Speaker 1: Simon Burke has been a working performer since he was
Speaker 1: a freshly minted teenager, and retains the title of the
Speaker 1: youngest person ever to win a five Best Actor Award
Speaker 1: for his role in Fred Skepsey's iconic film The Devil's Playground.
Speaker 1: When I was mixing up rocket fuel from my mum's
Speaker 1: out of date booze collection, he was on set delivering
Speaker 1: incredible and intuitive performances. I've always loved looking at this
Speaker 1: man's face, a face I've seen with pleasing regularity on
Speaker 1: my small screen in play School, The Sullivan's Country Practice,
Speaker 1: Water Rats Rake, and on stage in Sound of Music Chicago,
Speaker 1: Ley Miz and most recently, of course, Mulan Rouge. The
Speaker 1: list is seemingly endless, as is the breadth of this
Speaker 1: man's talent. Chrissy Casters, please meet the magnificent Simon Burke.
Speaker 2: Thank you so much. Chrissy, Hey, I've got something to
Speaker 2: admit that. That's a beautiful introduction. Thank you. But I
Speaker 2: was for many, many, many men years, I think maybe
Speaker 2: forty years, the youngest ever recipient of the Actor Award
Speaker 2: for Best Actor. And then that absolutely incredible little kid
Speaker 2: from Lyon. I think it's sunny power. But remember that
Speaker 2: beautiful film in the cole Keipman.
Speaker 1: Yes, I loved it.
Speaker 2: I mean that was I mean it was a great
Speaker 2: film and that kid's performance was astonishing and he rightly
Speaker 2: won the award I think in twenty seventeen.
Speaker 1: And ended your reign and my reign.
Speaker 2: A little bastard. Take him out, Yeah, Oh don't worry,
Speaker 2: he'll never again.
Speaker 1: What a little upstart eight years old?
Speaker 2: What the yeah? I thought thirteen was good.
Speaker 1: Thirteen. It's very impressive, Sonny.
Speaker 2: That's sun nice for you to do that.
Speaker 1: You know, how many roles did you do before Devil's Playground?
Speaker 2: I had done a couple of things. I was always
Speaker 2: interested in being an actor, like from when I was well,
Speaker 2: from when Uncobata was always a performing and one of
Speaker 2: those kids that always wants to do it. Yeah, there
Speaker 2: weren't that many opportunities around, you know, back in the
Speaker 2: back in the dark ages when I grew up. Actually,
Speaker 2: when I was in year six, my best mate at
Speaker 2: school was this kid, and he was one of those
Speaker 2: kids that you know, like the sort of chubby kids
Speaker 2: that does all the all the commercials and the like.
Speaker 2: But wasn't a snapback a kid at start that's it
Speaker 2: wasn't that but something like that. Yeah, I was really
Speaker 2: kind of jealous of him, and I remember one day
Speaker 2: I I bribed him to give me his agent's phone number.
Speaker 1: Wow, and the rest is history history.
Speaker 2: So I signed up with this kids agency. I did
Speaker 2: a couple. I did a couple of Crawford came down
Speaker 2: in Melbourne, my first time ever in a plank because
Speaker 2: I'm a Sydney boy. I came down melmoured a couple
Speaker 2: of Crawford's things, did a couple of ads that I
Speaker 2: actually had done a play.
Speaker 1: Well, and you did this all off your own bat
Speaker 1: at grade six.
Speaker 2: Yeah, my parents weren't into it at all. They were
Speaker 2: just in fact, my mom still says to me, you know,
Speaker 2: like you should really think about something else, something.
Speaker 1: To fall back on. Oh my god, Simon.
Speaker 2: But then just out of the blue, like I audition
Speaker 2: for Fred Skeepsky and his wife, who was the casting
Speaker 2: direger at the time, Four Devil's Playground, and yeah, I
Speaker 2: guess my whole life changed from there.
Speaker 1: How long has it been since you've seen that film?
Speaker 2: A really really long time?
Speaker 1: You must watch it again. I saw it recently and you,
Speaker 1: oh my god, I could weep just thinking about it.
Speaker 1: You are so extraordinary.
Speaker 2: It's a beautiful film. It's what I think is interesting
Speaker 2: about the film is that it's because it's set in
Speaker 2: a Catholic seminary in the nineteen fifties and there's you know,
Speaker 2: teenagers in it coming of age film and priests. People
Speaker 2: assume it's a film about clergy abuse, which it absolutely isn't.
Speaker 2: Not that that isn't a subject that you know, hasn't
Speaker 2: should be talked about, but it's more kind of like
Speaker 2: a kid sort of at puberty, but he just happens
Speaker 2: to be trying to be a priest, learn how to
Speaker 2: be a priest, and so it's kind of gentle and
Speaker 2: funny and it's full of humanity. And the interesting thing
Speaker 2: about it is that Fred Skeepsy, who wrote, under directed
Speaker 2: and produced the film, he was That was his first
Speaker 2: feature film. He was in advertising before that. Yeah, Melbourne boy.
Speaker 1: Probably writing things like it wasn't a stack back kid
Speaker 1: at staff.
Speaker 2: I think he did. Yeah, it was his. It was
Speaker 2: his story of when he was in the fifties, a
Speaker 2: kid in had a vocation to be a priest, but
Speaker 2: you know, just kept thinking about girls and didn't happen.
Speaker 1: So you've been working a long time, longer than most people,
Speaker 1: because you know you started as a child. Are you
Speaker 1: tired of working?
Speaker 2: No, not at all, not even in the very slightest.
Speaker 2: In fact, this year twenty twenty four, it's crazy to
Speaker 2: believe this, but twenty twenty four is will be the
Speaker 2: fiftieth on Earth, fiftieth anniversary of my first professional stage appearance,
Speaker 2: which is kind of crazy.
Speaker 1: What was your first professional stage appearance?
Speaker 2: I did a play. There's athetical Belois Street Theater here
Speaker 2: in Sydney, and that used to be called the Nimrod
Speaker 2: Theater and it was a play there when I was twelve,
Speaker 2: playing this troubled Foster kid. And you know, Peter Carroll
Speaker 2: was in it, Robin Nevan was in it. Wow, Maggie
Speaker 2: Danny it was. It was pretty cool. So it's weird
Speaker 2: to think that I've been going that long.
Speaker 1: Child actors, child actors, and you know, child performers in
Speaker 1: general are a interesting breed. I think there's not too
Speaker 1: many of them around, and I think a lot of
Speaker 1: people assume that if you were able to have it
Speaker 1: another way, you would have Is that true for you
Speaker 1: or is your love of acting just something that started early,
Speaker 1: and it's been the right thing.
Speaker 2: I think it's kind of a bit of both. I
Speaker 2: think I certainly had a vocation.
Speaker 1: Well, it was like a compulsion. It was like you
Speaker 1: were born to do this.
Speaker 2: I think, yeah, I'm not terribly kind of spiritual, but
Speaker 2: I did have this experience when I was about eight
Speaker 2: or nine years old. Lady who lived next door to
Speaker 2: us was making costumes for this kid's play up in
Speaker 2: we grew up in Darlinghurst, in the Inner City, and
Speaker 2: she said, oh, do you want to help me take
Speaker 2: these costumes up? And like big bags, you know, garbage
Speaker 2: bag sort of stuff. Went to this tiny little theater
Speaker 2: where and I'd never been inside a theater when it
Speaker 2: was dark before, when there was in a show on
Speaker 2: and we're in the auditorium, tiny little place, and she
Speaker 2: was having a chat to the woman who's directing it.
Speaker 2: I was just kid walking around. I just walked down
Speaker 2: towards the stage and I walked up on the steps
Speaker 2: onto the stage, and I can remember it as clear
Speaker 2: as that I just had this feeling in that I said,
Speaker 2: this is where I want to be. And I said,
Speaker 2: I hope what if she asked me to be in
Speaker 2: the play what does she asked me to play, And
Speaker 2: from the back of the theater, this lady said, you
Speaker 2: look about the riot height to be rowboy. Who's the
Speaker 2: boy robot in our play? Would you like to be
Speaker 2: in our player? Gods? Maybe I was like doing a
Speaker 2: triple times that was it? That was it? Yeah?
Speaker 1: And how old were you? Eight?
Speaker 2: Eight or nine? Yeah? So that was in an amateur
Speaker 2: theater thing. But I mean my first professional thing was
Speaker 2: a few years later when I was twelve, double digits.
Speaker 1: I've got a friend, a close friend, who was also
Speaker 1: a child actor, yep, and she's very quick to discourage
Speaker 1: anybody from following that path. What would you say to
Speaker 1: a child who feels the compulsion that you felt, Oh.
Speaker 2: For goodness sake, just do what you love, do what
Speaker 2: your dream for. I would be very quick to discourage
Speaker 2: parents to push their kids. My parents. I think that's
Speaker 2: probably why I stuck with it, because my parents, they
Speaker 2: weren't disapproving, but they just thought, you know, I come
Speaker 2: from a pretty humble beginning. So neither of my parents
Speaker 2: finished high school, and I was actually quite good at school,
Speaker 2: and I think they were very keen for me to
Speaker 2: be academic or what.
Speaker 1: Did they want you to do? What would have made
Speaker 1: them proud at that time?
Speaker 2: So I'm talking to Zara about this. I'm just my
Speaker 2: favorite shirt and it keeps popping open.
Speaker 1: But you know that's the look though. Just just just
Speaker 1: live with it. Well, just you know, imagine that you're
Speaker 1: Errol Flynn right now.
Speaker 2: And everything's fine. I think at the time they would
Speaker 2: have liked me to have used my brain, because I
Speaker 2: do love using my brain and you don't. And your
Speaker 2: job as a performer is to use your heart and
Speaker 2: your instinct. That's just so much your brain. And I
Speaker 2: think that's probably why, you know, in the last few years,
Speaker 2: I've moved, you know, into a bit of producing and
Speaker 2: and and you know my stuff with I was president
Speaker 2: of Equity for a number of years, so I but
Speaker 2: I sort of feel like as an actor, there's another
Speaker 2: buttons coming under you're basically naked as an actor. It's
Speaker 2: sometimes a curse to overthink things. And so often when
Speaker 2: I'm on stage, particularly, I find myself in a place
Speaker 2: where I'm just on my instinct, I'm just on my heart,
Speaker 2: I'm just on my feelings, and that's kind of a
Speaker 2: really safe place, in a funny sort of way because
Speaker 2: I do. I'm I'm someone who likes to overthink things
Speaker 2: and generally, yeah.
Speaker 1: Do you think your instincts are ever wrong?
Speaker 2: In life? Years?
Speaker 1: Really on stage?
Speaker 2: Really, And that's the nice thing about doing it for
Speaker 2: a while, you know, when you get to a certain age,
Speaker 2: and particularly the role I've been playing in Moulin Rouge,
Speaker 2: which I'm just about to come to the end of
Speaker 2: almost three years I've doing it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I was going to say, it's been about thirty
Speaker 1: years since you've been in that role.
Speaker 2: Here. When we finish, it will be eight hundred performances exactly,
Speaker 2: which is it's extraordinary, doesn't never done, and.
Speaker 1: Your schedule is extraordinary.
Speaker 2: It's full on. But my particular responsibility in that show
Speaker 2: is not just with the people on stage, but I'm
Speaker 2: also kind of a to the show, and it's my
Speaker 2: responsibility to make sure the audience has a good time.
Speaker 2: So my show is different every night because the audience
Speaker 2: is different every night and I'm actually talking to them.
Speaker 2: But so I rely on my instinct awfully. It's not
Speaker 2: like doing stand up because I can't do deviate from
Speaker 2: the script at all. Yes, I have to use the
Speaker 2: lines that I have to make them feel spontaneous, like
Speaker 2: they've never been said before. That's yeah, I think my
Speaker 2: insixs are. It's nice to be at a place where
Speaker 2: you can trust your instincts and no. Last night, oh
Speaker 2: my god, I had this great, being massive note at
Speaker 2: the end of the encore, like this goes forever.
Speaker 1: Can you do a little bit of a note? It's
Speaker 1: just one little bit, just something?
Speaker 2: Well, I probably could, because what I do is I
Speaker 2: do this great long note that goes forever and ever.
Speaker 2: It's really showing off and the audience starts according through it,
Speaker 2: and just at the end of it. Last night I
Speaker 2: cracked and normally like, you know, that's a mortifying moment,
Speaker 2: but I just went oops, and then the audience laughed
Speaker 2: and then the other and you're just like, so there, Yeah,
Speaker 2: you get to do some stick after a while, you know.
Speaker 1: Of course, of course, Starvin Work. We've grown up with
Speaker 1: you on play school, we know you very very well.
Speaker 1: Is there something about you that perhaps we do not know?
Speaker 2: Wow, there's a lot of things about me that were
Speaker 2: like all of us doing a real secret. I had
Speaker 2: a very strange experience a few years ago where I
Speaker 2: was tryned buy someone in a four hour who I've
Speaker 2: never seen before. And she's very friendly and talking to
Speaker 2: me and said, you know, it's been ages since we've
Speaker 2: seen each other. You remember meeting me, don't you? And
Speaker 2: I went, yeah, of course, you don't like you do
Speaker 2: because you don't want to be a you know, offend
Speaker 2: of someone. It's a mistake on the make again. And
Speaker 2: she said, well, you know, remember we met that night
Speaker 2: or those years ago. And said, yeah, yeah, yeah, I said,
Speaker 2: and we had that night together. I went yeah, And
Speaker 2: she said, well you need to know that we that
Speaker 2: we have a child what And that was patently not
Speaker 2: true because I hadn't seen her before and certainly had
Speaker 2: been with her anyway, Like a long story, it got
Speaker 2: a little bit weird. I just thought that was kind
Speaker 2: of crazy.
Speaker 1: Sort of a photo of this child.
Speaker 2: No, no, she just said, I do remember saying to her, look,
Speaker 2: you know, you know, like you know I'm gay, don't
Speaker 2: you said? That's what you said to me that night.
Speaker 2: So it's like everything was coming.
Speaker 1: You had never seen this woman, seen.
Speaker 2: This person before in my life, and wow, So it
Speaker 2: was a bit odd, and it was at quite a
Speaker 2: public event, and so I just kind of forgot about it.
Speaker 2: But I was a bit unnerved by it.
Speaker 1: Yes, I can imagine you were.
Speaker 2: Four months later, I'm sitting in a rehearsal room raheasing
Speaker 2: something and it was here in Melbourne, and my mail
Speaker 2: had been said to sitting going through my mail, you know,
Speaker 2: while other people up on stage and well America Express Bill,
Speaker 2: oh yeah, yeah, NAB Statement, Department of Farm Child Services
Speaker 2: and and there's a demand for child support from.
Speaker 1: This from somebody who you had never met and had never.
Speaker 2: And I have to say, like, so, then there was
Speaker 2: a big rigmarole. I had to like believe rehearsals and
Speaker 2: bring child Services comment more, and the.
Speaker 1: Further rigmarole of having to sort it out.
Speaker 2: What I found incredibly kind of interesting about it was
Speaker 2: that the onus was on me to say that I
Speaker 2: would not support this person. I said, but I don't
Speaker 2: have a child. I never met this I said, no, no,
Speaker 2: you have to say that you will not support this
Speaker 2: person because we can't get back to them a letter.
Speaker 2: So actually, all I remember at the time is that
Speaker 2: I thought it was the system has actually been really
Speaker 2: well plas because it means that so many men must
Speaker 2: fall under through the cracks and refuse to do stuff,
Speaker 2: and so it is actually quite well sorted.
Speaker 1: They kind of skip over the step of actually establishing paternity.
Speaker 2: Skip.
Speaker 1: That doesn't matter.
Speaker 2: No, you just have to say, well I support this person.
Speaker 2: Either said well I don't even They said, look, I
Speaker 2: understand the question is weird, but in order for this
Speaker 2: to be complete at this stage, I have to say no.
Speaker 2: And so I said no, and they said, right, that
Speaker 2: will go away. Then about a year later, I was
Speaker 2: in Dublin actually, and I got a call from my
Speaker 2: agent saying that I've been served with a notice of
Speaker 2: the Federal Court for not failure to appear.
Speaker 1: Simon. I feel sick anxiety about this.
Speaker 2: It was full on that because I honestly, honestly, honestly
Speaker 2: had never seen this person in my life before. And look, obviously.
Speaker 1: It was there. I know that you're adamant that you'd
Speaker 1: never seen this woman before, but and you're not heterosexual,
Speaker 1: so that the chances of you sleeping with this woman
Speaker 1: very slim. Was there any moment where you went.
Speaker 2: What dod't they do last night? Yeah?
Speaker 1: Yeah, maybe I you know, had too many negronas you know,
Speaker 1: Was there ever that moment?
Speaker 2: No? No, I mean no, no. So basically, look, the
Speaker 2: end of the day is it was, it was, it was.
Speaker 2: I had to then engage a slister and of course
Speaker 2: you know, of course DNA is going to yeah, but
Speaker 2: I had to go through with that.
Speaker 1: So you had to do the DNA and it was kind.
Speaker 2: Of an interesting experience for a while, but once it
Speaker 2: got into this other world of having to prove, which
Speaker 2: is easy because it's just the DNA test a DNA
Speaker 2: and that was conclusive. But then it did But then
Speaker 2: I would still be contact with this person. Yeah, and
Speaker 2: they would still say that, you know, because I guess
Speaker 2: if someone is convinced about something, then then all sorts
Speaker 2: of conspiracy goes into it. So it then became I
Speaker 2: just became it was weird, very heavy.
Speaker 1: It was very very weird. It's a very weird story.
Speaker 1: Why do you But everybody's got a weird story. Why
Speaker 1: do you? What do you think it is about you
Speaker 1: specifically that helped her create this fantasy of you being
Speaker 1: the father to her child.
Speaker 2: I mean, I've thought about it a lot, and most
Speaker 2: of all, I was really well concerned. I've only met
Speaker 2: her for five or five seconds when she said that
Speaker 2: all those years ago, and I was mostly concerned for
Speaker 2: the kid. I guess I did sometimes think maybe she'd
Speaker 2: see me on play school and she was a single mom,
Speaker 2: and maybe I looked like someone who'd be a great dad.
Speaker 2: Maybe the I.
Speaker 1: Don't know, maybe you were an easy answer to who's
Speaker 1: my dad?
Speaker 2: Him?
Speaker 1: The screen that man that you love.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's weird.
Speaker 1: But have you heard again?
Speaker 2: Not recently, No, but it did come back a few times.
Speaker 2: It became quiet troubling in the back of my in
Speaker 2: the back of my mind because it's sort of.
Speaker 1: It would just lurk in the recesses waiting for the
Speaker 1: next installment.
Speaker 2: Like it was also like it was also wildly interesting
Speaker 2: by the same token, I mean, how many people does
Speaker 2: that happened too? But then I thought to myself, like,
Speaker 2: you know, and I'm by no means massively well known,
Speaker 2: but I just thought, if you, if you were like
Speaker 2: a big, big, big stuff, that sort of thing would
Speaker 2: probably happen to you twice a week. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Did you have a partner at the time, And what
Speaker 1: did he think about this? Was that a strange conversation?
Speaker 2: You know what he's like? He was actually with me
Speaker 2: at the time, and he woke up he had to
Speaker 2: get up the next morning at five am to go
Speaker 2: to work and he said, you've got a baby. This
Speaker 2: is a dickhead. But that was when it was stillimum
Speaker 2: in the realms of it being such a weird Yeah,
Speaker 2: just a wild story became. It just became and expensive music.
Speaker 1: Yes, I imagined. So yeah, well that's very, very interesting.
Speaker 2: So there you go. But I'm sure I certainly haven't
Speaker 2: told anyone that fun.
Speaker 1: I'm sure in an alternate reality, Simon, you would have
Speaker 1: been a wonderful father.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm sure I would have been too.
Speaker 1: Do you have any questions for me?
Speaker 2: Okay, I mean I suppose I've been thinking about this, like.
Speaker 1: You can ask me anything, absolutely anything.
Speaker 2: Because we know each other very recently, but we feel
Speaker 2: like we've known each other forever.
Speaker 1: Like no one else in my life.
Speaker 2: It's crazy, isn't it crazy. I might tell the story
Speaker 2: how how I met you in a minute, but I've
Speaker 2: always you know, since we've become you know, I'm obsessed
Speaker 2: with you. I love you. I really would love to
Speaker 2: know what your dreams and stuff were when you were,
Speaker 2: like when you were that age that when I was
Speaker 2: first starting out, like when you were eight or nine
Speaker 2: or ten, and what did you dream about? What did
Speaker 2: you want to do well.
Speaker 1: I was a very quiet child, and I had two
Speaker 1: sisters and they were much older than me, so I
Speaker 1: was sort of an only child in a way, and
Speaker 1: my parents split up when I was very young, grade one,
Speaker 1: so I kind of spent my first sort of that
Speaker 1: time from prep to grade six kind of working out
Speaker 1: the lay of the land of my new existence. You know,
Speaker 1: I'd gone from everyone at home very sort of idyllic
Speaker 1: normal life, never had to think about anything, to all
Speaker 1: of a sudden feeling very tumultuous. So I sort of
Speaker 1: I felt like that part of my childhood was about surviving.
Speaker 1: So I didn't really have any dreams. I just had
Speaker 1: to work out what was going on day to day.
Speaker 1: And I didn't know actually what I wanted to do
Speaker 1: with my life, for what my purpose was until much
Speaker 1: much later, like late twenties. Really, I was just sort
Speaker 1: of floating around enjoying people. That was the common thing
Speaker 1: is that once I ended up at school around some
Speaker 1: like minded girls, I felt very secure and safe again.
Speaker 1: And I'm still friends with those girls now that I'm
Speaker 1: when I was ten and eleven.
Speaker 2: I wonder if that's got you know, like it's it
Speaker 2: is quite incredible how much and quickly and strongly we connect.
Speaker 2: And I wonder if it has something to do with
Speaker 2: the recognition of kind of that sort of trauma from
Speaker 2: I had a pretty horrific time around around the time
Speaker 2: that I became an actor. My parents were going through
Speaker 2: a pretty horrible breakup thise lots.
Speaker 1: Did you feel like isolated?
Speaker 2: I was an absolute, absolute loner.
Speaker 1: Yeah, maybe that's what we've identified in each other.
Speaker 2: And then I just got this little It was almost
Speaker 2: like I was saved and I got into this to
Speaker 2: this other world where I suddenly I was sort of
Speaker 2: special or not special but actually valued. Yeah, and scene,
Speaker 2: and I was suddenly funny and I was suddenly good
Speaker 2: at when I did.
Speaker 1: And it happened to me at school.
Speaker 2: And so I think that thing of feeling so alone,
Speaker 2: being by yourself dealing with adult drama.
Speaker 1: Absolutely no judgment on my family. Everyone was doing what
Speaker 1: they could do. You know, at the time it is hard,
Speaker 1: but and it was hard for all of us individually,
Speaker 1: but that's just how I felt. I just felt really like, oh,
Speaker 1: what the hell has happened?
Speaker 2: When I know what you mean and I feel the same,
Speaker 2: and none of mine either. But it's that thing of
Speaker 2: no matter how much care is around you, when you're
Speaker 2: alone by yourself, dealing with what's going on in your
Speaker 2: in your bedroom at like you know, eight nineteen eleven twelve.
Speaker 2: That's that's for once.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's interesting, Simon Burke. Can I interest you in
Speaker 1: a round of talk Taro?
Speaker 2: I'm not sure.
Speaker 1: Set of tarot cards? You know how this works?
Speaker 2: No? I don't. Don't you know my cards read?
Speaker 1: Well, I'm shuffling them all up and you just got
Speaker 1: to pick one that appeals to you and then I'll
Speaker 1: read it out. God, anyone, anyone, everyone's a winner. Have
Speaker 1: a pool. That's what they say. That's what they say,
Speaker 1: the son. That's the correct lexicon. Have a pool, Have
Speaker 1: a pool. Who was that guy that got caught in
Speaker 1: the anyway?
Speaker 2: Having a pool? Who is it?
Speaker 1: Todd McKenny now now now Tod McKenny and centennial part.
Speaker 1: I don't think he was having a pool? Now, that
Speaker 1: was pee wee Herman. All right, you have pulled a card.
Speaker 1: This is talk Tarot. I'm gonna ask you a question
Speaker 1: that's on the card. Simon Burke, Please relay the story
Speaker 1: of when you and I first met the car.
Speaker 2: Wanted to know that the car that's.
Speaker 1: Incredible, It's extraordinary.
Speaker 2: The day we met it is like see it in
Speaker 2: my memory, not just because it was you, but because
Speaker 2: it was actually my sixtieth birthday. You couldn't I mean,
Speaker 2: you couldn't believe that.
Speaker 1: I'm I cannot believe that you are now older than sixteen.
Speaker 2: Just yeah. It was in the middle of lockdown. It's
Speaker 2: lockdown six when you could only associate. You're going to
Speaker 2: have five in a.
Speaker 1: Group, yeap out in a park or area, you know,
Speaker 1: five Mexicans and.
Speaker 2: Can I can I give us some background of that story?
Speaker 2: Of course, So it's my sixtieth birthday. I wake up.
Speaker 2: I mean Melbourne will and Rouge is in lockdown when
Speaker 2: allowed to associate with anyone sort.
Speaker 1: Of two years ago.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, yeah, like October twenty twenty one and I
Speaker 2: was planning, Yeah, it was going to be. My partner
Speaker 2: was in city, couldn't get to Melbourne. My family is
Speaker 2: and he couldn't get to Melbourne. I'm like, oh great,
Speaker 2: I'm waking up on my sixtieth birthday. And what I've
Speaker 2: been doing is and our cast hadn't seen each other
Speaker 2: for two months because we were in lockdown. We weren't
Speaker 2: allowed to see each other. I'd go with a walk
Speaker 2: with a person here and there. Yeah, and so my
Speaker 2: two co leagues, Des and a Linta who played Christian
Speaker 2: and the teen said we hardly knew them. They said, oh,
Speaker 2: what's your birthday, Let's meet in the botanical gardens for
Speaker 2: a walk. I thought, oh, okay, they'll be nice. That's sweet.
Speaker 1: It's something sweet of them.
Speaker 2: So I met them at the gates and I walked
Speaker 2: around and they talked happy birthday. And then I walked
Speaker 2: around a corner and there were six blankets spaced six
Speaker 2: meters apart, with five members of the cast on each blanket.
Speaker 2: So beautiful, thirty the whole caster turn up in groups.
Speaker 1: Of five, socially distanced for my.
Speaker 2: Birthday, and like it was like maybe it was like
Speaker 2: one of the most special things anyone's ever. I hadn't
Speaker 2: know any of these people.
Speaker 1: I feel like your heart would just stick just last.
Speaker 2: They completely exploded. And so there was a bit this
Speaker 2: is like about midday, and there was a bit of
Speaker 2: champagne going on whatever, and I was naughty because I
Speaker 2: went from blanket to blanket, But yeah, is it. I
Speaker 2: was coming home and I was very very I was
Speaker 2: in Fitzroy Gardens and meeting some friends of my partners
Speaker 2: again social addistance on a blanket. I was sitting with
Speaker 2: them and suddenly Chrissy Swan walks past, and I went.
Speaker 2: She turns on me and looks at me, where is hello?
Speaker 2: And I turned to you and we run and we
Speaker 2: like hug each other.
Speaker 1: We had never met. I'm like, it's silent bag.
Speaker 2: It was crazy because because we have a mutual friend
Speaker 2: and you and I have been kind of like liking
Speaker 2: each other's things on Twitter for like, I know, ten
Speaker 2: fifteen years or something, I felt like I knew you.
Speaker 2: And when I walked past you and you bought, you
Speaker 2: went and we like hugged. My sh is completely open
Speaker 2: now and we just held each other for like, yeah,
Speaker 2: it was. It was so it I'll never forget as
Speaker 2: long as that was forget it. It was like and
Speaker 2: I almost said to you, God, it's been ages how
Speaker 2: long since I've seen you? And when we've never met.
Speaker 1: We've never met. I've never had that with anybody else.
Speaker 2: Crazy, isn't it?
Speaker 1: It was crazy? Thank you so much for joining me today.
Speaker 1: You are pure joy. And what is next after Mulin Rouge?
Speaker 1: I know that that is a in the in the
Speaker 1: recent history, in.
Speaker 2: The recent history. Yeah, well I'm I'm about to start
Speaker 2: something pretty pretty cool here I just can't talk about yet,
Speaker 2: but it'll be pretty soon.
Speaker 1: So are you the face of online paternity tests? In
Speaker 1: the case of that lady, you are not the father?
Speaker 2: Oh tee? What something interesting?
Speaker 1: You know?
Speaker 2: We're talking about about passion projects and yes, you know. Yes.
Speaker 2: During my time on Mulin Rouge, my very very closest
Speaker 2: friend is an amazing actor director writer called Helen Dullymore
Speaker 2: who played She's just She's just one of She's the
Speaker 2: brilliant woman. And we have written and produced and starred
Speaker 2: in this little web series which has will be coming
Speaker 2: out very soon called The Five Minute Call. And it's
Speaker 2: set backstage in her dressing room of a fictitious music
Speaker 2: Australian successful musical which is a terrible musical apparently, and
Speaker 2: we're the two sort of nasty we're playing sort of
Speaker 2: horrible versions of ourselves. It sounds we have been in it.
Speaker 2: We have been, and we've got like Georgie Parker as
Speaker 2: a guest star and Trevor Ashley's it's it's I'm so
Speaker 2: proud of it because we wrote it together and we've
Speaker 2: a couple of mill and rugs castro in it, and yeah,
Speaker 2: have a lookout for it. It'll be around in a couple
Speaker 2: of months. Called five minute call. I'm so happy and
Speaker 2: so
Speaker 1: Excited that I'll absolutely keep my eyes piled for Thank
Speaker 1: you so much, Simon Burks for having me