Speaker 1: Welcome back to TV Reload. My name's Benjamin Norris, and
Speaker 1: on this podcast I'll be going behind the scenes with
Speaker 1: the biggest players in television. I want to thank everyone
Speaker 1: for your support of this podcast. Please press subscribe to
Speaker 1: TV Reload if you are a first timer, and for
Speaker 1: those of you who are back, please share this episode
Speaker 1: so we can extend to this little community of TV enthusiasts.
Speaker 1: Last week I had a week off as I was
Speaker 1: going to cover Dancing with the Stars, but that interview
Speaker 1: did fall over at the last minute, as these things
Speaker 1: tend to happen. But don't worry. There's plenty more big
Speaker 1: names and shows to cover in the next few weeks.
Speaker 1: I even have Sonya Kruge swinging by to talk Big
Speaker 1: Brother twenty twenty one, and as it can tell, I'm
Speaker 1: stupidly excited for that. Anyway, I'm getting ahead of myself
Speaker 1: as I usually do. This week's podcast, I have an
Speaker 1: experienced producer, Kirk Docker, who has worked on You Can't
Speaker 1: Ask That right from its conception? Can you believe? It's
Speaker 1: up to series six? Still going strong. It's one of
Speaker 1: my favorite shows on the ABC and it's basic premise
Speaker 1: of asking simple but sometimes confronting questions to a collected
Speaker 1: audience who share the same liaved experience is genius. This
Speaker 1: show is back on Monday, the twenty eighth of April,
Speaker 1: so stick that in your TV guide because you want
Speaker 1: to miss some of the most fantastic and fascinating topics
Speaker 1: which will leave you thinking you can't ask that. Yes,
Speaker 1: I was on an episode if you can't ask that
Speaker 1: a few years ago, But unlike other episodes of this podcast,
Speaker 1: I won't be getting bogged down in that as there's
Speaker 1: way too many other elements to unpack. A small detail
Speaker 1: to add is Kirk is taken so upfront. I want
Speaker 1: to tell you that, as he is intelligent and intoxicating,
Speaker 1: but I want to cut your wall off at that point,
Speaker 1: as I do often get people asking me if my
Speaker 1: guests are in a relationship, which is cute but sometimes creepy.
Speaker 1: If you listen carefully in the background, I'm sure you
Speaker 1: can hear his girlfriend making cups of tea at one point,
Speaker 1: so back off and don't be weird. Anyway, Let's get
Speaker 1: started with this episode as we find out some juicy
Speaker 1: details behind the scenes. If you can't ask that with
Speaker 1: today's guest, Kirk docker.
Speaker 2: Generally it's watch all the rushes, pull the best bits out,
Speaker 2: and then start weaving each question together.
Speaker 3: How could you be such a pig? Every single season?
Speaker 2: When I bump into people who watch the show, they
Speaker 2: always have a different episode that was their favorite.
Speaker 3: When did you realize you were transgender?
Speaker 2: Hopefully you come away having as Andrew Denton used to say,
Speaker 2: fuck me moment?
Speaker 3: Have you ever been abused? Because you're amorsdim.
Speaker 2: We wouldn't keep making it if we thought that we
Speaker 2: were going to make a lesser product.
Speaker 3: So yes, we can still have six. They didn't cut
Speaker 3: off my dick.
Speaker 2: I think the challenge at the moment is so much
Speaker 2: content and it's really really.
Speaker 3: Hard to get cut through.
Speaker 1: How are you, Maja?
Speaker 2: You're well, I'm absolutely fantastic. We've just delivered the newest
Speaker 2: season of you can ask that season six, and now
Speaker 2: I get to talk to you, which is very nice.
Speaker 1: What point of the year, because you've now up to
Speaker 1: series six, I mean, this show started I think it
Speaker 1: was the third of August in twenty sixteen, you know,
Speaker 1: and so annually you put the show together. What point
Speaker 1: do you start looking forward to going back to that
Speaker 1: editing process.
Speaker 2: The editing process is grueling, and that's half our job
Speaker 2: is editing it. If you imagine that there's eight episodes
Speaker 2: per season, eight people per episode, so sixty four people.
Speaker 2: Each of those people I interview for.
Speaker 3: About two hours.
Speaker 2: Some are in pairs, so those pairs we interview longer,
Speaker 2: maybe up to three hours. So each episode has about
Speaker 2: fifteen to sixteen hours of content that we crunch down
Speaker 2: into thirty minutes. So it is grueling process, and each
Speaker 2: of those episodes we spend about three weeks on in
Speaker 2: the offline, so that's the process of watching all the
Speaker 2: rushes cutting it down. The way that we edit is
Speaker 2: a process of elimination more so than building. So we
Speaker 2: might build an hour or an hour fifteen of the
Speaker 2: show where all the different questions are answered, and then
Speaker 2: from there we trim, trim, trim, trim, and crunch it
Speaker 2: right down. So that part is the hard bit because
Speaker 2: you're cutting out amazing things that people have said time
Speaker 2: and time and time and time again. So there's a
Speaker 2: lot of arguments about what gets to stay in and
Speaker 2: what goes. So when you hand the whole project in,
Speaker 2: for me, it feels like handing a giant Uni assignment.
Speaker 2: That's how I sort of feel about it. You're handed in,
Speaker 2: it's like dropping it off, and there's this huge sih
Speaker 2: relief that this thing is being handed in and you're
Speaker 2: happy with it. And not only do we deliver eight episodes,
Speaker 2: but each episode has another three or so social media clips,
Speaker 2: and some of those are uncut or completely new pieces
Speaker 2: of content, So you're creating all this extra content as well,
Speaker 2: which is totally normal in this day and age. You're
Speaker 2: cutting a trailer, you're making a press kit, you're doing
Speaker 2: all these extra things. So when all that gets handed in,
Speaker 2: it's a huge syh relief. But then you're also when
Speaker 2: it goes to where you're sort of back on again
Speaker 2: because you're paying attention to what people are saying, to
Speaker 2: how it's being received, you're doing some press, so you
Speaker 2: get a little break till the show then goes to
Speaker 2: where then once it's sort of finished, going to where
Speaker 2: we have a bit of time off, but you're always
Speaker 2: ticking over new ideas, new ideas of what new topics
Speaker 2: could be and just letting them ges state is that
Speaker 2: the word when you're letting it, letting something just sort
Speaker 2: of percolate in your mind, what could be an interesting
Speaker 2: idea for next season, and what does that mix of
Speaker 2: episodes look like, because it's all about the mix.
Speaker 1: Well, I think, you know, the concept is quite simple
Speaker 1: of the show. You know, each episode you're asking a
Speaker 1: controversial question that's been sourced from the public. And I
Speaker 1: really just remember that first series coming out. It was
Speaker 1: so groundbreaking. I mean, you were talking about transgender people,
Speaker 1: sex workers, Muslim and I think it was just so
Speaker 1: powerful as that became this show that we could go
Speaker 1: back to every year, but it never escaped me the
Speaker 1: amount of work that goes into that would have to
Speaker 1: go into this show, and I think that it's still
Speaker 1: so enjoyable to watch, Like the reward at the end
Speaker 1: of delivering that show must feel amazing, because you know,
Speaker 1: we're six series in and I'm lucky enough to see
Speaker 1: the first two episodes of the new one, and it's
Speaker 1: just as potent, it's just as relevant. It's actually better,
Speaker 1: Like I think there's first two episodes of the new
Speaker 1: series to me felt like the evolution of your storytelling
Speaker 1: of this series is so powerful now, Like it's even
Speaker 1: more muscular, it's even more taking on a journey while
Speaker 1: still feeling like you're listening to someone naturally unravel something.
Speaker 2: Look definitely, I think, oh, thank you, that's a really
Speaker 2: nice commalent to say that it's better. We wouldn't keep
Speaker 2: making it if we thought that we were going.
Speaker 3: To make a lesser product. So we're trying to raise
Speaker 3: the bar.
Speaker 2: Each year in terms of the topics or conversations that
Speaker 2: we're having, because it is about conversations that you're trying
Speaker 2: to have.
Speaker 3: And the other thing you.
Speaker 2: Said, which is actually really important, is it looks simple,
Speaker 2: and that's what we want. We want the show to
Speaker 2: feel and look simple. We don't want to be something
Speaker 2: that is too hard to digest. We want how the
Speaker 2: answers all flow together. We want it to be really
Speaker 2: intuitive and easy and natural. And that's where in the
Speaker 2: editing process it takes a lot of work because every
Speaker 2: answer that someone says links to the next answer, which
Speaker 2: links to the next answer, which links to the next answer.
Speaker 2: And the way that we think about in the edit
Speaker 2: is that here's eight voices who are very different from
Speaker 2: each other, even though they have the same label, say lesbians,
Speaker 2: but they have all these different answers. Yet in the
Speaker 2: edit it's almost like they have this one voice, this
Speaker 2: one voice which adds to each other, builds off each other,
Speaker 2: contradicts each other at times, agrees with each other, are
Speaker 2: surprised by each other, and so we try and build
Speaker 2: this sort of one long voice that weave through the
Speaker 2: whole episode, which sort of darts off in all different directions.
Speaker 2: This season, what allows us to do, being six seasons
Speaker 2: in is actually start touching on topics that we probably
Speaker 2: never would have thought about doing in the first couple
Speaker 2: of seasons and try and have conversations which are a
Speaker 2: little bit different. And for me this season and for
Speaker 2: the team, we were very, very interested in the relationship.
Speaker 2: We're interested in, I suppose how dos coronavirus effect us
Speaker 2: in some respects. So we didn't do an episode on coronavirus,
Speaker 2: but we did do an episode, for example, on adult
Speaker 2: virgins because we were reflecting, especially because we're making the
Speaker 2: show during coronavirus, this sort of lack of contact, this
Speaker 2: lack of intimacy, and you often heard, especially for example,
Speaker 2: over in Perth, if you didn't live with your partner,
Speaker 2: you weren't allowed to visit your and so there was
Speaker 2: all these conversations around intimacy and maybe lack thereof, And
Speaker 2: so we thought, imagine if you've never experienced intimacy in
Speaker 2: that sense. And then so that took us down this
Speaker 2: that was the original question that took us down the
Speaker 2: path of exploring adult virgins. The first episode is cheaters
Speaker 2: or Infidelity. And look, I'm not ashamed to say that
Speaker 2: I was listening to a lot of Esther Peerrell and
Speaker 2: was very inspired by her. And she's a if people
Speaker 2: don't know Esther Perell, she's an accounts I suppose, a
Speaker 2: marriage psychologist. She's written a whole lot of stuff on
Speaker 2: the relationship, and she has a fantastic podcast where she
Speaker 2: basically broadcasts her counseling sessions with couples of all different persuasions.
Speaker 2: And so I was very inspired by her thought that
Speaker 2: ninety percent of us have experienced cheating in some way,
Speaker 2: shape or form, whether that's our parents, whether that's something
Speaker 2: that we've experienced where it's someone close to us, but
Speaker 2: we've all been affected by it. Yet it's a conversation
Speaker 2: that we can't have. It's so black and white that
Speaker 2: this was wrong, that person was right, let's ostracize that person.
Speaker 2: And yet the reasons that people cheat are so complex
Speaker 2: and varied and nuanced that we thought that was a
Speaker 2: really really important space to have a conversation.
Speaker 1: A happy person doesn't cheat unless you've got issues.
Speaker 2: And even our producers felt awkward about doing this. Hey,
Speaker 2: we can't give these people a voice. So when you
Speaker 2: get that reaction right at the start, you go, Okay,
Speaker 2: that feels like a group that needs to be explored.
Speaker 2: You know, that feels like a group that people hate.
Speaker 3: And how can we.
Speaker 2: Humanize a group of people that, like I said, if
Speaker 2: ninety percent of us have experienced it, they're all people
Speaker 2: in our lives, they're people all around us that were
Speaker 2: being part of that group. So season six allows us
Speaker 2: to tackle topics like that that we probably never would
Speaker 2: have done early on. I know that I'm going to
Speaker 2: go to the questions that will make me like my
Speaker 2: eyes back in my head.
Speaker 1: How do the people want to know?
Speaker 3: I don't think I should answer that question. I love
Speaker 3: talking about that stuff. Oh my gosh, Yeah this is
Speaker 3: a good story.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah.
Speaker 2: On this surface, everybody thought that was all well in
Speaker 2: my world, but it wasn't. Every night I would basically cry.
Speaker 2: I knew something was wrong with me.
Speaker 1: I didn't know what it was.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I felt pretty defeated.
Speaker 3: Well, you haven't got anywhere yet you don't know the
Speaker 3: worst of it.
Speaker 1: One thing that I want to go back to well
Speaker 1: before we get more into this new series is how
Speaker 1: did this whole concept come about? You know, how did
Speaker 1: it come to life?
Speaker 2: It originally began with myself and Aaron Smith, and Aaron's
Speaker 2: a director and cinematographer, and Aaron and I worked on
Speaker 2: Hungry Beast together, which was a show that happened in
Speaker 2: two thousand and nine to twenty eleven. We did three
Speaker 2: seasons of it, and the idea was Andrew Denton had
Speaker 2: a production company called Sopruda's Other Films, and they put
Speaker 2: out after he finished enough rope, he had this idea
Speaker 2: with some collaborators to go, what would happen if we
Speaker 2: gave a whole lot of young people a voice? And
Speaker 2: we found sort of ten to fifteen young voices in
Speaker 2: the country, put them in the room together and said,
Speaker 2: make a current affair show doing whatever you want to do,
Speaker 2: and all of us will sort of us both digital
Speaker 2: natives at that point in time, we were making stuff
Speaker 2: on the internet, on YouTube, etc. And we pulled this
Speaker 2: team together and Aaron and I were both part of
Speaker 2: that team, and we collaborated on that show many times,
Speaker 2: making all sorts of content, and one of the things
Speaker 2: we created was this series of ox pops where I'd
Speaker 2: go out in the street and we'd set up this
Speaker 2: black piece of material, and for every episode of the
Speaker 2: series of Hungry Beasts, we had one of these box pops.
Speaker 2: So I'd go in the street with a set of
Speaker 2: universal questions, so what do you fear, when's last time
Speaker 2: you cried? What's your favorite thing to play? Things that
Speaker 2: everyone has an answer to, And I'd stop people in
Speaker 2: the street and ask them a series of questions. We'd
Speaker 2: go back and we'd edit it together. And so the
Speaker 2: editor was Nick McDougall, who's the editor, And you can't
Speaker 2: ask that. So we'd put these little three and a
Speaker 2: half minutes to five minutes of.
Speaker 3: Just basically humanity.
Speaker 2: Here's thirty faces or fifty faces that we filmed all
Speaker 2: around the country in rich areas, poor areas, the top
Speaker 2: of the country to the bottom of the country, all
Speaker 2: different colors and faces of people, and they're all answering
Speaker 2: this one question. And what you really got from these
Speaker 2: box pop is that here's some person that you may
Speaker 2: think is nothing like you, yet they're answering a question
Speaker 2: in a way that you can identify with or that
Speaker 2: you can connect with, and so it was a way
Speaker 2: of sort of connecting people to people that they never
Speaker 2: thought that they were similar to. And so we always
Speaker 2: loved this idea of asking these big universal questions of
Speaker 2: ordinary people. And when I say ordinary, I mean just
Speaker 2: everyday people that we met on the street and.
Speaker 3: So you kin't ask. That was sort of born from.
Speaker 2: That in some respects. We then collaborate with John Casimir
Speaker 2: who work with us on Hungry Beasts and John was
Speaker 2: the creator of breun Transfer before that, and so he
Speaker 2: was working at the ABC, and so the three of
Speaker 2: us John, Aaron and myself sort of put our heads
Speaker 2: together and in some respects evolved the vox Pops brought
Speaker 2: in this sort of idea of this asked me anything
Speaker 2: type thing that we saw on Reddit, and other than
Speaker 2: asking anyone that we met, we then specialized it down
Speaker 2: to a group of people and ask them a series
Speaker 2: of universal questions. But those universal questions, I suppose were
Speaker 2: the questions you can't ask. And at the time, in
Speaker 2: twenty fifteen, twenty fourteen, twenty fifteen, there was a lot
Speaker 2: of what can you say, what can't you say political correctness?
Speaker 2: I don't want to put my foot in it. I
Speaker 2: think a lot of people were starting to be far
Speaker 2: more aware of being aware of what you say and
Speaker 2: what you can't say. But it meant that it was
Speaker 2: stifling conversations in some respects because everyone felt like, well, oh,
Speaker 2: that's the one. You know, Aboriginal people like being called indigenous,
Speaker 2: and that's it. You can't if you say anything other
Speaker 2: than that, then you're wrong. It's like, well, hang on,
Speaker 2: how about we actually asked them what they want to
Speaker 2: be called? And actually what everyone wants to be called,
Speaker 2: if I can answer that question, is or they want
Speaker 2: to be known as what nation they're from? Was the
Speaker 2: overall overall answer that everyone had. You know, they said, look,
Speaker 2: some people like Indigenous, some people liked Aboriginal, but everyone
Speaker 2: seemed to like the idea that you asked what nation
Speaker 2: they were from. So it's sort of that's where it
Speaker 2: sort of started. Originally, we were commissioned for I view.
Speaker 2: It wasn't commissioned for television. We were given us We're
Speaker 2: given the chance to make ten ten minute clips and
Speaker 2: as we're interviewing, and this is the one that we
Speaker 2: realized that couldn't be ten minutes when we were doing
Speaker 2: an episode on transgender and we had eight people in
Speaker 2: the room or seven people in the room are asking
Speaker 2: them all these questions, so there's no possible way we
Speaker 2: can tell their stories in ten minutes. So then we
Speaker 2: went back to John who was head of a head
Speaker 2: of entertainment the ABC at the time, and said, hey,
Speaker 2: can we make this long? And he said, mate, it's
Speaker 2: five you you can make it however long you want.
Speaker 2: So that's when we started making these pieces longer than
Speaker 2: ten minutes. And then from there, when the ABC saw it,
Speaker 2: they went, hey, this should go on TV, and from
Speaker 2: there it went to TV.
Speaker 1: Well, I guess it's the best fly on the wall
Speaker 1: content I have seen on television, especially even looking back
Speaker 1: at twenty sixteen unpacking some of those topics, because I
Speaker 1: just kept thinking, you can't ask that, you know, that's
Speaker 1: the name of the show. I thought it was amazing
Speaker 1: that you found this place in space that people feel
Speaker 1: comfortable to open up and unpack something that was quite
Speaker 1: personal to them, but allow them to answer the questions
Speaker 1: that where's an audience we're desperate to know the answer?
Speaker 1: I mean, were you ever in production thinking you can't
Speaker 1: ask that.
Speaker 2: Yes, lots of times the questions, especially in the first season,
Speaker 2: felt very daunting to ask to print them on cards
Speaker 2: and ask them questions, and some felt like a real SmackDown,
Speaker 2: you know, they felt very They felt like, oh, this
Speaker 2: is you know, it's unfair to ask these questions of
Speaker 2: these people. And also we don't tell anyone who comes
Speaker 2: to show what the questions are. We allude to the questions,
Speaker 2: I suppose, because when you're pre interviewing someone to come
Speaker 2: on the show, you do talk about what are the
Speaker 2: questions you hate getting asked, and what are the things
Speaker 2: that people judge you on, and you.
Speaker 3: Know, what are the things that people always get wrong
Speaker 3: about you?
Speaker 2: And so you start getting a bit painting a picture
Speaker 2: of the areas that are the areas you need to ask.
Speaker 2: And plus we have our own curiosities of things that
Speaker 2: we don't know the answer to, because you know, for example,
Speaker 2: someone in a wheelchair, it's like, you just want to know.
Speaker 3: How do you have sex? Like, how how does that work?
Speaker 3: Can you feel?
Speaker 2: Can you feel anything? It's one of those things that
Speaker 2: you sort of just are curious about that. So, yeah,
Speaker 2: we definitely felt nervous about it. But what we realized
Speaker 2: very very quickly was a couple of things. One, if
Speaker 2: you put the questions out on a card like we did,
Speaker 2: because the questions did come from the public, even though
Speaker 2: I curated the questions, because we've got so many, we've
Speaker 2: given the power over to the people. So they get
Speaker 2: to pick the question up, they get to read the question,
Speaker 2: and then they get to answer the question how they
Speaker 2: wont and so already there's a certain amount of power
Speaker 2: given over to the person themselves, and they can say, hey,
Speaker 2: I don't want to answer this question, or they can
Speaker 2: take it down whichever path that they want to. Now
Speaker 2: I asked follow up questions, of course, but already they
Speaker 2: get to choose how they want to respond, and they
Speaker 2: get to take the question in before they answer it.
Speaker 2: The second thing is what we found is that none
Speaker 2: of these questions were ever a surprise. Even though we thought,
Speaker 2: oh my god, this is so full on, they all went, oh,
Speaker 2: we thought they were going to be worse, or we
Speaker 2: thought they were going to be more full on, or
Speaker 2: we've heard.
Speaker 3: All these before, but it's nice.
Speaker 2: Normally people yell at us across the road these questions,
Speaker 2: or they say it in an abusive way, whereas the
Speaker 2: way I like to think of it is that even
Speaker 2: though these questions on paper look quite horrible, sometimes we're
Speaker 2: asking from a place of love, and when I'm sitting there,
Speaker 2: I really really.
Speaker 3: Care what this person has to say.
Speaker 2: I want them to shine, I want them to do
Speaker 2: a really really good job, and I want their point
Speaker 2: of view to be heard. I want them to be understood.
Speaker 2: I really want people to watch our.
Speaker 3: Show and walk away going right.
Speaker 2: So there's that full question, but actually the truth is
Speaker 2: so much more interesting or nuanced or boring. Sometimes the
Speaker 2: answers are actually really boring to a question that sounds
Speaker 2: really spicy, and that's sort of good too, because people think, oh,
Speaker 2: there's all this weird stuff around this thing, and I
Speaker 2: can't ask it because who knows what might happen, And
Speaker 2: the answer actually ends up being quite plain and quite boring,
Speaker 2: which is sort of nice too. So we stop getting
Speaker 2: nervous about the questions because we thought, you know, people
Speaker 2: were adults. They're coming on the show, they know what
Speaker 2: it's about. And then once one season went to air
Speaker 2: and people saw the way we treated people's stories, it
Speaker 2: became far easy to get people to come on the show.
Speaker 2: People started putting the hand out, going can I come on?
Speaker 2: Because I want to be understood.
Speaker 1: The thing that really struck me as being quite fantastic
Speaker 1: is that most of these questions feel like a hit
Speaker 1: and run in real life. You know, most of the time,
Speaker 1: when you're asked your question about your minority, and it's
Speaker 1: usually in a way where people do feel uncomfortable to
Speaker 1: ask you, it feels like a hit and run. They
Speaker 1: just hit you with it and you don't get the
Speaker 1: right of reply. And I think that that's where their
Speaker 1: respect is there, because you're finally giving people the opportunity
Speaker 1: to give a respected right of reply. That's exactly right,
Speaker 1: that's what they've never been allowed to have. I mean,
Speaker 1: I did that episode of You Can't Ask That for
Speaker 1: reality television, and there were so many good questions in
Speaker 1: that episode because most of the time those questions had
Speaker 1: been said to me in a really negative context or
Speaker 1: in a way to hurt me. Where when I sat
Speaker 1: down in front of the camera, it was very obvious
Speaker 1: to me that this was an opportunity for me to
Speaker 1: be able to answer it in my own time. And
Speaker 1: that felt respect it like that felt like good conversation
Speaker 1: for some reason.
Speaker 3: That's right.
Speaker 2: The questions really are there to open a door to
Speaker 2: actually learn about someone, as opposed to from a place
Speaker 2: of voyeurism or trying to harm them or take the
Speaker 2: piss out of them or make a joke about them.
Speaker 2: They're just there to open the door to an interesting
Speaker 2: conversation so we can learn who these people are.
Speaker 1: Were there any hurdles on getting ABC on board?
Speaker 3: We were really.
Speaker 2: Lucky because we'd created We sort of had this track
Speaker 2: record of creating these vox pops which which everyone sort
Speaker 2: of liked, and they showed the humanity in them, so
Speaker 2: in a lot of respects. When people saw the first
Speaker 2: edit of our first episode, it was like, Okay, this
Speaker 2: is working. And because at the time lou Porter was
Speaker 2: our EP and John was the head of entertainment, we
Speaker 2: were given a lot of trust in terms of how
Speaker 2: he made the show. We were working with not only collaborators,
Speaker 2: that people who trusted the type of work that we made,
Speaker 2: and that's what you need when you're making content is
Speaker 2: really at the end of the day, the people who
Speaker 2: commission the content need to trust that the program is
Speaker 2: going to turn out. If they don't trust you, that's
Speaker 2: when people get involved. So we had to trust that
Speaker 2: the show was going to turn out, and I think
Speaker 2: that the show ultimately did exceed the expectations of maybe
Speaker 2: what they were expecting, and it ended up being, like
Speaker 2: I said, a little bit longer in those early days.
Speaker 2: And really, the concept's so good, and I don't think
Speaker 2: anyone really realized at the time that the simplicity of
Speaker 2: it and asking these questions and then having people sit
Speaker 2: down and answer them so honestly, how ultimately interesting and
Speaker 2: fascinating and heartbreaking and hilarious and all these series emotions
Speaker 2: that happened in such a short amount of time.
Speaker 3: I don't think we foresaw.
Speaker 2: How it was going to turn out, so it was
Speaker 2: also a pleasant surprise.
Speaker 1: How long does it take to come up with the
Speaker 1: topics for the series?
Speaker 2: Look, as we've gone further into the series, it's harder
Speaker 2: because there's less topics. We've done a lot of the
Speaker 2: really good, obvious ones. But how we think of it
Speaker 2: is like we'll go into the start of pre production,
Speaker 2: so day one, where all the team comes together, I'll
Speaker 2: have a pretty good idea of a long list of
Speaker 2: topics that we've sort of thrown around already, so we
Speaker 2: came in with a long list, so you know, we
Speaker 2: might have a long list of twelve or thirteen or
Speaker 2: fourteen topics and across the season of eight episodes, we're
Speaker 2: looking to have a variety, so we want we'll generally go, okay,
Speaker 2: is there something in gender or sexuality we can look
Speaker 2: at is there something in sex. We always like to
Speaker 2: have something we very sex positive show, so we like
Speaker 2: to look at sex. We looked at BDSM in the past,
Speaker 2: or swingers. We looked at polyamory, which is not I
Speaker 2: wouldn't say necessarily sex, it's more relationships, but we you know,
Speaker 2: we look at that sort of we have a bucket
Speaker 2: for that, and then sometimes we like to have an
Speaker 2: episode where we put people with profile on screen and
Speaker 2: you get to see them talk in a way that
Speaker 2: you don't normally. In this season, we're looking at ex footballers.
Speaker 2: We've looked at former politicians to go love to see
Speaker 2: these people speak in a forum that's very different from
Speaker 2: how you normally get to see them. And so we
Speaker 2: have all these different buckets of episodes and then we
Speaker 2: tend to have an episode that's probably a bit more challenging,
Speaker 2: So something on domestic violence, or something on sexual assault,
Speaker 2: something on suicide attempt survivors, where we get to really
Speaker 2: go deep with a topic as well. So we have
Speaker 2: all these different buckets of topics and then we look
Speaker 2: across a season of eight episodes and go what feels
Speaker 2: like a right fit this season. For example, you know,
Speaker 2: we have a disability in terms of amputees, we have
Speaker 2: something on sexuality in lesbians. We have something a bit
Speaker 2: heavier on families and missing persons. We're looking at the
Speaker 2: relationship stuff with cheaters, and then we also have we
Speaker 2: want to make sure that the faces that appear on
Speaker 2: camera are really varied and of all different backgrounds, of ethnicities,
Speaker 2: of socioeconomics. I think that often gets forgotten when we're
Speaker 2: talking about diversity is hearing the voices of people of
Speaker 2: different socioeconomic backgrounds, people with different acts, sense, people with
Speaker 2: different beliefs, all these things we're thinking about not just
Speaker 2: in the series of topics themselves, but then the faces
Speaker 2: that appear within those topics. We want to hear a
Speaker 2: variety of voices and ideas and ideals within those So
Speaker 2: that's sort of how we do it. We start with
Speaker 2: a larger list and then our team starts putting these
Speaker 2: preliminary phone calls out seeing if we can find people,
Speaker 2: seeing if people are interested in talking about it, seeing
Speaker 2: if there's enough questions that we really want answered, And
Speaker 2: from there we put out to the public, Hey, here's
Speaker 2: our long list of twelve topics. What questions do you have?
Speaker 2: People send in questions, and then some people nominate, Hey,
Speaker 2: I'm in that group. I wouldn't mind being on the
Speaker 2: show and talking about that stuff. And from there we
Speaker 2: then whittle it down and make a final decision on
Speaker 2: those eight topics, probably about two or three weeks into production.
Speaker 1: What I think is interesting is the diversity of the
Speaker 1: voices that you find. You know, and obviously there's these
Speaker 1: phone calls that go out there where you're talking to people,
Speaker 1: so you're looking for different elements of story. Is there
Speaker 1: a type of personality that you kind of have to
Speaker 1: wean out, Like you're always looking to hear authenticity in
Speaker 1: the voice, Like you're like that person's got great stories,
Speaker 1: but you know, doesn't seem to land as well. You know,
Speaker 1: like is there something in particular that you're looking for? Yees,
Speaker 1: because when I think of this show, I think of
Speaker 1: this real earnest sound in every single person.
Speaker 2: I can tell you right now. What we're looking for,
Speaker 2: first of all is people who own their story. So
Speaker 2: if you are under any illusions that you're not this person,
Speaker 2: or you're making excuses for who you are, that you
Speaker 2: haven't quite owned who you are and haven't owned your story,
Speaker 2: then it's going to be very hard for you to
Speaker 2: come on, because see, on our show, we can't really
Speaker 2: have people, we don't really have things, people with opinions,
Speaker 2: or people who are who don't tell the truth. I
Speaker 2: don't want to say lies, but people can't tell the truth.
Speaker 2: So it's very hard to have people on that are
Speaker 2: hiding something, that are feeling that don't want to tell
Speaker 2: the truth about something. So you need to be comfortable
Speaker 2: in your own skin, I suppose. So we're not necessarily
Speaker 2: looking for extroverts or introvers around that sort of stuff,
Speaker 2: but we're looking for people who are like, this is
Speaker 2: me and I own my story. There'll be different people
Speaker 2: on different levels of that, but that's first and foremost. Secondly,
Speaker 2: I generally prefer people who haven't done that much media.
Speaker 2: I don't really love spokespeople as a general rule, because
Speaker 2: I don't want people rolling out stories they've told a
Speaker 2: hundred times, and it's sort of like it's I want
Speaker 2: people to when people haven't done a whole lot of media.
Speaker 2: It means I can have a much realer conversation with
Speaker 2: them without them feeling like they have to they're leaning
Speaker 2: on stories that they've practiced twenty times. And then the
Speaker 2: third thing is, although I love having fans of the
Speaker 2: show on the show, sometimes having fans of the show
Speaker 2: is difficult because people come in sort of having prepared
Speaker 2: what they think a funny answers or something like that,
Speaker 2: and I don't want that. I just want someone to
Speaker 2: come in and just have a conversation with me and
Speaker 2: tell the truth of who it is to be them.
Speaker 2: And I just want to understand what it's like to
Speaker 2: stand in your shoes at the end of the day.
Speaker 2: This is not like, you know, if you're going to
Speaker 2: here on a panel show where you need to be
Speaker 2: fast and snappy and have your answer done him in
Speaker 2: thirty second. Grab For me, I want to go deep.
Speaker 2: I want to go down paths, weird paths that they
Speaker 2: weren't expecting and we may never even use that stuff,
Speaker 2: but I'm there to understand them wholly and fully, so
Speaker 2: I need someone who's willing to I suppose go there
Speaker 2: and tell me about their life.
Speaker 1: I want to unpack a few things that are there.
Speaker 1: Have you ever played an episode on television and then
Speaker 1: found out down the line that that person's story wasn't true?
Speaker 2: Umm? No, But I suppose I'm not really then going
Speaker 2: and investigating it later, unless that was to be fed
Speaker 2: back to me by someone. It's hard to know. And
Speaker 2: also people's personal stories, it's hard to know. I suppose
Speaker 2: what I mean by truth is that our questions aren't
Speaker 2: about opinion that much. So for example, it's about a
Speaker 2: belief system. Necessarily, our questions are more about the personal.
Speaker 2: So if what people are generally telling me your personal
Speaker 2: stories about themselves rather than their personal beliefs, like, for example,
Speaker 2: we can't do things abound the environment where we might
Speaker 2: ask someone a logger, for example, who cuts down trees,
Speaker 2: and we might ask their opinion about the environment because
Speaker 2: or on the flip side of that, someone who's an environmentalist,
Speaker 2: because if they say something that's factually incorrect, the only
Speaker 2: course we have is to edit it out.
Speaker 3: There's no host there.
Speaker 2: To go, Hey, what you're saying is not factually correct
Speaker 2: or there's no voice over anything, so the only course
Speaker 2: of action we have is to edit it out, and
Speaker 2: then you don't actually get to hear the truth. So
Speaker 2: really our show relies on people's personal history, their own
Speaker 2: personal story, so it's hard to find out sometimes if
Speaker 2: someone's not telling their truth. But yeah, look, we've definitely
Speaker 2: had some groups where I'm sure we haven't heard the
Speaker 2: whole truth. And I know that was true in an
Speaker 2: episode on gambling where I know someone was holding it
Speaker 2: back a little bit of truth during their interview, and
Speaker 2: actually that did come out ultimately that they said, hey,
Speaker 2: I've quite told the truth. So where there's shame involved,
Speaker 2: I suppose at times where maybe they don't want to
Speaker 2: reveal everything, they might curb the truth a little bit,
Speaker 2: but generally we tend to get past that. In the
Speaker 2: pre interview stage.
Speaker 1: You're looking for their truth, you know, so their interpretation
Speaker 1: of it's their account of what had happened. Even if
Speaker 1: they do tell you a story and then it turns
Speaker 1: out that's not how it happened for everyone else in
Speaker 1: the room, that's still their truth exactly.
Speaker 2: And look at this idea of what's true and what
Speaker 2: isn't true, it's really in the eye by the holder
Speaker 2: sometimes and.
Speaker 1: You don't want to get bogged down in that.
Speaker 2: No, and especially if you're you know, if we've done
Speaker 2: some episodes on people who experienced things like natural disasters
Speaker 2: or you know, someone's that put Arthur and these sorts
Speaker 2: of experiences, well, you're under intense trauma, you're under intense stress,
Speaker 2: and some of these things happened ten, fifteen, twenty years ago.
Speaker 2: So the idea that everything they remember is exactly factually accurate,
Speaker 2: it's not what we're trying to get at there. What
Speaker 2: we're trying to get at if you want to watch
Speaker 2: shows documentaries about a certain thing, that there's other programs
Speaker 2: to watch. What we're trying to get here is an
Speaker 2: understanding of the human condition, and how does someone deal
Speaker 2: with something like that, How do they deal with in
Speaker 2: the moment, how do they deal with it afterwards, how
Speaker 2: they reflect on it, How has it ultimately changed them
Speaker 2: or affected them over time, and how have they grown
Speaker 2: and learnt and how has it impacted them over their life.
Speaker 2: That's the most interesting stuff for me, more so than
Speaker 2: say the facts like one hundred percent right. And often
Speaker 2: when we tell those stories, we don't include every single
Speaker 2: beat of those stories. It's not what it's about.
Speaker 1: I think it's human nature to compared to different people.
Speaker 1: But I always find every episode I walk away from
Speaker 1: my partner and I always watching it together, I'm always like,
Speaker 1: I really liked that person. You know, I didn't like
Speaker 1: that person. You know, it's human nature to relate to
Speaker 1: people all talking about the same thing, like they've got
Speaker 1: a bit more humanity to them, or they were a
Speaker 1: little bit too silly. You know, it's quite a brilliant
Speaker 1: show in that regard.
Speaker 3: I never thought of it like that.
Speaker 2: I suppose what I'm most focusing on is making sure
Speaker 2: that what goes to air is who this person truly is,
Speaker 2: that their true essence goes to wear. But yeah, sometimes
Speaker 2: you hear that song goes I don't really like that person,
Speaker 2: I'm like, really, wow, I love that person.
Speaker 3: I really love them in real life.
Speaker 2: And then you start worrying, have we not got their
Speaker 2: genius to air? Have we not got their true beauty
Speaker 2: to air? But I think that's just human nature. Like
Speaker 2: you said, there's some people that you resonate with more
Speaker 2: than others. And every single season, when I bump into
Speaker 2: people who watch the show, they always have a different
Speaker 2: episode that was their favorite, and you really can't pick it.
Speaker 2: Some people, you go, really that that episode that was
Speaker 2: your favorite episode, They're like yeah, yeah, yeah, blah blah
Speaker 2: blah blah blah. So it's hard to tell. And it's
Speaker 2: not just about I suppose the topics or what people
Speaker 2: say sometimes, but you're right, it's the types of people
Speaker 2: and if you're at home, you just connect with different people.
Speaker 1: Sometimes when I watch you kin't ask that. I'm always
Speaker 1: thinking about how clever and how simple the show is.
Speaker 1: And yet some commentators of television is saying that we're
Speaker 1: struggling to find original content on television, which you know
Speaker 1: is crazy. Are people over complicating what makes good television?
Speaker 3: Yeah?
Speaker 2: Look, this type of show is not easy to make.
Speaker 2: It's you don't just turn it around in a second.
Speaker 2: It's about having a variety of shows, isn't it. I
Speaker 2: always have ideas for shows which I think would fit
Speaker 2: on different networks or at different times and hit different purposes.
Speaker 2: But I think what I particularly like about our show
Speaker 2: and sorts of programs we like to create, is that
Speaker 2: you're not just entertained, but hopefully you come away having
Speaker 2: learned something, having had these as Andrew Denton used to say,
Speaker 2: fuck me moments, moments which which you know, not that
Speaker 2: everyone has water coolers anymore, but that gives you something
Speaker 2: to talk about the next data gives you something to dissect, discuss,
Speaker 2: to challenge someone else's thoughts or beliefs, or challenge your
Speaker 2: own thoughts and beliefs.
Speaker 3: So I think.
Speaker 2: It's important that the content we make, and we're in
Speaker 2: this very very privileged position to put something to air
Speaker 2: and have a broadcast, to put something to air that
Speaker 2: a lot of people watch, I feel like it's an
Speaker 2: important that what do I do with that space and
Speaker 2: that privilege, And you know, let's not just put something
Speaker 2: to where that entertains, but let's put something to whar
Speaker 2: that does these other things. That being said, I like
Speaker 2: watching things that entertain me. And if every show was
Speaker 2: you can't ask that, it probably get really really boring
Speaker 2: as well. So you know, if everything that was worthy
Speaker 2: or earnest, then we might get sick of that. We
Speaker 2: just want something frivolous. And it's about that mix, like
Speaker 2: like like in our season of eight episodes, it's that
Speaker 2: mix of variety, Like if I didn't get to watch
Speaker 2: sport and sit down and watch some rugby rugby league
Speaker 2: and watch guys running into each other at full gas
Speaker 2: while I'm having a cold beer. Then I would probably
Speaker 2: be a very, very sad human. So I think the
Speaker 2: challenge at the moment is there's so much content and
Speaker 2: it's really really hard to get cut through. And this
Speaker 2: week's darling, everyone's forgote about next week, this fresh new
Speaker 2: idea in a month's time, none even can remember.
Speaker 3: The name of the show.
Speaker 2: So it's really really hard to get cut through at
Speaker 2: the moment. I think that's the biggest challenge at the
Speaker 2: moment to create, And that's why I think people throwing
Speaker 2: so many ideas at the wall really to see what sticks,
Speaker 2: Because how do you get cut through when you've got
Speaker 2: all these freeway networks, You've got all the streamers, you've
Speaker 2: got YouTube, you know, Hollo of audience, don't watch TV
Speaker 2: in its traditional form at all. You got the cinema,
Speaker 2: which is, you know, that's my favorite place to go
Speaker 2: on consume content. You know the sin people throw at
Speaker 2: the cinema completely dying, etcetera, etcetera. So how do you
Speaker 2: get cut through with these ideas? That's the trick.
Speaker 1: I think it's not stupefying the audience. Like, I think
Speaker 1: we are smarter these days. We're wanting to absorb things
Speaker 1: in a different way. It's interesting. I don't know if
Speaker 1: you've been to see Nobody at the cinemas, which came
Speaker 1: out two weeks ago, if you haven't gone see it,
Speaker 1: And I remember, like about twenty minutes into the movie,
Speaker 1: the movie took a significant change in storytelling that it
Speaker 1: don't feel like we had ever seen before. And then
Speaker 1: you as the audience were like, well, the violence can't
Speaker 1: be any more gratuitous than we've already seen. And then
Speaker 1: they would up the ante again and you were like,
Speaker 1: oh my god, they're breaking all the rules on what
Speaker 1: it is to not stupefy their audience and to give
Speaker 1: the audience truly what they want. And I think that's
Speaker 1: something that, you know, six seasons in, is pretty amazing
Speaker 1: that you guys are still surprising audiences and still delivering
Speaker 1: and not stupefying them.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Look, look, you make a very very good point. They're
Speaker 2: not treating the audience like the stupid. I think that's
Speaker 2: really really important. I don't think everyone thinks that way.
Speaker 2: I think people like do dumb down content. They try
Speaker 2: and hit the lowest common denominator sort of stuff in films. Look,
Speaker 2: you can take more risks in films. TVs far more
Speaker 2: risk averse than everyone's heard the stories of how some
Speaker 2: of the streamers and whatever are deciding how they make content.
Speaker 2: It's literally on algorithms and what people are clicking on,
Speaker 2: and it's like, Oh, everyone's clicked on that type of
Speaker 2: show this week.
Speaker 3: Okay, let's make a show like that.
Speaker 2: So it seems harder to take risks in television or
Speaker 2: people are more risk averse. But you've got to understand
Speaker 2: too that these commissioning editors, the people who are commissioning
Speaker 2: the shows, their whole job relies on people watching their shows.
Speaker 2: It's this big machine that relies on audience and eyeballs,
Speaker 2: and so they have an opinion about the sorts of
Speaker 2: content that's going to get those eyeballs, and sometimes that
Speaker 2: opinion means making it stupid or not taking a risk
Speaker 2: on a new idea. And then you see something that's
Speaker 2: risky and not treating someone stupid, and you're like, oh,
Speaker 2: this is such a fresh breath of fresh air, and
Speaker 2: you're like, why don't people take these risks more often?
Speaker 2: I don't know, it's a difficult equation.
Speaker 1: I suppose well not to play Sophie's choice with you
Speaker 1: on this one, because this could be very hard. But
Speaker 1: in this new series, which episode is your favorite?
Speaker 3: I was most.
Speaker 2: Excited about the Cheetahs episode because that has taken us
Speaker 2: a long time to make. It was really really difficult
Speaker 2: to make, and I really felt like these are people
Speaker 2: that people hate and have no time for, and to
Speaker 2: get people to come on and answer these questions. The
Speaker 2: first question is how could be such a pick? And
Speaker 2: then it goes on from there. So that was a very,
Speaker 2: very difficult episode to make. But there were some episodes
Speaker 2: this season which were really really surprised and amazing, like
Speaker 2: Lesbian's episode. One of those episodes where you sort of
Speaker 2: felt like, is they much to learn about this, and
Speaker 2: then you realize, oh, yeah, actually I know absolutely nothing.
Speaker 2: So I found that really surprising. I found the amputees
Speaker 2: episode really hilarious but also heartfelt, especially when talking about
Speaker 2: intimacy and body image and that sort of stuff. Obsessive
Speaker 2: compulsive disorder I think probably was the most misunderstood group
Speaker 2: of people because the idea of being OCD is like, oh,
Speaker 2: you've got this list of curios this list of symptoms,
Speaker 2: which is something that's funny, you know, wash your hands
Speaker 2: all these times, or turnlights which on and off. But
Speaker 2: what we learned very very quickly is that you know,
Speaker 2: this is actually torturous and if you wake up at
Speaker 2: the start of the day and you have these fears
Speaker 2: that these things are going to go wrong, unless you
Speaker 2: do these compulsions, then you can't operate. And so one
Speaker 2: of the guys, one of the lines that one of
Speaker 2: the gentleman said was you know, if you're washing your
Speaker 2: hands till they bleed, you know, this is not a
Speaker 2: funny thing. This is very very different from wanting your
Speaker 2: desk to be need or wanting to have a neat house.
Speaker 2: So OCD I think was something that felt like, oh,
Speaker 2: this is just a list of funny things that these
Speaker 2: people do to being like no, no, this is actually
Speaker 2: really really serious, life debilitating condition.
Speaker 1: But don't you think with some things that make us
Speaker 1: really uncomfortable, it's such a fine line between making us laugh,
Speaker 1: Like when we're very uncomfortable about something, we as humans
Speaker 1: have this reflex reaction to laugh at things that make
Speaker 1: us feel uncomfortable.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think, so, are you talking about the audience,
Speaker 2: so you're talking about the participants.
Speaker 1: Themselves as an audience. I think that's again sort of why,
Speaker 1: Like just then you were talking about how something that
Speaker 1: could be kind of funny about being OCD and having
Speaker 1: to do something again and again, but it actually is
Speaker 1: a debilitating illness that is like really ruining these people's lives.
Speaker 1: But you know, quite often obsessive compulsive disorder has played
Speaker 1: off as being quite comical.
Speaker 2: That's right, And I think sometimes people don't realize, you know,
Speaker 2: the way that these things sometimes are covered in the
Speaker 2: mainstream media in films or whatever, has been dumbed down
Speaker 2: so that people can get it, or it's been dumb
Speaker 2: down to something that is played for laughs more so
Speaker 2: than played for the seriousness of it. Sometimes it's not
Speaker 2: our fault that we don't actually know what something is.
Speaker 2: We just never had that conversation with someone who've never
Speaker 2: actually heard the truth. But on the flip side, you're right,
Speaker 2: like the humor, the humor is something that we are
Speaker 2: constantly looking for because life is challenging and some of
Speaker 2: these people have some really really challenging things they have
Speaker 2: to deal with daily, hourly, every few minutes. Sometimes they
Speaker 2: can't laugh at some of this stuff, then they struggle
Speaker 2: to exist. So they some have a very very robust
Speaker 2: sense of humor.
Speaker 1: But I guess with spaces and places where we've been
Speaker 1: told we're not allowed to feel a certain way make
Speaker 1: this show really important. Do you think that we need
Speaker 1: to get better at being able to talk about taboo topics?
Speaker 2: I think we need to get better at asking caring questions.
Speaker 2: So if you are interested in someone, rather than just
Speaker 2: go for the jugular and go for the taboo question,
Speaker 2: actually get to know someone, care about them, and then
Speaker 2: when you've built that rapport with someone, then have the
Speaker 2: courage to ask about the questions that you don't understand,
Speaker 2: and then being aware that that person may or may
Speaker 2: not want to talk about it, and then being cool
Speaker 2: with that. Because when someone comes into talk to me,
Speaker 2: they're prepared for it, they've thought about it, they know
Speaker 2: they're coming in to answer questions. But if someone's just
Speaker 2: doing this shopping at the supermarket and someone comes up
Speaker 2: and goes, oh, how come we haven't got a leg, Well,
Speaker 2: you don't know what their day has been like.
Speaker 3: You don't know.
Speaker 2: Whether they've had a challenging day where they can be
Speaker 2: bothered answering that whether they answer that question already five
Speaker 2: times that day. So it's about being aware, it's about caring,
Speaker 2: it's about giving a shit about someone before you just
Speaker 2: delve in and ask these hard questions.
Speaker 1: I think that you are the best person for this
Speaker 1: job because what I know of you, I know you
Speaker 1: to be quite empathetic, you know, and I saw that
Speaker 1: when you were making the episode that I was a
Speaker 1: part of, and I feel it in the episodes without
Speaker 1: seeing you.
Speaker 2: My job is, like you said, is to show empathy,
Speaker 2: is to try and understand someone. So I'm not there
Speaker 2: to feel sorry for someone. I'm not there to feel sympathy.
Speaker 2: I'm not there to feel angry for them. I'm there
Speaker 2: to understand them. I'm there to understand what it's like
Speaker 2: to stand in their shoes. So I'm concentrating hard on
Speaker 2: trying to understand their experience as sometime as I feel
Speaker 2: emotional afterward, but in that moment, I'm trying to be
Speaker 2: there for them and trying to understand them. So if
Speaker 2: I get emotional, I'm not helping them shine. I'm not
Speaker 2: helping them express what they want to express. If I
Speaker 2: get caught up on my own personal emotions. So in
Speaker 2: those moments when I feel that coming on, I concentrate
Speaker 2: harder and think about what does this person need next?
Speaker 2: How do I help them express what they're trying to say?
Speaker 2: When someone gets emotionally, ask and you know, why does
Speaker 2: that make you emotional? I try and understand it more
Speaker 2: so than react.
Speaker 1: What makes an authentic moment? You did sort of mention
Speaker 1: this earlier? Is there a better time of the day
Speaker 1: to try and capture people's truth? Is there a beoutter?
Speaker 1: Do you give them a coffee before it starts?
Speaker 3: Like?
Speaker 1: What's the best way to get the authentic moment out
Speaker 1: of people?
Speaker 3: Time of day? I wish I could do that.
Speaker 2: When you're doing something like footy, players who are used
Speaker 2: to being in high demand, you know when they used
Speaker 2: to play, it's just a trick just to get them there.
Speaker 2: And particularly when we were doing shooting this stuff during coronavirus,
Speaker 2: whenever we could get someone was how we did it.
Speaker 2: So we don't have the luxury of any of that
Speaker 2: sort of stuff. Getting authenticity is a couple of things.
Speaker 2: It's about them realizing that I'm going to have a
Speaker 2: conversation with them, which is very, very different than typically
Speaker 2: they might have had say on the when they're a
Speaker 2: footy player, I'm on, I'm.
Speaker 3: There for them.
Speaker 2: I outline how it's all going to work, so there's
Speaker 2: no tricks, and then from there we're very clear about
Speaker 2: how it all works. So we're not trying to like
Speaker 2: I said to you, we're not trying to treat them
Speaker 2: or sting them.
Speaker 3: After that, it's about.
Speaker 2: Asking questions where my curiosity is true and I'm trying
Speaker 2: to actually understand them rather than judge them or pay
Speaker 2: them out or any these sorts of things. And so
Speaker 2: as soon as you start coming from a place of
Speaker 2: care and curiosity wanting to understand someone, people then relax.
Speaker 2: Then they start being themselves, and then they start expressing authentically.
Speaker 2: If they start tensing up because they're worried about what
Speaker 2: they're going to say and how it's going to get
Speaker 2: used and are they going to look stupid and now
Speaker 2: are you going to make a fool of them, then
Speaker 2: people will start curbing what they say. So it's all
Speaker 2: about making sure people feel relaxed and that they trust you.
Speaker 2: So it's about trying to build that trust. That trust
Speaker 2: gets built by my producers in the lead up to
Speaker 2: the interview, and then I try and continue on from
Speaker 2: the moment I meet them, and then it's treating people
Speaker 2: with a lot of respect. If you treat people with
Speaker 2: respect and you don't judge them, well, people will open
Speaker 2: up and tell you about themselves.
Speaker 1: What do you think has been the biggest learn from
Speaker 1: series one to series six?
Speaker 2: Well, a very big learning which was to make sure
Speaker 2: we ask a question which sets up who these people are,
Speaker 2: because if you don't know who they are, it's hard
Speaker 2: to care about someone. But in terms of the biggest learnings,
Speaker 2: I think that to not fear asking these questions, not
Speaker 2: to censor the questions, because I think there's a you
Speaker 2: feel like, you know, especially working at the ABC, and
Speaker 2: you want to do the right thing, and you don't
Speaker 2: you don't want to treat people unfairly any this sort
Speaker 2: of stuff. There's a temptation to censor the question down
Speaker 2: so it's easier. But what I feel like is that
Speaker 2: you need to give the respect to the person that
Speaker 2: they are an adult person who's lived a life and
Speaker 2: they can read that question themselves. And if you've created
Speaker 2: a space where they are allowed to answer however they
Speaker 2: want and honestly, then they can say, hey, I want
Speaker 2: to answer it this way or this way, I don't
Speaker 2: want to answer it, as opposed to me making that
Speaker 2: decision for them beforehand and saying, oh, that person won't
Speaker 2: be able to answer that question.
Speaker 3: Give them the.
Speaker 2: Respect to be able to answer the question despite how
Speaker 2: hard it might be. And if you prepare them well,
Speaker 2: if they know what they're walking into, that you're not
Speaker 2: ambushing them, then they will answer that question. So I
Speaker 2: think that's been a really really big learning And then
Speaker 2: also time and time again, we know nothing. You think
Speaker 2: you know about something, you think you know about a
Speaker 2: group of people, you think you know about a stereotype,
Speaker 2: and then you talk to people and you realize that
Speaker 2: you were wrong, or you talk to the second person
Speaker 2: in that group and they have a different opinion, and
Speaker 2: you talk a third person they have a different opinion.
Speaker 2: So despite having done all this sort of stuff and
Speaker 2: done all these different stories, it's a really good good
Speaker 2: reminder that the only thing you can really do is
Speaker 2: treat people on their own merits and have a conversation
Speaker 2: with them, rather than assume you know what their life
Speaker 2: is like, or assume you know what their experience is
Speaker 2: like because you've once watched it on TV or you've
Speaker 2: once met someone who's like that.
Speaker 1: You know, it's interesting about minorities these days. I've worked
Speaker 1: out that we all are minority in some way, you know,
Speaker 1: like in some way you are the minority.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's a really, really good point. I often think
Speaker 2: about that, especially when used to do street interviews. Every
Speaker 2: person who walks past you go they have heartbreak, they
Speaker 2: have love, they have loss, they have something that good
Speaker 2: going on for them, they have something that's bad going
Speaker 2: on for them. They might have had a success, they
Speaker 2: might have had their mum die. You just don't know.
Speaker 2: Everyone's got all these complexities going on in their life,
Speaker 2: every single person who walks past you. And the thing
Speaker 2: that we actually really liked about the Adult Virgin's episode
Speaker 2: that we're doing to finish off the season this year,
Speaker 2: it's the first group that we've done that every single
Speaker 2: person in the world has been them at some point.
Speaker 2: So everyone's going to be able to watch the episode
Speaker 2: and empathize with these people because we've all been there,
Speaker 2: and like you said, we all in some respects have
Speaker 2: felt othered, have felt misunderstood, have felt judged, and so
Speaker 2: it's not that hard to actually empathize with someone who
Speaker 2: is feeling that because we've all felt it before. It
Speaker 2: may not be exactly the same as theirs, maybe not
Speaker 2: as full on as theirs, but we can empathize with
Speaker 2: those feelings that these people are talking about.
Speaker 1: Something I ask everyone who's a guest on the show,
Speaker 1: and that is what's something when you tell people what
Speaker 1: you do for work that you get out over dinner conversation,
Speaker 1: something of a funny anecdote, something that's happened to you.
Speaker 1: As being a producer working on this show. Is there
Speaker 1: any kind of behind the scenes moment that you often
Speaker 1: tell people?
Speaker 2: I suppose I'll just quickly share one story from this year,
Speaker 2: which was in NPT's episode We have a question, has
Speaker 2: anyone fucked your stump? Which we thought was verging on
Speaker 2: the question that can you not ask that question? As
Speaker 2: we went through every single interview, no one has. No
Speaker 2: one's fucked anyone's stump, Like they all thought it was
Speaker 2: the stupidest question, why would anyone want to fuck your stump?
Speaker 2: Until our very final interview with Kath Duncan, who's a
Speaker 2: congeneral mput so she's born without limbs and she has
Speaker 2: no arm below the elbow, and she wouldn't have been
Speaker 2: more excited to tell me about all the different people
Speaker 2: she's fucked with her stuff.
Speaker 3: And she's put it up women.
Speaker 2: She's had people suck on it like like it was
Speaker 2: a dick. She has people who have found her and
Speaker 2: found it a fetish. And the only thing that she
Speaker 2: hasn't done, as she put it, she hasn't put Stumpy
Speaker 2: up some guys ass.
Speaker 3: She got offered.
Speaker 2: At one time at the Tropical Fruits Festival, someone offered
Speaker 2: her the chance to do it. She declined on that day,
Speaker 2: and she said, I thought it was one of those
Speaker 2: things I'd get offered many many times. It's never happened since,
Speaker 2: and I have since never got the chance to put
Speaker 2: old Stumpy up some guy's ass. It was shocking to
Speaker 2: hear that in interview.
Speaker 3: You gotta imagine this.
Speaker 2: Is a lady in her fifties with bright red hair
Speaker 2: in a motorized you know, scooter. So not what I
Speaker 2: was expecting coming over her mouth, but very entertaining nonetheless,
Speaker 2: and she gives herself a big plug.
Speaker 3: So I imagine that if anyone watches the show and wants.
Speaker 2: To have that experience with Kat, she'll most likely oblige.
Speaker 1: People are hitting her up on social media the day after,
Speaker 1: the minute after that episode finishes. By the way, I
Speaker 1: can fulfill your dreams, she wants to do it. I
Speaker 1: just want to say thank you for contributing to you know,
Speaker 1: conversations needing to be had. There's so much more to
Speaker 1: explore and I, like the rest of Australia, I'm here
Speaker 1: for it. So I'm so excited to see season seven,
Speaker 1: season eight and season nine and to see you continue
Speaker 1: to contribute to these stories, which you do so well.
Speaker 2: Thanks mate, Thank you for having me on the show
Speaker 2: and really really lovely talking to you. And it's nice
Speaker 2: to have done it the other way around, whereas last
Speaker 2: time I was asking the questions and this time you're
Speaker 2: asking the questions.
Speaker 3: So thanks mate, appreciate it.