Speaker 1: Hello, and welcome to Something to Talk About Mastella podcast.
Speaker 1: I'm Sarah Lamarquod, your host, and every week I sit
Speaker 1: down with some of the biggest names in the country,
Speaker 1: because when Australia's celebrities are ready to talk, they come
Speaker 1: to Something to Talk About. Eleven years ago, Tim Minchin
Speaker 1: gave a speech that went viral. The Matilda composer, who
Speaker 1: was being awarded an honorary doctorate at the University of
Speaker 1: Western Australia, shared his nine life lessons to the graduating class.
Speaker 2: So I will, now, at the ripe old age of
Speaker 2: thirty seven point nine, burstow upon you nine life lessons
Speaker 2: to echo, of course, the nine lessons of carols of
Speaker 2: the traditional Christmas service, which is also pretty obscure. You
Speaker 2: might find some of this stuff inspiring, you will definitely
Speaker 2: find some of it boring, and you'll definitely forget all
Speaker 2: of it within a week.
Speaker 1: And to say it struck a chord with the world
Speaker 1: is to put it mildly. Having locked up more than
Speaker 1: five million views, and it's something that the actor slash composer,
Speaker 1: slash writer slash comedian gets asked about a lot, which
Speaker 1: is why in twenty twenty four, He's turned it into
Speaker 1: a book called You Don't Have to Have a Dream.
Speaker 1: As you're about to hear, Tim's life lessons are maybe
Speaker 1: even more relevant today than they were in twenty thirteen.
Speaker 1: He joins me in the Something to Talk About studio
Speaker 1: to talk about luck, microambition, the poison of social media,
Speaker 1: compassion and infidelity. It gets a bit philosophical, but the
Speaker 1: thing about Tim is he bears his soul in everything
Speaker 1: he does, and this conversation proved no different. Tim mentioned,
Speaker 1: welcome to Something to Talk About. Your new book is
Speaker 1: your first nonfiction book, You Don't Have to Have a Dream.
Speaker 1: It's inspired by a speech you gave when you were
Speaker 1: awarded an honorary doctorate in twenty thirteen. How was it
Speaker 1: going back and revisiting that through the lens of your
Speaker 1: life eleven years later?
Speaker 2: It was good. I mean, I'm proud of that speech.
Speaker 2: It's a weird thing to of all the things I've
Speaker 2: spent hundreds of hours trying to hone and create, and
Speaker 2: I've brought all my skills to weirdly, of all the
Speaker 2: things I've done, the thing that's gone most viral, the
Speaker 2: thing that sort of tens and tens of millions of
Speaker 2: people have seen is this speech that I wrote in
Speaker 2: you know, thirty six hours in the two days before
Speaker 2: this doctorate ceremony. And I'm glad I didn't overthink it.
Speaker 2: And I'm glad I didn't know it was going to
Speaker 2: go viral, and I didn't know it was one day
Speaker 2: going to be a book, because I think you can
Speaker 2: get scuppered by the weight of expectations. But it's interesting
Speaker 2: because I guess I have a broadly sort of humanist
Speaker 2: worldview based on sort of old liberal values, critical thinking
Speaker 2: and stuff. And it's nice to look back and go, oh, yeah,
Speaker 2: it still stands because it's not a worldview that gets
Speaker 2: very easily tossed in the seas of changing rhetorical traditions
Speaker 2: or changing social justice focuses. It's a broader thing. It's
Speaker 2: a broader philosophical lens through which I try to see
Speaker 2: the world and try to act. And so I'm proud
Speaker 2: that it holds up. It should given what I'm talking about,
Speaker 2: which is base ideas, not specifics, and then getting someone
Speaker 2: Penguin Random House wanting to publish into a book. I
Speaker 2: then thought, well, making a speech into a books a
Speaker 2: weird thing. But I've actually done three of these speeches,
Speaker 2: so it's now a collection of speeches. The other two
Speaker 2: didn't go superviral, but I think they're still They've got
Speaker 2: similar underpinnings and discussed similar things, but through different sort
Speaker 2: of avenues. And I loved it. And I got the
Speaker 2: opportunity to write essay reflecting on how my thoughts have
Speaker 2: changed or not changed, and that process was nice as well,
Speaker 2: just to go does it all hang together the way
Speaker 2: I see the world and the way I make my work?
Speaker 2: And felt all right, I'm not sure who wants to
Speaker 2: read it, but I'm never sure who wants any of
Speaker 2: my work. It's not how I think about it. I'm
Speaker 2: just like, here's some stuff, here's an offer.
Speaker 1: Well, it's a bit like what you were saying when
Speaker 1: of all the things that would go viral, that's not
Speaker 1: necessarily that original speech something you would have expected. But
Speaker 1: I imagine as a creator, and you're obviously working so
Speaker 1: many different mediums a composer, stand up comedian, actor, there's
Speaker 1: so many different forms apart from writing that you communicate
Speaker 1: and connect with audiences that if you overthink too much
Speaker 1: the reception, that's almost like the audience's job. Isn't it.
Speaker 2: Yeah? And what's been interesting for me, and I think
Speaker 2: I've negotiated okay, is that I didn't you know, I
Speaker 2: wasn't a wunderkin. I wasn't eighteen. No one spotted me
Speaker 2: and went, you're so handsome and good at singing, Let's
Speaker 2: make you a pop star. You know. I did the
Speaker 2: graft and did the ten years or twelve or fifteen
Speaker 2: years of just working for free and doing, and so
Speaker 2: when eventually something hit. And what hit was my satire,
Speaker 2: my comedy, which was always much more music than comedy,
Speaker 2: but it was it was its own thing, it was
Speaker 2: its own phenomenon to use it pretentious word. But that
Speaker 2: I got that success because I didn't sit around thinking
Speaker 2: what does the market want from me? I, at some
Speaker 2: point in my late twenties went, bugger it, I'm just
Speaker 2: gonna do me on stage. I'm going to be quirky.
Speaker 2: And I didn't set out to make comedy. I just thought,
Speaker 2: I'm just going to do my songs and I'll do
Speaker 2: my silly little monologues and it just really worked. And
Speaker 2: so having gained success there, I then got asked to
Speaker 2: write Matilda the Musical, and that I also didn't think
Speaker 2: too much about what the audience wants. I just thought
Speaker 2: what would I want? And that went so well that
Speaker 2: I then had such an established career that it's tempting
Speaker 2: at that point to start thinking, right, I've got a market,
Speaker 2: now I've got a profile, what do they want? How
Speaker 2: do I get another hit like Matilda? And how do
Speaker 2: I feed that audience who wanted me to do comedy?
Speaker 2: And at that point I went, that's not how I
Speaker 2: got here. I got here by doing what I thought
Speaker 2: was cool. And so I've never I've sort of as
Speaker 2: a philosophical stance, never tried to make art market backwards,
Speaker 2: identifying a market and going I'm going to reverse engineers.
Speaker 2: Something that they'll consume is how much popular art is made.
Speaker 2: But I, and I'm not being a snob about it,
Speaker 2: I just don't think i'll do that well. I don't
Speaker 2: think that is my thing. I think my thing is like,
Speaker 2: what do I think about now, and what's a fun
Speaker 2: way to do it? And what would I like to see?
Speaker 2: And so I think I'm still doing that. I hope
Speaker 2: I'm still doing that. I want to keep doing that.
Speaker 2: I want to keep going ideas out, not market back.
Speaker 1: We won't have time to unpack all nine especial to
Speaker 1: go and read them. Well, I guess people have to
Speaker 1: go on and read the book available where all good
Speaker 1: books are sold or listened to these days.
Speaker 2: End of podcast.
Speaker 1: The first life lesson though, is the same as the
Speaker 1: title of the book, You don't have to have a dream.
Speaker 2: Yeah. I think of all the things that popped out
Speaker 2: of that first speech that people related to or got
Speaker 2: some solace from, I think is that it is slightly
Speaker 2: a reaction to what in the tens and still now
Speaker 2: in the twenties, is this rising sense of this sort
Speaker 2: of individualism thing that has all sorts of effects, and
Speaker 2: they're not great. The gen Z is the most pessimistic
Speaker 2: generation that you know. Statistically they don't and I think
Speaker 2: it's partly because they've been told that what success is,
Speaker 2: what they should aim for is something huge, and they
Speaker 2: get it all the time. On Instagram there's some virtuoso
Speaker 2: ten year old playing guitar and they feel and my kid,
Speaker 2: who's a really good guitarist, he feels like, what's the
Speaker 2: point Like that Japanese kid is that you're like, oh
Speaker 2: my god. And so what I was reacting against, which
Speaker 2: has only got worse is the idea that to have
Speaker 2: a satisfying life you have to be a black swan,
Speaker 2: you have to be an outlier. It's statistically not going
Speaker 2: to happen. And that, of course is rich coming from me,
Speaker 2: because I got to be an outlier, like I just mean,
Speaker 2: through luck. And that's another thing I talk about, is luck.
Speaker 2: I got to be an outlier. I got to do
Speaker 2: this unusual thing. So it's weird that the advice is
Speaker 2: coming from me. But I observe that aiming for some
Speaker 2: massive dream that you can be an astronaut or the
Speaker 2: president of the United States is actually not how you
Speaker 2: get happy. The way all the data shows happiness is
Speaker 2: most likely is they talk about a meaningful contribution to
Speaker 2: your community, right, And how often do you hear some
Speaker 2: pop star or whatever say to kids you should aim
Speaker 2: to make a meaningful contribution to your community. That's all
Speaker 2: kids should ever hear, because that's what makes you happy
Speaker 2: and it's achievable. And that doesn't mean you don't end
Speaker 2: up with a dream. It just means that in the moment,
Speaker 2: you're not distracted by the idea that you're going to
Speaker 2: punch the ceiling out, you know. So what I say
Speaker 2: is be micro ambitious. And that was the thing that
Speaker 2: really hit in that lesson, is this idea of micro ambition,
Speaker 2: work with passion on what's in front of you, and
Speaker 2: then who knows, the next job might be bigger and
Speaker 2: you might end up on Broadway. But when I was
Speaker 2: writing music for theater, when I was eighteen nineteen for
Speaker 2: You Theater for Free in Perth, I wasn't thinking this
Speaker 2: is a step to get me to Broadway. I was thinking,
Speaker 2: how do I make people cry in this community theater
Speaker 2: version of Love's Labors Lost? How do I make them
Speaker 2: have the best night ever? So that's the only lesson
Speaker 2: I can bestow. And if that had landed me as
Speaker 2: a high school music teacher, I would have been happy.
Speaker 2: I think it just happens that I had this other path.
Speaker 1: It's not we tell people live in the moment and
Speaker 1: it sounds great, but we don't know how to do that.
Speaker 1: Just focus on what's in front of you. It helps.
Speaker 1: I also think you mentioned luck there, Tim, and there's
Speaker 1: another chapter. Remember it's all luck. I think it's actually
Speaker 1: got so much power coming from somebody like you, because
Speaker 1: it's a little bit like having a very very wealthy
Speaker 1: person talking about wealth, inequity, and the problems with distribution
Speaker 1: of wealth in our world. It probably has more impact
Speaker 1: coming from somebody who's like, well, I'm not just saying
Speaker 1: this because I could really do with a little bit
Speaker 1: of money. I think if you are somebody who has
Speaker 1: achieved a certain success, it's actually got more impact to
Speaker 1: say to somebody it does not have to look like
Speaker 1: this for you, and I would have been okay if
Speaker 1: it didn't look like this.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, I'm glad you say that, because I
Speaker 2: think it can be the opposites, like, screw you, bro,
Speaker 2: you had all your dreams come true. Don't tell me
Speaker 2: that it's all luck. It's like come it's sort of
Speaker 2: a bit twee or something. But so that it's all luck.
Speaker 2: Chapter is just a toe in the water of a
Speaker 2: much bigger discussion that I may one day write a
Speaker 2: book on, which is really that I'm a determinist, which
Speaker 2: means I actually think we're just emergent entities of the universe,
Speaker 2: and that every single thing that we do or say
Speaker 2: that the fact you're blinking now, the air temperature in
Speaker 2: the room is all they all are things that come
Speaker 2: at the end of an unbroken chain of causality that
Speaker 2: started at the Big Bang, right, So I don't really
Speaker 2: believe in free will. So that's a really when people
Speaker 2: say that and they haven't really looked into that, and
Speaker 2: they hear someone say I don't believe in free will,
Speaker 2: they just go, don't be an idiot. But I actually
Speaker 2: really really believe I'm a genuine determinist proper, and that
Speaker 2: means that I don't think people can really be blamed
Speaker 2: or credited for their actions, which comes with the whole
Speaker 2: raft of ethical and philosophical problems and also solutions. It's
Speaker 2: not one that we can get through now. But what
Speaker 2: I say in the speech is if you understand that
Speaker 2: people are the way they are because of where they
Speaker 2: come from, what their genes and environment was, basically, then
Speaker 2: it increases your empathy and hopefully increases your humility. Now
Speaker 2: I know there'll be people listening to this who don't
Speaker 2: think I'm very humble, and I don't really care, and
Speaker 2: I don't know if I am or not, but certainly philosophically,
Speaker 2: I genuinely don't think that the fact how hard I've
Speaker 2: worked is to be like particularly people like I go
Speaker 2: it's all luck, and they go, but you've worked so
Speaker 2: hard and me, yeah, but I did not realist people
Speaker 2: have worked harder who I haven't got where I've got.
Speaker 2: And I don't just mean luck as in, you know,
Speaker 2: I got a break. In fact, I didn't really get
Speaker 2: many breaks. I'm just I got born with this brain
Speaker 2: that loves doing this stuff. When I sat down when
Speaker 2: I was fourteen and taught myself piano, basically, that's just
Speaker 2: like obsessing over how fast I could play a blue
Speaker 2: scale that I didn't do that that was just a
Speaker 2: it came out of me. It's just luck, you know.
Speaker 2: And I do think empathy an intellectual framework that helps
Speaker 2: you extend empathy to people who are suffering or doing
Speaker 2: bad doing even acting badly immorally, and an intellectual framework
Speaker 2: that keeps a lid on your hubris. When you do well,
Speaker 2: it feels good to me. And for me, that's determinism.
Speaker 2: And that's a big, big topic. But I like talking about.
Speaker 1: I find the topic of luck an absolutely fascinating topic.
Speaker 1: A few years ago, there was quite a movement, particularly
Speaker 1: among millennial women, to really say to other women ever,
Speaker 1: just say that it's lucky. I remember being on radio
Speaker 1: one time and saying I've had like a lot of
Speaker 1: lucky in my career. I was being asked about something
Speaker 1: and somebody actually had texted me and they were like,
Speaker 1: you're not lucky, Like you work harder than anyone, justice, you're.
Speaker 2: A female, and you think you don't deserve it.
Speaker 1: It's like and I understood their intention, and I understood
Speaker 1: that it was seen as though I'm you know, diminishing myself,
Speaker 1: as I'm sure people feel the same for you. But
Speaker 1: as you said, Tim, you've worked so hard and you
Speaker 1: actually are really talented, and there is a view that
Speaker 1: you are backing away. But I said to this person,
Speaker 1: that's true. It's one of many different things. And also
Speaker 1: I've also had bad luck, and I think the people
Speaker 1: that deny luck are often people that haven't had terribly
Speaker 1: bad luck.
Speaker 2: That's such a beautifully articulated observation. I don't think I've
Speaker 2: ever framed it quite like that. But yeah, if you
Speaker 2: don't know what it's like to have just been given
Speaker 2: a circumstances just completely frickin unfair, that certainly humbles you
Speaker 2: and makes you realize that the circumstances that were unfair
Speaker 2: on other people but fair on you. People are soleabpsistic
Speaker 2: by nature. We or I am we are. We see
Speaker 2: the world through our lens. We are always building narratives
Speaker 2: in our head that maintain our centrality and our narrative
Speaker 2: in our story. Right, I am the hero or the
Speaker 2: victim of every moment you listen to people talk. I
Speaker 2: told him and he said to me, and you're always
Speaker 2: either the hero or the victim. And that's totally fine
Speaker 2: and normal. But just a bit of awareness about that,
Speaker 2: and a bit of awareness that I love. Sorry, I'm
Speaker 2: just explaining what you said back to you, and unnecessarily
Speaker 2: it's really really true. And also the idea that you're
Speaker 2: letting down the sisterhood by acknowledging the role of luck
Speaker 2: is it's just as that stuff doesn't feel right to me, Like,
Speaker 2: I don't think. I think all humans, regardless agenda, should
Speaker 2: be aware of the circumstances by which they are privileged.
Speaker 2: And if all the women don't acknowledge their luck, then
Speaker 2: all the men start feeling like, well, I'm going to
Speaker 2: take ownership of minus, like just not a binary.
Speaker 1: One final question on luck. You are somebody who travels
Speaker 1: the world. You've been successful in our Broadway West End,
Speaker 1: of course in Australia. How does this particular philosophy go
Speaker 1: down in the United States because I obviously hate to
Speaker 1: generalize any country or culture. But we all know, and
Speaker 1: our listeners will of course know that is you know,
Speaker 1: just you can make it. It's just hard work. It's this
Speaker 1: every week American myth.
Speaker 2: You know, So the American dream. Not not all cultural
Speaker 2: stories we tell ourselves have to be strictly true. I'm
Speaker 2: very interested in the utility of our narratives, our personal
Speaker 2: and national and cultural narratives. So the American dream, you know.
Speaker 2: I studied arts during the sort of beginning, the real
Speaker 2: beginning of postmodernism, that everything that can be deconstructed should
Speaker 2: be And I have grown up and realized that probably
Speaker 2: you shouldn't deconstruct every single cultural norm, meme, or narrative
Speaker 2: without considering the possible unintended negative outcomes of such deconstruction,
Speaker 2: you know. So one thing we could deconstruct is the
Speaker 2: idea that, you know, the American dream, that we could
Speaker 2: that it's bollocks. There's not that much. Not many poor
Speaker 2: people get rich with hard work. Most poor people work
Speaker 2: really really hard. But the barriers to getting out of
Speaker 2: poverty are just are so great that the stories we
Speaker 2: hear about ah, the kind of oh he was six
Speaker 2: foot nine. He worked really hard, but he was six
Speaker 2: foot nine, you know, like, oh, that shows the American
Speaker 2: dream that he was six foot nine. He's a really
Speaker 2: good basketballer, but he was six ft nine. So mostly
Speaker 2: you don't break and yet up until recently, it's been
Speaker 2: functional for that country to tell its people that it's
Speaker 2: possible and to try. It was only when, you know,
Speaker 2: when greedy people stopped, you know, started doing things that
Speaker 2: made income inequality so great that it became laughable. But
Speaker 2: in the second half of the twentieth century, maybe it
Speaker 2: was a really good narrative. Maybe it got more people
Speaker 2: out of poverty than a different narrative, than a more
Speaker 2: a narrative that I would have signed up to more
Speaker 2: as a progressive lefty that you have to give people
Speaker 2: lots of help and you know, social which I still believe,
Speaker 2: but I could be convinced by data that the narrative
Speaker 2: was useful. It doesn't mean to need to be true
Speaker 2: to be useful, right, But you're absolutely right. The Americans
Speaker 2: really like to They really still believe their country is
Speaker 2: the greatest country in the world, even as it just
Speaker 2: turns into an absolute circus, and they really they still
Speaker 2: believe in their national narratives and it's quite interesting to
Speaker 2: watch them clinging on to them as they become less
Speaker 2: and less functional. And that's a massive generalization.
Speaker 1: And up next, Tim talk's infidelity, family life and why
Speaker 1: he thinks social media is poison. Your book is described
Speaker 1: as a rallying cry for creativity, critical thinking, and compassion.
Speaker 2: I didn't write that, but that's nice. I think that's
Speaker 2: what it is.
Speaker 1: I guess I do. And that's why I wanted to
Speaker 1: ask you about it, because these are values that are
Speaker 1: so important and possibly to your earlier answer just then
Speaker 1: about talk him out a country like the United States.
Speaker 1: September now very interesting couple of months ahead as we
Speaker 1: head towards the US election, even for those of us
Speaker 1: in Australia. The tone of discourse, the hyper part artisan,
Speaker 1: the anger, the vitriol that so many of us are feeling,
Speaker 1: whatever our engagement or otherwise in our political issues. I
Speaker 1: did want to ask you, particularly about compassion, a word
Speaker 1: I don't know that we think about properly in modern Australia.
Speaker 1: It has a little bit of an old fashioned sense
Speaker 1: to it. How are you feeling about those ideas. Are
Speaker 1: we allowing one another's space for compassion, for creative thinking,
Speaker 1: for critical thinking.
Speaker 2: I think that social media is a mechanism for suppression
Speaker 2: of compassion, and I think social justice through a social
Speaker 2: media portal, social justice forced through social media, which unfortunately
Speaker 2: is where most of it exists. I think we will
Speaker 2: look back and decide we did as much harm as good,
Speaker 2: even though really good things have happened out of the
Speaker 2: mobilization of previously suppressed voices. What I saw every day
Speaker 2: and that distressed me so much that I have finally
Speaker 2: got off all of it, and it has, for the record,
Speaker 2: definitely improved my mental health and my capacity to do
Speaker 2: good in the world because I'm not getting sucked into
Speaker 2: other people's drama and pain and bullying and nastiness and illogic.
Speaker 2: And what I observe is that social media allows you
Speaker 2: to not extend your compassion past what you perceive to
Speaker 2: be your tribe as designated by an algorithm that you
Speaker 2: didn't design. So the way I've been treated on I mean,
Speaker 2: I'm not crying, you know, but even me, you know,
Speaker 2: a nice, moderate guy who mostly writes musicals. But yes,
Speaker 2: I've said edgy things and I've hurt people's feelings and
Speaker 2: stuff in the past, so I'm not complaining. But the
Speaker 2: way people talk to you, it's just like and having
Speaker 2: a thousand people call you a whatever, any whatever you
Speaker 2: and you don't recognize it in yourself. You're like, oh,
Speaker 2: hold on, no, that's not me. It's it changes your brain,
Speaker 2: you know it. It's really poisonous, and it makes you
Speaker 2: think those people your enemies. So social media creates we
Speaker 2: all know this, a mechanism by which people can justify
Speaker 2: the suppression of compassion for people who either don't look
Speaker 2: like them, or have a different gender, or have a
Speaker 2: different sexuality, or have a and it and and it's
Speaker 2: bad whichever direction it flows in. I'm not saying racism,
Speaker 2: you know, towards white people is the same as racism
Speaker 2: towards black people. But I'm saying the harm done by
Speaker 2: suppressing your comp for the what you see as the
Speaker 2: other is consistent, not quantitatively consistent, but qualitatively it is
Speaker 2: harming to society if you have a mechanism by which
Speaker 2: you can just say they are the other. Therefore, I
Speaker 2: don't care. I don't care how they feel or whether
Speaker 2: they lose their job. I don't care about them. Why
Speaker 2: would I care about a straight white guy. I mean,
Speaker 2: I don't care about straight white guys. You know when
Speaker 2: I went to school, When I got to UNI, I
Speaker 2: was like, thank god, you know, women and queer people
Speaker 2: and everything. You know, it changed. You know, I'm a
Speaker 2: theater guy, you know, but it just doesn't help to
Speaker 2: have this machine that so allows us to go that
Speaker 2: faceless person is not a human to me, It's just poison.
Speaker 2: So I would love to contribute something to that conversation
Speaker 2: through this book or through my work. And I do
Speaker 2: talk about it a bit, and I don't want to
Speaker 2: be an old ex gen bore, but I talked to
Speaker 2: my kids a lot about it, you know. You just
Speaker 2: our job is to extend our empathy as widely as
Speaker 2: we can bear. And for some people that will be harder.
Speaker 2: If you're Aboriginal Australian who's got terrible intergenerational trauma, it
Speaker 2: will be hard to extend your empathy to some suited,
Speaker 2: rich white bloke. But most of us, most of the time,
Speaker 2: should extend our empathy as far as we can bear
Speaker 2: to people who are suffering, to criminals and to angry people,
Speaker 2: to men and women, to people who don't look like
Speaker 2: us to Jews and Arab Muslims. To open our arms
Speaker 2: as wide as we come bear. And if everyone does that,
Speaker 2: we'll still have lots of wars and fights, but it
Speaker 2: won't be the norm.
Speaker 1: I love that, So I really do love that, and
Speaker 1: I think that this book does certainly help progress that conversation.
Speaker 1: And I think it's actually a really important cross generational conversation.
Speaker 1: I mean, I'm the mum of Generation Alpha kids and
Speaker 1: they're feeling it, and I think the Gen zs and
Speaker 1: millennials and Gen X and boomers. I really do think
Speaker 1: this is a hate to be or the burning issue
Speaker 1: of our times. But it's got to be, isn't it.
Speaker 1: The lack of compassion, the lack of empathy, and the
Speaker 1: hyperpartisan You don't think like me, you don't look like me,
Speaker 1: you're not saying exactly what I think or what I
Speaker 1: want to hear. Then you're the other.
Speaker 2: And it's the means to the end, is that people
Speaker 2: who want change go that suppression of compassion is a
Speaker 2: means to an end, and I simply don't believe they're right.
Speaker 2: I simply do not believe putting aside your compassion for
Speaker 2: your fellow humans, just for now, just because we need
Speaker 2: to get this done. We'll bring our compassion back once
Speaker 2: we've got equality in the workplace, or once we've got
Speaker 2: no pay gap, or once we've got more people of
Speaker 2: color on stage, or whatever your thing is, which is
Speaker 2: these are all my things as well. Like there's no
Speaker 2: philosophical gap between between some of my peers and me
Speaker 2: about what we want. But they're like, and therefore I'm
Speaker 2: going to I think it's okay that I'm going to
Speaker 2: put aside my humanity just for now. History is riddled
Speaker 2: with means to an end errors, just for now. Look,
Speaker 2: mostly we want we want Germany to I'm going to
Speaker 2: do it. I'm going to bring up nuts. We want
Speaker 2: Germany to be great, and normally we're a great country,
Speaker 2: but we just got to get rid of this disease.
Speaker 2: Just got to get rid of these horrible, controlling people,
Speaker 2: and then we can be the fine, upstanding Germany we
Speaker 2: want to just don't do means to an end?
Speaker 1: And when does that day ever even come? That's a thing,
Speaker 1: When does the end even come? That justifies the means.
Speaker 2: You've done damage? If you're I always think, I always
Speaker 2: say your philosophical ideas should do work in as many
Speaker 2: different places as possible, you know, Like, so I want
Speaker 2: that person not to be able to post a swastika
Speaker 2: on you know, the states. Many Australian states have passed
Speaker 2: laws saying you're not allowed to post swastikers. I want
Speaker 2: because that is hateful, and I don't want I want
Speaker 2: a law. And then you go, right, well, okay, you've
Speaker 2: now made a law that sets a precedent for your
Speaker 2: government to say what symbols you're allowed to post. So
Speaker 2: this black power fist and on a poster saying fuck
Speaker 2: the police. I mean, with a different government, why can't
Speaker 2: they make a law about that? That is hate, but
Speaker 2: it's justified hate to you, Like, maybe we should have
Speaker 2: a thing where the government doesn't really get involved in
Speaker 2: what symbols we can post, even though we all agree
Speaker 2: that swastika is sickening. Like so that's just one example,
Speaker 2: and I'm going to be accused of being a free
Speaker 2: speech bro of, Like, you've got to make rules that
Speaker 2: extend across different ways of viewing the world and being compassionate.
Speaker 2: It has to cut both ways. If you want that
Speaker 2: conservative Christian to be compassionate to your need to marry
Speaker 2: a same sex partner. Then they find that abhorrent and
Speaker 2: they're wrong, but they find it abhorrent because of where
Speaker 2: they've come from. And you're asking them to even though
Speaker 2: they find it abhorrent and they believe in a god
Speaker 2: that doesn't like it, which is just bollocks, But you're
Speaker 2: asking them to put aside their beliefs out of compassion
Speaker 2: for you and your love for your partner. You have
Speaker 2: to be unfortunately compassionate for their beliefs. I mean, I
Speaker 2: disagree with them. I've been absolutely slammed in the right
Speaker 2: wing press in this country for expressing my disagreement with
Speaker 2: those people. But unfortunately, you can't hate them if you
Speaker 2: want them not to hate you. It's really hard work.
Speaker 2: But we have to do the work.
Speaker 1: It is hard work, and that's why unfortunately, historically humans
Speaker 1: we haven't done the hard work and it ain't working.
Speaker 2: Yes, and I don't know how to usher. Yeah, well,
Speaker 2: oh my god. And the big thing when we talk
Speaker 2: about this thing, I'm sorry, I'm just on one now,
Speaker 2: but in Australia, you look, you know, I want to
Speaker 2: say to some of my peers who sort of just
Speaker 2: want to tear the whole thing down, which I understand.
Speaker 2: I'm very very privileged. Who am I to say you
Speaker 2: shouldn't want to tear the whole thing down, you know,
Speaker 2: to to you know, fuck capitalism, decolonize And I understand
Speaker 2: where those words and desires come from. But don't you
Speaker 2: sit here and look at America becoming more and more
Speaker 2: and more divided and just unsustainably no one listening. And
Speaker 2: don't you look at Israel and Gaza and look at
Speaker 2: what happens when too different peoples with different sets of beliefs,
Speaker 2: and it never dehumanize one another. I'm not drawing equivalents
Speaker 2: in any direction. Don't you just go, fuck, let's not
Speaker 2: that's not like, you know, perfect is the is the
Speaker 2: is the opposition of good whatever that phrase is, like utopianism,
Speaker 2: like it's not perfect, Let's tear it down. It's like, ah,
Speaker 2: I don't know, Like I think maybe we just need
Speaker 2: to try and just really get closer to one another
Speaker 2: rather than further apart from one another, if we possibly can.
Speaker 1: I totally agree. And I think it's also ties in
Speaker 1: a bit with the first principle we were talking about about,
Speaker 1: you know, waiting to have that dream and waiting for
Speaker 1: that perfection. I think the saying is that enemy perfection
Speaker 1: is the enemy of that's right, and it is so
Speaker 1: true because it's the same there. There's so many civil
Speaker 1: rights advancements and advancements against climate change and moments in
Speaker 1: history where we could have taken action but because it
Speaker 1: wasn't perfect, it was often shut down by progressives as well,
Speaker 1: which is like a political example of something where if
Speaker 1: you're waiting for perfection, whether it's your own life, for culture,
Speaker 1: it's not going to happen.
Speaker 2: History also is peppered with instances where incredible urgency you
Speaker 2: got it done as well and protest and so you know,
Speaker 2: I'm not broadly obviously a conservative person. But the other
Speaker 2: the thing I was saying on stage recently is in
Speaker 2: my back tour, I had a line that I sometimes
Speaker 2: would throw out, which is, if your only acceptable outcome
Speaker 2: is utopia and your only acceptable timescale is now, you
Speaker 2: will do more harm than good. And history definitely shows
Speaker 2: that trying to impose radical is only war, only war.
Speaker 2: The other thing I throw out is the counterfactual is
Speaker 2: not utopia. You know, like, look at this a terrible country.
Speaker 2: You're like, oh yeah, and there's that if you ran
Speaker 2: the experiment of the rise of humankind on the planet
Speaker 2: Earth one hundred thousand times. You know, there's worse ones,
Speaker 2: there's better ones. I mean, how many mammalian civilization that
Speaker 2: grew up to have consciousness would end up in a
Speaker 2: multicultural democracy like Australia. I'd say it'd be very few.
Speaker 2: I think mostly we'd chopple our heads off many many,
Speaker 2: many millennia ago.
Speaker 1: True.
Speaker 2: So yeah, but again, unbelievably easy for me to say,
Speaker 2: sitting pretty at the top of the pile, you.
Speaker 1: Know, but it's an important point, and none of them
Speaker 1: in that experiment would have ever been utopia, So surely
Speaker 1: we've got to accept that.
Speaker 2: It's proposed the long arc of justice.
Speaker 1: I want to make a massive gear shift year and
Speaker 1: talk a little bit about family if I can. You
Speaker 1: are happily married with two children. I met you two
Speaker 1: years ago. Timawatt was lucky enough to moderate a panel
Speaker 1: with yourself and some of the cast and creatives at
Speaker 1: the premiere of Upright Season two, and your wife Sarah
Speaker 1: was there, and I remember we're backstage just about to
Speaker 1: go on. Look, I hope you don't mind me telling
Speaker 1: this story, and we can edit it out, so if
Speaker 1: you're listening to it all means Tim, No, it's nothing bad.
Speaker 1: It was just very sweet and you were talking to
Speaker 1: somebody just saying, oh, Sarah got her seat, your wife Sarah,
Speaker 1: because there was a seat for her. And it's just
Speaker 1: it was really sweet and it might not sound like
Speaker 1: a really big deal, but they're just those really organic,
Speaker 1: warm insights into a person that you're always an event
Speaker 1: like that. You know, that was nothing unusual for you.
Speaker 1: It was probably an ordinary Thursday night, but front of
Speaker 1: mine for you before it started, was just making sure
Speaker 1: that your wife had found her seat and she was there,
Speaker 1: and you were going to go and sit with her
Speaker 1: once the Q and A was over, to actually watch
Speaker 1: the show. It's really long.
Speaker 2: I'm glad you caught me getting it right. I mean,
Speaker 2: it's I mean, I said, Sarah's not not the same
Speaker 2: personality as me. She's not. She doesn't find opening nights
Speaker 2: like they're not her favorite thing. And the fact that
Speaker 2: when I turn up to an opening night, suddenly I'm
Speaker 2: surrounded by people, you know, putting me on a red
Speaker 2: carpet doing this, and she just feels like such a dick,
Speaker 2: you know, she feels so like, what am I even
Speaker 2: doing here, no one, and every now and then we
Speaker 2: get a photo together and then of course they won't
Speaker 2: use that one, and she's just it's all humiliating being
Speaker 2: the partner. And she's also not an extra of it,
Speaker 2: so she's obviously you could have a patage just like
Speaker 2: oh whatever, I'll just talk to you know, Sarah. And
Speaker 2: so I've learned. I'm always very concerned that she's not
Speaker 2: being put in a position where she just feels like
Speaker 2: a you know, spare prick at a wedding. So but
Speaker 2: also we've been together for so long and I've done
Speaker 2: enough stuff now that the initial flush of oh my god,
Speaker 2: look at me go has gone away. And when that
Speaker 2: goes away and it becomes more procedural, not that I'm
Speaker 2: ever not grateful and excited. When I do it a
Speaker 2: night like that, it's hugely exciting. But when you've done
Speaker 2: it a few times and a red carpet's no longer
Speaker 2: the most exciting thing ever, and you of course revert
Speaker 2: to you know, what are these regression to the mean?
Speaker 2: You revert to your norm, and the norm is when
Speaker 2: you have space then to go right, what do I
Speaker 2: care about? Oh, Sarah's on her own, right, so it's nice.
Speaker 2: It's nice to be a bit older and not to
Speaker 2: be so tossed on the sea of fate. You know.
Speaker 2: I feel a bit more in control of stuff now,
Speaker 2: and the way you do that is not get too
Speaker 2: swept up.
Speaker 1: Famously, one of your songs, A'll Take Lonely Tonight, was
Speaker 1: inspired by, really, I suppose, the challenge of staying faithful,
Speaker 1: and Sarah spoke about it when you were both on
Speaker 1: Australian Story years ago.
Speaker 2: She's so amazing on those things, like she's an introvert,
Speaker 2: but you stick a camera on she's like, oh okay.
Speaker 1: She was absolutely amazing, And it was so great because
Speaker 1: she was saying, and I know you've spoken in the
Speaker 1: past about how when you're coming home, she's going to
Speaker 1: tell you what's what? That obviously a little bit what
Speaker 1: you were just saying there. It's about this world that
Speaker 1: you live in. It's so easy, understandably maybe for some
Speaker 1: people to get a bit caught up in it, but
Speaker 1: to have that real grounding at home. And I think
Speaker 1: we all saw a glimpse of that on a Stranding's
Speaker 1: Story and she's like, well, really that song is really
Speaker 1: just that he's not cheating on me and you know,
Speaker 1: like Bravo, And I wanted to ask you about that,
Speaker 1: tim because do you ever want a self censor? Because
Speaker 1: obviously that transparency, that vulnerability is at the heart of
Speaker 1: a lot of great artistic work. But then obviously there
Speaker 1: is that's something that is a really genuine, raw insight
Speaker 1: into someone's thinking and their battles and thinking about things.
Speaker 1: Is there a part of you that thinks, oh gosh,
Speaker 1: am I going to get pushback? What did she think
Speaker 1: when she first heard that song? Do you recall she.
Speaker 2: Didn't love it? But then because it feels very personal,
Speaker 2: And there's two mitigating things. One is when I write
Speaker 2: a song, I think when anyone writes a song, you
Speaker 2: have a seed of an idea. Oh, no, one's really
Speaker 2: written that song about that feeling of really wanting to
Speaker 2: shag someone and they're not. And I had the conceptual
Speaker 2: idea of a sort of the orgasmic release of waking
Speaker 2: up the next morning having not screwed up. And I also,
Speaker 2: I'm very interested in I sometimes talk to especially my
Speaker 2: female friends, and I think I'm I'm a bit of
Speaker 2: an evolution head. I understand some women have sex drives
Speaker 2: like some men, but I think as a graph. When
Speaker 2: I talk to my female friends, I'm like, oh, I
Speaker 2: don't think you know what I have felt like, what
Speaker 2: do you think do you think the my brain in
Speaker 2: the times in my life when I've wanted to sleep
Speaker 2: with someone, it's like, and I'm not making any excuses,
Speaker 2: and I've made good choices in my life, but the
Speaker 2: battle is like, I've got an ape in me. And
Speaker 2: I wonder if sometimes the discourse about men and women
Speaker 2: is like we've moved past this. Oh yeah, but anyway, yeah,
Speaker 2: what do you think women have an ape in them?
Speaker 2: I mean I have met women who.
Speaker 1: I think women definitely do and look like. It's it's
Speaker 1: such a huge and great and complex question because it
Speaker 1: also then comes to versus nurture and not to go
Speaker 1: into a whole other tangent.
Speaker 2: But dangerous sight of all this, it's just not really
Speaker 2: what I was talking about. No.
Speaker 1: I also think because sometimes a conversation that I've had
Speaker 1: with a few people about often if a father might
Speaker 1: abandon his children, which is something that obviously does happen,
Speaker 1: where mothers will abandon all maybe not even abandon, but
Speaker 1: just a strange if there's a separation. We do find
Speaker 1: sometimes it's still happening, even in this time where fortunately
Speaker 1: we're acknowledging, thank goodness that you know, being a father
Speaker 1: is just as important as being a mother, But it
Speaker 1: still sometimes seems to be slightly more common for a
Speaker 1: man to sort of disconnect from his children than a mother.
Speaker 1: And I don't have the answer to that either, because
Speaker 1: I'm like, is there some sort of sociological underpinning or
Speaker 1: is it more? And I think it's the same with.
Speaker 2: Such a huge because the other thing is people want
Speaker 2: to separate culture from evolution, but culture has evolved too,
Speaker 2: so culture arose out of evolved attribute. So some dude
Speaker 2: didn't one day go I'm going to do a patriarchy
Speaker 2: like people like people talk about the patriarchis if like
Speaker 2: a dude one day like rota a thing, Like I've
Speaker 2: got an idea, let's like oppress all they're not strong
Speaker 2: enough to stand like it's just emerged, right as no
Speaker 2: one's fault. It wasn't. It's not like it's certainly not
Speaker 2: the fault of contemporary males that there has been a
Speaker 2: patriarchy for so long. It's certainly the obligation of contemporary
Speaker 2: males to mitigate it. But the idea that yeah. So
Speaker 2: it's like the idea that we're like, well, is it
Speaker 2: culture or is it nature? It's like, well, they're very
Speaker 2: woven together. Culture came out of nature and they've never
Speaker 2: really been separate. So I find that conversation interesting. Anyway,
Speaker 2: you come up with an idea for a song that
Speaker 2: taps into something you've experienced, but from that point forward
Speaker 2: it's craft. So lonely tonight, is it really? If I
Speaker 2: may be so bold, it's not a pop song. It
Speaker 2: doesn't go to a chorus. It's a story. It's very
Speaker 2: much a me type of song where it has repeated phrases,
Speaker 2: but it's on a journey. You're never like, okay, I've
Speaker 2: got the full measure of you know, most pop songs
Speaker 2: you're like, okay, I've got it. There'll be another verse,
Speaker 2: but it will basically say the same thing with different words,
Speaker 2: Whereas I try to write songs where you haven't got
Speaker 2: story till the very last note, and it's craft right.
Speaker 2: So I'm trying to write a song about a person
Speaker 2: who's trying to not have sex with a woman. I'm
Speaker 2: not writing a song about me. I'm tapping into some
Speaker 2: a feeling I've had. I mean, it's pretty, it's definitely tapping.
Speaker 2: It's autobiographical, but it's not specifically so it's like, what's
Speaker 2: a good song about this experience I've had? And so
Speaker 2: the song is in service Sorry, the details are in
Speaker 2: service to the song. The song is not in service
Speaker 2: to bio biography. The other thing is, oh, I can't
Speaker 2: remember what I was gonna say, but I guess, I guess.
Speaker 2: Oh about sharing the self, about being so open. So
Speaker 2: even though there is craft, I definitely have made my
Speaker 2: living out of being quite open, even in interviews like this,
Speaker 2: and I just don't know how else to be. And
Speaker 2: I'm lucky enough to be married to someone who's like
Speaker 2: but really it's still a brand. I don't tell anyone.
Speaker 2: No one really knows who Sarah and I are. I mean,
Speaker 2: the old docco was pretty revealing, but you know, you
Speaker 2: can hold It's weird. We have a lot of privacy.
Speaker 2: I mean, do people really know anything about me and sir?
Speaker 1: Really?
Speaker 2: And that's my choice. And a huge part is if
Speaker 2: I was like super hot, I would be fodder. But
Speaker 2: there's something about the fact that I got known as
Speaker 2: a composer, so I didn't get known as like, I'm
Speaker 2: a pretty good actor and stuff, but if I look
Speaker 2: like Brad Pitt, it's to be all over us all
Speaker 2: the time, because that's what people want to feed off.
Speaker 2: They want to feed off this sort of camelot myth.
Speaker 2: And I've never fitted into the camelot myths simply because
Speaker 2: I'm I'm not a Hemsworth, and they just don't feed
Speaker 2: off people like me because I'm a pseudo intellectual composer
Speaker 2: with a funny head, you know. And it just means.
Speaker 1: You also don't play it for I don't know if
Speaker 1: fall into the trappings of fame is a fair way
Speaker 1: for me to put it. But you've come into the
Speaker 1: studio today completely on your own.
Speaker 2: I have my security.
Speaker 1: Escala is waiting in the way. I just didn't know
Speaker 1: about it. But I think also that and this is
Speaker 1: certainly something that honestly some of the biggest stars in
Speaker 1: the world I've talked about. I mean, you mentioned Brad Peter.
Speaker 1: I think he has, for instance, commented that sometimes you
Speaker 1: can make a choice to maybe walk through an airport
Speaker 1: and maybe not be noticed, even if you are Brad Pitt,
Speaker 1: if you don't necessarily have the entourage, And that's what
Speaker 1: I meant by the sort of quote unquote trappings of fame.
Speaker 1: So I think that's probably something you've also, I imagine,
Speaker 1: consciously helped.
Speaker 2: Without aim, and I've done. I made lots of decisions
Speaker 2: in my life. I've written about this before. I'm very
Speaker 2: ambitious in a kind of like I want to have
Speaker 2: a career that no one's ever had, where I get
Speaker 2: to make a TV show and write a book. And
Speaker 2: I'm sort of pretentiously ambitious as a polymath, right, I
Speaker 2: want to be, like what else can I do? I'm
Speaker 2: not ambitious to be super famous and rich. And I
Speaker 2: can say that because I'm famous enough and rich enough.
Speaker 2: So it's all very well saying I've capped myself, but
Speaker 2: I've capped myself very comfortably. But like, it all feeds
Speaker 2: into it. So my choice not to shag other women
Speaker 2: in your hotel rooms, which is what that song's about,
Speaker 2: is part of it. Who do you want to be?
Speaker 2: Because temptation, gender aside and everything. What you're being tempted
Speaker 2: by is a life that you didn't think you'd ever
Speaker 2: That's what happened to me at twenty nine, spending my
Speaker 2: thirties like I'm a self taught music from Perth. I
Speaker 2: never got a grant, never got a scholarship, never got
Speaker 2: an agent, saying I see talenting. You just crawled my
Speaker 2: way up, just hour after hour after hour of not
Speaker 2: being very good until I got reasonably good at some stuff.
Speaker 2: And I don't suddenly being offered a life that you
Speaker 2: might have fantasized about when you were eighteen, and opportunities
Speaker 2: with sex and just having famous friends. It's like, you
Speaker 2: have to make your choice, because the most common thing
Speaker 2: to happen to someone if they get famous at thirty
Speaker 2: is they leave their partner. It's got to be seventy percent, right,
Speaker 2: and I don't blame them. It's discombobulating. I'm so lucky
Speaker 2: that Sarah just happened to be the sort of personality
Speaker 2: is like, okay with this, now, fine, what do you
Speaker 2: need me to do? Like, we're so lucky and I
Speaker 2: don't have She's not someone who had a big career
Speaker 2: ambitions for herself, so she folded herself into this mad
Speaker 2: world we ended up in, but not She didn't give
Speaker 2: a shit about famous people or the money or what
Speaker 2: car she was going to drive. She was just like, well,
Speaker 2: we want to have kids and stay together. So what
Speaker 2: do we do? And I'm like, well, ill tour and
Speaker 2: you do anything else? And she's like, got it, And
Speaker 2: we've been doing that and that's just luck. It's just luck.
Speaker 2: But I also really love her and I hate to
Speaker 2: heard her, you know, So that's luck. That's luck as
Speaker 2: well that I've got those feelings. If she annoyed me more,
Speaker 2: I would have cheated on her. I mean, Jesus, it's
Speaker 2: just life, right, And if I had annoyed her more,
Speaker 2: she would have cheated on me, if I'd taken the
Speaker 2: piss like this.
Speaker 1: Is chic that made ye made before I let you go,
Speaker 1: and I do have to let you go.
Speaker 2: I do.
Speaker 1: I have to ask you about musicals. I know we
Speaker 1: mentioned Matilda and of course Groundhog Day. I mean they
Speaker 1: were massive, massive, massive hits.
Speaker 2: One more than the other. But thank you for ground
Speaker 2: of Days, a big critical hit.
Speaker 1: And you also played Judas in Jesus Christ, superstar favorite musical,
Speaker 1: mine my.
Speaker 2: Favorite after Matilda, I imagine.
Speaker 1: Yeah, of course in twenty twelve, that was an arena
Speaker 1: to your opposite spice girl melt c who played Mary Magdalene.
Speaker 1: How was that experience, you know, playing that's a musical
Speaker 1: that was written in the seventies. Obviously, Andrew Lloyd Weber,
Speaker 1: Tim Rice, So you're coming in, you are not composing
Speaker 1: that music. You did not write the lyrics, you did
Speaker 1: not write the book craft the narrative was that liberating?
Speaker 1: And are we going to see you in another musical soon?
Speaker 2: Well? All my life, I've wanted to play Judas in
Speaker 2: Jesus Christ Superstar, Like I used to just sit and
Speaker 2: sing the whole. I wanted to play Jesus as well,
Speaker 2: but I really wanted to play Judas. And I would
Speaker 2: just put the record on in my parents' lound room
Speaker 2: while everyone was out and had a high ceiling so
Speaker 2: it was forgiving and tiles so it's nice and echoic,
Speaker 2: and I would sing the whole frickin thing. And then
Speaker 2: when I was like eighteen nineteen, I did a amateur
Speaker 2: version at the Quarry in Perth, and I understudied Judas
Speaker 2: and so I got to like do a couple of rehearsals.
Speaker 2: And then two years later I did another version with
Speaker 2: Angry Anderson in it, not the big one, but he
Speaker 2: was still doing it, and a guy called Rick Herbert
Speaker 2: played Judas, and I understudied it and that was a
Speaker 2: pro am one and we did it is His Majesty's
Speaker 2: in Perth and I understudied Judas again, but this time
Speaker 2: the whole rehearsal period I played Judas because Rick wasn't
Speaker 2: flying in. They were parachuting him in from the same
Speaker 2: production in the East, and I thought, I'm never going
Speaker 2: to and I never got to do it. I never
Speaker 2: I never went on as Judas, but in the rehearsal
Speaker 2: room in Perth in nineteen ninety six, I could. I
Speaker 2: made the rest of the cast cry doing I don't
Speaker 2: know how to love him, and I thought, I just
Speaker 2: know how to do this guy. I don't think I
Speaker 2: can sing it. It's too high for me. I can't
Speaker 2: sing at seven shows a week. I'll never get to
Speaker 2: do it. I just want to do it once. And
Speaker 2: then I was behind Lloyd sitting in front of Lloyd
Speaker 2: Weber at the opening night of a Canadian version of
Speaker 2: Superstar that went in onto Broadway when I was over
Speaker 2: there doing Matilda. I went to the opening and the
Speaker 2: guy was good, but I was like, I can do that.
Speaker 2: And it took me weeks, but I eventually wrote to Andrew,
Speaker 2: who I had a relationship with because Matilda is in
Speaker 2: one of his theaters. I knew him quite well by then,
Speaker 2: but it took me weeks. I wrote the email and
Speaker 2: it sat in the things. I went, Oh, if you
Speaker 2: know I'm a comedian, I can't really sing like that.
Speaker 2: I wrote him an email. Eventually I sent it and went, Andrew,
Speaker 2: I just want I like seeing you at Superstar. I
Speaker 2: just want you to know I've always wanted to play
Speaker 2: Judas and if you ever get another version up, can
Speaker 2: I just have an audition, just an audition? And he
Speaker 2: wrote back and went, I wish you'd told me this
Speaker 2: two weeks ago. We've just cast Seal in an arena version,
Speaker 2: and I went, A part of me was like Doult,
Speaker 2: but also I'm like Seal. I can't sing like Seal.
Speaker 2: It's an arena version, as if I'm going to get
Speaker 2: to do that, And then the best phone call of
Speaker 2: my life, like this is given all the things I've
Speaker 2: got to to do in my life. Literally, I think
Speaker 2: the most excited I've ever been because it's so uncomplicated. Right,
Speaker 2: that's a dream, as a dream I dared not have.
Speaker 2: I didn't really I dreamed of a little version, and
Speaker 2: that's that's what is worth, noting I dreamed of a
Speaker 2: little version. The dream I got was the big version,
Speaker 2: but that wasn't because I aimed for it. I got
Speaker 2: this email from Lloyd Webber's kind of CEO, Barney, saying,
Speaker 2: Seals dropped out. We start rehearsal in two weeks. I
Speaker 2: don't suppose you can still do it. And I said,
Speaker 2: I mean, I'm available, which was unbelievable that I was available,
Speaker 2: but you have to audition me. And Barney's like, oh no,
Speaker 2: you know, they just wanted a celeb, you know, and
Speaker 2: I'm I'm not doing it without your auditioning me, and
Speaker 2: they went, okay, come in to Lloyd Webber's office this afternoon.
Speaker 2: So I go down and the pianist musical director Nigel.
Speaker 2: They've had a little piano in a glass vestibule in
Speaker 2: Lloyd Webber's office, and Andrew's there. They're all just dragged
Speaker 2: in because I insisted they didn't want to be there.
Speaker 2: And I do Judas's death to a piano on the
Speaker 2: on the paving stones of their office, which is my god,
Speaker 2: I saw him. He looked through Card's dad and it
Speaker 2: ends with the suicide and I'm just doing it. And
Speaker 2: on the ground crying, and they're all assume, theyre going,
Speaker 2: we didn't need you to do this, but I'm like,
Speaker 2: I'm not doing it without you. I'm not doing it
Speaker 2: because I'm a celeb. I need to do it because
Speaker 2: you believe. You've got to see what I'm going to do.
Speaker 2: And then you know, I turn up the first rehearsal,
Speaker 2: of course I know every note and a couple of
Speaker 2: the ways I sing it. They're like, that's not how
Speaker 2: it goes, and I'm like, is now now, guys, And
Speaker 2: it was just the best experience, the best experience. I
Speaker 2: just it changed my life because it gave me trust
Speaker 2: in my voice. I've always had a really complicated relationship
Speaker 2: with my voice, and it's still complicated, but it kicked
Speaker 2: me through to just believing I believe in what I
Speaker 2: know now that I'm good at, which is I can
Speaker 2: tell stories in songs. I can't sing like you know,
Speaker 2: but I can tell the truth in a song, and
Speaker 2: telling the truth in a song on a massive screen
Speaker 2: in front of ten thousand people, like crying and tearing
Speaker 2: yourself apart. It's just it's why you do It's it's
Speaker 2: it's an active empathy, you know, It's an active compassion.
Speaker 2: What would I feel like if I was this guy
Speaker 2: who's gone so wrong? You know that he needs to
Speaker 2: kill himself out of guilt like such an amazing It's
Speaker 2: a difference between an actor and an actor. Is that
Speaker 2: that we get off on that ship.
Speaker 1: It's you know, Superstars being revived on the stage this year,
Speaker 1: So you know, I think you could got another few
Speaker 1: performances of Judas in you I do well.
Speaker 2: I think when they would like to direct it, probably
Speaker 2: I should spend my time.
Speaker 1: Writing and could I audition then Mary Magdalen. My moment
Speaker 1: of mailing Lloyd wherever an amazing. It's that for people
Speaker 1: that aren't familiar with Jesus Christ, Superstar going it's on online.
Speaker 1: You can get there was it was released.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I just remember watching a taped version of a
Speaker 2: theater show that is a musical about the death of Christ.
Speaker 2: It will take you a few minutes to uncringe. Just
Speaker 2: sit with it and you'll be in it.
Speaker 1: I mean, it's true, I like you, have loved that
Speaker 1: my whole life, and sometimes I would like explain it
Speaker 1: to people, exactly explain what an opening I mean when
Speaker 1: you hear I'm sorry apologized. Yes, it's so good, and
Speaker 1: then the because obviously Judas then comes out and does
Speaker 1: Heaven on their minds and it's like that last too, well,
Speaker 1: it's so good, it's so good. I'm sorry. I just
Speaker 1: completely musical theater out on you, because I would do
Speaker 1: a whole Tim mentioned thank you so much for coming
Speaker 1: into the studio today. I'm so fabulous to talk to you.
Speaker 1: It really has to be again.
Speaker 2: Let's do it annually.
Speaker 1: Let's please do, Please do. And Tim's new book, You
Speaker 1: Don't Have to Have a Dream is available to pre
Speaker 1: order online now and will be available in bookstores and
Speaker 1: online this Tuesday. He's also going to tour around the
Speaker 1: country from the end of the month, and you can
Speaker 1: find more details about that. A conversation with Tim mentioned
Speaker 1: there as well. I would actually should have asked you,
Speaker 1: are there any questions you're hoping to be asked on stage?
Speaker 1: And I didn't get to.
Speaker 2: I don't know, but what I as you can tell,
Speaker 2: as you can tell from this podcast, I'm easily drawn
Speaker 2: on the things what did you call the issue of
Speaker 2: our time? And it's very hard when you're our age
Speaker 2: and you've had teenage kids to not gnash your teeth
Speaker 2: about where you feel things are going wrong right now.
Speaker 2: But one of the lessons in my book is find
Speaker 2: yourself by what you love. And that's the one I
Speaker 2: find hardest because it's very easy, especially if you're engaged online,
Speaker 2: to notice what's wrong and compare yourself with others and
Speaker 2: spend your whole time just rubbing up against the dissonance.
Speaker 2: And although there's good in that, because you need to
Speaker 2: agitate for change if you see, as Matilda says, if
Speaker 2: that's not right, you've got to put it right. But
Speaker 2: you can't live your whole life just defining yourself in
Speaker 2: opposition to things. And that's the lesson I'm trying to take.
Speaker 2: So when I talk on stage, I want to go
Speaker 2: in with the attitude that my job in this book
Speaker 2: and when speaking to people is to remind people that
Speaker 2: engaging with their passions and with the beauty of the
Speaker 2: world is really, really important, especially for late millennials and
Speaker 2: Gen z. Statistically, they really don't know how to do it,
Speaker 2: to be optimistic, to look at the beauty in the world.
Speaker 2: And so I really want to try and go from
Speaker 2: being a bit of an agitator myself to aging into
Speaker 2: a more Vonnegushan sort of loved up old hippie.
Speaker 1: Or well, we will revisit that on our and next
Speaker 1: your podcast. Thanks to you.
Speaker 2: Again, see your next September.
Speaker 1: And you Don't Have to Have a Dream by Tim
Speaker 1: Minchin is out on September ten. It's available for pre
Speaker 1: order and now we have a link in our show notes.
Speaker 1: Thank you for your company. I hope you've enjoyed this episode.
Speaker 1: If you did, please make sure you're following us because
Speaker 1: we'll be back with another exclusive guest on Something to
Speaker 1: Talk About next week.