Ask That right from its conception? Can you believe? It's up to series six? Still going strong. It's one of my favorite shows on the ABC and it's basic premise of asking simple but sometimes confronting questions to a collected
audience who share the same liaved experience is genius. This show is back on Monday, the twenty eighth of April, so stick that in your TV guide because you want to miss some of the most fantastic and fascinating topics which will leave you thinking you can't ask that. Yes, I was on an episode if you can't ask that a few years ago, But unlike other episodes of this podcast, I won't be getting bogged down in that as there's way too many other elements to unpack. A small detail
to add is Kirk is taken so upfront. I want to tell you that, as he is intelligent and intoxicating, but I want to cut your wall off at that point, as I do often get people asking me if my guests are in a relationship, which is cute but sometimes creepy. If you listen carefully in the background, I'm sure you can hear his girlfriend making cups of tea at one point, so back off and don't be weird. Anyway, Let's get started with this episode as we find out some juicy
details behind the scenes. If you can't ask that with today's guest, Kirk docker.
Generally it's watch all the rushes, pull the best bits out, and then start weaving each question together.
How could you be such a pig? Every single season?
When I bump into people who watch the show, they always have a different episode that was their favorite.
When did you realize you were transgender?
Hopefully you come away having as Andrew Denton used to say, fuck me moment?
Have you ever been abused? Because you're amorsdim.
We wouldn't keep making it if we thought that we were going to make a lesser product.
So yes, we can still have six. They didn't cut off my dick.
I think the challenge at the moment is so much content and it's really really.
Hard to get cut through.
How are you, Maja?
You're well, I'm absolutely fantastic. We've just delivered the newest season of you can ask that season six, and now I get to talk to you, which is very nice.
What point of the year, because you've now up to series six, I mean, this show started I think it was the third of August in twenty sixteen, you know, and so annually you put the show together. What point do you start looking forward to going back to that editing process.
The editing process is grueling, and that's half our job is editing it. If you imagine that there's eight episodes per season, eight people per episode, so sixty four people. Each of those people I interview for.
About two hours.
Some are in pairs, so those pairs we interview longer, maybe up to three hours. So each episode has about fifteen to sixteen hours of content that we crunch down into thirty minutes. So it is grueling process, and each of those episodes we spend about three weeks on in the offline, so that's the process of watching all the rushes cutting it down. The way that we edit is
a process of elimination more so than building. So we might build an hour or an hour fifteen of the show where all the different questions are answered, and then from there we trim, trim, trim, trim, and crunch it right down. So that part is the hard bit because you're cutting out amazing things that people have said time and time and time and time again. So there's a lot of arguments about what gets to stay in and
what goes. So when you hand the whole project in, for me, it feels like handing a giant Uni assignment. That's how I sort of feel about it. You're handed in, it's like dropping it off, and there's this huge sih relief that this thing is being handed in and you're happy with it. And not only do we deliver eight episodes, but each episode has another three or so social media clips, and some of those are uncut or completely new pieces of content, So you're creating all this extra content as well,
which is totally normal in this day and age. You're cutting a trailer, you're making a press kit, you're doing all these extra things. So when all that gets handed in,
it's a huge syh relief. But then you're also when it goes to where you're sort of back on again because you're paying attention to what people are saying, to how it's being received, you're doing some press, so you get a little break till the show then goes to where then once it's sort of finished, going to where we have a bit of time off, but you're always ticking over new ideas, new ideas of what new topics could be and just letting them ges state is that
the word when you're letting it, letting something just sort of percolate in your mind, what could be an interesting idea for next season, and what does that mix of episodes look like, because it's all about the mix.
Well, I think, you know, the concept is quite simple of the show. You know, each episode you're asking a controversial question that's been sourced from the public. And I really just remember that first series coming out. It was
so groundbreaking. I mean, you were talking about transgender people, sex workers, Muslim and I think it was just so powerful as that became this show that we could go back to every year, but it never escaped me the amount of work that goes into that would have to go into this show, and I think that it's still so enjoyable to watch, Like the reward at the end of delivering that show must feel amazing, because you know, we're six series in and I'm lucky enough to see
the first two episodes of the new one, and it's just as potent, it's just as relevant. It's actually better, Like I think there's first two episodes of the new series to me felt like the evolution of your storytelling of this series is so powerful now, Like it's even more muscular, it's even more taking on a journey while still feeling like you're listening to someone naturally unravel something.
Look definitely, I think, oh, thank you, that's a really nice commalent to say that it's better. We wouldn't keep making it if we thought that we were going.
To make a lesser product. So we're trying to raise the bar.
Each year in terms of the topics or conversations that we're having, because it is about conversations that you're trying to have.
And the other thing you.
Said, which is actually really important, is it looks simple, and that's what we want. We want the show to feel and look simple. We don't want to be something that is too hard to digest. We want how the answers all flow together. We want it to be really intuitive and easy and natural. And that's where in the editing process it takes a lot of work because every answer that someone says links to the next answer, which links to the next answer, which links to the next answer.
And the way that we think about in the edit is that here's eight voices who are very different from each other, even though they have the same label, say lesbians,
but they have all these different answers. Yet in the edit it's almost like they have this one voice, this one voice which adds to each other, builds off each other, contradicts each other at times, agrees with each other, are surprised by each other, and so we try and build this sort of one long voice that weave through the whole episode, which sort of darts off in all different directions.
This season, what allows us to do, being six seasons in is actually start touching on topics that we probably never would have thought about doing in the first couple of seasons and try and have conversations which are a little bit different. And for me this season and for the team, we were very, very interested in the relationship. We're interested in, I suppose how dos coronavirus effect us
in some respects. So we didn't do an episode on coronavirus, but we did do an episode, for example, on adult virgins because we were reflecting, especially because we're making the show during coronavirus, this sort of lack of contact, this lack of intimacy, and you often heard, especially for example, over in Perth, if you didn't live with your partner, you weren't allowed to visit your and so there was all these conversations around intimacy and maybe lack thereof, And
so we thought, imagine if you've never experienced intimacy in that sense. And then so that took us down this that was the original question that took us down the path of exploring adult virgins. The first episode is cheaters or Infidelity. And look, I'm not ashamed to say that I was listening to a lot of Esther Peerrell and was very inspired by her. And she's a if people don't know Esther Perell, she's an accounts I suppose, a
marriage psychologist. She's written a whole lot of stuff on the relationship, and she has a fantastic podcast where she basically broadcasts her counseling sessions with couples of all different persuasions. And so I was very inspired by her thought that ninety percent of us have experienced cheating in some way, shape or form, whether that's our parents, whether that's something that we've experienced where it's someone close to us, but we've all been affected by it. Yet it's a conversation
that we can't have. It's so black and white that this was wrong, that person was right, let's ostracize that person. And yet the reasons that people cheat are so complex and varied and nuanced that we thought that was a really really important space to have a conversation.
A happy person doesn't cheat unless you've got issues.
And even our producers felt awkward about doing this. Hey, we can't give these people a voice. So when you get that reaction right at the start, you go, Okay, that feels like a group that needs to be explored. You know, that feels like a group that people hate.
And how can we.
Humanize a group of people that, like I said, if ninety percent of us have experienced it, they're all people in our lives, they're people all around us that were being part of that group. So season six allows us to tackle topics like that that we probably never would have done early on. I know that I'm going to go to the questions that will make me like my eyes back in my head.
How do the people want to know?
I don't think I should answer that question. I love talking about that stuff. Oh my gosh, Yeah this is a good story.
Oh yeah.
On this surface, everybody thought that was all well in my world, but it wasn't. Every night I would basically cry. I knew something was wrong with me.
I didn't know what it was.
Yeah, I felt pretty defeated.
Well, you haven't got anywhere yet you don't know the worst of it.
One thing that I want to go back to well before we get more into this new series is how did this whole concept come about? You know, how did it come to life?
It originally began with myself and Aaron Smith, and Aaron's a director and cinematographer, and Aaron and I worked on Hungry Beast together, which was a show that happened in two thousand and nine to twenty eleven. We did three seasons of it, and the idea was Andrew Denton had a production company called Sopruda's Other Films, and they put out after he finished enough rope, he had this idea with some collaborators to go, what would happen if we
gave a whole lot of young people a voice? And we found sort of ten to fifteen young voices in the country, put them in the room together and said, make a current affair show doing whatever you want to do, and all of us will sort of us both digital natives at that point in time, we were making stuff on the internet, on YouTube, etc. And we pulled this team together and Aaron and I were both part of that team, and we collaborated on that show many times,
making all sorts of content, and one of the things we created was this series of ox pops where I'd go out in the street and we'd set up this black piece of material, and for every episode of the series of Hungry Beasts, we had one of these box pops. So I'd go in the street with a set of universal questions, so what do you fear, when's last time you cried? What's your favorite thing to play? Things that everyone has an answer to, And I'd stop people in
the street and ask them a series of questions. We'd go back and we'd edit it together. And so the editor was Nick McDougall, who's the editor, And you can't ask that. So we'd put these little three and a half minutes to five minutes of.
Just basically humanity.
Here's thirty faces or fifty faces that we filmed all around the country in rich areas, poor areas, the top of the country to the bottom of the country, all different colors and faces of people, and they're all answering
this one question. And what you really got from these box pop is that here's some person that you may think is nothing like you, yet they're answering a question in a way that you can identify with or that you can connect with, and so it was a way of sort of connecting people to people that they never thought that they were similar to. And so we always loved this idea of asking these big universal questions of
ordinary people. And when I say ordinary, I mean just everyday people that we met on the street and.
So you kin't ask. That was sort of born from.
That in some respects. We then collaborate with John Casimir who work with us on Hungry Beasts and John was the creator of breun Transfer before that, and so he was working at the ABC, and so the three of us John, Aaron and myself sort of put our heads together and in some respects evolved the vox Pops brought in this sort of idea of this asked me anything type thing that we saw on Reddit, and other than asking anyone that we met, we then specialized it down
to a group of people and ask them a series of universal questions. But those universal questions, I suppose were the questions you can't ask. And at the time, in twenty fifteen, twenty fourteen, twenty fifteen, there was a lot of what can you say, what can't you say political correctness? I don't want to put my foot in it. I think a lot of people were starting to be far more aware of being aware of what you say and
what you can't say. But it meant that it was stifling conversations in some respects because everyone felt like, well, oh, that's the one. You know, Aboriginal people like being called indigenous, and that's it. You can't if you say anything other than that, then you're wrong. It's like, well, hang on, how about we actually asked them what they want to be called? And actually what everyone wants to be called, if I can answer that question, is or they want
to be known as what nation they're from? Was the overall overall answer that everyone had. You know, they said, look, some people like Indigenous, some people liked Aboriginal, but everyone seemed to like the idea that you asked what nation they were from. So it's sort of that's where it sort of started. Originally, we were commissioned for I view.
It wasn't commissioned for television. We were given us We're given the chance to make ten ten minute clips and as we're interviewing, and this is the one that we realized that couldn't be ten minutes when we were doing an episode on transgender and we had eight people in the room or seven people in the room are asking them all these questions, so there's no possible way we
can tell their stories in ten minutes. So then we went back to John who was head of a head of entertainment the ABC at the time, and said, hey, can we make this long? And he said, mate, it's five you you can make it however long you want. So that's when we started making these pieces longer than ten minutes. And then from there, when the ABC saw it, they went, hey, this should go on TV, and from there it went to TV.
Well, I guess it's the best fly on the wall content I have seen on television, especially even looking back at twenty sixteen unpacking some of those topics, because I just kept thinking, you can't ask that, you know, that's the name of the show. I thought it was amazing that you found this place in space that people feel comfortable to open up and unpack something that was quite personal to them, but allow them to answer the questions that where's an audience we're desperate to know the answer?
I mean, were you ever in production thinking you can't ask that.
Yes, lots of times the questions, especially in the first season, felt very daunting to ask to print them on cards and ask them questions, and some felt like a real SmackDown, you know, they felt very They felt like, oh, this is you know, it's unfair to ask these questions of these people. And also we don't tell anyone who comes
to show what the questions are. We allude to the questions, I suppose, because when you're pre interviewing someone to come on the show, you do talk about what are the questions you hate getting asked, and what are the things that people judge you on, and you.
Know, what are the things that people always get wrong about you?
And so you start getting a bit painting a picture of the areas that are the areas you need to ask. And plus we have our own curiosities of things that we don't know the answer to, because you know, for example, someone in a wheelchair, it's like, you just want to know.
How do you have sex? Like, how how does that work? Can you feel?
Can you feel anything? It's one of those things that you sort of just are curious about that. So, yeah, we definitely felt nervous about it. But what we realized very very quickly was a couple of things. One, if you put the questions out on a card like we did, because the questions did come from the public, even though I curated the questions, because we've got so many, we've
given the power over to the people. So they get to pick the question up, they get to read the question, and then they get to answer the question how they wont and so already there's a certain amount of power given over to the person themselves, and they can say, hey, I don't want to answer this question, or they can
take it down whichever path that they want to. Now I asked follow up questions, of course, but already they get to choose how they want to respond, and they get to take the question in before they answer it. The second thing is what we found is that none of these questions were ever a surprise. Even though we thought, oh my god, this is so full on, they all went, oh, we thought they were going to be worse, or we thought they were going to be more full on, or we've heard.
All these before, but it's nice.
Normally people yell at us across the road these questions, or they say it in an abusive way, whereas the way I like to think of it is that even though these questions on paper look quite horrible, sometimes we're asking from a place of love, and when I'm sitting there, I really really.
Care what this person has to say.
I want them to shine, I want them to do a really really good job, and I want their point of view to be heard. I want them to be understood. I really want people to watch our.
Show and walk away going right.
So there's that full question, but actually the truth is so much more interesting or nuanced or boring. Sometimes the answers are actually really boring to a question that sounds really spicy, and that's sort of good too, because people think, oh, there's all this weird stuff around this thing, and I can't ask it because who knows what might happen, And the answer actually ends up being quite plain and quite boring,
which is sort of nice too. So we stop getting nervous about the questions because we thought, you know, people were adults. They're coming on the show, they know what it's about. And then once one season went to air and people saw the way we treated people's stories, it became far easy to get people to come on the show. People started putting the hand out, going can I come on? Because I want to be understood.
The thing that really struck me as being quite fantastic is that most of these questions feel like a hit and run in real life. You know, most of the time, when you're asked your question about your minority, and it's usually in a way where people do feel uncomfortable to ask you, it feels like a hit and run. They just hit you with it and you don't get the right of reply. And I think that that's where their respect is there, because you're finally giving people the opportunity
to give a respected right of reply. That's exactly right, that's what they've never been allowed to have. I mean, I did that episode of You Can't Ask That for reality television, and there were so many good questions in that episode because most of the time those questions had been said to me in a really negative context or in a way to hurt me. Where when I sat down in front of the camera, it was very obvious to me that this was an opportunity for me to
be able to answer it in my own time. And that felt respect it like that felt like good conversation for some reason.
That's right.
The questions really are there to open a door to actually learn about someone, as opposed to from a place of voyeurism or trying to harm them or take the piss out of them or make a joke about them. They're just there to open the door to an interesting conversation so we can learn who these people are.
Were there any hurdles on getting ABC on board?
We were really.
Lucky because we'd created We sort of had this track record of creating these vox pops which which everyone sort of liked, and they showed the humanity in them, so in a lot of respects. When people saw the first edit of our first episode, it was like, Okay, this is working. And because at the time lou Porter was our EP and John was the head of entertainment, we were given a lot of trust in terms of how
he made the show. We were working with not only collaborators, that people who trusted the type of work that we made, and that's what you need when you're making content is really at the end of the day, the people who commission the content need to trust that the program is going to turn out. If they don't trust you, that's
when people get involved. So we had to trust that the show was going to turn out, and I think that the show ultimately did exceed the expectations of maybe what they were expecting, and it ended up being, like I said, a little bit longer in those early days.
And really, the concept's so good, and I don't think anyone really realized at the time that the simplicity of it and asking these questions and then having people sit down and answer them so honestly, how ultimately interesting and fascinating and heartbreaking and hilarious and all these series emotions that happened in such a short amount of time.
I don't think we foresaw.
How it was going to turn out, so it was also a pleasant surprise.
How long does it take to come up with the topics for the series?
Look, as we've gone further into the series, it's harder because there's less topics. We've done a lot of the
really good, obvious ones. But how we think of it is like we'll go into the start of pre production, so day one, where all the team comes together, I'll have a pretty good idea of a long list of topics that we've sort of thrown around already, so we came in with a long list, so you know, we might have a long list of twelve or thirteen or fourteen topics and across the season of eight episodes, we're looking to have a variety, so we want we'll generally go, okay,
is there something in gender or sexuality we can look at is there something in sex. We always like to have something we very sex positive show, so we like to look at sex. We looked at BDSM in the past,
or swingers. We looked at polyamory, which is not I wouldn't say necessarily sex, it's more relationships, but we you know, we look at that sort of we have a bucket for that, and then sometimes we like to have an episode where we put people with profile on screen and you get to see them talk in a way that you don't normally. In this season, we're looking at ex footballers. We've looked at former politicians to go love to see these people speak in a forum that's very different from
how you normally get to see them. And so we have all these different buckets of episodes and then we tend to have an episode that's probably a bit more challenging, So something on domestic violence, or something on sexual assault, something on suicide attempt survivors, where we get to really go deep with a topic as well. So we have all these different buckets of topics and then we look across a season of eight episodes and go what feels
like a right fit this season. For example, you know, we have a disability in terms of amputees, we have something on sexuality in lesbians. We have something a bit heavier on families and missing persons. We're looking at the relationship stuff with cheaters, and then we also have we want to make sure that the faces that appear on camera are really varied and of all different backgrounds, of ethnicities,
of socioeconomics. I think that often gets forgotten when we're talking about diversity is hearing the voices of people of different socioeconomic backgrounds, people with different acts, sense, people with different beliefs, all these things we're thinking about not just in the series of topics themselves, but then the faces that appear within those topics. We want to hear a variety of voices and ideas and ideals within those So
that's sort of how we do it. We start with a larger list and then our team starts putting these preliminary phone calls out seeing if we can find people, seeing if people are interested in talking about it, seeing if there's enough questions that we really want answered, And from there we put out to the public, Hey, here's our long list of twelve topics. What questions do you have? People send in questions, and then some people nominate, Hey, I'm in that group. I wouldn't mind being on the
show and talking about that stuff. And from there we then whittle it down and make a final decision on those eight topics, probably about two or three weeks into production.
What I think is interesting is the diversity of the voices that you find. You know, and obviously there's these phone calls that go out there where you're talking to people, so you're looking for different elements of story. Is there a type of personality that you kind of have to wean out, Like you're always looking to hear authenticity in the voice, Like you're like that person's got great stories, but you know, doesn't seem to land as well. You know,
like is there something in particular that you're looking for? Yees, because when I think of this show, I think of this real earnest sound in every single person.
I can tell you right now. What we're looking for, first of all is people who own their story. So if you are under any illusions that you're not this person, or you're making excuses for who you are, that you haven't quite owned who you are and haven't owned your story, then it's going to be very hard for you to come on, because see, on our show, we can't really have people, we don't really have things, people with opinions,
or people who are who don't tell the truth. I don't want to say lies, but people can't tell the truth. So it's very hard to have people on that are hiding something, that are feeling that don't want to tell the truth about something. So you need to be comfortable in your own skin, I suppose. So we're not necessarily looking for extroverts or introvers around that sort of stuff, but we're looking for people who are like, this is me and I own my story. There'll be different people
on different levels of that, but that's first and foremost. Secondly, I generally prefer people who haven't done that much media. I don't really love spokespeople as a general rule, because I don't want people rolling out stories they've told a hundred times, and it's sort of like it's I want people to when people haven't done a whole lot of media. It means I can have a much realer conversation with them without them feeling like they have to they're leaning
on stories that they've practiced twenty times. And then the third thing is, although I love having fans of the show on the show, sometimes having fans of the show is difficult because people come in sort of having prepared what they think a funny answers or something like that, and I don't want that. I just want someone to come in and just have a conversation with me and tell the truth of who it is to be them.
And I just want to understand what it's like to stand in your shoes at the end of the day. This is not like, you know, if you're going to here on a panel show where you need to be fast and snappy and have your answer done him in thirty second. Grab For me, I want to go deep.
I want to go down paths, weird paths that they weren't expecting and we may never even use that stuff, but I'm there to understand them wholly and fully, so I need someone who's willing to I suppose go there and tell me about their life.
I want to unpack a few things that are there. Have you ever played an episode on television and then found out down the line that that person's story wasn't true?
Umm? No, But I suppose I'm not really then going and investigating it later, unless that was to be fed back to me by someone. It's hard to know. And also people's personal stories, it's hard to know. I suppose what I mean by truth is that our questions aren't about opinion that much. So for example, it's about a belief system. Necessarily, our questions are more about the personal.
So if what people are generally telling me your personal stories about themselves rather than their personal beliefs, like, for example, we can't do things abound the environment where we might ask someone a logger, for example, who cuts down trees, and we might ask their opinion about the environment because or on the flip side of that, someone who's an environmentalist, because if they say something that's factually incorrect, the only course we have is to edit it out.
There's no host there.
To go, Hey, what you're saying is not factually correct or there's no voice over anything, so the only course of action we have is to edit it out, and then you don't actually get to hear the truth. So really our show relies on people's personal history, their own personal story, so it's hard to find out sometimes if someone's not telling their truth. But yeah, look, we've definitely had some groups where I'm sure we haven't heard the
whole truth. And I know that was true in an episode on gambling where I know someone was holding it back a little bit of truth during their interview, and actually that did come out ultimately that they said, hey, I've quite told the truth. So where there's shame involved, I suppose at times where maybe they don't want to reveal everything, they might curb the truth a little bit, but generally we tend to get past that. In the pre interview stage.
You're looking for their truth, you know, so their interpretation of it's their account of what had happened. Even if they do tell you a story and then it turns out that's not how it happened for everyone else in the room, that's still their truth exactly.
And look at this idea of what's true and what isn't true, it's really in the eye by the holder sometimes and.
You don't want to get bogged down in that.
No, and especially if you're you know, if we've done some episodes on people who experienced things like natural disasters or you know, someone's that put Arthur and these sorts of experiences, well, you're under intense trauma, you're under intense stress, and some of these things happened ten, fifteen, twenty years ago. So the idea that everything they remember is exactly factually accurate,
it's not what we're trying to get at there. What we're trying to get at if you want to watch shows documentaries about a certain thing, that there's other programs
to watch. What we're trying to get here is an understanding of the human condition, and how does someone deal with something like that, How do they deal with in the moment, how do they deal with it afterwards, how they reflect on it, How has it ultimately changed them or affected them over time, and how have they grown and learnt and how has it impacted them over their life. That's the most interesting stuff for me, more so than
say the facts like one hundred percent right. And often when we tell those stories, we don't include every single beat of those stories. It's not what it's about.
I think it's human nature to compared to different people. But I always find every episode I walk away from my partner and I always watching it together, I'm always like, I really liked that person. You know, I didn't like that person. You know, it's human nature to relate to people all talking about the same thing, like they've got a bit more humanity to them, or they were a little bit too silly. You know, it's quite a brilliant show in that regard.
I never thought of it like that.
I suppose what I'm most focusing on is making sure that what goes to air is who this person truly is, that their true essence goes to wear. But yeah, sometimes you hear that song goes I don't really like that person, I'm like, really, wow, I love that person.
I really love them in real life.
And then you start worrying, have we not got their genius to air? Have we not got their true beauty to air? But I think that's just human nature. Like you said, there's some people that you resonate with more than others. And every single season, when I bump into people who watch the show, they always have a different episode that was their favorite, and you really can't pick it.
Some people, you go, really that that episode that was your favorite episode, They're like yeah, yeah, yeah, blah blah blah blah blah. So it's hard to tell. And it's not just about I suppose the topics or what people say sometimes, but you're right, it's the types of people and if you're at home, you just connect with different people.
Sometimes when I watch you kin't ask that. I'm always thinking about how clever and how simple the show is. And yet some commentators of television is saying that we're struggling to find original content on television, which you know is crazy. Are people over complicating what makes good television?
Yeah?
Look, this type of show is not easy to make. It's you don't just turn it around in a second. It's about having a variety of shows, isn't it. I always have ideas for shows which I think would fit on different networks or at different times and hit different purposes.
But I think what I particularly like about our show and sorts of programs we like to create, is that you're not just entertained, but hopefully you come away having learned something, having had these as Andrew Denton used to say, fuck me moments, moments which which you know, not that everyone has water coolers anymore, but that gives you something to talk about the next data gives you something to dissect, discuss, to challenge someone else's thoughts or beliefs, or challenge your
own thoughts and beliefs.
So I think.
It's important that the content we make, and we're in this very very privileged position to put something to air and have a broadcast, to put something to air that a lot of people watch, I feel like it's an important that what do I do with that space and that privilege, And you know, let's not just put something to where that entertains, but let's put something to whar that does these other things. That being said, I like
watching things that entertain me. And if every show was you can't ask that, it probably get really really boring as well. So you know, if everything that was worthy or earnest, then we might get sick of that. We just want something frivolous. And it's about that mix, like like like in our season of eight episodes, it's that mix of variety, Like if I didn't get to watch sport and sit down and watch some rugby rugby league and watch guys running into each other at full gas
while I'm having a cold beer. Then I would probably be a very, very sad human. So I think the challenge at the moment is there's so much content and it's really really hard to get cut through. And this week's darling, everyone's forgote about next week, this fresh new idea in a month's time, none even can remember.
The name of the show.
So it's really really hard to get cut through at the moment. I think that's the biggest challenge at the moment to create, And that's why I think people throwing so many ideas at the wall really to see what sticks, Because how do you get cut through when you've got all these freeway networks, You've got all the streamers, you've got YouTube, you know, Hollo of audience, don't watch TV in its traditional form at all. You got the cinema, which is, you know, that's my favorite place to go
on consume content. You know the sin people throw at the cinema completely dying, etcetera, etcetera. So how do you get cut through with these ideas? That's the trick.
I think it's not stupefying the audience. Like, I think we are smarter these days. We're wanting to absorb things in a different way. It's interesting. I don't know if you've been to see Nobody at the cinemas, which came out two weeks ago, if you haven't gone see it, And I remember, like about twenty minutes into the movie, the movie took a significant change in storytelling that it don't feel like we had ever seen before. And then you as the audience were like, well, the violence can't
be any more gratuitous than we've already seen. And then they would up the ante again and you were like, oh my god, they're breaking all the rules on what it is to not stupefy their audience and to give the audience truly what they want. And I think that's something that, you know, six seasons in, is pretty amazing that you guys are still surprising audiences and still delivering and not stupefying them.
Yeah.
Look, look, you make a very very good point. They're not treating the audience like the stupid. I think that's really really important. I don't think everyone thinks that way. I think people like do dumb down content. They try and hit the lowest common denominator sort of stuff in films. Look, you can take more risks in films. TVs far more risk averse than everyone's heard the stories of how some of the streamers and whatever are deciding how they make content.
It's literally on algorithms and what people are clicking on, and it's like, Oh, everyone's clicked on that type of show this week.
Okay, let's make a show like that.
So it seems harder to take risks in television or people are more risk averse. But you've got to understand too that these commissioning editors, the people who are commissioning the shows, their whole job relies on people watching their shows. It's this big machine that relies on audience and eyeballs, and so they have an opinion about the sorts of content that's going to get those eyeballs, and sometimes that opinion means making it stupid or not taking a risk
on a new idea. And then you see something that's risky and not treating someone stupid, and you're like, oh, this is such a fresh breath of fresh air, and you're like, why don't people take these risks more often? I don't know, it's a difficult equation.
I suppose well not to play Sophie's choice with you on this one, because this could be very hard. But in this new series, which episode is your favorite?
I was most.
Excited about the Cheetahs episode because that has taken us a long time to make. It was really really difficult to make, and I really felt like these are people that people hate and have no time for, and to get people to come on and answer these questions. The first question is how could be such a pick? And then it goes on from there. So that was a very, very difficult episode to make. But there were some episodes this season which were really really surprised and amazing, like
Lesbian's episode. One of those episodes where you sort of felt like, is they much to learn about this, and then you realize, oh, yeah, actually I know absolutely nothing. So I found that really surprising. I found the amputees episode really hilarious but also heartfelt, especially when talking about
intimacy and body image and that sort of stuff. Obsessive compulsive disorder I think probably was the most misunderstood group of people because the idea of being OCD is like, oh, you've got this list of curios this list of symptoms, which is something that's funny, you know, wash your hands
all these times, or turnlights which on and off. But what we learned very very quickly is that you know, this is actually torturous and if you wake up at the start of the day and you have these fears that these things are going to go wrong, unless you do these compulsions, then you can't operate. And so one of the guys, one of the lines that one of the gentleman said was you know, if you're washing your hands till they bleed, you know, this is not a
funny thing. This is very very different from wanting your desk to be need or wanting to have a neat house. So OCD I think was something that felt like, oh, this is just a list of funny things that these people do to being like no, no, this is actually really really serious, life debilitating condition.
But don't you think with some things that make us really uncomfortable, it's such a fine line between making us laugh, Like when we're very uncomfortable about something, we as humans have this reflex reaction to laugh at things that make us feel uncomfortable.
Yeah, I think, so, are you talking about the audience, so you're talking about the participants.
Themselves as an audience. I think that's again sort of why, Like just then you were talking about how something that could be kind of funny about being OCD and having to do something again and again, but it actually is a debilitating illness that is like really ruining these people's lives. But you know, quite often obsessive compulsive disorder has played off as being quite comical.
That's right, And I think sometimes people don't realize, you know, the way that these things sometimes are covered in the mainstream media in films or whatever, has been dumbed down so that people can get it, or it's been dumb down to something that is played for laughs more so than played for the seriousness of it. Sometimes it's not our fault that we don't actually know what something is. We just never had that conversation with someone who've never
actually heard the truth. But on the flip side, you're right, like the humor, the humor is something that we are constantly looking for because life is challenging and some of these people have some really really challenging things they have to deal with daily, hourly, every few minutes. Sometimes they can't laugh at some of this stuff, then they struggle to exist. So they some have a very very robust sense of humor.
But I guess with spaces and places where we've been told we're not allowed to feel a certain way make this show really important. Do you think that we need to get better at being able to talk about taboo topics?
I think we need to get better at asking caring questions. So if you are interested in someone, rather than just go for the jugular and go for the taboo question, actually get to know someone, care about them, and then when you've built that rapport with someone, then have the courage to ask about the questions that you don't understand, and then being aware that that person may or may not want to talk about it, and then being cool
with that. Because when someone comes into talk to me, they're prepared for it, they've thought about it, they know they're coming in to answer questions. But if someone's just doing this shopping at the supermarket and someone comes up and goes, oh, how come we haven't got a leg, Well, you don't know what their day has been like.
You don't know.
Whether they've had a challenging day where they can be bothered answering that whether they answer that question already five times that day. So it's about being aware, it's about caring, it's about giving a shit about someone before you just delve in and ask these hard questions.
I think that you are the best person for this job because what I know of you, I know you to be quite empathetic, you know, and I saw that when you were making the episode that I was a part of, and I feel it in the episodes without seeing you.
My job is, like you said, is to show empathy, is to try and understand someone. So I'm not there to feel sorry for someone. I'm not there to feel sympathy. I'm not there to feel angry for them. I'm there to understand them. I'm there to understand what it's like to stand in their shoes. So I'm concentrating hard on trying to understand their experience as sometime as I feel emotional afterward, but in that moment, I'm trying to be there for them and trying to understand them. So if
I get emotional, I'm not helping them shine. I'm not helping them express what they want to express. If I get caught up on my own personal emotions. So in those moments when I feel that coming on, I concentrate harder and think about what does this person need next? How do I help them express what they're trying to say? When someone gets emotionally, ask and you know, why does that make you emotional? I try and understand it more so than react.
What makes an authentic moment? You did sort of mention this earlier? Is there a better time of the day to try and capture people's truth? Is there a beoutter? Do you give them a coffee before it starts?
Like?
What's the best way to get the authentic moment out of people?
Time of day? I wish I could do that.
When you're doing something like footy, players who are used to being in high demand, you know when they used to play, it's just a trick just to get them there. And particularly when we were doing shooting this stuff during coronavirus, whenever we could get someone was how we did it. So we don't have the luxury of any of that sort of stuff. Getting authenticity is a couple of things.
It's about them realizing that I'm going to have a conversation with them, which is very, very different than typically they might have had say on the when they're a footy player, I'm on, I'm.
There for them.
I outline how it's all going to work, so there's no tricks, and then from there we're very clear about how it all works. So we're not trying to like I said to you, we're not trying to treat them or sting them.
After that, it's about.
Asking questions where my curiosity is true and I'm trying to actually understand them rather than judge them or pay them out or any these sorts of things. And so as soon as you start coming from a place of care and curiosity wanting to understand someone, people then relax. Then they start being themselves, and then they start expressing authentically.
If they start tensing up because they're worried about what they're going to say and how it's going to get used and are they going to look stupid and now are you going to make a fool of them, then people will start curbing what they say. So it's all about making sure people feel relaxed and that they trust you.
So it's about trying to build that trust. That trust gets built by my producers in the lead up to the interview, and then I try and continue on from the moment I meet them, and then it's treating people with a lot of respect. If you treat people with respect and you don't judge them, well, people will open up and tell you about themselves.
What do you think has been the biggest learn from series one to series six?
Well, a very big learning which was to make sure we ask a question which sets up who these people are, because if you don't know who they are, it's hard to care about someone. But in terms of the biggest learnings, I think that to not fear asking these questions, not to censor the questions, because I think there's a you feel like, you know, especially working at the ABC, and you want to do the right thing, and you don't you don't want to treat people unfairly any this sort
of stuff. There's a temptation to censor the question down so it's easier. But what I feel like is that you need to give the respect to the person that they are an adult person who's lived a life and
they can read that question themselves. And if you've created a space where they are allowed to answer however they want and honestly, then they can say, hey, I want to answer it this way or this way, I don't want to answer it, as opposed to me making that decision for them beforehand and saying, oh, that person won't be able to answer that question.
Give them the.
Respect to be able to answer the question despite how hard it might be. And if you prepare them well, if they know what they're walking into, that you're not ambushing them, then they will answer that question. So I think that's been a really really big learning And then
also time and time again, we know nothing. You think you know about something, you think you know about a group of people, you think you know about a stereotype, and then you talk to people and you realize that you were wrong, or you talk to the second person in that group and they have a different opinion, and you talk a third person they have a different opinion.
So despite having done all this sort of stuff and done all these different stories, it's a really good good reminder that the only thing you can really do is treat people on their own merits and have a conversation with them, rather than assume you know what their life is like, or assume you know what their experience is like because you've once watched it on TV or you've once met someone who's like that.
You know, it's interesting about minorities these days. I've worked out that we all are minority in some way, you know, like in some way you are the minority.
Yeah, it's a really, really good point. I often think about that, especially when used to do street interviews. Every person who walks past you go they have heartbreak, they have love, they have loss, they have something that good going on for them, they have something that's bad going on for them. They might have had a success, they might have had their mum die. You just don't know. Everyone's got all these complexities going on in their life,
every single person who walks past you. And the thing that we actually really liked about the Adult Virgin's episode that we're doing to finish off the season this year, it's the first group that we've done that every single person in the world has been them at some point.
So everyone's going to be able to watch the episode and empathize with these people because we've all been there, and like you said, we all in some respects have felt othered, have felt misunderstood, have felt judged, and so it's not that hard to actually empathize with someone who is feeling that because we've all felt it before. It may not be exactly the same as theirs, maybe not as full on as theirs, but we can empathize with those feelings that these people are talking about.
Something I ask everyone who's a guest on the show, and that is what's something when you tell people what you do for work that you get out over dinner conversation, something of a funny anecdote, something that's happened to you. As being a producer working on this show. Is there any kind of behind the scenes moment that you often tell people?
I suppose I'll just quickly share one story from this year, which was in NPT's episode We have a question, has anyone fucked your stump? Which we thought was verging on the question that can you not ask that question? As we went through every single interview, no one has. No one's fucked anyone's stump, Like they all thought it was the stupidest question, why would anyone want to fuck your stump?
Until our very final interview with Kath Duncan, who's a congeneral mput so she's born without limbs and she has no arm below the elbow, and she wouldn't have been more excited to tell me about all the different people she's fucked with her stuff.
And she's put it up women.
She's had people suck on it like like it was a dick. She has people who have found her and found it a fetish. And the only thing that she hasn't done, as she put it, she hasn't put Stumpy up some guys ass.
She got offered.
At one time at the Tropical Fruits Festival, someone offered her the chance to do it. She declined on that day, and she said, I thought it was one of those things I'd get offered many many times. It's never happened since, and I have since never got the chance to put old Stumpy up some guy's ass. It was shocking to hear that in interview.
You gotta imagine this.
Is a lady in her fifties with bright red hair in a motorized you know, scooter. So not what I was expecting coming over her mouth, but very entertaining nonetheless, and she gives herself a big plug.
So I imagine that if anyone watches the show and wants.
To have that experience with Kat, she'll most likely oblige.
People are hitting her up on social media the day after, the minute after that episode finishes. By the way, I can fulfill your dreams, she wants to do it. I just want to say thank you for contributing to you know, conversations needing to be had. There's so much more to explore and I, like the rest of Australia, I'm here for it. So I'm so excited to see season seven, season eight and season nine and to see you continue to contribute to these stories, which you do so well.
Thanks mate, Thank you for having me on the show and really really lovely talking to you. And it's nice to have done it the other way around, whereas last time I was asking the questions and this time you're asking the questions.
So thanks mate, appreciate it.