Speaker 1: Tired, tired, tired, I said love, I said pet. I
Speaker 1: said I am not on standby to do voice levels.
Speaker 1: It's got to have a cigarette. I don't know how
Speaker 1: to do her without it.
Speaker 2: She got the cigarette.
Speaker 2: Hi, I'm Mia Freedman, and welcome to No Filter, a
Speaker 2: podcast where there is no such thing as too much information.
Speaker 2: My guest today is an Australian icon. She's written some
Speaker 2: of our best comedy shows and created some of our
Speaker 2: favorite characters, including Pashrash netballer Sharon Strzelecki, a chain smoking
Speaker 2: Lynn from Fast Forward. But underneath the many faces and
Speaker 2: complete hilarity, Magda Szubanski is a woman who has struggled
Speaker 2: with her identity for most of her life. For the
Speaker 2: 1st 51 years, Magda hid her sexuality entirely from the
Speaker 2: public eye.
Speaker 2: The more famous and successful she became as a comedian
Speaker 2: and as a writer, the harder she had to hide.
Speaker 2: She also had to deal with her father's secret history
Speaker 2: and through all of this, she used food as a
Speaker 2: coping mechanism.
Speaker 2: Reckoning, her first book is a memoir that deals with
Speaker 2: the raw emotion of her life intertwined with her father's
Speaker 2: experience as a German resistance fighter in World War II.
Speaker 2: Magda has such an honest approach to everything she does,
Speaker 2: be it the characters she creates or the way she writes,
Speaker 2: which is brilliantly. Today I speak to her about what
Speaker 2: it was like making a decision to tell the world
Speaker 2: she was, as she said, gay, gay, gay, gay, a
Speaker 2: little bit not gay, gay, gay, gay. Her very public
Speaker 2: time is the face of Jenny Craig and why she
Speaker 2: walked away from that very lucrative weight loss deal twice.
Speaker 2: After all, we're all reckoning with something.
Speaker 2: Girlfriend, you can
Speaker 1: write. Oh thank you. Oh my God, thank you.
Speaker 2: It was unput downable.
Speaker 1: Oh wow, you're giving me goosebumps. a little teary
Speaker 2: and just
Speaker 2: also I read it with a pencil and I was just,
Speaker 2: I kept circling and underlining just beautiful phrases. You've got
Speaker 2: a beautiful turn of phrase.
Speaker 1: Oh thank you, thanks.
Speaker 2: How did you do it?
Speaker 1: Um, I don't know.
Speaker 1: I don't know. I just, um, I, I didn't know
Speaker 1: if I could do it actually when I first started writing,
Speaker 1: I didn't know if I could write. Uh, so it's
Speaker 1: been a huge journey. I started just after my dad died, um,
Speaker 1: and then it took all sorts of twists and turns.
Speaker 1: At one point it was going to be a book
Speaker 1: about my weight loss, although that was complicated by the
Speaker 1: fact that, of course, I put it all back on again.
Speaker 1: So there went that idea. But I really, I, I
Speaker 1: just discovered through the writing of this book how much
Speaker 1: in love with language I am apart from all the
Speaker 1: other content stuff.
Speaker 1: And I suppose I've always played with language really with
Speaker 1: characters and I've loved writing the scripts that I've been
Speaker 1: involved with.
Speaker 2: You wrote the three dog woman series,
Speaker 1: yeah, and you know a lot of stuff, but to
Speaker 1: actually just have free reign to really it's a pretty
Speaker 1: serious book and I wanted the language to match the
Speaker 1: gravitas of the subject matter in a way, so.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Did it, was it a different muscle to the
Speaker 2: one that you're used to using for obviously writing comedy,
Speaker 2: but just you're a creative person, you act, you're multi-talented
Speaker 2: in that way, but did writing feel like a creative
Speaker 2: muscle cause it feels like a very
Speaker 2: Different voice.
Speaker 1: Well, it's the real me and in some ways it was,
Speaker 1: you know, writing sketch comedy is, I don't, you don't
Speaker 1: want to make it look like hard work, but it
Speaker 1: is incredibly freaking hard work because you're straining, well, for me,
Speaker 1: I was straining my brain away from the way it
Speaker 1: actually naturally works to put it into sketch comedy mode.
Speaker 1: It requires a certain adrenalized, um, you know, high octane
Speaker 1: energy comedy.
Speaker 1: Whereas, pardon me, whereas this book flowed out of me
Speaker 1: much more because it really is the way I speak
Speaker 1: and the way I think and my sense of humor,
Speaker 1: it's much more the real me.
Speaker 2: It reads like you just sat down and wrote it
Speaker 2: like in a week, which I always think is the most,
Speaker 2: I mean it's rarely that is that, but I always
Speaker 2: think that's it makes it very easy to read and
Speaker 2: very um.
Speaker 2: It doesn't read like it was agony, but you wrote
Speaker 2: it over 8 years, right?
Speaker 1: Yeah, and it it wasn't agony, you know, a lot
Speaker 1: of it really did flow, you know, I understand what
Speaker 1: they talk about the Holy Spirit, you know, there's something
Speaker 1: that kind of rights through you and there's some um.
Speaker 1: You know, in some ways I think the book's smarter
Speaker 1: than I am. It's weird you access some part of
Speaker 1: your own brain that's connected to the collective unconscious or something.
Speaker 1: There's some force that animates and flows through you. It's
Speaker 1: the same when you're doing comedy or anything creative, you
Speaker 1: have that sense of flow that they talk about and
Speaker 1: it's a strangely impersonal thing um and um you know,
Speaker 1: without getting too wanky about it.
Speaker 1: Let's get let's get. I'm capable of it, you know,
Speaker 1: I can go right to the wank place, um, but
Speaker 1: it really, uh, I loved writing. I absolutely, um, I
Speaker 1: said this at an event the other night and there
Speaker 1: was sort of an, oh, you know, it's the, this
Speaker 1: is my favorite thing that I've ever done. I have
Speaker 1: to say. It's the most satisfying and complete thing because
Speaker 1: it's humor, but, but it's also the serious, it's it's
Speaker 1: the whole me, you know, much more.
Speaker 2: It's also the only thing.
Speaker 2: Um, as a performer as you are, there are so
Speaker 2: many people involved in every aspect of what you do
Speaker 2: if you're doing a show, if you're doing whatever it
Speaker 2: happens to be, but this is just
Speaker 1: you. Yeah, yeah, I can't hide the scrum at all.
Speaker 1: But also you don't have the endless frustrations that you
Speaker 1: have when you're making film and TV about the budget,
Speaker 1: the location, the costumes, all those, you know, dealing with
Speaker 1: reality things, whereas with a book you can really, um,
Speaker 1: although I was constrained because this is a real story
Speaker 1: and I was
Speaker 1: I had to adhere to the truth of that, but
Speaker 1: you can kind of go wherever you want to go
Speaker 1: with that, and there's no budget, you know, if I
Speaker 1: wanted to go and write about Warsaw in 1943, I could,
Speaker 1: you know, and I didn't have to worry about whether
Speaker 1: the
Speaker 1: The film had the budget for that, you know, the
Speaker 1: book can do that. So that was incredibly liberating. Yeah,
Speaker 2: it's called Reckoning, and it's about you coming to terms
Speaker 2: with so many things, but it's a book fundamentally about identity,
Speaker 2: isn't it? Yeah,
Speaker 1: yeah, it is actually. It very much is, which mine
Speaker 1: and mine still isn't fully formed, I would say.
Speaker 2: I wanted to, it's gonna sound funny, but I wanted
Speaker 2: to say thank you on behalf of Jewish people because
Speaker 2: I am the official spokesperson of all Jewish people. No,
Speaker 2: but I am Jewish and I lost relatives in the
Speaker 2: Holocaust and and
Speaker 2: Your father was the most extraordinary hero, and he and
Speaker 2: his family in Poland risked their lives for a long
Speaker 2: time sheltering Jewish people and one little boy in particular
Speaker 2: because the price of doing that was their own death,
Speaker 1: if they'd been caught and as I describe in the book,
Speaker 1: my grandparents were 45 when the war started, and that's
Speaker 1: not young, you know, you know consequences. My father was
Speaker 1: 15 and there's a certain
Speaker 1: Um, you're reckless youth, you don't understand mortality, all those
Speaker 1: kind of things. So I'm really in awe of my grandparents' courage,
Speaker 1: particularly somehow my grandmother really and my aunt, um, you know,
Speaker 1: because she had the little Jewish boy used to sleep
Speaker 1: in her bed, you know, I mean, I mean what
Speaker 1: would have happened to them if they'd been caught, um,
Speaker 1: just doesn't even bear thinking about and to well they
Speaker 1: would have been killed and they knew that they most
Speaker 1: likely would have been tortured because of the unit that
Speaker 1: my father and my uncle were in.
Speaker 1: Because my father and my uncle were in this unit 993W,
Speaker 1: which was a top secret counterintelligence unit, and basically they
Speaker 1: were executing Polish collaborators who were telling the Gestapo um
Speaker 1: secrets of the resistance, but also telling the Gestapo where
Speaker 1: where Jewish people were hiding.
Speaker 1: And the Polish, you know, official line on that, they
Speaker 1: took a very hard line on collaboration and
Speaker 2: it was
Speaker 2: an incredibly, I mean, not just brave but moral thing
Speaker 2: that they did,
Speaker 1: they were good people, good people
Speaker 2: didn't turn away.
Speaker 1: No, no, they didn't, and you know.
Speaker 1: I asked myself what would I have done in the
Speaker 1: same circumstance, and you just don't know, you know. But
Speaker 1: I asked my cousin who's also called Magda, Magda Magda,
Speaker 1: very glamorous Polish actress, funnily enough, um, but I, I
Speaker 1: wanted to understand it was almost like doing a taxonomy
Speaker 1: of courage, you know, in some ways to try and
Speaker 1: understand where did that courage come from, what informed it,
Speaker 1: and how did they maintain that over six long years?
Speaker 1: And I said to her one time, you know, where
Speaker 1: did our grandmother's courage come from? And she just said, breeding.
Speaker 1: You know, meaning basically that they were brought up to
Speaker 1: have those values and they were trained in that way
Speaker 1: so that essentially when the time came, because they were
Speaker 1: from that kind of stream of Polish, you know, Poland's
Speaker 1: a very complex country and its history with Jewish people
Speaker 1: is enormously complex as I'm sure you know, but they
Speaker 1: were from that stream that was very kind of multicultural.
Speaker 1: They had a lot of Jewish friends and to them,
Speaker 1: as my cousin said, these weren't.
Speaker 1: Jewish people they were Polish people. They saw no difference,
Speaker 1: you know, and that's, you know, those sort of that
Speaker 1: way of conducting yourself in the world is as relevant,
Speaker 1: if not more relevant now than ever really.
Speaker 2: It's interesting, you know, part of what you write about
Speaker 2: is the sense that traumatic life experiences can be inherited
Speaker 2: sort of through DNA in the same way as blue
Speaker 2: eyes or blonde hair.
Speaker 2: And there's a very strong understanding of that among Jewish people,
Speaker 2: this sense of survivor guilt and the effects of the
Speaker 2: Holocaust as it's come down into generations who never experienced it,
Speaker 2: but who are profoundly affected.
Speaker 2: And the same thing happened with you. You felt that's
Speaker 2: one of the things you experienced or you explored
Speaker 2: in the book.
Speaker 1: Well, I think, I think really there's a kind of
Speaker 1: I'm reminded of that amazing episode of Curb Your Enthusiasm
Speaker 1: with the little gay, he looks like a gay boy
Speaker 1: you know he's talking about the Holocaust.
Speaker 1: He says, get over it, Jews, you know, and there's
Speaker 1: that kind of an attitude sometimes that I, I suppose
Speaker 1: because of my proximity to it, I look at Jewish
Speaker 1: people and the suffering that they've gone through and, and
Speaker 1: think about the toll that that must take and often
Speaker 1: allowance isn't made for that, um, like how, how that would.
Speaker 1: Existentially affect you, you know, generations, generations and I met
Speaker 1: this young Polish Jewish woman actually at a function and
Speaker 1: she was saying her grandmother hated Polish people, you know,
Speaker 1: she'd had bad experiences.
Speaker 1: And she was really surprised and relieved to hear about
Speaker 1: my grandparents, and, and I thought it was really important
Speaker 1: and an important thing for the book too, for Jewish
Speaker 1: people to know that there were Polish people that cared
Speaker 1: and that risked their lives and for, for in order,
Speaker 1: and the reason for saying that is so that Jewish
Speaker 1: people don't feel so alone, you know, because I think
Speaker 1: that's a horrible feeling to feel like no one cared.
Speaker 1: It's like people did and it might not have always
Speaker 1: been evident.
Speaker 1: But there were people that did. I think that's a
Speaker 1: really important message to
Speaker 1: get across
Speaker 2: and the sense that it's not ancient history,
Speaker 1: it's within living memory and I do think it's passed
Speaker 1: on somehow genetically. I mean there's all those studies they're
Speaker 1: doing now, epigenetics they've done actually with Jewish second generation
Speaker 1: Holocaust survivors and
Speaker 1: And they've shown that the effects of trauma and stress
Speaker 1: are communicated and when you say that to people, everyone
Speaker 1: just goes, yeah, totally get it, you know, no one goes, no, no,
Speaker 1: I don't reckon, although I have other friends who are
Speaker 1: Jewish Holocaust survivors, second generation, and they don't want that
Speaker 1: to be true because they don't want to be burdened
Speaker 1: with that. They want to be able to live outside
Speaker 1: and beyond it, you know, but you know we're all
Speaker 1: reckoning with something,
Speaker 2: aren't we was an extraordinary man, an extraordinary man.
Speaker 2: I wanted to take you to a scene in the
Speaker 2: book that I really love, there's so many, but, um, one,
Speaker 2: when you're playing soccer on the beach with a group
Speaker 2: of friends on a camping trip. yeah, can you just
Speaker 2: talk about about that? I loved that
Speaker 2: scene.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, I love that too. Um, I, this is
Speaker 1: after I'd lost all the weight when I did Jenny
Speaker 1: Craig and um, you know, there's one thing that I
Speaker 1: sort of grieve the loss of is physical mobility, and
Speaker 1: I don't run. It's just too hard when you're overweight,
Speaker 1: you know.
Speaker 1: But when you're not overweight, true, true, true, um, and, um,
Speaker 1: I went with a bunch of girlfriends. There's a huge
Speaker 1: sort of posse of us who go camping every now
Speaker 1: and then, and we went to Cape Levec and it
Speaker 1: was so beautiful. We were in the really rough campy
Speaker 1: part of it, you know, where it's like Gilligan's Island
Speaker 1: and there's this incredible stark beauty as I described it
Speaker 1: in the book, if they had, you know, beach resorts
Speaker 1: on the moon or Mars, that's what, that, that would
Speaker 1: be Cape Levec.
Speaker 1: Um, and, um, we were, we were all down on
Speaker 1: the rocks that sort of on the cliff, and the
Speaker 1: moon came out and it just illuminated the beach like
Speaker 1: this ghostly soccer arena, and we all spontaneously ran down
Speaker 1: onto the beach and started kicking a soccer ball around
Speaker 1: and I was, because I was the lightest I'd been
Speaker 1: for a very long time and I was sprinting around
Speaker 1: and elbowing people and getting the ball and
Speaker 1: Laughing so hard I wet myself and it was the
Speaker 1: most incredible feeling and but there was also, it was
Speaker 1: tinged with a slight sadness because I didn't know if
Speaker 1: it would last and then it didn't, you know, I
Speaker 1: put the weight back on, so I had this sort
Speaker 1: of glimpse of it, but, you know, to be honest,
Speaker 1: I haven't given up on the idea of um
Speaker 1: I mean, I'm in this perpetual bloody thing of, you know,
Speaker 1: should I just accept my weight as it is, or
Speaker 1: should I keep trying to lose weight, but
Speaker 2: You don't look overweight to me.
Speaker 1: Thanks,
Speaker 2: you actually
Speaker 2: don't. Oh well,
Speaker 1: you know, look, I am carrying
Speaker 2: you in person, but I don't
Speaker 1: like look, I'm naturally my natural instinct is to be
Speaker 1: a camping outdoorsy girl, and I'm carrying a little bit
Speaker 1: too much weight to do that. So so just to
Speaker 1: get to that sort of weight there is, you know,
Speaker 1: would be really comfortable, but that's
Speaker 1: You know, outside of all of the body image craziness
Speaker 1: of the, you know, I mean, we're so nuts about it,
Speaker 1: all of us, and, and I'm involved in that. It's
Speaker 1: hard to be a woman and be sane, I think
Speaker 1: about your body and what you put into it.
Speaker 2: The 3, the 3, you know, the book's called Reckoning
Speaker 2: and the 3 issues that you reckon with throughout the
Speaker 2: book that weave in and out are your father and
Speaker 2: his history, your sexuality, and your weight and they sort
Speaker 2: of provide this framework for a whole bunch of other stuff.
Speaker 2: Um, do you feel like they're intertwined, those three things,
Speaker 2: or at least sexuality and your weight? Good
Speaker 1: question. Yeah, I think they are. I think they are. Well,
Speaker 1: my father sort of started on at me. His mother
Speaker 1: was overweight and he was overweight when he was a kid,
Speaker 1: and then he was in the POW camp and lost
Speaker 1: the weight and was very handsome, um, and so Jenny Craig.
Speaker 1: It was totally, but he managed to hang on to it.
Speaker 1: He had an iron will, my father.
Speaker 1: Um, and from the age of 11, he said to me,
Speaker 1: when I put on, like, clearly I was just pubescent,
Speaker 1: and I'd put on a tiny bit of weight and
Speaker 1: he said if you just lose half a stone, you'll
Speaker 1: be fine for the purposes of playing tennis because he
Speaker 1: was tennis
Speaker 1: mad.
Speaker 2: And his way of doing that is to just not
Speaker 2: eat willpower,
Speaker 1: starve yourself, which is how he managed it and somehow
Speaker 1: he did um but it just propelled me into this
Speaker 1: absolute craziness, you know, it messed with my metabolism. I mean,
Speaker 1: God bless him, he was trying to do the right thing.
Speaker 1: Um, he had all sorts of complex stuff going on about,
Speaker 1: you know,
Speaker 2: about, I mean someone who's been starved and been in
Speaker 2: a prison camp, you know, their issues around weight must
Speaker 2: be manifest, yeah,
Speaker 1: but also, you know, his mother was overweight and
Speaker 1: You know, there was things have started to change in
Speaker 1: the last maybe 10 years, but for a long time
Speaker 1: overweight people were the last most vilified group, you know,
Speaker 1: I think still, still, I think, yeah, yeah, absolutely there's
Speaker 1: a lot of shame attached to it. It's, you know,
Speaker 1: I seem to have picked all the ways of being
Speaker 1: in the world that have shame attached.
Speaker 1: Um, and, uh, slowly I'm just working my way through
Speaker 1: it and going, you know what, I, I, I ain't
Speaker 1: gonna be shamed no more. Um, so whether or not
Speaker 1: the weight is a metaphor, um, uh, I read, I
Speaker 1: read that fantastic book, Fat is a Feminist Issue years
Speaker 1: ago by Susie Orbach, um, and then the, the sort
Speaker 1: of opposite side of that was reading Susan Sontag when
Speaker 1: she wrote about, um, uh, AIDS as metaphor and illness
Speaker 1: as metaphor, and, and, and she disputed the idea of
Speaker 1: the body being a metaphor for what's going on emotionally.
Speaker 1: Um, and where did you land?
Speaker 1: I think it's halfway between, like everything, you know, it's
Speaker 1: the middle path. I think it is both a metaphor
Speaker 1: and an emotional expression, and it's also just purely, you know,
Speaker 1: in some regards just physiological and genetic.
Speaker 2: You talked about, you described it as a flesh armor
Speaker 2: that you created around yourself at a time when you
Speaker 2: were struggling with your sexuality, which is kind of for
Speaker 2: decades really, um.
Speaker 2: I wanted to ask you about, so, so the decision
Speaker 2: to do Jenny Craig, talk me through that because you
Speaker 2: write about that in the book. You don't write about
Speaker 2: it much, so it's not a huge part of the book,
Speaker 2: but the actual decision to do Jenny Craig must have
Speaker 2: been a huge one because by doing that you take
Speaker 2: your weight and you make it currency, for better or worse. Yeah.
Speaker 2: Did you realize what a big decision that was going
Speaker 2: to
Speaker 2: be?
Speaker 1: Probably not fully.
Speaker 2: How could you?
Speaker 1: I know it's the same with this book. What have
Speaker 1: I done in some regards, um, but, um, I had
Speaker 1: gotten to a point physically and health wise where I
Speaker 1: had to do something. I had shocking sleep apnea.
Speaker 1: My friends were worried. My friends were worried, and another
Speaker 1: friend who was doing the advertising for Jenny Craig approached
Speaker 1: me and said, look, they'd be interested. Would you be interested?
Speaker 1: And I said no. And then a year later I
Speaker 1: thought maybe it's a good way to do it. There's
Speaker 1: a financial incentive, there's a sort of a contract, you,
Speaker 1: you've got a structure around you publicly accountable in a
Speaker 1: way accountable, but you've also got public support and I
Speaker 1: knew that because of being a public person.
Speaker 1: The public is so and the media are so obsessed
Speaker 1: with weight loss and weight gain. I knew no matter
Speaker 1: what way I did it, it would be a public
Speaker 1: issue anyway, so I kind of thought, why not just
Speaker 1: tackle it head on. um and um so really that
Speaker 1: was how the, how the whole thing went and, and, um, um,
Speaker 1: I sort of wanted to in some ways say some,
Speaker 1: I thought it was also a platform to say some
Speaker 1: things about body image and the shaming of overweight people
Speaker 1: and
Speaker 1: The fact that I was very clear about the fact
Speaker 1: that I had no intention of getting skinny, but I
Speaker 1: needed to lose some weight.
Speaker 1: Um, but sometimes you know it's very hard to get
Speaker 1: a complex message
Speaker 1: through.
Speaker 2: But you were also honest in terms of, you know,
Speaker 2: you did interviews with the Women's Weekly and you talked
Speaker 2: about how there was also therapy was required and how
Speaker 2: it wasn't just, I'm just gonna eat a few meals
Speaker 2: and magically the weight will fall off like you were
Speaker 2: very open and honest about
Speaker 2: it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, I was and um thanks for picking up
Speaker 1: on that because I was really conscientious about that.
Speaker 1: And certainly, you know, I've done a ton of therapy
Speaker 1: in my life, you know, I think everyone should do
Speaker 1: it isn't the
Speaker 1: best thing
Speaker 2: I don't know how anyone can get through life without
Speaker 2: doing it.
Speaker 1: Well, you see people and they don't struggle. I don't
Speaker 1: see why you wouldn't avail yourself of the skills and
Speaker 1: the tools if there's a smarter way to do something.
Speaker 2: You don't do your own
Speaker 2: dental work.
Speaker 2: I don't fix my own car. Maybe some people can,
Speaker 2: but no, I see it in the same way.
Speaker 1: To me too, me too, but yeah, I very much
Speaker 1: wanted to get across. I think there is, there are
Speaker 1: really complex emotional psychological things that go on with weight.
Speaker 1: The whole thing, I actually think no one really understands it,
Speaker 1: you know, it still eludes them.
Speaker 2: Unscramble the egg between society's expectations and our history and
Speaker 2: our parents and the messages we receive and the messages
Speaker 2: we internalize, it is hard to unscramble all that. But
Speaker 2: you did lose all this weight and you talk about
Speaker 2: how at the age of 50 when most women are
Speaker 2: becoming invisible, you were swimming upstream because suddenly you're in
Speaker 2: a black tight black dress, you're on the cover of
Speaker 2: Women's Weekly, men and women were flirting with you.
Speaker 2: What was that like? Was that the first time you'd
Speaker 2: experienced being valued for how you look in a positive
Speaker 2: way?
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, because I put weight on um in my
Speaker 1: early teens and I sort of, you know, I sort
Speaker 1: of felt that I could hide.
Speaker 1: In that in a sense, um, but this was the
Speaker 1: first time, you know, I'd always been the funny one,
Speaker 1: but suddenly I was like the hot one and I,
Speaker 1: I was amazed that people I know I was sort
Speaker 1: of really taken aback, but people kept kept kind of
Speaker 1: saying that and I was like, well, I suppose so, right,
Speaker 1: then I'll go with that.
Speaker 1: And it was, it was a really extraordinary experience and
Speaker 1: it quite unnerved me in some ways and there's this
Speaker 1: whole sort of myth that you lose weight and then
Speaker 1: all your problems, you know, and everyone knows it's not
Speaker 1: like that, you know what I think it's like that.
Speaker 1: I know they do and they want to keep thinking
Speaker 1: it's like that
Speaker 2: you think that it would be like that in some way,
Speaker 1: probably a little bit. You just get won over by
Speaker 1: that stuff, don't you?
Speaker 1: Um, and you know, certainly a lot of, you know,
Speaker 1: pains and aches and things like that were solved by
Speaker 1: losing weight and health issues, certainly. Um, but you know,
Speaker 1: you've got then a whole lot of other set of
Speaker 1: issues to address and as I describe in the book,
Speaker 1: suddenly I became really self-conscious about the way I looked
Speaker 1: and I felt like a bauble, you know, and I
Speaker 1: get now how, um, I'd always felt that side of that.
Speaker 1: I was always a sort of nerdy one, you know,
Speaker 1: and I didn't ever use that as currency and suddenly
Speaker 1: I
Speaker 1: Got how other women felt for the first time, I think, really.
Speaker 2: And because the the double side of that is that
Speaker 2: you get it, but then you know you can lose
Speaker 2: it because we're all going to lose it, whether it's
Speaker 2: weight or getting older or going gray, whatever it happens
Speaker 2: to be, you can't stay hot forever, although society tells
Speaker 2: us we should try.
Speaker 1: Yeah,
Speaker 2: but you
Speaker 2: said something really interesting because you said the sexiness of
Speaker 2: fat is like a dirty little secret. And so it's
Speaker 2: not like you hadn't experienced people being attracted to you
Speaker 2: and experience what it was like to feel sexually desirable,
Speaker 2: but this was, it was it was like what did
Speaker 2: you mean by
Speaker 2: that?
Speaker 1: Well, that really a lot of people won't admit to
Speaker 1: feeling attracted to fat women.
Speaker 1: You know, especially men, there's a, you know, that whole weird.
Speaker 1: There's the feeder thing and then there's those college frat
Speaker 1: boys that sort of, you know, do all the things
Speaker 1: about fat girls won't screw a fat girl, that kind
Speaker 1: of thing. No, there's whole fat shaming things that go
Speaker 1: on about that, but
Speaker 1: Um, you know, this is one thing that the internet
Speaker 1: has done for us and porn is it reveals that
Speaker 1: people have all sorts of sexual that are not we
Speaker 1: constantly have shoved down our throat that there's one type
Speaker 1: of desirable body, Miranda Miranda Kerr, and it turns out
Speaker 1: that actually people are attracted to all sorts of things. Well,
Speaker 1: we didn't for a long time, I don't think you
Speaker 1: know
Speaker 2: how did that change? Like, were people just more open
Speaker 2: about it?
Speaker 1: Well, um,
Speaker 2: when you lost the weight,
Speaker 1: yeah, and I mean I was still, I was still
Speaker 1: what would be classified as overweight, but I think maybe
Speaker 1: because I was just packaged in a different way or something, um, uh,
Speaker 1: thanks to the stylists, um, yeah, people were really engaging
Speaker 1: with me in that way and I was like, wow,
Speaker 2: this is
Speaker 2: a weird thing to sort of participate in your own
Speaker 2: objectification and have it as something you haven't sort of,
Speaker 2: that's something quite sudden.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it was, it was very weird. Suddenly I was
Speaker 1: the object of the gaze, you know, and I really
Speaker 1: felt that somehow I'd existed outside of that. I had, yeah,
Speaker 1: I really had, and suddenly I went, oh my God
Speaker 2: and you'd been for other things, how you were, what
Speaker 2: you could say, what you could do, your talent, and
Speaker 2: then suddenly it's like, oh she's hot bauble
Speaker 1: yeah
Speaker 2: bauble. So it's like the plus and minus of that.
Speaker 2: And then of course then people started stalking you and
Speaker 2: paparazzi and
Speaker 2: Let's get Magda eating and let's get Mag in a swimsuit.
Speaker 2: That must have been horrendous.
Speaker 1: It goes through a cycle. What happens is initially it's
Speaker 1: absolutely horrific and you feel like hunted prey, you know,
Speaker 1: because the way they follow you is like you're an
Speaker 1: animal of prey. It's, it's really awful. It's like having
Speaker 1: wolves coming after you, um, and, and it's, I think
Speaker 1: the lizard part of your brain just responds to it
Speaker 1: like that, you know, um.
Speaker 1: But then after a while, after they've done the worst
Speaker 1: they can do and shown you shoving food into your
Speaker 1: face and you know, the most unattractive and all of that,
Speaker 1: you know, you and your bathers at the beach and
Speaker 1: all that sort of stuff.
Speaker 1: In another way, and I'm not saying that the paparazzi
Speaker 1: are providing a public service, but in another way you
Speaker 1: come through the other end of it sort of liberated
Speaker 1: because you just go, well, what are you going to do,
Speaker 1: you know, yeah, I, you know, yes, I go down
Speaker 1: the street looking wind blown with no makeup on and
Speaker 1: my track pants on.
Speaker 2: Um, there was a real gotcha about it though, wasn't it?
Speaker 2: It was not
Speaker 2: done
Speaker 1: in a, you know, glory in my sort of, you know,
Speaker 1: they didn't go too far because there is a certain
Speaker 1: affection that the Australian public have for me and so
Speaker 1: they were a
Speaker 1: bit careful.
Speaker 2: You've always been number one on Q scores. I remember
Speaker 2: for many, many, many.
Speaker 2: Years like just the top of the tree with scores.
Speaker 2: So yeah, there has been a huge affection, so they knew,
Speaker 2: but then they they use weasel words like enjoying her
Speaker 2: curves and those kind of things where it's so passive aggressive.
Speaker 1: I know. Well, it's schizophrenic, you know, enjoying her new
Speaker 1: beach body when they when they try and get the
Speaker 1: worst possible shot of you, you know.
Speaker 2: You knew
Speaker 2: though when you signed on to Jennet, did you know,
Speaker 2: listen to me putting words into your mouth, that how
Speaker 2: do you then turn that off? It's like once you
Speaker 2: put that ball into play.
Speaker 2: How do you then go, OK guys, I'm resigning for
Speaker 2: from talking about weight in every interview and da da da.
Speaker 2: Now I've done Jenny Craig, I've done 2 years, whatever.
Speaker 2: Now how do I, you know, drawing a line under it.
Speaker 1: I don't think you can ever put the toothpaste back
Speaker 1: in the tube, and I don't think I quite, I
Speaker 1: didn't know it was going to go off the way
Speaker 1: it did. I didn't know it would be as huge
Speaker 1: as it was, um, you know, that said, I went
Speaker 1: into it with open eyes and and maybe some naivety thinking.
Speaker 1: I think I thought I could maybe control.
Speaker 1: Um, the, the debate a bit more and try and
Speaker 1: bring some common sense into it and then you just
Speaker 1: realize it's a mad beast there's nothing you can do.
Speaker 1: There's nothing you can do.
Speaker 2: Do you think the fact that you came out in
Speaker 2: 2012 when you lost the weight, do you think that
Speaker 2: that
Speaker 2: was
Speaker 1: Well then I started to put the weight on again
Speaker 1: I
Speaker 2: think didn't you say after you came out you put
Speaker 2: the weight back
Speaker 1: I think I felt intensely vulnerable and certainly, you know,
Speaker 1: that idea of fat is metaphor, you know, it is
Speaker 1: sort of a bit like a shield, a bit like armor.
Speaker 1: And um you know, whether it was just that or
Speaker 1: whether it was just that's what happens, you know, very
Speaker 1: few people like the the statistics for people who lose
Speaker 1: weight and keep it off are diabolical. It's like about 3%
Speaker 1: I've since discovered. So it's, you know, the chances of
Speaker 1: keeping it off, it's very hard, um.
Speaker 1: But I think um um really, you know, that whole
Speaker 1: thing of coming out was a really interesting um.
Speaker 1: What happened initially after it, there's a whole other myth
Speaker 1: too about like losing weight like everything's going to be
Speaker 1: perfect
Speaker 2: so interesting to read. I thought, oh, you've come out now.
Speaker 2: It's like you'll run down the street I was shit
Speaker 2: scared because
Speaker 1: you know, and this is where that sort of Polish
Speaker 1: European legacy adheres because
Speaker 1: I grew up with this intimate knowledge of that the
Speaker 1: world can take a very dark turn and there's always,
Speaker 1: it's just in me to have that slight mistrust of
Speaker 1: the mob, you know, and the way things go, which
Speaker 1: is weird because I've made in some ways I've gone
Speaker 1: straight into that fear but my whole career is about
Speaker 1: dealing with masses of people. But at the same time
Speaker 1: I have this thing of, you know, looking at, you know,
Speaker 1: seeing those pictures of the Holocaust with my father sitting
Speaker 1: in the lounge room and going this is how horribly
Speaker 1: wrong it can go.
Speaker 1: And that's always been part of my operating system. That's
Speaker 1: how I'm hardwired. um, and so, you know, much as
Speaker 1: I could reason with it, there was that primitive part
Speaker 1: of me that when I came out was terrified that
Speaker 1: it would backfire somehow horribly and it must have looked
Speaker 1: to people, um, you know, watching on the sidelines like
Speaker 1: it was 2012, you know, lots of people would try
Speaker 1: and say everyone knew, everyone didn't know, a sliver of
Speaker 1: people who live on the, you know, the east coast
Speaker 1: and in the arty farty world knew.
Speaker 1: But the broader population really didn't have a clue that
Speaker 1: I was gay, so it was a big thing to
Speaker 1: still um and um the other thing is.
Speaker 1: You know, I can't really name very many other A-list
Speaker 1: female celebrities who are out. So I was a bit
Speaker 1: out there on my own and it's, it's still not happening.
Speaker 1: I mean, where are they, you know, um, so this
Speaker 1: idea that people sort of want to rewrite history in
Speaker 1: some ways and go, oh, it wasn't such a big
Speaker 1: deal and everyone knew anyway and blah blah bla. It's
Speaker 1: like no, that's not really true, you know, and I
Speaker 1: was blazing a path in some ways in that.
Speaker 1: There was all this speculation about how it would affect
Speaker 1: brand Magda, whether I'd still get endorsements or
Speaker 1: not.
Speaker 2: You talked about long conversations with your agents before like
Speaker 2: I spoke to my parents, I spoke and I spoke
Speaker 2: to my agents, and I thought, yeah, Magda, what
Speaker 1: was that's
Speaker 2: how do you talk about that like how do
Speaker 2: you
Speaker 1: I
Speaker 2: just how did that factor in.
Speaker 1: Well, I just had to, um, really, um, acknowledge that
Speaker 1: it could affect my livelihood. I might not get endorsements. um, uh, and, um,
Speaker 1: I just had to do it anyway because it was time,
Speaker 1: it was the right time for me. And I'm very
Speaker 1: big on that, that, um, I don't, I don't, I
Speaker 1: don't think that, I don't think anything is all good
Speaker 1: or bad. Things are complex and
Speaker 1: Um, coming out, you know, this idea that you come
Speaker 1: out and it's all great, it isn't that way for everyone.
Speaker 1: It's complex. It depends on your circumstances. It's not always safe.
Speaker 1: It depends on your own history, where you live, all
Speaker 1: that sort of thing. And you have to, you can't
Speaker 1: just go, yay, come out and it'll be great. As
Speaker 1: it turns out for me, it was one of the
Speaker 1: most empowering and healing things I've done, and in some
Speaker 1: ways it healed that old Eastern European wound.
Speaker 1: Because nothing terrible did happen and that part of me,
Speaker 1: I bet you get that part, don't you, that you
Speaker 1: know that
Speaker 2: we've been waiting for the other shoe to dry up
Speaker 2: your whole life totally and it
Speaker 1: didn't, you know, and that in itself was an incredibly
Speaker 1: healing thing for me.
Speaker 2: It's very hard, you talk about you're the last of
Speaker 2: the generation that are walking wounded in terms of um
Speaker 2: people who grew up realizing they were gay before probably
Speaker 2: the 90s. So it was legal. It's exactly, it's really
Speaker 2: hard when you're talking to Jen I imagine to explain,
Speaker 2: oh yeah, everyone's out and Miley Cyrus, you know, and
Speaker 2: gender fluidity and Caitlyn Jenner on the cover of Vanity Fair.
Speaker 2: What do you mean you were worried about it like
Speaker 2: how just talk like I loved what you talk about
Speaker 2: your um
Speaker 2: Coming to terms with your sexuality and when you were
Speaker 2: a kid and a teenager and an adolescent and and
Speaker 2: how you know, first you noticed you had special feelings
Speaker 2: for Marsha Brady and then you watched old movies and,
Speaker 2: and with, you know, you didn't identify with Vivien Leigh
Speaker 2: and Grace Kelly, you, you identified with the male leads
Speaker 2: and that you wanted to sweep them off their feet.
Speaker 2: I loved that idea of coming to terms with your
Speaker 2: sexuality through popular culture because there were no
Speaker 2: Role models in the media. No,
Speaker 1: I'd never seen another lesbian, so there was no one
Speaker 1: who I could, um, how was I even supposed to
Speaker 1: know what these feelings were or understand them? I'd kind
Speaker 1: of heard the word didn't and started to much though
Speaker 1: not much and started to realize with mounting horror that
Speaker 1: that was what I was. So all I had was
Speaker 1: these feelings towards other women.
Speaker 1: But I had never seen a lesbian, you know, as
Speaker 1: far as I knew, I was the only one, you know,
Speaker 1: it was terrifying and that sort of isolation.
Speaker 1: Uh, it's, it's interesting as people are reading the book,
Speaker 1: so many people of my generation come up to me
Speaker 1: and go, oh my God, I went through that. There
Speaker 1: are some women of my generation who still don't feel
Speaker 1: comfortable with the word lesbian, you know, it's really a
Speaker 1: lot of damage was done to us and as I say,
Speaker 1: you know, you don't go from the discourse of shame
Speaker 1: to the discourse of pride with nothing but a parade
Speaker 1: to get you through. That damage is done and then
Speaker 1: psychological work needs to be done to do the healing.
Speaker 2: I love the scene in your book where you come
Speaker 2: out to your parents, God, it's funny. I laughed and
Speaker 2: I cried in the space of two pages. It was
Speaker 2: so funny. Um, they're
Speaker 1: gorgeous,
Speaker 2: they're adorable and like your mom, you say that she's
Speaker 2: the funny one in the family, you just, oh, I
Speaker 2: just can hear her voice even though I've never actually
Speaker 2: heard it just from your writing.
Speaker 2: Um, and you sort of you thought you were going
Speaker 2: to be outed by a magazine by an interview that
Speaker 2: you've done, um, when someone had alluded to rumors and
Speaker 2: I thought it showed such, um, incredible conviction that you
Speaker 2: just got up and walked out of that interview, um,
Speaker 2: none of that, oh please like me and da da da.
Speaker 2: I was just like, you know, here's my boundary.
Speaker 2: And I'm walking out.
Speaker 1: I was surprised I found that actually. I didn't think
Speaker 1: that would be how I would react, and I just did.
Speaker 1: I always knew because you know, early on and I
Speaker 1: described this in the book, I was when I was
Speaker 1: at uni, I was a little radical lesbian feminist. I
Speaker 1: found my gang. I was working in a women's refuge.
Speaker 2: You ticked every cliche. I really
Speaker 2: did.
Speaker 1: I know, I know. I was so happy. I was
Speaker 1: like that, yeah, I was that cliche. Every lesbian goes through,
Speaker 1: nearly every lesbian goes through some point when they shave
Speaker 1: their head. We all, it's just a rite of passage.
Speaker 1: You kind of have to do it, um, and, um,
Speaker 1: but then I did find that too constraining and I
Speaker 1: didn't want to be marginalized and ghettoized, and I knew,
Speaker 1: I started to realize I wanted to be a performer.
Speaker 1: And I knew that I wanted to work on a
Speaker 1: large stage, you know, I wasn't one of those people
Speaker 1: that wanted to play to 200 lesbians in a tent somewhere,
Speaker 1: and I've got plenty of friends who do that, and
Speaker 1: they do amazing work, but they feel that frustration that
Speaker 1: they can't break through into the mainstream.
Speaker 1: So I can't remember we were going with the question
Speaker 2: so
Speaker 2: you worked in the refuge and everything and it was
Speaker 2: about the process of deciding to come out to your parents.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, yeah, so so I'd kind of come to
Speaker 1: terms with my lesbian identity and then when I started
Speaker 1: doing degeneration.
Speaker 1: And it was a very straight world, lovely people, but
Speaker 1: you know, as I describe it, compared to the polymorphously
Speaker 1: perverse people I'd been with at was like moving in
Speaker 1: with the Waltons. So, um yeah, so it was, um, uh, I,
Speaker 1: I had gone through this whole process of going in
Speaker 1: and out of the closet, as it were. Like I
Speaker 1: was quite out when I was at uni and then
Speaker 1: I sort of retracted and then, um, had this interview
Speaker 1: and um.
Speaker 1: Um, and I'd always, I always knew that no matter what,
Speaker 1: I wouldn't lie, that I would never ever lie or
Speaker 1: put up a front or pretend to be straight, but
Speaker 1: I wasn't sure what I would do when I was
Speaker 1: flat out asked, and this woman said to me, you know,
Speaker 1: so there are rumors, and one of them is that
Speaker 1: you're a homosexual. How do you feel about that? And
Speaker 1: this extraordinary enfoie came over me and I just said,
Speaker 1: I don't care.
Speaker 1: And I was amazed. I was like, honestly, I was
Speaker 1: like James Dean. I was just so cool. It's the
Speaker 1: only time in my life I've been cool, but I
Speaker 1: have to leave. Yeah, but I've got to go now,
Speaker 1: and I just whacked up a huge boundary and went,
Speaker 1: you know, deal with that sucker, and, um, uh, and left.
Speaker 2: But then went and had a meltdown and decided you
Speaker 2: had to tell your parents and your brother was there.
Speaker 2: It's the most fabulous scene. Just just talk us through it.
Speaker 1: Oh, so I went, my brother at that time was
Speaker 1: a rides motorbikes. His cars and motorbikes are his thing,
Speaker 1: and he had a beard like Zizi top down to
Speaker 1: his his navel and a big Harley belt buckle.
Speaker 1: And gorgeous and a plait, you know, his hair plaited
Speaker 1: and I told him, and he was like, Yeah, all right,
Speaker 1: you know, whatever. I told him ages ago like years ago,
Speaker 1: but I told him I was going to tell Mom
Speaker 1: and dad, and he said if they attack you, I'll
Speaker 1: come with you. I said, will you come there and
Speaker 1: be an example of someone in the family who's OK
Speaker 1: about it and just sort of show them the way
Speaker 2: he said a really
Speaker 2: interesting.
Speaker 2: thing to you, he said if they because you're famous
Speaker 2: by that stage, and he said if they're going to
Speaker 2: wear you as a sparkly coat to impress their friends
Speaker 2: or something like that, then they also have to, you know,
Speaker 2: not that this is bad, but they have to accept
Speaker 2: every part of you.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's right.
Speaker 1: I know it was beautiful. What a great big brother
Speaker 1: and um so he came along and he was sitting
Speaker 1: at the breakfast bar and it was a Sunday night. Um,
Speaker 1: my parents, my parents live in Boronia, which is like
Speaker 1: 30 km out of Melbourne and um.
Speaker 1: And my mom.
Speaker 1: Said, 000, this is a, this is an unusual time
Speaker 1: to visit. And I said, um, um, well, I'd like
Speaker 1: to talk about something actually because can we turn the
Speaker 1: television off, I want to talk about something. She went, Oh, yes,
Speaker 1: we'd love to chat. She had no idea what she
Speaker 1: was in for. And so we turned the TV off and, um,
Speaker 1: then she said, so what do you want to talk about?
Speaker 1: And I said, um, well, I suppose we should talk
Speaker 1: about the fact that, you know, I'm in my early
Speaker 1: 30s and there's never really been mention of a boyfriend.
Speaker 1: She went,
Speaker 1: Oh, uh-huh, and Dad just sort of was, you know,
Speaker 1: and it just all went from there and she kept
Speaker 1: asking questions and dad was put up his hands defensively
Speaker 1: and wanted to know but didn't want to know, and,
Speaker 1: you know, but in the end they were absolutely gorgeous
Speaker 1: about it.
Speaker 2: Yeah she said things like, oh, there's a lot of
Speaker 2: you around
Speaker 1: now. Yeah she said, she said, um, she said, oh,
Speaker 1: there's an awful lot of you around. Oh, I'm sorry,
Speaker 1: I don't mean to be rude, that's not rude, is it?
Speaker 1: You know, she's so cute. And, and she kept leaning going,
Speaker 1: I'd say we're talking about my sexuality and she go, uh,
Speaker 1: which is.
Speaker 2: And you didn't want to use the word lesbian.
Speaker 1: No, I thought that would have been too confronting. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: and the
Speaker 2: project you didn't want to.
Speaker 1: Uh, let me just define my terms here. Um, I
Speaker 1: identify as gay myself. Now, um, when I say that,
Speaker 1: what I'm saying is that I am absolutely not straight.
Speaker 1: I wouldn't define myself as bisexual either. I would say
Speaker 1: I am like gay, gay, gay, gay, gay, gay, gay,
Speaker 1: a little bit not gay, gay, gay, gay gay.
Speaker 1: No, well, also because my sexuality is a little bit complicated.
Speaker 1: I'm not a hungji, you know, 100% yeah well there's
Speaker 1: a lot of us who are like that. There you
Speaker 1: know there's the Kinsey scale of the 1 to 6,
Speaker 1: those who are completely heterosexual and those who are completely gay,
Speaker 1: and I'm somewhere, you know, pretty far up the gay
Speaker 1: end but not totally.
Speaker 2: There's a bit of a stampede into that section, isn't
Speaker 2: really like everyone wants to like fall over each other now,
Speaker 2: which is
Speaker 2: Hilarious probably for for your generation and my generation who
Speaker 2: would have grown up hiding it. Now everyone's like, you know,
Speaker 2: I'm just a bit fluid and I'm not gay, I'm
Speaker 2: just having a relationship with a woman, you know,
Speaker 1: I hear that Stewart's very strong on that line,
Speaker 2: and now they're not even just gay, they're gender fluid,
Speaker 2: so maybe I'm not even a woman Cyrus. I could
Speaker 2: be also sometimes a
Speaker 1: boy I think um I think Ruby Rose takes that
Speaker 1: line a little bit too,
Speaker 2: so it's kind of like um.
Speaker 2: You know, being a boring old lesbian is just really
Speaker 2: conservative
Speaker 2: in a way it is.
Speaker 1: Well, yeah, I know exactly, but that was why in
Speaker 1: some ways it was easier for me to come out
Speaker 1: in 2012 because that conversation was around. Had I come
Speaker 1: out earlier, I would have been absolutely labeled as a lesbian.
Speaker 1: I would have had to, you know, even some.
Speaker 1: who were advising me were saying don't go there, don't
Speaker 1: complicate it, just say you're gay. You don't want to
Speaker 1: because what's her name, the redhead from Sex and the
Speaker 2: City's got into all sorts
Speaker 1: of exactly she really did and so someone was advising
Speaker 1: me saying don't go there, you'll get a shit storm
Speaker 1: come down on you, and I was like, and I
Speaker 1: felt so backfooted.
Speaker 1: Then and I was like, no, the whole point of
Speaker 1: coming out is so I can be my real self,
Speaker 1: and that's you put yourself into a different box that exactly, exactly,
Speaker 1: and that was when I came up with the gay
Speaker 1: ga gay little bit which I just thought a fabulous.
Speaker 1: Oh thanks, and it just expresses who I am, what
Speaker 1: my experience has been like, and it was funny, you know,
Speaker 1: and not too serious about it. And
Speaker 2: were you nervous that night?
Speaker 1: Yeah, I was. I was really nervous, yeah, because I
Speaker 1: felt I knew that there were very, that I was
Speaker 1: probably the first one of the first A-list celebrities who
Speaker 1: had who's been in, you know, a household name who
Speaker 1: had this opportunity to speak on behalf of so many
Speaker 1: millions of Australians.
Speaker 1: And that most of most of the LGBTQI people never
Speaker 1: get that opportunity to express what it's like, what it
Speaker 1: feels like, and what we're up against, and to try
Speaker 1: and advance the cause of marriage equality. So I felt
Speaker 1: a huge responsibility because I didn't want to just come out,
Speaker 1: it wasn't just a question of coming out for myself.
Speaker 1: It was I really wanted to be a part
Speaker 2: of that and that's why you chose that time. I
Speaker 2: wanted to read the statement that
Speaker 2: Um, you came out with, you said we pay taxes,
Speaker 2: fight wars for this country, nurse you when you are sick,
Speaker 2: make you laugh, sing and dance for you, play netball
Speaker 2: for you, star in your movies, cook your meals, decorate
Speaker 2: your store windows, and chances are gay people designed whatever
Speaker 2: it is you're wearing. All Australians, including gay Australians should
Speaker 2: have exactly the same rights, including the right to love, marry,
Speaker 2: and take care of our partners. So,
Speaker 2: How did you write that? How did you come up
Speaker 2: with that statement and what was behind it for you?
Speaker 1: Um,
Speaker 1: well, I kind of wanted to, you know, ease into
Speaker 1: it the whole thing and, and kind of get people's
Speaker 1: attention because, um, you know, there's no point if you're
Speaker 1: doing something like that for a cause, you, you, you
Speaker 1: want people to be listening, otherwise fall on deaf ears
Speaker 1: and there's no use. So, um, we had this whole
Speaker 1: kind of strategy going and it was sort of hilarious.
Speaker 1: It was like the war room, you know, there
Speaker 2: was Alex Greenwich from Marriage equality, Karen Phelps and Jackie
Speaker 2: and Jackie Stoker
Speaker 1: Phelps, um, and another friend of mine, Jo Jarvis, who
Speaker 1: helped out as well, she was fantastic
Speaker 2: and you were saying Karen's Karen had been encouraging you
Speaker 2: to come out for a long time. Yeah,
Speaker 1: she had because she knew.
Speaker 1: Um, like their journey was pretty rocky. Like they were
Speaker 1: out and they had a hard time really were, but
Speaker 1: she also knew how amazing it feels afterwards. So
Speaker 2: she
Speaker 2: wanted you to come out not for the sake of
Speaker 2: the movement but for you,
Speaker 1: yeah, yeah, she wanted me to feel the freedom that
Speaker 1: she and Jackie felt, which was, you know, so lovely
Speaker 1: of her. She's a great friend, good, good woman, really
Speaker 1: good woman.
Speaker 1: Um, and, um, so we had, we, you know, we'd
Speaker 1: have these hilarious meetings. It was so fun, you know,
Speaker 1: planning it war room and talking about what I'd say, and,
Speaker 1: and then I just really had to find my own
Speaker 1: language around it and, and feel as comfortable with it
Speaker 1: and own it myself, um, because if I'm, if I
Speaker 1: feel I'm parroting, um, someone else's agenda or a cause,
Speaker 1: even though I was speaking on behalf of the cause, I, I,
Speaker 1: I don't do that very well, um.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I have to really feel it.
Speaker 2: And you um you talked about when you lost the
Speaker 2: weight you were worried that you know people put all
Speaker 2: their own baggage onto it and it's like you don't
Speaker 2: lose too much, you still want to be funny and
Speaker 2: you suddenly started to wonder if you'd still be able to,
Speaker 2: as you put it so beautifully, feel the vibration of
Speaker 2: Sharon who you were playing at that time in Kath
Speaker 2: and Kim.
Speaker 2: And did it make you feel different in terms of
Speaker 2: of your comedy? Yeah,
Speaker 1: it did. It actually really did because um it's not
Speaker 1: that I'm saying that you you um you have to
Speaker 1: be unattractive to be funny. I'm not playing into that thing.
Speaker 1: There are lots of beautiful women who are hilarious, but
Speaker 1: my shtick was very much around a particular physical shape
Speaker 1: in the same way that John Cleese has that stick
Speaker 1: insect body and he makes, that's his shtick. Being overweight
Speaker 1: and using my body in a particular way was part
Speaker 1: of really how I, that was a big part of
Speaker 1: what my comedy persona was.
Speaker 1: And so, um, and you know, do you remember, um,
Speaker 1: the Mary Tyler Moore Show and her friend Rhonda lost
Speaker 1: all the weight and just it all went shit, you know,
Speaker 1: there were things like that where it was just like,
Speaker 1: you know,
Speaker 2: male comedians, same thing, yeah,
Speaker 1: yeah, it, it's, it's actually not an easy thing.
Speaker 1: To negotiate. People do see you in a different way.
Speaker 1: They take you, they take you a little bit more seriously. Even,
Speaker 1: even when you're, you know, not, um, trying to be serious,
Speaker 1: it just shifts everything. It really does shift the vibration
Speaker 1: quite significantly. um, so.
Speaker 1: You know that thing of, you know, even with this book,
Speaker 1: it's interesting that some people just really want it to
Speaker 1: be about Sharon Strzelecki. They don't want to know about
Speaker 1: the darker side of things, even though once they read
Speaker 1: the book they love it, but before they come to it,
Speaker 1: they they have a perception of me that they really
Speaker 1: want to maintain.
Speaker 2: But how much control did you have over the cover?
Speaker 2: It's one of my, I just love it. It's just
Speaker 2: so unadorned and not
Speaker 2: like
Speaker 1: it ain't a celebrity photos.
Speaker 2: No, I love it and it's everything about the book,
Speaker 1: right? Oh well, funnily enough, I didn't want my picture
Speaker 1: to be.
Speaker 1: I would have loved to have loved that. That was
Speaker 1: never going to happen. Little did I know. I was thinking, yeah,
Speaker 1: they're going to let me do that should be on
Speaker 1: the cover.
Speaker 1: I wanted to have just like a white cover with
Speaker 1: my name and, but they, they, they just said no,
Speaker 1: that doesn't work for us. Um, but, um, um, yeah,
Speaker 1: I really very much wanted to not have a celebrity,
Speaker 1: it's not a celebrity memoir, and I wanted it to
Speaker 1: register as that. And, and as I said before, this book,
Speaker 1: it's really the real me, you know, and, um, you know,
Speaker 1: at the age of 54, if you can't be the
Speaker 1: real you, when can you be really.
Speaker 2: Congratulations, Magda, it's an absolute triumph. Thank you. It's just,
Speaker 2: it's beautiful, it's funny, it's moving, it's gripping, um, and, uh, yeah,
Speaker 2: I'm just so thrilled for you that you've been able
Speaker 2: to um produce such an extraordinary thing because writing is
Speaker 1: hard,
Speaker 2: is can be hard and you've just made it seem
Speaker 2: so effortless and you are just.
Speaker 2: An inspiration.
Speaker 1: Oh, thank you. Well, you too, you too. Thank you.
Speaker 2: Congrats.
Speaker 1: Thank you.
Speaker 2: Thanks for listening to No Filter. Subscribe on iTunes so
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Speaker 2: This show is hosted by me, Mia Freedman, and produced
Speaker 2: by Ariza Ratliff for the Mamma Mia Podcast Network. You
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Speaker 2: Mia Freedman.
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