Speaker 1: Hello, and welcome to the Stellar podcast Something to Talk About.
Speaker 1: I'm Sarah La Marquin, your host, and every week I
Speaker 1: sit down with some of the biggest names in the
Speaker 1: country because when Australia's celebrities are ready to talk, they
Speaker 1: come to Something.
Speaker 2: To Talk About.
Speaker 1: Claudia Carvin is one of Australia's most acclaimed actors. She's
Speaker 1: been at it since she was ten years old, producing
Speaker 1: and creating television series since her early thirties. If you
Speaker 1: think back to some of Australia's most beloved TV shows
Speaker 1: and film there's a good chance Claudia was in it.
Speaker 1: From The Secret Life of Us to Love My Way,
Speaker 1: to The Heartbreak Kid, to Spirited and now Bump. Claudia
Speaker 1: has a lot to talk about, and today on Something
Speaker 1: to Talk About, she does just that from a wardrobe
Speaker 1: malfunction on National TV.
Speaker 3: And I was like, Oh, that looks like quite a
Speaker 3: bit of my.
Speaker 4: Boob on the TV.
Speaker 2: I'm like, oh, dear ooops.
Speaker 1: The quote unquote unhappiest job of her career.
Speaker 4: It's a tough job.
Speaker 3: I felt like I was an adult and I was
Speaker 3: playing a very adult role, but I was only that
Speaker 3: nineteen and away from home. And the content was quite
Speaker 3: There's a lot of intimacy and nudity.
Speaker 1: And the real life inspiration for love my way.
Speaker 3: I was with Jazz and you know, my stepdaughter was
Speaker 3: my best friend's daughter. I was the godmother, so there
Speaker 3: was lots of sort of blurred lines there.
Speaker 1: And of course how she's feeling in the lead up
Speaker 1: to her very final scenes of Bump going to air.
Speaker 1: Claudia Carvin, Welcome to the Stellar Podcast.
Speaker 2: Thanks for having me.
Speaker 3: Nice to be here, lovely to have you here.
Speaker 1: I'm very excited to talk to you about the final
Speaker 1: season of Bump, which is premiering on Boxing Day. But
Speaker 1: before we get to that, I'd actually love to maybe
Speaker 1: go back a bit and look back on your career.
Speaker 3: Take a little bit of a walk.
Speaker 1: Down memory lane with you, Claudia, because last year you
Speaker 1: were made a Member of the Order of Australia for
Speaker 1: service to the film and television industry. I mean quite
Speaker 1: the honor. Was that a moment that gave you pause
Speaker 1: to reflect on your career because it's been for decades
Speaker 1: that you've been working in this industry.
Speaker 3: Now, I know, I know I'm not very I'm not
Speaker 3: very good at ceremony. My children came with me. That
Speaker 3: was the best pit about it. My son dressed up
Speaker 3: in a suit and they.
Speaker 4: Were pretty impressed.
Speaker 2: And yeah, I wasn't.
Speaker 3: Prepared for the sort of the beautiful pomp and ceremony
Speaker 3: around it, So yeah, I did realize, oh, that was
Speaker 3: a very important recognition, and the medal itself was very beautiful.
Speaker 3: The location at a government house was stunning, and all
Speaker 3: the other people who were being honored, I mean, you know,
Speaker 3: they were like fighting bush fires and.
Speaker 4: Remarkable all feats.
Speaker 3: And my children are like, so, wait a minute, you
Speaker 3: just got this because you.
Speaker 2: Want to LOGI.
Speaker 3: And then now I'm sort of fighting over it, going well,
Speaker 3: who's going to get it when you die?
Speaker 1: Did that get settled?
Speaker 3: I think that because they get you get a small
Speaker 3: one and an address one.
Speaker 4: You get three, so.
Speaker 1: You know, there's plenty to go around.
Speaker 2: I don't need to fight.
Speaker 1: Do you have the proverbial or literal trophy cabinet? Because
Speaker 1: that's right. There has been a LOGI. There's been a
Speaker 1: lot of awards and recognition in your career. Now that
Speaker 1: you have that medal for this honor, is there somewhere
Speaker 1: where it all sits.
Speaker 3: Ah, it just sits in my office, and yeah, I
Speaker 3: just don't want to turn into one of those people
Speaker 3: like in thirty or forty you goes And I won
Speaker 3: all these awards like boring people to tears with all
Speaker 3: my incredible achievements. I just I actually look at them
Speaker 3: and I go, hmmm, what rest did I wear? When
Speaker 3: I want when I won that one? Because it's always
Speaker 3: it's always about what shoes and what dress did you wear?
Speaker 3: What hair and makeup did you get done, who did
Speaker 3: you go with, how much wine did you drink or
Speaker 3: not drink? What was the entertainment? So it's sort of
Speaker 3: a little bit like a photo album, and it's sort
Speaker 3: of fun or really embarrassing when you have like a
Speaker 3: wardrobe malfunction, which I once had. So whenever I look
Speaker 3: at that award, I go, uh huh uh ah.
Speaker 2: That was that one?
Speaker 1: And what happened there? And was that in the era
Speaker 1: of social media or was it in a time where
Speaker 1: maybe you kind of got away with it a little
Speaker 1: more then a little less than you might today.
Speaker 3: Well, I was sitting in the airport lounge and I
Speaker 3: was you know, it was daytime morning, you know, morning television,
Speaker 3: and I was like, oh, that looks like quite a
Speaker 3: bit of my boop on the TV.
Speaker 2: I'm like, oh dear, whoops loo.
Speaker 1: Could see it happens, doesn't it. You know, it's okay.
Speaker 1: It doesn't sound like it was justin Timberlake Janet Jackson's
Speaker 1: you know, super level wardrobe.
Speaker 3: It was not too offensive, and all the mums in
Speaker 3: the playground were very.
Speaker 2: Sweet to me.
Speaker 3: When I arrived to pick up my daughter that day,
Speaker 3: They're like, that's fine, you boob look.
Speaker 1: Great, well that look this is love. I love I
Speaker 1: love this about women and look. To be honest, anyone
Speaker 1: that's been anywhere near that's right, any experience around breastfeeding
Speaker 1: has for the rest of their life. It's like, who
Speaker 1: hasn't inadvertently exposed breast.
Speaker 3: It is hard once you've been breastfeeding in public to
Speaker 3: sort of take them seriously anymore. It's like, wait a minute,
Speaker 3: I was allowed to have them out every five minutes
Speaker 3: once upon a time.
Speaker 1: That's right.
Speaker 2: You can't.
Speaker 1: You can't just put that genie back in the bottle.
Speaker 4: That's right.
Speaker 1: You've been acting since you were ten. When you were fourteen,
Speaker 1: you start alongside Judy Davis in High Tide. You told
Speaker 1: Stella four years ago, I didn't know who Judy was.
Speaker 1: I didn't know who Jillian Armstrong was. I certainly didn't
Speaker 1: do any research. There wasn't the internet. I was just
Speaker 1: a fourteen year old girl. I love the innocence of that.
Speaker 1: For one of a better word, what are your memories
Speaker 1: of that time and do you feel that, like every
Speaker 1: experience that happens, that that is just such a reflection
Speaker 1: of the time. As you say, you couldn't do research
Speaker 1: because he didn't have access to the Internet, but that
Speaker 1: also meant that you weren't thinking about a lot of
Speaker 1: the things that I imagine a fourteen year old girl
Speaker 1: would go on to set on that experience in twenty
Speaker 1: twenty four.
Speaker 4: Yes, that's right.
Speaker 3: Well, it's interesting because at the time I also wasn't
Speaker 3: aware that very few films are directed by women. I mean,
Speaker 3: gender was not on my radar at all. I was
Speaker 3: a fourteen year old girl. So looking back at it
Speaker 3: now with the wisdom of hindsight and being able to
Speaker 3: see it in context, I was working with four not one,
Speaker 3: not two, not three, but four extraordinary women. So Jillian Armstrong,
Speaker 3: who had already done my brilliant career, Judy Davis, who'd
Speaker 3: been in David Lene Films and you know, been nominated
Speaker 3: for Oscars, and Laura Jones wrote it an extraordinarily beautiful script,
Speaker 3: and she was on set all the time, and she
Speaker 3: was in the rehearsals, and she was so humble and
Speaker 3: so unassuming and so observant. She had such a beautiful
Speaker 3: spirit about her. I feel like, I to me, she
Speaker 3: was a real writer. That's the first time I had
Speaker 3: anything to do with like what does a.
Speaker 2: Writer look like? What is their vibe?
Speaker 3: Which again I wasn't very conscious of, but I definitely
Speaker 3: look back in that and go, wow, writers, writers are beautiful,
Speaker 3: and there's such an integral part of the whole process,
Speaker 3: and they're often you know, tucked away like that. They're
Speaker 3: not praised enough for you know, they're not on the
Speaker 3: red carpet very often. So she was beautiful. And then
Speaker 3: Sandra Levy who produced it, so I just thought I
Speaker 3: didn't even question that. But I look back on that
Speaker 3: now and think, wow, what a great entry into the
Speaker 3: film industry, because you know, from my perspective, it's like, well,
Speaker 3: there's nothing going wrong here, this is all pretty good.
Speaker 1: And then was it a bit of a shock because
Speaker 1: obviously at the latter part of your career, which I
Speaker 1: love to talk to a bit later on, especially as
Speaker 1: a producer, you have worked with and encourage and help
Speaker 1: foster and partner with a lot of female creatives. But
Speaker 1: then you would have, I imagine, realized as most actors do, oh, well,
Speaker 1: most directors are men. Certainly for people working internationally, they
Speaker 1: may go their entire career on a film that is
Speaker 1: only ever directed by a man. So then when did
Speaker 1: that beautiful sort of innocence I suppose, get a bit
Speaker 1: punctured of realizing that, yeah, that was a bit of
Speaker 1: an normally that experience.
Speaker 3: Well, actually the run continued because I had Nadia Tass
Speaker 3: directed me in The Big Steal, Laurie mckinnis directed me
Speaker 3: in Broken Highway, which I went to cann Film Festival
Speaker 3: with Megan Simpson. Humorman directed me and Dating the Enemy.
Speaker 3: So my personal anecdotal experience was there are women everywhere.
Speaker 4: So when the stats.
Speaker 3: Came out when they did the Gender Matters before they
Speaker 3: started the Gender Matters initiative at Screen Australia and I
Speaker 3: was on the board of Screen Australia, I think at
Speaker 3: that time was it just about to be so they
Speaker 3: these figures came out and I was looking at them going,
Speaker 3: I just don't make I don't see evidence of that.
Speaker 2: I don't understand that. I can't work that out.
Speaker 3: It just wouldn't compute. And so it took a situation
Speaker 3: like with a beautiful, very very very talented director called
Speaker 3: Lucy Gaffey who I think she was in maybe her
Speaker 3: late thirties, and her short film came across my desk
Speaker 3: and it was.
Speaker 2: Brilliant, really like.
Speaker 3: Stunning, and I was like, I've got to work with
Speaker 3: this director, and so we pulled out all stops and
Speaker 3: gave her a shadow directing role, which meant she got
Speaker 3: to it's like a sort of talent escalation initiative, and
Speaker 3: she got to do her one episode and she's never
Speaker 3: looked back. She was amazing on Doctor Doctor, a Tony
Speaker 3: McNamara written script who's gone on to win awards for
Speaker 3: the great and like he's he's extraordined Oscar nomination, Oscar nomination,
Speaker 3: like amazingly talented writer. So she directed one of his
Speaker 3: episodes and she came up to me at the rap
Speaker 3: party and said, you've You've changed my life, like you've
Speaker 3: given me a career, and I'm like, no, I haven't.
Speaker 3: That's ridiculous, what a stupid that's a stupid thing to say, Like,
Speaker 3: you can't give me credit for that. You are a
Speaker 3: very talented person and you would have got you would
Speaker 3: have got a job anyway. And she was like, nah,
Speaker 3: I have been knocking on doors for years and no
Speaker 3: one has given me an opportunity. And I saw her
Speaker 3: the other day and she said, I've just come from
Speaker 3: AFTR Rest and I just told that story. I tell
Speaker 3: that story everywhere I go. Now, the position that I'm in,
Speaker 3: the very privileged, luxurious position I'm in, is I can
Speaker 3: do that for a lot of people, men and women
Speaker 3: are like but it's the best part of my job.
Speaker 1: I mean, it's just so amazing. I imagine to get
Speaker 1: that sort of feedback, because as you say, you were
Speaker 1: a bit oblivious to it, clearly actually disputed the fact
Speaker 1: that that was you. But to hear that is got
Speaker 1: to be talked about. The awards and the accolades. I'm
Speaker 1: in its moments like that that I have to be
Speaker 1: the most rewarding. I imagine, that's right.
Speaker 2: I often get asked that question.
Speaker 3: It's one of the most difficult questions to be asked,
Speaker 3: is like what does success mean to you?
Speaker 2: And my brain always goes blank. Oh god, I don't know.
Speaker 3: But that is what it means being able to do
Speaker 3: something like that. I have to remember that that's going
Speaker 3: to be my next down.
Speaker 1: So when someone says, yes, exactly exactly what does success
Speaker 1: mean to you? You know what to say. You mentioned
Speaker 1: dating the enemy there, and so I thought I might
Speaker 1: actually ask you about some comments that David Stratton made.
Speaker 1: He was on the Stellar podcast with me a couple
Speaker 1: of months ago, and I was talking to him about
Speaker 1: romantic comedies as a genre in Australia and said, it's
Speaker 1: not something that we as a nation have done an
Speaker 1: awful lot of. And I called out Paperback Hero, the
Speaker 1: film that you did in nineteen ninety nine opposite Hugh Jackman,
Speaker 1: and David said, you've got to get absolutely the right
Speaker 1: actors to do rom com well. And Claudia's peerless in
Speaker 1: that respect. She could have done a lot more. She's
Speaker 1: a wonderful comedian and a wonderful actor. Lovely praise there
Speaker 1: from David. But what do you think about that?
Speaker 3: I think that it I guess before Bridget Jones Diary,
Speaker 3: it sort of felt like an American trope maybe, so
Speaker 3: when we tried to go foray into it as Australians,
Speaker 3: I think we were sort of carrying a lot of
Speaker 3: baggage and so both those films actually didn't do very
Speaker 3: well at the box office Paperback Hero and Dad in
Speaker 3: the Enemy. But you know, they've I think they've sort
Speaker 3: of aged reasonably well and people they're pretty good films.
Speaker 3: They're solid films, but I think the perception from the
Speaker 3: Australian audience was none of that's the Americans do that
Speaker 3: well and it's not an Australian genre and we can't
Speaker 3: do it. So yeah, it probably was. It didn't do
Speaker 3: well in the box office, but then we did very
Speaker 3: well on DVD Dadding the Enemy. People really embraced it,
Speaker 3: and a lot of people still do come up to
Speaker 3: me and go, you know, that was one of their
Speaker 3: favorite films. I mean, it's totally stupid, but I mean, honestly,
Speaker 3: it's like surely every actress's dream to be a man
Speaker 3: pretending that they're just getting their period. The first time,
Speaker 3: that was one of the most enjoyable scenes to man cry.
Speaker 3: It was so much fun. I was with Lisa Hensley
Speaker 3: when I did that scene, and yeah, she was hilarious.
Speaker 3: She's like, you know that, you know the man crying
Speaker 3: that they don't cry.
Speaker 4: They don't cry when they cry it so it's so
Speaker 4: true of fascination.
Speaker 1: He paid off in that moment. My last question about
Speaker 1: your work in the nineties would be about working on
Speaker 1: The Heartbreak Kid, which came out in nineteen ninety three.
Speaker 1: I know you've been asked about this role over the years. Again,
Speaker 1: a few years ago you told Stella that you had
Speaker 1: a few concerns looking back on that. In fact, you
Speaker 1: said it was the unhappiest job of my career. First
Speaker 1: of all, you said you felt so embarrassed that you
Speaker 1: played a Greek girl. Can you imagine how I would
Speaker 1: be taken down today? And then, as you said, you
Speaker 1: were nineteen at the time and your co star Alex
Speaker 1: Demitriartes was seventeen, there was no such thing as what
Speaker 1: we would now call an intimacy coordinator on set. And
Speaker 1: then of course the fact that your character was a
Speaker 1: teacher and he was a student. So there's a lot
Speaker 1: going on in that film. I mean, I think sometimes
Speaker 1: we lack nuance in our conversations about, oh, you just
Speaker 1: can't get away with anything today. And then I think
Speaker 1: there's a really positive conversation about how far we've come
Speaker 1: with things. Get through the middle somewhere there's just hottering
Speaker 1: moments that were of their time. Yes, i'd love, like,
Speaker 1: I say, just to ask you a bit about how
Speaker 1: you feel about that film now.
Speaker 3: Yeah, look, I haven't watched it again. And again it
Speaker 3: was another sort of rom com, wasn't it. I had
Speaker 3: a great conversation with someone recently where they're like, didn't
Speaker 3: the sex didn't bother me? And the fact that you
Speaker 3: were not great didn't bother me. It was the fact
Speaker 3: that that boy was pretty much stalking you and like
Speaker 3: in this day, and I was like, that's really not
Speaker 3: a turn on. And they thought it had sort of dated,
Speaker 3: which I thought was really interesting.
Speaker 2: No one had brought that up.
Speaker 1: Now, that wasn't in my list with it.
Speaker 4: It was very interesting, isn't it.
Speaker 3: But I think, you know, yes, some people say, oh,
Speaker 3: are we over apologizing for the things that have done
Speaker 3: in the past, And I just think I think we
Speaker 3: can't overcompensate. You know, there's a lot of conversations that
Speaker 3: should be had and need to be had. I mean,
Speaker 3: I am sort of being lighthearted about the Greek thing.
Speaker 3: I'm so everyone I know who's Greek. Look, you are
Speaker 3: an honorary Greek. We are very proud that you were
Speaker 3: a Greek. Like no, no one holds it against me.
Speaker 3: But as for the you know, the storyline, Now that
Speaker 3: I am a producer, I feel like, you know, I
Speaker 3: was hired to play a role. I didn't write it,
Speaker 3: I didn't direct it, I didn't produce it. So it's
Speaker 3: that storyline I don't take responsibility for. I was a
Speaker 3: nineteen year old girl, and you know it. It was
Speaker 3: a It was a tough job. I felt like I
Speaker 3: was an adult and I was playing a very adult role.
Speaker 3: But I was only in that nineteen and away from home,
Speaker 3: and the content was quite There's a lot of intimacy
Speaker 3: and nudity, and yeah, it probably wasn't that equipped to
Speaker 3: do it. I got through and I did it, but yeah,
Speaker 3: it wasn't. It was my favorite job. But Alex is
Speaker 3: great and it was a really great film. Nicolethuris is amazing.
Speaker 3: He One of the best things about that job is
Speaker 3: that Alex Demitritis had never acted before and we had
Speaker 3: about I think it was maybe three to four weeks,
Speaker 3: which is unheard of in a rehearsal space, just the
Speaker 3: two of us with Nicole Thuris, who was the acting coach,
Speaker 3: doing the Misner technique. He was amazing. Nicola Theuris and
Speaker 3: I learned a lot. And the Misner technique is really intense,
Speaker 3: like you've got nowhere to hide.
Speaker 2: It's this.
Speaker 3: The essence of it is you repeat and you repeat,
Speaker 3: and you repeat until you've worn that line. Then you
Speaker 3: move to the next line, and it does embed the
Speaker 3: scene into this sort of deep, subterranean level. It's very
Speaker 3: very good. I don't use it anymore because it sort
Speaker 3: of triggers me. It's really hard, but it's very very good.
Speaker 3: And Nicole theros was amazing on that, so I really
Speaker 3: I love that job.
Speaker 2: For him.
Speaker 1: I was going to say, I mean, at the risk
Speaker 1: is sounding tweet and like I'm trying to package up
Speaker 1: that experience with a neat little Christmas bow. It is
Speaker 1: also sounds as though a affirmation of the fact that
Speaker 1: even the most challenging parts of your career, and if
Speaker 1: that was one of the most unhappiest jobs, that it
Speaker 1: still had these amazing takeaways from it, including that extreme
Speaker 1: experience of yeah, an acting degree in the course of
Speaker 1: three or four weeks.
Speaker 3: Always as someone introduced me to the word a dialectic
Speaker 3: experience recently and it's really changed my outlook, which is
Speaker 3: you can you can feel and experience two things at
Speaker 3: the same time and they don't invalidate themselves. Like you know,
Speaker 3: you can be happy and sad at the same time.
Speaker 3: You can love and hate someone at the same time.
Speaker 3: And I love that because it just gives you the
Speaker 3: freedom to feel feel both those things and they yeah,
Speaker 3: they live alongside each other.
Speaker 1: And coming up Claudia on how she fell in love
Speaker 1: with producing and creating TV and what she's got planned
Speaker 1: after Bump. I would then now really love to talk
Speaker 1: a little bit more about the work that you have
Speaker 1: co created, your work as a producer. I mean it
Speaker 1: includes all five seasons of Bump. You mentioned Doctor Doctor,
Speaker 1: and of course I love to talk about love my
Speaker 1: way And when did that fire first start to burn
Speaker 1: a little bit in you?
Speaker 2: Well?
Speaker 3: Did I did a bit of behind the scenes on
Speaker 3: Secret Life of Us, so I directed one block. So
Speaker 3: that opened up my world because I was only aware
Speaker 3: of the on set life. I hadn't envisaged a story room,
Speaker 3: I hadn't envisaged the writing process. I hadn't envisaged the
Speaker 3: edit and what happens in post, so you know, as
Speaker 3: an actor, I was like, well, it's just all about
Speaker 3: what happens on set, and it's all about the actors.
Speaker 3: Of course, you know, quite sort of self focused. So
Speaker 3: it was really creative to see where the stories start
Speaker 3: and where they end. And when I went behind the camera,
Speaker 3: I my curiosity was peaud and then John Edwards sort
Speaker 3: of recognize the sort of leadership ability in me and
Speaker 3: suggested that we develop a show together and produce a
Speaker 3: show together.
Speaker 2: Producing was never on my radar. I never even knew
Speaker 2: what a.
Speaker 3: Producer did, and if I did give it some thought,
Speaker 3: I would have thought, really boring job. You may as
Speaker 3: well be an accountant or something. I had no idea
Speaker 3: that it could be so creative. So when John and
Speaker 3: I and Jaqueline Persky started developing Love My Way, yeah,
Speaker 3: I realized, Oh, all these things that I've observed and
Speaker 3: learned about on set, like what makes a good location
Speaker 3: or what makes a great you know, support character, or
Speaker 3: what makes a great costume designer, what makes a great
Speaker 3: I could funnel all that into building a team.
Speaker 2: And I loved it. I loved it.
Speaker 3: It was like all of this knowledge that i'd you know,
Speaker 3: subconsciously developed, I was able to put it into practice.
Speaker 3: And I know how to talk to Crewe like they're
Speaker 3: my family. I have grown up on sets with Crewe,
Speaker 3: So yeah, I suddenly was like wow. And then to
Speaker 3: be in a story room. I've always been a big reader.
Speaker 3: I didn't go to university. I studied English at university
Speaker 3: for about three months and then I went to work.
Speaker 3: But I've always loved reading. I did three in an
Speaker 3: English and I, you know, I really like lent into
Speaker 3: studying and all the essays and stuff. So I love
Speaker 3: the psychology of stories and the motivation of character, and
Speaker 3: the subtext and dialogue and structure.
Speaker 2: I love all that.
Speaker 3: It's like machinery. So to be in a story room
Speaker 3: and be a part of those conversations. So I was
Speaker 3: hooked from the very beginning with Love My Way. But
Speaker 3: I never would have I never would have gravitated to
Speaker 3: that if John Edwards hadn't had suggested it to me.
Speaker 1: Secret Life of Us Love My Way both not only
Speaker 1: hugely beloved series, but I really think, certainly to a
Speaker 1: generation or to would consider them iconic. I mean, I'm
Speaker 1: gen X and I would definitely consider them to be
Speaker 1: definitive series. I can remember all of the characters, there's
Speaker 1: obviously key moments, and I'm sure Claudia approached by people
Speaker 1: all the time about both of those shows out before
Speaker 1: Bump came along. Why do you think it is? Yeah?
Speaker 3: Look, Secret Life of Us was an anomaly. I mean
Speaker 3: if you listen to John Edwards take on that, a
Speaker 3: lot of series were failing and Network ten just took
Speaker 3: a risk on Secret Life of Us and Judy macross
Speaker 3: and was a I mean there was four people in
Speaker 3: that story room. It was Amanda Higgs, Christopher Lee, Judy
Speaker 3: mcross and John Edwards. Judy Mcrossen's voice is very, very clear,
Speaker 3: like she's got no filter. Like, for instance, one of
Speaker 3: the first scenes my character has with her best friend
Speaker 3: is like she's like, oh, do you have a tampon?
Speaker 3: And I give her an applicated tampon and she's like,
Speaker 3: oh my god, you use applicator. Oh you're so anal
Speaker 3: Like people didn't talk like that on TV. That is
Speaker 3: Judy mcrosson. You know, and the fact that they were given,
Speaker 3: you know, some license and some freedom to film that
Speaker 3: and put it on television, Well you know that that
Speaker 3: was part chance, part you know, someone taking a risk
Speaker 3: and trusting the team.
Speaker 4: So that's sort of established.
Speaker 3: Yeah, new Voice, and people were smoking joints on Channel
Speaker 3: ten Free Away like that was unheard of, sitting on
Speaker 3: the toilet and doing a Wii like it. Just everything
Speaker 3: was quite polite and stiff and artificial on TV up
Speaker 3: until that point majority of the time. And so then
Speaker 3: with Love My Way, we took that to another degree
Speaker 3: because it was around the time of HBO and shows
Speaker 3: like Sopranos and The Wire and shows like that were
Speaker 3: being made. So TV was being looked at as like
Speaker 3: the new form of filmmaking, and you could still shoot
Speaker 3: things in a cinematic way, you could have nuanced storylines,
Speaker 3: you could push the envelope and tell stories and sort
Speaker 3: of radical new ways, or you know, really sit with character.
Speaker 3: So yeah, it was lucky, very lucky timing, very lucky timing.
Speaker 1: And I do think that that departure from some of
Speaker 1: the artificial nature of what mainstream TV had been in
Speaker 1: that pre era was groundbreaking, which again is a word
Speaker 1: that is overused, but I really do think that, you know,
Speaker 1: Secret Life of Us helped pave the way, and then
Speaker 1: Love my Way definitely would argue was really pioneering in
Speaker 1: the genre in this country. And of course Love my Way.
Speaker 1: I mean, the premise of that show was that there
Speaker 1: were two characters who had a daughter and then they
Speaker 1: had separated and really blended family. And long before Gwyneth
Speaker 1: Paltrow and Chris Martin brought us to the term conscious uncoupling,
Speaker 1: that was really what was happening at the heart of
Speaker 1: Love my Way. Again that we're talking twenty years ago, now.
Speaker 2: That's right.
Speaker 3: Yeah, And look that did come from my lived experience
Speaker 3: because I was with Jazz and you know, my stepdaughter
Speaker 3: was my best friend's daughter. I was the god mother,
Speaker 3: So there was lots of sort of blurred lines there,
Speaker 3: and it was very different to my own childhood, which
Speaker 3: was farm more fractious and there was you know, custody,
Speaker 3: battles and courts and a lot more a lot of toxicity.
Speaker 3: So I really really could see how extraordinary it was
Speaker 3: the way, you know, Lowen and Jezz and Monica and
Speaker 3: I were raising a family, and that was, yeah, that
Speaker 3: was the inspiration behind Love My Way. That's what I
Speaker 3: brought into the room. And then Jacqueline and John and
Speaker 3: I then developed it further.
Speaker 1: I think anyone that's trying to connect and tell a
Speaker 1: story often that lived experience, Because if you feel it,
Speaker 1: and you've experienced, or someone that you know or love
Speaker 1: or that you've simply met through the course of your
Speaker 1: work has lived in experience, probably somebody is watching that show,
Speaker 1: listening to that music, looking at that artwork, reading that
Speaker 1: story is really going to feel seen and validated and
Speaker 1: have their lived experience reflected back to them for maybe
Speaker 1: sometimes the first time.
Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, I.
Speaker 2: Think you can't.
Speaker 3: You can't fake that authenticity that comes from lived experience,
Speaker 3: that subjectivity. I mean then, of course, I mean it's
Speaker 3: called auto auto fiction.
Speaker 2: I think there's a term.
Speaker 4: You know, you mess it.
Speaker 3: Up and it doesn't really look like your life in
Speaker 3: the end, it's still it gets the layers and layers
Speaker 3: of fiction get attached to it, but the essence of
Speaker 3: the idea comes from a really truthful players.
Speaker 1: I imagine I was mentioning earlier the generational aspect. Obviously
Speaker 1: your work has been enjoyed and consumed by people of
Speaker 1: all ages, but certainly for you, as you're now in
Speaker 1: your early fifties, that lived experience has been reflected, you know,
Speaker 1: from your twenties and that sort of era of some
Speaker 1: of the that we were talking about, and then coming
Speaker 1: through Secret Life of Us, then Love My Way, and
Speaker 1: now of course with Bump, which as I said, is
Speaker 1: the fifth and final season, and your character Angie in
Speaker 1: this season will possibly be facing a return of the
Speaker 1: breast cancer diagnosis. That was a story that resonated with
Speaker 1: so many people when it first happened. Again, Claudia, I mean,
Speaker 1: this is one in seven Australian women will be diagnosed
Speaker 1: with breast cancer in the course of their lifetime. In
Speaker 1: terms of tackling an experience that is going to resonate
Speaker 1: with a lot of people, obviously this storyline would be one.
Speaker 1: Is that part of why you were maybe interested in
Speaker 1: exploring that and again in this season.
Speaker 3: Look, I mean yes there are. That's one of the reasons.
Speaker 3: And I have lost very, very close friends to cancer.
Speaker 3: It also came from at the end of series two.
Speaker 3: I felt the stuff going on in my personal life
Speaker 3: where I was like, I can't come back to series
Speaker 3: three and play Angie the way I played her in
Speaker 3: one and two. Things have changed in my life and
Speaker 3: I need something in the storyline to reflect something has
Speaker 3: shifted in me and I I pitched something else and
Speaker 3: then we arrived at cancer because then we could take
Speaker 3: Angie to another place. So and then because.
Speaker 4: That was already there.
Speaker 3: The reality of cancer is that you know it can
Speaker 3: come back. So we thought, you know, dove tailing a
Speaker 3: new birth, a new life on the way, and mortality
Speaker 3: of your mother, and that often happens too. Actually, surprisingly frequently,
Speaker 3: you can be a daughter pregnant and your mother has cancer.
Speaker 3: So you've got these pressures coming from both sides, and
Speaker 3: that's a lived experience for many people.
Speaker 4: So it's it.
Speaker 3: Felt very worthwhile to explore and very very bump because
Speaker 3: it's challenging and it's family. It is what goes on.
Speaker 3: It brings out the best of us and sometimes the worst.
Speaker 3: Usually in Bump we go.
Speaker 4: For the best. That's that's our sort of brand.
Speaker 3: We're life affirming and we always want to be optimistic
Speaker 3: even if we are going to tough places. So yeah,
Speaker 3: it just felt right and it was a huge responsibility.
Speaker 3: I think we've done it very consciously and.
Speaker 2: We went through it.
Speaker 3: We had we had a lot of consultation with more,
Speaker 3: particularly an extraordinary woman called Zenith Viago.
Speaker 2: You should google her.
Speaker 3: Look her up and watch her YouTube videos. She calls
Speaker 3: herself a death walker, so she, I guess is sort
Speaker 3: of like a death dueller or a death a grief
Speaker 3: counselor she works in that space. We talked to our
Speaker 3: people from the I suppose that industry amazing woman in
Speaker 3: Tasmania who runs a funeral parlor, but she's also a
Speaker 3: death dueller and.
Speaker 2: It is an emerging sort of role.
Speaker 3: It's like a birth douller because we are we don't
Speaker 3: talk about death much, and when people die, the whole
Speaker 3: thing happens behind closed doors and it gets sort of
Speaker 3: contracted out. So we felt like it was an area
Speaker 3: that we were we felt passionately about, and we should
Speaker 3: jump into.
Speaker 1: When the final episode goes to air, it's received after
Speaker 1: five seasons of bump, how do you feel or maybe
Speaker 1: this happens when you signed off on the editing of
Speaker 1: the final scene that went to print all. I mean,
Speaker 1: that's a very old school term. I don't know what
Speaker 1: do they call it these days, course delivered. When it's delivered,
Speaker 1: what do you do at a moment like that? Do
Speaker 1: you cry? Do you fall in the heap? Do you
Speaker 1: crack open the champagne? Do you start thinking about right,
Speaker 1: what's next?
Speaker 4: All of the above, Absolutely all of the above.
Speaker 3: A lot of champagne was drunk, a lot of tears
Speaker 3: were shared, presents given, cards written. Also a lot of
Speaker 3: time to just sit in my garden and just stare
Speaker 3: it up at the tree and just watch leaves and
Speaker 3: just like try to sort of empty yourself and clear
Speaker 3: bump out to make room for a new thing to
Speaker 3: come in. Feel a lot of pride, and keep connecting
Speaker 3: with everyone like we're all good friends still. And then yeah, well,
Speaker 3: I mean it's yet to happen, isn't it. So you know,
Speaker 3: fast forward to boxing day. I'll probably go, what why
Speaker 3: did we finish?
Speaker 2: No?
Speaker 3: No, we can be like Johnny farn and we'll come back.
Speaker 1: I always think one of the most annoying questions people
Speaker 1: like me can ask, apart from as you say, you
Speaker 1: often get asked, so what does success look like to you?
Speaker 4: Claudia?
Speaker 1: So I often feel someone will have this amazing piece
Speaker 1: of work, what's next? What are we going to do
Speaker 1: when we be back key with me in the Stella
Speaker 1: studio in six months? What are we going to be
Speaker 1: talking about? But of course that's of course obviously leading
Speaker 1: exactly that's what I'm going to ask. I'm just trying
Speaker 1: to pretend that I'm above asking that, but I'm not
Speaker 1: fair enough.
Speaker 2: I have done.
Speaker 3: It's really lovely at this stage of my career because
Speaker 3: I can do lots of different things. So I did
Speaker 3: Who Do You Think You Are? Which was amazing. So
Speaker 3: I found out a lot about my ancestry and did
Speaker 3: some very surprising travel earlier this year, so that'll come
Speaker 3: out next year. I also did a sort of a
Speaker 3: travel show hosted with Steph Tisdall, who's a brilliant actress.
Speaker 3: She was Shawna on Bump and we have a great
Speaker 3: sort of chemistry. She's really naughty, swears all the time
Speaker 3: and she roasts me. It's hilarious. So we just drive
Speaker 3: around Queensland, New Zealand, New Zealand, New South Wales and
Speaker 3: South Australia together. I did three episodes of that that'll
Speaker 3: be out next year as well. There's a couple of
Speaker 3: series that I'm really in deep with and fully immersed
Speaker 3: and very passionate about and I love and I'll be
Speaker 3: pitching them around and see if they get traction. But
Speaker 3: it's funny I talk about we all know about the
Speaker 3: shows that I've produced and have made. There's also a
Speaker 3: hell of a lot of shows I've developed and pitched
Speaker 3: and not made, so they don't always get up. But
Speaker 3: I've got a few that I feel really happy about.
Speaker 2: And then I'm researching another little thing that.
Speaker 1: Is really exciting that's gonna happen next year. Great, so
Speaker 1: we'll have you back here in six months.
Speaker 2: To talk about that. I can't wait.
Speaker 4: I'll be back if you invite me.
Speaker 1: Of course, of course. Well my final question then was
Speaker 1: I know a lot of people that have watched your
Speaker 1: work would sometimes think about some of the characters and think,
Speaker 1: you know, where is that character today? I wonder what
Speaker 1: happened after we said goodbye to those characters? What would
Speaker 1: Frankie be doing today in real life? Do you ever
Speaker 1: think about that?
Speaker 4: No? No, absolutely not. I don't never.
Speaker 2: No.
Speaker 4: Well, I suppose it might sound a bit disappointing, but.
Speaker 3: I for me, Frankie is she's words on a page.
Speaker 3: Alex Christensen is Judy mcross and Amanda Higgs in a
Speaker 3: room whipping up ideas. So you know, they exist for
Speaker 3: other people, but they don't exist for me. I mean,
Speaker 3: they are very much facets of my personality like I
Speaker 3: definitely there's a part of me and every one of
Speaker 3: those characters. But yeah, they don't live beyond the camera.
Speaker 3: When the camera stops rolling, they don't exist. They just
Speaker 3: just vaporize a puff of smoke.
Speaker 1: I find that really interesting, And that was the question,
Speaker 1: by the way, asked with no expectation of what the
Speaker 1: answer would be. So it's definitely not disappointing. I think
Speaker 1: it's actually an interesting insight into how when there is
Speaker 1: something that is created and then it's up to the
Speaker 1: audience to digest it and relate to it, and it
Speaker 1: means different things to different people. I mean, that's really
Speaker 1: just proof of that, isn't it. It might live on
Speaker 1: forever in the mind of a viewer. That doesn't mean
Speaker 1: that it has to for you, clearly doesn't.
Speaker 3: No, no, no, yeah, not at all.
Speaker 1: Claudia has been such an absolute pleasure to talk to
Speaker 1: you today. Thank you for coming into the studio. I
Speaker 1: hope to see you back here very soon. We can
Speaker 1: talk about that very exciting suspect.
Speaker 2: We will meet.
Speaker 1: Up again soon and you can see Claudia on Bump's
Speaker 1: final season, which will premiere on December twenty six only
Speaker 1: on Stan thank you for your company. I hope you've
Speaker 1: enjoyed this episode. If you did, let us know in
Speaker 1: the reviews. We're continuing to publish across the summer break.
Speaker 1: We'll be back with the brand new episode on January twelveth,
Speaker 1: but in the meantime, each day for the next two weeks,
Speaker 1: we'll be revisiting some of your favorite episodes from the
Speaker 1: past year, so make sure you're following us to find
Speaker 1: out who made the top ten episodes of twenty twenty four.