Speaker 1: Approche Production.
Speaker 2: Welcome to Secrets of the Underworld. I am Neil the
Speaker 2: Muscle comments and in this episode, I speak to star
Speaker 2: of Underbelly, Golden Mile Salvatory Coco.
Speaker 3: There's there's a difference between acting and just me. You know,
Speaker 3: that's why that's the actor.
Speaker 1: Everybody's gone regrets one hundred percent.
Speaker 2: We've all got regrets and you're saying I'm saying it,
Speaker 2: you're saying it.
Speaker 3: Okay, if you just give me a second, I'll probably
Speaker 3: get there before. I wasn't really kind of allowed to
Speaker 3: mention that sort of thing, but I think it's all
Speaker 3: out there. When you're in that mindset, when you're constantly
Speaker 3: in that mindset playing someone's staunch, it uses through your body.
Speaker 2: Before we get into the nitty gritty.
Speaker 1: I want to say thank you for coming in an
Speaker 1: absolute pleasure.
Speaker 3: You know.
Speaker 2: I'm going to be gentle to the certain certain point.
Speaker 2: Let's start off with growing up and your childhood and
Speaker 2: before you get into TV.
Speaker 3: And okay, so you're you want you want to know
Speaker 3: about my career and how it all started. I want
Speaker 3: to know about you growing up first, all right, So
Speaker 3: I grew up in the suburbs of pretty much the
Speaker 3: Newtown around Newtown. You know, I was seventy five, kid
Speaker 3: was seventy five. Italian background, non English speaking, Wow. Yeah,
Speaker 3: so I went to school speaking Italian. I didn't go
Speaker 3: to school speaking English. So yeah, so it was a
Speaker 3: very interesting part of growing up when you when you
Speaker 3: grow up going into a school non eight.
Speaker 1: Well I did speak English.
Speaker 3: But more so, like I was more of a I
Speaker 3: spoke more Italian than anything else.
Speaker 2: Gibberish.
Speaker 3: Yeah, but yeah, so it was it was interesting to
Speaker 3: adjust going back then, if I remember correctly, it was
Speaker 3: really hard to kind of adjust to sort of like
Speaker 3: going back home speaking Italian going to school speaking English,
Speaker 3: you know, and you're get in trouble because you know,
Speaker 3: you wouldn't really, Yeah, it just be because things like
Speaker 3: learning was hard. It was a hard thing.
Speaker 1: For me to to to adjust.
Speaker 2: So you what do you do?
Speaker 3: You're cheeky. So I was a cheeky one as you
Speaker 3: can do. You know, when Neil tells me to stop
Speaker 3: swaying on the chair.
Speaker 1: What do I do?
Speaker 2: Don't say?
Speaker 3: Yeah, So, looking so growing up in the Newtown area
Speaker 3: and which is literally just yeah, just a couple of
Speaker 3: kays away from here, and family was you know, they
Speaker 3: obviously migrated here from Italy.
Speaker 1: My dad was an entrepreneur.
Speaker 3: I did whatever he had to do to put food
Speaker 3: on the table, you know, and we kind of I
Speaker 3: grew up in a family of properties really at the
Speaker 3: end of the day. We had fruit shops and things
Speaker 3: like that. So as a kid, I was always packing,
Speaker 3: you know, onions.
Speaker 2: And fucking putting oranges on.
Speaker 3: And all that stuff, and mushrooms and all that. Now
Speaker 3: it was good fun, good fun tomatoes and I still
Speaker 3: remember that. I still remember weighing things as a kid.
Speaker 3: But but yeah, so I grew up in Newtown, and
Speaker 3: by the time I was probably about nine or ten
Speaker 3: or so, I'd had already sort of like my personality
Speaker 3: had kind of sort of like.
Speaker 1: Opened up.
Speaker 3: And you know, anytime there was an event, it could
Speaker 3: be it could have been I don't know, I could
Speaker 3: have been a festival, it could have been a wedding.
Speaker 3: There could have been any kind of occasion, you know.
Speaker 3: So seal Cocoa was always a allion annoying on stage.
Speaker 3: I'd always I'd be the one, you know, grabbing the
Speaker 3: jackets or the dress of the entertainers saying I want
Speaker 3: to sing, I want to sing, I want to sing, and.
Speaker 1: That's how it all started.
Speaker 3: And I'm pretty much I started on the on the
Speaker 3: on the dance floors of reception lounges, and then from
Speaker 3: there moved on too festivals and the real, the real, uh,
Speaker 3: the real turning point for me to know that I
Speaker 3: was going to get into this industry was a long
Speaker 3: long time ago, and I must have been about I
Speaker 3: must have been about eleven, you know, like three three
Speaker 3: years into sort of like exploring my talents as a
Speaker 3: as an artist. There was a performer called John Saint
Speaker 3: Peter's and John Saint Peter's was the guy. He used
Speaker 3: to sing, well, summer Town's in wonderworld.
Speaker 1: You and I was welcome to my anyway.
Speaker 3: You wouldn't know it. You were in the UK. You
Speaker 3: were a Scouser as a Schnauzer, no Skauser, Skuzer scu.
Speaker 2: Anyway.
Speaker 3: Anyway, he was performing at the Five Dog Festa, and
Speaker 3: the five Dog Fester back in the day used to
Speaker 3: be you know where the leisure center is in in
Speaker 3: in five Dog now Deligious Center. Hear the park, Yeah,
Speaker 3: that's where they used to have the festa back in
Speaker 3: the day. And he was performing and he did actually
Speaker 3: get some kids on as the closing act, the closing song,
Speaker 3: and I knew that song back to front like back
Speaker 3: then I used to know back to front and I
Speaker 3: just took the mic off him and I went I
Speaker 3: went for gold. After that, strangely enough, his management, his
Speaker 3: team pulled me aside and they said, you know, we
Speaker 3: can see a bit.
Speaker 1: Of talent here. Like I didn't understand that.
Speaker 3: I just was like a kid, just you know, but
Speaker 3: what they call it now nowadays, kids with a D
Speaker 3: D add DHD in PhD whatever it is. I was
Speaker 3: one of those kids right anyway, But they didn't diagnose
Speaker 3: it back then. They just considered as me being cheeky
Speaker 3: but anyway with a personality. But anyway, so they so
Speaker 3: the team. The team ended up just sort of like saying,
Speaker 3: you know, we want to kind of coach you and
Speaker 3: bring you to the to the next level if possible.
Speaker 1: Anyway, that was my first paying gig. I got twenty
Speaker 1: bucks for that show. By the way, I got twenty
Speaker 1: I've actually still I've actually no joke.
Speaker 2: What no shit, you didn't spend it.
Speaker 1: No, see, I'm so used to not swearing, but.
Speaker 3: On a podcast because I need you to just yeah,
Speaker 3: so no joke. I literally got twenty bucks on what happened.
Speaker 3: I never forget it. Johnson Peters gave me the money
Speaker 3: and I went, no, no, no, no, I don't want it,
Speaker 3: and it was like a bit of a tug of war.
Speaker 3: I still we ripped it, right, We ripped that twenty dollars, right,
Speaker 3: and I've still got that twenty dollars on a paper
Speaker 3: clip with his photo signed. But anyway, what's wrong with that?
Speaker 3: It's called memories, okay, me as a kid, would have
Speaker 3: spent it. No, no, no, I was told by my my,
Speaker 3: by my mom to not spend that.
Speaker 1: That's that. That's it. Look, look, look how I'm talking
Speaker 1: about it.
Speaker 2: Oh great, anyway, let's move on.
Speaker 3: Well, look, the good thing is those twenty dollars notes
Speaker 3: don't exist anymore, so they're probably it's probably worth.
Speaker 2: More now, so it's not where of jack shit for
Speaker 2: twenty bucks.
Speaker 1: Well, you've just killed my whole fucking.
Speaker 2: Focus.
Speaker 3: Now I'm going to have to swear now you just
Speaker 3: killed my whole fucking light there mate, you know anyway, Yes,
Speaker 3: so still got a freak.
Speaker 1: And yeah, no, so it was good.
Speaker 3: It was good to you know, to get them to
Speaker 3: come on board, and I learned how to play the guitar,
Speaker 3: I learned how to sing. I did a lot of
Speaker 3: singing the Stedford's around Sydney. And then as I was
Speaker 3: a kid like, as I kept going into I got
Speaker 3: a little bit bored of it, to be honest with you,
Speaker 3: playing the same scales all the time on a guitar,
Speaker 3: and I said, I want to kind of venture into
Speaker 3: something more than this, you know. And they used to
Speaker 3: have it, they used to have the Sydney the Sydney
Speaker 3: Telegraph and you know in the US to say, you know,
Speaker 3: do you want to be an actor?
Speaker 1: Fucking hell, you know, one of those bloody things.
Speaker 2: All right.
Speaker 3: So anyway, so I so I said, okay, I'm going
Speaker 3: to I'm going to call in and I'm gonna I'm
Speaker 3: going to get part of this. And I signed up
Speaker 3: at a school which was literally down the road here.
Speaker 3: It was called King Kids back then, Gala Artists, and
Speaker 3: they were offering a deal where like you pretty much
Speaker 3: come in and they coach and sort of like now,
Speaker 3: I had no money. My parents weren't going to pay
Speaker 3: for it. So what they did was they put me
Speaker 3: in as an extra in different little bits and pieces
Speaker 3: here and there, and from the money that I was
Speaker 3: earning from there was paying my tuition, and I learned
Speaker 3: how to act, sing and dance. So I ended up Yeah,
Speaker 3: so that's how it all happened for me.
Speaker 2: So I ended up.
Speaker 1: Doing all those things.
Speaker 3: And like literally six months seven eight maybe eight months
Speaker 3: later after signing up with these with these guys, I
Speaker 3: was doing pantomimes, extra work. I ended up getting one
Speaker 3: of my first lead roles on a kids show called
Speaker 3: Swap Shop.
Speaker 2: I remember swap Shop in England.
Speaker 1: Yeah that's yeah, that's it. That's actually it shop.
Speaker 2: Okay, So I was.
Speaker 1: I played.
Speaker 3: The grand prince of something I can't remember. I was
Speaker 3: such anyway, he came from overseas and it was one
Speaker 3: of these.
Speaker 1: Little story, crazy little stories.
Speaker 3: But yeah, I still remember shooting it at what's the
Speaker 3: what's the what's the name of the pool on mcmart's
Speaker 3: McMahon's point, you know the pool where they Luna Park is.
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, there's that swimming pool. That's that's
Speaker 3: actually where we shot it.
Speaker 1: I still remember it.
Speaker 2: I have you kept your paycheck from there too?
Speaker 1: I kept I kept the patient, but not the paycheck.
Speaker 1: Smarty pants.
Speaker 3: But anyway, so from there, So from there, I pretty
Speaker 3: much did other other jobs and I ended up kind
Speaker 3: of working as a as a regular, a guest regular
Speaker 3: on uh well not as on a country practice.
Speaker 1: I was, you're just doing a guest role, but.
Speaker 2: I did in that country practice Country Practice. And also, yeah, GP,
Speaker 2: I've seen GP was your first one. Yeah, GP was.
Speaker 3: Really the semi semi lead role. And I have to
Speaker 3: I have to give out. I give a massive shout
Speaker 3: out to Peter Andrew Keats, the director who I never
Speaker 3: forget saw me. I came in for that one one
Speaker 3: episode and he just he just had yeah, he just
Speaker 3: he was so he loved what I did and he
Speaker 3: just continued to just ask the writers to bring back.
Speaker 1: And it was Andrew Kides.
Speaker 3: But the guy who actually really got me the lead, well,
Speaker 3: the big big success on Heartbreak High was Peter O'Neil.
Speaker 1: Not many people know this.
Speaker 3: Peter O'Neil was one of my drama teachers at Gala Artists, Okay,
Speaker 3: and he was actually the guy that was teaching me
Speaker 3: performing arts and stuff like that. Him, Malcolm Frawley and
Speaker 3: all those guys, Alan Sinners, those guys there, and they
Speaker 3: Peter O'Neil was one of the original writers on Heartbreak
Speaker 3: High and I reckon. That's how I got it. That's
Speaker 3: how I think I personally got You didn't do an
Speaker 3: audition for that, No, we auditioned, but you know, you know,
Speaker 3: they would have kind of said, you know, he's he's
Speaker 3: the key, he's the dude.
Speaker 2: You know he's special. Yeah, yeah, he's got something special.
Speaker 2: I just went, yeah, I just meant, I.
Speaker 1: Learnt with you.
Speaker 3: Just don't bite, don't bite, Just just keep moving, just
Speaker 3: keep going, Just be like the traffic behind you.
Speaker 1: Just keep going, you know. Yeah. So then now that's
Speaker 1: pretty much in a nutshell.
Speaker 2: That's it was Heartbreak High before country practice or after after.
Speaker 1: After country practices. Was in the.
Speaker 2: Beginning country practice? Please rescue water.
Speaker 3: Rats stingers, stingers, fucking all Saints, all sts you.
Speaker 1: I was a guy dying, didn't It's interesting, It's interesting.
Speaker 1: There was a time in my career.
Speaker 3: I think it was probably for about a good easy
Speaker 3: teen years, I was always dying.
Speaker 1: Yeah talk.
Speaker 3: Well, strangely enough, that's actually the truth. They said this
Speaker 3: guy could talk.
Speaker 1: Under water, for sake, kill him?
Speaker 2: What waters?
Speaker 1: So I in water.
Speaker 3: Rats, I played a journal I played a journo in
Speaker 3: water Rats, and then I came back and I played
Speaker 3: if I remember, yeah, I actually.
Speaker 1: Killed off the lead. Yeah, please rescue, Please Rescue was
Speaker 1: interesting in the beginning. I was a I was played
Speaker 1: Joseph Cardillo.
Speaker 3: He was a he was you know, he was a
Speaker 3: he was a cover police reside ship.
Speaker 2: And then you then you got the break for Heartbreak High,
Speaker 2: and then I got the break for harm to me,
Speaker 2: that was your that's the big break that got your.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, one hundred percent.
Speaker 3: Heartbreak High was the one that kind of got me
Speaker 3: out there, just really like pushed the name and you know,
Speaker 3: maybe who what made me who I am really at
Speaker 3: the end of the day, like yeah, you know it.
Speaker 2: Was no comment anyway, no, please do please. How many
Speaker 2: years were you doing Heartbreak Out?
Speaker 3: I did it for in total, it was a good
Speaker 3: three years. I did two series, two series.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: Yeah. Look, you know, out of all of them, all
Speaker 3: the stuff that I've done, there's been three things that
Speaker 3: I absolutely love, or maybe three, maybe four things that
Speaker 3: I love to love doing Heartbreak Eye, Underbelly and playing
Speaker 3: I played Peanut in the Peter Brock story. That was
Speaker 3: just mate, so much fun, doing police rescue, police rescue,
Speaker 3: playing Joey Cardillo. Right, you know, you know a lot
Speaker 3: of all these buildings around here right especially now actually
Speaker 3: where we are now this is to be the old
Speaker 3: sugar factories, right, And I was ab siling through buildings
Speaker 3: and my car chases police rescue was fantastic, you know, man,
Speaker 3: I'm telling you that was an experience of a lifetime,
Speaker 3: you know, like hanging off cliff faces and we're doing a.
Speaker 1: Lot of our own stunts.
Speaker 3: Man.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, it was fun. Man, it was fun.
Speaker 3: Man, what a buzz, you know, like doing stuff like
Speaker 3: in some once again going back to North Sydney.
Speaker 1: You know all those as.
Speaker 3: You come off the bridge, if you come on this
Speaker 3: way and you come on off the bridge right on
Speaker 3: the left hand side, there's all those big departments, right.
Speaker 3: We used to abseil all those I used to abseil
Speaker 3: all those, all those buildings there, and ah, that's so
Speaker 3: much fun. You get days that like you got like
Speaker 3: twenty thirty degree wins and those those cables are moving.
Speaker 3: You can't abseil anything because it just locks you in.
Speaker 3: You're not going nowhere. A lot of a lot of
Speaker 3: a drilling used to finish the day, and your eyes
Speaker 3: were like that you're like so much a drilling and
Speaker 3: pushing through your body. Yeah, yeah, I know what you're thinking.
Speaker 3: No talking about a drilling one track mine, one track mine.
Speaker 2: With heartbreak high. Do you actually once you've done that,
Speaker 2: do you think then you knew and your in your
Speaker 2: heart and your head that this is what you wanted
Speaker 2: to do?
Speaker 1: This is I know, I know, I knew, I knew
Speaker 1: we're not.
Speaker 3: Yeah, way before that, I knew that I was going
Speaker 3: to I knew I wanted to do. You know, I
Speaker 3: wanted to be in film, television, you know, on stage.
Speaker 1: You know, look where we are right now. Yeah. The
Speaker 1: amount of.
Speaker 3: Voiceovers those to do in like in you know, in
Speaker 3: my peak days were just unbelievable.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: I knew I wanted to do it a long time ago.
Speaker 2: I never tried to go overseas to do it.
Speaker 1: I did.
Speaker 3: I did, Actually, yeah, I did. I went overseas in
Speaker 3: two thousand and seven. I went to America and that
Speaker 3: was two thousand something like that, two thousand and seven,
Speaker 3: pre the the global financial financial crisis.
Speaker 1: And I went to America and I just went, what
Speaker 1: the fuck is this place?
Speaker 3: This place is just like it's like I've never seen
Speaker 3: so many yeah, I just didn't like it.
Speaker 1: I didn't like the vibe. I really didn't like the vibe.
Speaker 1: I didn't like I didn't like.
Speaker 2: You're mister clean, aren't you really? You are? Yeah, you're
Speaker 2: missed the clean. Yeah, like we've seen that you don't
Speaker 2: like to swear. Yeah yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, like you
Speaker 2: like what's his name from fucking Mary Poppins, what's his name?
Speaker 2: The one who sucking Chim Chimity, Chim Jim Jimmy Jim
Speaker 2: Jimmy clean man.
Speaker 1: Yeah, no, it's not that.
Speaker 3: It's just you know, like I I, uh, what's the
Speaker 3: word I like to kind of uh yeah, I just
Speaker 3: like the big conservative mm hmm.
Speaker 2: So then okay, so then this is where we.
Speaker 1: Get the crickets in the background.
Speaker 2: But see, this is this is where I get confused
Speaker 2: with you, all right, because you are mister clean. You
Speaker 2: don't like to swear. No, you don't like to reach.
Speaker 1: Even though even though I just swore, yeah you.
Speaker 2: Know what I mean? Like you you stopped just before
Speaker 2: and said, excuse me, you like you know what I mean?
Speaker 2: Yet you play fucking characters on under Belly and fucking
Speaker 2: Australian Gangster.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's really weird. Man, it's really weird.
Speaker 3: But see, I guess that's I guess that's just the
Speaker 3: whole point of being an actor.
Speaker 2: But Australian gangster. I counted how many times you sworn
Speaker 2: on that and I fucking message you to say, like.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I know, but look, you know that's that's me acting.
Speaker 3: That's me acting. There's there's a difference between acting and
Speaker 3: just me. You know, that's why I'm.
Speaker 2: This is me.
Speaker 3: I mean, yea, I know that, but like you know,
Speaker 3: when when when you're when you're look, a lot of
Speaker 3: people say that, like I am a pretty clean cut guy.
Speaker 3: I like to be clean cut, big, and that's what
Speaker 3: that's what I think is the beauty of what I do.
Speaker 1: It's not me, but I play it well.
Speaker 2: So tell me about the role on the Belly the
Speaker 2: Golden Mayle. When you got that part, okay, Oh.
Speaker 3: That was there was a lot more behind that, was it? Yeah,
Speaker 3: there's a lot more behind that Okay. So when I
Speaker 3: when I were going for the part.
Speaker 1: Absolutely or absolutely I where it was going in for.
Speaker 3: Well, we can honestly say that Harry Hammer is Sam Abraham,
Speaker 3: thank you. Yeah, it's loosely based on Sam Abraham.
Speaker 2: It's Sam Abraham.
Speaker 1: Okay, it's Samy Braham.
Speaker 2: See again, you're being clean, just fucking say it. It's
Speaker 2: Sam Abraham.
Speaker 1: You're saying it.
Speaker 2: I'm saying it, you're saying it.
Speaker 3: Okay, if you just give me a second, I'll probably
Speaker 3: get there.
Speaker 1: You know what I mean.
Speaker 2: You're going straight because we've got this. We've had this
Speaker 2: dilemma for a few years now, okay, And I knew
Speaker 2: you couldn't say this and that, but.
Speaker 3: Okay, so now so now so now it's actually done
Speaker 3: and it's passed. Okay, you can kind of do it
Speaker 3: and with what you know.
Speaker 1: It's true.
Speaker 3: Before I wasn't really kind of allowed to to sort
Speaker 3: of like mention that sort of thing. But I think
Speaker 3: it's all out there and people know.
Speaker 2: I think we all know. Yeah, we do.
Speaker 1: And I'll tell you.
Speaker 3: I'll tell you when I when I originally was going
Speaker 3: in for it, Okay, I'm actually was actually kind of
Speaker 3: the same way I am now.
Speaker 1: Yeah, And I.
Speaker 3: Remember seeing it come up and I knew it was
Speaker 3: going to be sad because really there was only one one, yeah,
Speaker 3: you know, And as we went on, they had to
Speaker 3: change the change the name due to legal reasons whatever.
Speaker 3: But and so so I it must have been about oh,
Speaker 3: it would have been a good six to eight months prior.
Speaker 1: I was going in right, and.
Speaker 3: There was something in my in my intuition that was saying,
Speaker 3: you're going to get this, You're going to get this.
Speaker 3: I don't know if it was just me saying that
Speaker 3: because I wanted to get it. But as soon as
Speaker 3: I as soon as I saw the casting come in
Speaker 3: for the audition, come in for it, man, I was
Speaker 3: straight at the gym. I went back to boxing, I
Speaker 3: went back to doing all the stuff that I had
Speaker 3: to do to get my body in there.
Speaker 1: Man. I was like, yeah, like from now, I.
Speaker 3: Was like at least eight kilos bigger, and was It
Speaker 3: was such a great, great journey, and I was really
Speaker 3: really glad that they allowed me to to to actually
Speaker 3: play Sam.
Speaker 1: You know.
Speaker 3: Look, you know I was doing so much more research too.
Speaker 3: You know, like every time i'd go in for an audition,
Speaker 3: you know, I'd go to the two dollars shop and
Speaker 3: I'd go get my tattoos and I'd put my tattoos on,
Speaker 3: you know, I'd put them all over my body wherever
Speaker 3: he had them.
Speaker 2: I used to do. I did the whole I.
Speaker 1: Used to walk in as him. That's it.
Speaker 3: It's it was the best thing I've ever done, one
Speaker 3: of the best journeys I've ever done.
Speaker 2: And I can't say this because there's been other programs
Speaker 2: that tried to portray him. Yeah, and even you other
Speaker 2: characters too, And I must admit under Belly the Golden
Speaker 2: Mile was probably the best one.
Speaker 3: We're hands down. I mean, we're not saying that. We're
Speaker 3: not saying that the current one I think you're talking
Speaker 3: about allowed to say. You said the Last King of
Speaker 3: the Cross is great.
Speaker 1: I'm not saying it's not.
Speaker 3: But you know what, what they did on on Underbelly
Speaker 3: was really really specific to to it.
Speaker 2: Because he's played the characters and he's played it to
Speaker 2: Howard the storyline.
Speaker 1: Yeah, but not only that, I think also.
Speaker 2: And you did a lot of research you yeah, oh yeah.
Speaker 3: But not not just me, all of us did, all
Speaker 3: the other actors, you know, even the Coppers Mate, they
Speaker 3: were they were on.
Speaker 2: That effect that like I think we spoke about this before,
Speaker 2: but we've done it offline. But it did it affect
Speaker 2: you offset too? Yeah?
Speaker 1: It did. It did.
Speaker 3: Like when you're when you when you're in that mindset,
Speaker 3: when you're constantly in that mindset of like playing someone's staunch.
Speaker 3: It uses through your body. I mean you yourself, you know,
Speaker 3: to test or contest to this as well. That when
Speaker 3: your body, if you're constantly thinking I need to stay staunched,
Speaker 3: you become staunch.
Speaker 1: You become staunch, right, And it's.
Speaker 3: Only it's only when you kind of you go, well,
Speaker 3: I've got to remember, hey, I'm at a wedding here.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you know, I can't do that. And it's interesting.
Speaker 3: When I was playing Sam, I was doing a wedding
Speaker 3: at concordor or and and I remember doing the wedding
Speaker 3: and someone at someone had to pull me back. So
Speaker 3: you got to calm down. I'm like, what do you
Speaker 3: mean not, you gotta calm down, And they said, you
Speaker 3: just you just look like you want to kill somebody.
Speaker 3: I said, well, I am playing somebody that was to
Speaker 3: kill somebody. But yeah, you know what I mean.
Speaker 1: So yeah, so it does it does? It does? It does? Yeah?
Speaker 1: Bring d Yeah, it does. It does. It does.
Speaker 2: But after after you stuff and it took a while,
Speaker 2: did it? Yeah, it took a while.
Speaker 1: It took about.
Speaker 3: It took me probably about.
Speaker 2: Because I know a lot of the actors in that
Speaker 2: kept going and going and going and going as that
Speaker 2: that that actor well, well that person not actor, sorry,
Speaker 2: that person, and I think they liked it. And you would,
Speaker 2: you know what I mean if you if you're portraying
Speaker 2: someone who's very well known in the underworld, are very
Speaker 2: staunch and you can see because even though you're not
Speaker 2: that person, you still get that power feeling, you know
Speaker 2: what I mean?
Speaker 3: Yeah, you know, I mean that's the thing when you start,
Speaker 3: when you start doing things and you know, you you
Speaker 3: you take you embody, whatever it is that you're trying
Speaker 3: to portray, you know, it's it's in your head, it
Speaker 3: becomes you.
Speaker 1: You know.
Speaker 3: And you know because I used to THEND that I
Speaker 3: was teaching for a while and I tried to explain
Speaker 3: it to the students that you've got to remember you've
Speaker 3: got to separate yourself from what it is that you're
Speaker 3: you're pt train to you your two different things. It
Speaker 3: can really take it. Yeah, it can go down the
Speaker 3: wrong path if if it's not controlled properly. And thankfully
Speaker 3: I got the right I had the right tools to
Speaker 3: kind of get me out of that sort of mindset.
Speaker 2: But yeah, prize to that that you've you've you've met
Speaker 2: prior to that. Never, so you've never met some Abraham
Speaker 2: never to see how you had to? Never?
Speaker 3: Well never, so you just went from what you see. Yeah,
Speaker 3: just and what I've heard. That's all from what I've
Speaker 3: seen and what I heard. I've never met him. No,
Speaker 3: there was a time I remember, I I I was
Speaker 3: asked if I could, if I would, I can't remember
Speaker 3: if it was production or something like that, and I said, nah,
Speaker 3: that's fine, No I didn't need to, you know what
Speaker 3: I mean, there was no there was actually no need.
Speaker 2: How did how did they feel filming and the cross
Speaker 2: do and all that shit?
Speaker 3: Fantastic? Yeah, fantastic, fantastic. You know, it's you know, it
Speaker 3: was just before they cleaned it up so much like
Speaker 3: it was like now it's so sterile. Yeah, but yeah, yeah,
Speaker 3: you know it's it was just it's just a buzz.
Speaker 3: It's just a buzz to kind of be there, just
Speaker 3: you know, because you know that was the strip.
Speaker 1: That was the strip.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, you know, because I think from what I remember,
Speaker 2: the the the launch was at the after party or
Speaker 2: something like that was at then.
Speaker 1: You have the tunnel.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's correct.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, it was at the tunnel. Yeah, it was awesome.
Speaker 3: That was awesome.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's right. It was at the tunnel.
Speaker 2: Yeah, were you there? I was there, I was there
Speaker 2: that man.
Speaker 1: You were there. Yeah, oh yeah, that was a good night.
Speaker 2: Yeah, because we were all looking at you said should
Speaker 2: we show me the real people are?
Speaker 1: Okay?
Speaker 2: Okay, but now I remember that night, but it was
Speaker 2: it was it was it hard. Like I was going,
Speaker 2: I say, did anyone approach you? And after the show
Speaker 2: in relation to who you's?
Speaker 1: Ah?
Speaker 2: Yeah?
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, oh yeah, so you know, you know when
Speaker 3: it was really weird.
Speaker 1: It was really weird. I don't know if I told
Speaker 1: you this story. Do you I tell you this story?
Speaker 2: We haven't told me it?
Speaker 1: Yeah, I can't mind. So I remember us.
Speaker 3: We just just came, just went on air, right, okay,
Speaker 3: And I don't know. I think I had to go
Speaker 3: do an event somewhere in King's Cross and I walked through, right,
Speaker 3: And I'll never forget the dorman going, Sam, Hey, Sam,
Speaker 3: what what the what the hell?
Speaker 1: That's how good I played him?
Speaker 2: All right, fucking hell, come back to life.
Speaker 3: Yeah, but that's but I'm not joking. That's that's literally
Speaker 3: what was going on.
Speaker 2: They knew who I was.
Speaker 3: But they knew straightaway they could associate it to him,
Speaker 3: you know, And yeah, that's a good feeling, man, that's
Speaker 3: a really good when you know that, you like, I
Speaker 3: put my heart and soul into it, you know, I
Speaker 3: put my heart and soul into it.
Speaker 1: I put everything I could into it, you know.
Speaker 3: And I didn't want to I didn't like even so,
Speaker 3: like going back to what we're talking about, the last
Speaker 3: King of the Cross, right, and if you see the
Speaker 3: transition with with Sam Ibrahim when he's like in his
Speaker 3: younger days and he had longer hair, so now he's
Speaker 3: got that Caesar haircut. I were in under Belly when
Speaker 3: we were when we're when we were getting to that
Speaker 3: stages where where Sam goes into the bike is right.
Speaker 3: You know, I actually asked the producers please let me
Speaker 3: get the Caesar. Let me yeah, please let me get
Speaker 3: because that was the George Michael look, do you remember,
Speaker 3: And I said please, please please, and.
Speaker 1: They said, no, we can't let you do that.
Speaker 3: But I was I really want I wanted to do
Speaker 3: the whole the whole transition because I remember I remember
Speaker 3: like reading a lot of that stuff, and you know,
Speaker 3: I want to to do that. But you know they
Speaker 3: did actually capture that in the Last King of the Cross. Yeah,
Speaker 3: which is good, you know, because I think that was
Speaker 3: quite honest to what was going on, you know, in
Speaker 3: the whole let's just say the storyline of the Ibrahim's
Speaker 3: at that stage. Yeah, I have to say, I got
Speaker 3: to be honest with you. I have to say the
Speaker 3: second series for me of The Last King of the Cross,
Speaker 3: when we're talking about episode four, five, six, and seven
Speaker 3: and eight.
Speaker 1: I loved it. Are we talk about what were we
Speaker 1: talk about the Last King of the Cross.
Speaker 2: One that's on now, Yeah, I love it it.
Speaker 3: The last bit when Mike, when Michael, when Michael Kanan
Speaker 3: comes in and all they not Michael Kanan, Michael Abraham
Speaker 3: comes in and stuff.
Speaker 1: I loved it. I loved it.
Speaker 2: Because I'm trying to think what you loved.
Speaker 3: No, I just thought I thought the performances were good. Yeah,
Speaker 3: I'm talking about performances. I thought I thought the guys
Speaker 3: had done a really good job. They really found their feet. Then,
Speaker 3: you know, I actually I actually messaged one of the directors,
Speaker 3: Ian Watson, and.
Speaker 1: Said, what mate, you nailed it.
Speaker 2: You nailed it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, in regards to the direction, I loved it.
Speaker 2: What direction? Was there? One direction?
Speaker 1: Not one direction.
Speaker 2: I'm just saying the direction because I looked at that,
Speaker 2: and as I've just said before, now you're going to
Speaker 2: make me get in a debate here, because.
Speaker 1: Okay, that's good. That's what we're here for.
Speaker 2: If not a debate, we're talking about your fucking life.
Speaker 2: Under Belly the Golden Mile told a story which was
Speaker 2: virtually true, virtually true. Last King of the Cross. I'm lost.
Speaker 2: I'm fucking lost with the storyline. Look and don't try,
Speaker 2: and don't you did?
Speaker 1: I can't.
Speaker 2: I'm lost because I don't know half the ship that
Speaker 2: in this what's happened?
Speaker 1: But he's only supposed to be non fiction.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so I tell a story. Then, okay, I'm not
Speaker 2: going to get in this debate because I'm you know
Speaker 2: what I mean.
Speaker 1: I guess that's what it is.
Speaker 2: I mean, we all know we're trying to sell a
Speaker 2: TV show. Yeah overseas. We all know we're trying to
Speaker 2: get viewers. Because the problem with Underbelly was it was
Speaker 2: only shown on local TV. I never hit anywhere else,
Speaker 2: you know what I mean?
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's true.
Speaker 2: Okay, So this one was to sell Netflix or fucking
Speaker 2: where it's going to go overseas. But I'm lost with
Speaker 2: the storyline.
Speaker 1: I have to be very honest with you.
Speaker 3: In series one, I didn't know what the hell was
Speaker 3: going on. I don't know who was who, what was what.
Speaker 2: I didn't watch season one at all because I was
Speaker 2: lost after ten minutes. Yeah, you do get a little.
Speaker 1: But season two is much better.
Speaker 2: Season two I watched because I just thought, well, let's
Speaker 2: go go with the ride because I don't know where
Speaker 2: we're going. But anyway, but.
Speaker 1: That's but that's television, you know what I mean.
Speaker 2: I guess, I guess I thought I was watching John Wick,
Speaker 2: John Wick. Yeah, John Wick or fucking Ramber. I'm telling
Speaker 2: you the truth, Brom. Being honest, I thought I was
Speaker 2: watching There's There was more fucking ship in that season
Speaker 2: than John Wig Scot.
Speaker 3: I love it, and I just went wig anyway. Yeah,
Speaker 3: back to you, going back to me, So, when when.
Speaker 2: You finished filming, did it affect your next role on
Speaker 2: your on a on a on a TV show. No, No,
Speaker 2: you can just.
Speaker 3: Change because straight after that it took a bit of time.
Speaker 3: But then after that I went into playing a copper
Speaker 3: in Catching My Latt the Story of My Lad and
Speaker 3: then from my lad. I went to playing Peanut in
Speaker 3: the Peter Brock story, and then from the Peter Brock story,
Speaker 3: I did something else that I good, fruit change and
Speaker 3: the rest of it. No, I did the Secret Daughter.
Speaker 3: Oh yes, yeah, I did the Secret Daughter.
Speaker 1: Then I did Sea Change, and then from Sea Change
Speaker 1: I went into Home and Away.
Speaker 2: Oh you missed Australian gangster.
Speaker 3: And again against my apologies, yeah, straining gangster, Australian gangster,
Speaker 3: Sholian gangster, another one.
Speaker 2: I actually thought your role and that was actually better
Speaker 2: than what you did in an Underbelly only just the
Speaker 2: fact is that was a you that I've never seen
Speaker 2: before on a on a TV show, which playing us.
Speaker 1: Yeah, oh that's interesting.
Speaker 2: Because even though you played Sam Abraham very good, this
Speaker 2: was a different you where and I remember the text
Speaker 2: messages I'll be sending you like, you know, a line
Speaker 2: of co what the fuck you do? Like you're the
Speaker 2: type of person to say to the producer on a
Speaker 2: TV I'm doing that. No, No, I'm not doing that, bro,
Speaker 2: you know what I mean? And you did it. It's
Speaker 2: like fucking hell, go for gold.
Speaker 1: Well, that's what that gets about. That's that's that's I'm
Speaker 1: gonna take you on a Saturday nights out more often
Speaker 1: maybe this weekend.
Speaker 2: But and then you know, you're just a different way
Speaker 2: of the way you're acting in this Like I've never
Speaker 2: seen you swear so much in a TV show. I've
Speaker 2: never seen you go out of your comfort zone so much,
Speaker 2: you know what I mean? And that.
Speaker 3: Yeah, but that's that's what that's what was. That was
Speaker 3: was was was needed. Yeah, you know, that's what was.
Speaker 3: That's what I think was well personally, that you enjoying
Speaker 3: that role. Oh yeah more than well, no way, I
Speaker 3: still enjoyed doing oh yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And the
Speaker 3: reason is is because I was working with some really
Speaker 3: good people too. You know the great thing about the
Speaker 3: training Gangster. I know you're going to go, oh yeah,
Speaker 3: I'm softening it up, mate. I've been pretty blessed, right,
Speaker 3: I've been very blessed. At a lot of the times.
Speaker 3: The people that I work with are just being like
Speaker 3: down to earth, down to earth, and we're all there
Speaker 3: for a common purpose, just to do the best we
Speaker 3: possibly can. You generally find that I generally find that
Speaker 3: a lot of the stuff that I have been lucky
Speaker 3: enough to have done, we are we are very creative
Speaker 3: kind of people, and we just really want to do
Speaker 3: the best we can. I treat every job like it's
Speaker 3: my last, and that's it. You know, I haven't actually
Speaker 3: worked for five years, to be honest with you, So
Speaker 3: the last thing I did was was Home and Away.
Speaker 1: I haven't worked for five years, and I treat that job.
Speaker 2: What have you been doing lining up at centially?
Speaker 1: Yeah? I like that?
Speaker 3: Yeah so yeah, I've been my weddings of that. But yeah,
Speaker 3: so but like I put everything I possibly could in
Speaker 3: playing Dimitipoulos, which is you know, he was in Home
Speaker 3: and Away a while back and he came back again,
Speaker 3: and I treat it as if my last gig.
Speaker 1: You know, that's it.
Speaker 2: Did you like coming a week?
Speaker 1: Oh yeah?
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, I'll tell you why I liked Home and Away.
Speaker 3: Everyone turns their nose up at Home and Away, right,
Speaker 3: and they go away the stupid solid lines. They always
Speaker 3: say the same things. But I'll tell you what if
Speaker 3: you actually put yourself there and see what those guys
Speaker 3: go through like for one week, right, you would literally
Speaker 3: you just you'd fall down with exhaustion, being exhausted, kind
Speaker 3: of save the bloody word, right. The reason is they
Speaker 3: are doing like literally from five o'clock in the morn
Speaker 3: or some Not only that, but they're doing like five
Speaker 3: to six s grips in one hit. Like one minute
Speaker 3: they're like script number six, and then the next minute
Speaker 3: there's script number one. Next day there is script number two.
Speaker 3: They're coming back to script number six. Like you just
Speaker 3: they're just over the place, you know, do you know
Speaker 3: what I mean? Like I'm not the exact that they're once, Yeah,
Speaker 3: but they're just from They're like from here to there.
Speaker 3: Then they're coming back and they're going there. They're going
Speaker 3: here and they're going there. Myself being you know, like
Speaker 3: just a guest you that's coming in, right, I can
Speaker 3: have my stuff prepared, But can you imagine doing that
Speaker 3: for five Like some of those guys have been doing it.
Speaker 1: For how many years?
Speaker 2: Yeah?
Speaker 1: Ten years? No wonder why they run around like like.
Speaker 3: Crazy because they're just where are you supposed to be? Like,
Speaker 3: how do you keep tabs of the character?
Speaker 1: You can't?
Speaker 2: You just can't name of your top three shows that
Speaker 2: you've done, the top three of everything you've done, namely
Speaker 2: your first to second to third.
Speaker 1: I can't, Yes she can, I can't, Yes she can
Speaker 1: I can't.
Speaker 2: Yeah you can.
Speaker 1: I can't because they're all unique in their own way.
Speaker 3: Just name you, man, you know what I'm going to
Speaker 3: go with the Let me just let me just let
Speaker 3: me just say, right, you cannot name the top three
Speaker 3: that doesn't exist because each role has its own unique thing.
Speaker 2: You must have a favor.
Speaker 3: You don't walk the talk, Joey Grasso. I can tell
Speaker 3: you Sam Ibrahim or Harry Hammer in Underbelly, Peanut, the
Speaker 3: Peter Brock Story, fantastic playing Leser lies in Straining gangsty
Speaker 3: That's just that when I was I did something with.
Speaker 2: The rest of you're all dead in so well, they
Speaker 2: can't be that one's so you're playing the dead person
Speaker 2: most of them.
Speaker 1: You said at the start, Yeah, I know, but you
Speaker 1: know what I mean, Like I.
Speaker 2: Reckon to me my top three? Yeah, go okay for
Speaker 2: you hit me up? Would be Sam Abraham first. Well,
Speaker 2: if you say one hundred percent, why couldn't you tell
Speaker 2: me that?
Speaker 3: But because I agree with you, I agree with you,
Speaker 3: but I don't agree that it's the top three.
Speaker 2: I can't. I would say either Brock or Catching My Lap.
Speaker 1: No, but what about Comboardino? He was great? You know
Speaker 1: what I mean?
Speaker 2: I don't know what I said, heartbreak high because that
Speaker 2: made you.
Speaker 3: You see what I mean, Neil, You can't just say
Speaker 3: the top three, man, My I'm not trying to I'm
Speaker 3: not trying to fucking boast.
Speaker 1: I'm not trying to boast. Man.
Speaker 3: But at the end of the day, man, my career
Speaker 3: goes for thirty years. Do you how do you put
Speaker 3: it down to the top three?
Speaker 1: You just can't. You can't.
Speaker 3: It's impossible sorting to be a hot shot. But that's
Speaker 3: the reality of it, you know, is.
Speaker 2: There is there a TV show you've never been on
Speaker 2: that you've loved to be on? Is that ever being
Speaker 2: a TV show that you've seen and you've gone, Fuck,
Speaker 2: I'd love to be on that. Why can't I get
Speaker 2: on that? I want to get on that.
Speaker 3: Missed in Between. That's a great one. Anyone that's listening
Speaker 3: to this, check it out. Missed in Between. That was
Speaker 3: really really good.
Speaker 2: Okay, The Magician.
Speaker 1: It's actually it's actually ah, yes, it was.
Speaker 3: It's a it's the longer version of the short film
Speaker 3: The Magician Out.
Speaker 1: It was good. He was really really good in that.
Speaker 1: The whole, the whole, the whole, Oh is it?
Speaker 3: Which Edgon was what I can't remember which editing was,
Speaker 3: is it Nash, Yeah, one of the two.
Speaker 1: When they directed it, it was fantastic.
Speaker 2: Actor or theater work like which on stage or.
Speaker 3: Financially you definitely go film and television, but like you
Speaker 3: know what you prefer, I do like I do like
Speaker 3: television and film.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Like doing live?
Speaker 3: No, I love doing live, but I do live all
Speaker 3: the time. Like just like, honestly, being at weddings is theater.
Speaker 3: It's you might get it's not it's a wedding, trust me,
Speaker 3: it's theater.
Speaker 2: So you like hosting more than anything. You like to
Speaker 2: be a host, I don't.
Speaker 3: Look, I just love to entertain. That's a That's my
Speaker 3: honest answer. I love to entertain. I like anyone that
Speaker 3: sees me. Like on Saturday, I did a very small
Speaker 3: local business that were just promoting an Italian theme and
Speaker 3: I was there part of it, you know, hosting it, singing,
Speaker 3: doing this, doing that, and I just love I just
Speaker 3: love making people happy.
Speaker 1: You know.
Speaker 3: Do I like hosting presenting? Yeah, I do, of course
Speaker 3: I do. But I just also like making people feel great.
Speaker 1: I just do it. I just love it. I love it.
Speaker 3: A lot of people say it. You can see it.
Speaker 3: I'm not just saying it. People actually say, you can
Speaker 3: see that.
Speaker 1: You've got a lot of love for what you do.
Speaker 2: I do.
Speaker 1: I love it. I absolutely love it. I love it.
Speaker 3: I love I love the fact that you know, there
Speaker 3: could be someone on the table and and they you know,
Speaker 3: they're just they just feel you know, just they're not.
Speaker 3: You can feel a vibe, and the ViBe's a little
Speaker 3: bit and I just bring them to another level and
Speaker 3: when they walking out the same thank you.
Speaker 1: You know, I think that was a really good night,
Speaker 1: you know.
Speaker 3: I just love that, whether or not that's you know,
Speaker 3: in between in front of a camera, present into a camera,
Speaker 3: because you can actually make someone feel great in front
Speaker 3: of a camera.
Speaker 1: You can, you know, or whether or not face to face.
Speaker 1: I just love it. I love entertainment.
Speaker 2: Regrets.
Speaker 3: Everybody's got regrets, one hundred percent. We've all got regrets. Yeah,
Speaker 3: I probably have to say. There was a time I
Speaker 3: was offered a big contract on Home and Away to
Speaker 3: come on as Dmitry Pulos and and I didn't take
Speaker 3: that on How.
Speaker 2: Long it was that when you were doing it all
Speaker 2: before that?
Speaker 3: No, that was that was just after I finished Heartbreak
Speaker 3: High and I was going to come on to do
Speaker 3: a big stint, and I didn't do it because I
Speaker 3: decided that I needed to find going back to you know,
Speaker 3: to me or you're a chef by trade. I decided,
Speaker 3: you know what, I'm going to sacrifice this and get
Speaker 3: myself a trade.
Speaker 1: That's why I didn't do it. But I actually had it.
Speaker 1: I had the opportunity many many years.
Speaker 3: Ago to do that. That's probably one of my biggest regrets.
Speaker 2: Describe yourself in one word.
Speaker 1: Fun So what was the future hole for mister cell
Speaker 1: who bloody knows.
Speaker 2: You don't know. I got to find you a job, bro.
Speaker 3: You know, in that time that I told you that
Speaker 3: I didn't I didn't accept that agreement for home and away.
Speaker 3: There was a time that I really didn't work like
Speaker 3: a lot for about say a years. And you know
Speaker 3: it will come. I've been around for a long time,
Speaker 3: all right. I don't plan to go anywhere. I'll stick around.
Speaker 1: I've been.
Speaker 3: I've been auditioning for heaps of things, you know, I
Speaker 3: just don't land them. Whether or not it's because I'm
Speaker 3: not right for the role. Whatever it is, I don't know,
Speaker 3: it doesn't matter. You know, I'm going to be around.
Speaker 3: I'm not going nowhere. I'm not going nowhere. I'll be
Speaker 3: around for a while. I'm not going nowhere.
Speaker 2: I know, you know, you're fucking annoying. Come.
Speaker 1: I wouldn't have it any other way. No, but you know, man,
Speaker 1: I just love it.
Speaker 2: I love it. Yeah, thanks for coming on.
Speaker 3: An absolute pleasure, And I just got to say, it's
Speaker 3: great to see mister Neil Cummings like in the success
Speaker 3: that he's got with the Secrets of the Underworld.
Speaker 1: Going back how many years ago? Was it? Two years ago? Three?
Speaker 3: When we started twenty twenty right, and look at that
Speaker 3: twenty twenty four years ladies own little studio right here
Speaker 3: at Nova.
Speaker 1: I love it. It's the best, it's the best. It's
Speaker 1: good to see u.
Speaker 2: Thanks being everywhere.
Speaker 1: You know, the man, the man that used to keep
Speaker 1: swaying to the general of Tongue. Nah, I'm not anyone,
Speaker 1: all right, Neil, thanks so much. I appreciate it, all right.
Speaker 3: Yeah, h m hm