Speaker 1: It's in the news today, but it was actually on
Speaker 1: TV Reload, the podcast Last Deep Bairline. Welcome back to
Speaker 1: TV Reload. My name is Benjamin Norris, and this is
Speaker 1: your podcast to get all the inside goss on the
Speaker 1: popular TV shows you may be watching from around the world. Underniably,
Speaker 1: our TV sets are a major part of our home
Speaker 1: entertainment and very little is known about how our favorite
Speaker 1: shows get made. Each episode, I find guests that want
Speaker 1: to dive just that little bit deeper into the shows
Speaker 1: they've currently been making, so that you can hear all
Speaker 1: their exclusive stories and gain access to the biggest names
Speaker 1: in Australian television. I want to thank you for downloading
Speaker 1: or subscribing to this podcast. I love hearing your feedback,
Speaker 1: so make sure you leave a comment on your chosen
Speaker 1: podcast platform. On today's podcast, I have Nathan Mayfield, the
Speaker 1: executive producer of the captivating four part musical drama series
Speaker 1: In Our Blood, which will premiere this Sunday, the nineteenth
Speaker 1: of March at eight thirty on ABCTV FYI. You will
Speaker 1: be able to also binge this series on abc I
Speaker 1: view from this Sunday, and I highly recommend that you
Speaker 1: do so. Said in the eighties. In Our Blood tells
Speaker 1: the story of people from politics, medicine, and affective communities
Speaker 1: grappling separately with the arrival of the AIDS virus in Australia.
Speaker 1: Nathan Mayfield is the chief creative officer and co founder
Speaker 1: of Hoodlum and Emmy and Bafter Award winning production company.
Speaker 1: We will talk about why this story was so important
Speaker 1: to tell in twenty twenty three, where he stands on
Speaker 1: queer actors needing to play queer roles. Nathan will also
Speaker 1: unpack the rationale to make this a musical and have
Speaker 1: the actors talking to the camera. Plus, we will get
Speaker 1: plenty of exclusives from behind the scenes of the new
Speaker 1: series In Our Blood. Anyway, let's bring Nathan into the
Speaker 1: podcast and I really hope you enjoyed this episode. Fine, Nathan,
Speaker 1: thank you so much for coming on the podcast and
Speaker 1: talking about this show which is In Our Blood.
Speaker 2: Yes, finally I'm going to be able to share it
Speaker 2: with the worlds.
Speaker 1: I can recognize your work in the stories that you've
Speaker 1: been telling, you know, and it's interesting once I read
Speaker 1: the bio on how this all came together because so
Speaker 1: many of the shows that you work on seem to
Speaker 1: have a bit of a signature to it, which must
Speaker 1: be attributed to the type of work that you made.
Speaker 2: I'm glad you recognize it, because you never know. You
Speaker 2: sort of work in a bubble in some ways. But
Speaker 2: Hoodlum has been around for almost twenty five years now
Speaker 2: and we've always sort of done things outside the box.
Speaker 2: I mean the fact that we've been based in Brisbane
Speaker 2: for the entire time. We've got an office in the
Speaker 2: US as well, but we've always had to sort of
Speaker 2: find interesting ways to sort of tell stories. And you know,
Speaker 2: for us, we're a small team and we're independent as well,
Speaker 2: so it means that we really seek out those stories
Speaker 2: and projects that matter, and this was one of them.
Speaker 1: Will you bring raw and I would say, unique voices
Speaker 1: to the screen that kind of reflects society in a
Speaker 1: way that I think is very honest and I think
Speaker 1: is very truthful. Are they sort of like mantras that
Speaker 1: you have behind the scenes when it comes to choosing projects?
Speaker 2: I think ultimately, like I said, we're a bunch of friends.
Speaker 2: My business partner and I started the company and we
Speaker 2: are still actively in the company, and that means our
Speaker 2: mantras really life is too short, So we find projects
Speaker 2: that we love and that we can have fun telling.
Speaker 2: That doesn't necessarily mean that they're all lighthearted pieces, but
Speaker 2: we find reasons for why these should be on screen.
Speaker 2: The other parts of that is, of course, that sort
Speaker 2: of passion is something that translates to when you have
Speaker 2: to pitch these projects. So you know, for Hoodlum, we
Speaker 2: don't have a bottom draw per se. We're in love
Speaker 2: with the projects that we developed five years ago. It's
Speaker 2: just that the timing's not right. So it's sort of
Speaker 2: finding those projects that we're always going to be having there.
Speaker 2: We're just waiting for the stars to align.
Speaker 1: How did this project come about? And how long did
Speaker 1: it take to get this show from conception to having
Speaker 1: it just about to be on screen on the ABC
Speaker 1: great question.
Speaker 2: It's probably the fastest project that we've ever done from
Speaker 2: the beginning to it being on air. And I think
Speaker 2: the short version of this story is that I had
Speaker 2: put out the word that I was sort of looking
Speaker 2: for a queer series.
Speaker 3: I didn't know what that looked like.
Speaker 2: My partner he sent me a feature film script from
Speaker 2: a friend of his, Adriano Cappelletta, and I read the
Speaker 2: script I loved it immediately, but it was a feature
Speaker 2: film and I couldn't at that point sort of see
Speaker 2: how I could make that as a movie. So Adriano
Speaker 2: and I got on the phone two hours later, a
Speaker 2: few tears later, just him retelling the story that he discovered,
Speaker 2: and he sent me a pilot script for the series
Speaker 2: and I read that and immediately knew that we had
Speaker 2: a TV series on our hands. And then when I
Speaker 2: talk about stars aligning, one of the things that we
Speaker 2: looked at was, you know, twenty twenty three being World
Speaker 2: Pride in Sydney as well as the fortieth anniversary of
Speaker 2: AIDS hitting Australian shows. So those two things meant that
Speaker 2: I had a reason to sort of go and speak
Speaker 2: to the ABC, and I spoke to Sally Riley, who
Speaker 2: is the head of drama there, and sort of asked
Speaker 2: that question of what sort of activities were they doing
Speaker 2: for twenty twenty three, and I said, I think I
Speaker 2: have the project for you. And it was a pretty
Speaker 2: swift decision making process from there, I think all in all,
Speaker 2: probably two weeks. I think Sally might have read the
Speaker 2: pilot straight away. I had done a verbal pitch with
Speaker 2: her on the phone. She was interested, and then it
Speaker 2: was just about ABC sort of getting their ducks in
Speaker 2: a row to sort of go, okay, well, how can
Speaker 2: we push the button and how can we make sure
Speaker 2: with certainty that we were going to be able to
Speaker 2: get this on air in time? And as miracles happen
Speaker 2: we did.
Speaker 1: What do you think made the ABC? And why do
Speaker 1: you think the ABC was the right home for this show?
Speaker 1: I mean I could think of many reasons, and their coverage, oh,
Speaker 1: you know, right across world Pride has been very good.
Speaker 1: But for you as well, I mean you need to
Speaker 1: find that right synergy I guess to home something like this. Yeah,
Speaker 1: what was it about ABC that made this the right network?
Speaker 2: I think it was that I we could take that shortcut.
Speaker 2: I mean, we've made four seasons of Harrow for the ABC,
Speaker 2: so we knew ABC really well, and we loved that relationship.
Speaker 2: We loved the working relationship. We get along really well,
Speaker 2: we enjoyed working together. So I guess it's that beautiful
Speaker 2: thing of being able to just pick up the phone
Speaker 2: and just get a straight answer straight away.
Speaker 3: And that's certainly what happened.
Speaker 2: So for us, ABC was always going to be the
Speaker 2: home we knew that they were going to be the
Speaker 2: main supporter of World Pride. We knew that they would
Speaker 2: have had a remit to sort of program for that
Speaker 2: as well. So I think that was the first that
Speaker 2: was us getting in the door. And then really the
Speaker 2: story itself is so compelling and one that we hadn't
Speaker 2: heard before. I think also piqued their interests. So it
Speaker 2: was really from there. Yeah, we sort of pitched the
Speaker 2: project to them, They read it, they came back to
Speaker 2: us and said, okay, how are we going to make
Speaker 2: this work? And so it was really the ABC of course,
Speaker 2: you know, Screen Australia came on board, Screen Queensland came
Speaker 2: on board, and Fremantle International came on board to pick
Speaker 2: up the distribution for worldwide.
Speaker 1: It's a painful part of our history. What makes a
Speaker 1: series about HIV in the eighties so important? Do you
Speaker 1: think to tell in twenty twenty three?
Speaker 2: I grew up in the eighties. For me, it was
Speaker 2: looking at how can we celebrate and honor the people
Speaker 2: that were really at the call face at that time,
Speaker 2: not only being traumatized by the campaign, but also the
Speaker 2: notion of this disease that was killing killing gays, which
Speaker 2: is what it came down to. Also, that stigma. I
Speaker 2: feel like forty years it felt like the right time
Speaker 2: to sort of honor that I have worked with a
Speaker 2: bunch of queer creatives who probably didn't know or really
Speaker 2: understand the impact that had on let alone Australia, let
Speaker 2: alone the queer communities. And it was also a story
Speaker 2: that wasn't all grim. It was actually a story that
Speaker 2: I didn't know, which is how Australia led the way
Speaker 2: in the way that we raised the awareness of AIDS
Speaker 2: and tackled the AIDS crisis, both at a grassroots level
Speaker 2: right through to federal Parliament. And I look, I really
Speaker 2: have to give that credit to Adriano. Adriano had written
Speaker 2: a play for Griffin a couple of years earlier, and
Speaker 2: he had done so much homework and so much research
Speaker 2: on this subject that really we already had the bones
Speaker 2: that sort of hit the ground running.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it was sort of an important I mean, I
Speaker 1: have to be really honest. When I first heard about it,
Speaker 1: I thought I had seen this story being told in
Speaker 1: different forms, particularly in America, and I thought that there
Speaker 1: were different tellings of this and so I did sit
Speaker 1: down and watch all four episodes together and I was
Speaker 1: completely blown away. But I was really empowered about our
Speaker 1: involvement in a difficult time, and I thought that, you know,
Speaker 1: the AIDS virus went to hit Australia, you know, we
Speaker 1: were deeply affected, but there was so much that I
Speaker 1: didn't know about it. And there's so much power I
Speaker 1: think for audiences and getting to watch this and to
Speaker 1: see how some very powerful people were able to handle this.
Speaker 3: Isn't it great? I love that about it. I mean,
Speaker 3: I I was with you. You know.
Speaker 2: It is a funny thing that certainly when you want
Speaker 2: to look at stories and pitch those stories to decision
Speaker 2: makers like networks or studios, of course they're going to
Speaker 2: look at that and compare it to other projects around
Speaker 2: the world. My argument is always, well, does that mean
Speaker 2: that we can only ever have like five AIDS stories?
Speaker 1: Like?
Speaker 2: Nobody wants to commission these, and it's always just finding
Speaker 2: the different sort of lens to put on that story. Also,
Speaker 2: we hadn't seen anything from domestic point of view. We
Speaker 2: hadn't seen something that really was viewing the AIDS crisis
Speaker 2: and what happened at that time through an Australian lens.
Speaker 2: We're very quick to criticize government about how they might
Speaker 2: act on certain things. We've just come out of a pandemic,
Speaker 2: and I thought that this was a really great way
Speaker 2: to sort of one celebrate just how integral it was
Speaker 2: and boiling that down to actual humans in Parliament that
Speaker 2: were just not seeing this as a gay disease. They
Speaker 2: were just seeing this as as a national health crisis.
Speaker 2: And I love that about it. They just I guess
Speaker 2: they rallied, you know, they mobilized what they had to do,
Speaker 2: and they understood the urgency. And I think because of
Speaker 2: that we can sort of sit back forty years later
Speaker 2: and say, Okay, well, there's a lot of us that
Speaker 2: exists today thanks to the hard work that they'd done,
Speaker 2: both at the grassroots, the queer communities, the lesbian community,
Speaker 2: all of those different players right up to federal government.
Speaker 1: And I think, you know, how those communities have come
Speaker 1: together in a crisis like this. You know, when I
Speaker 1: look at twenty twenty three and look at us coming
Speaker 1: out of a pandemic like COVID, I think that there
Speaker 1: were plenty of things that we were able to I mean,
Speaker 1: the wider community were able to borrow from us. You know,
Speaker 1: there were some really important ways in which information was
Speaker 1: gathered and distributed, and I think that that would have
Speaker 1: been used, you know, when it came to the pandemic totally.
Speaker 2: And we have the benefit of technology, which is probably
Speaker 2: a blessing and curse in the sense of COVID, but
Speaker 2: you imagine what this must have been like in nineteen
Speaker 2: eeventy three. You had far more prejudice, far more stigma,
Speaker 2: but also the circulation and the dissemination of information was
Speaker 2: probably a lot slower, you know. I think that was
Speaker 2: something to reflect on as well. In the show.
Speaker 1: There is also really bold choices that you guys have
Speaker 1: made in the format, you know, with characters talking to
Speaker 1: the camera and characters singing. What was the process like
Speaker 1: in making those decisions.
Speaker 2: Well, we had the bones there because that's part of
Speaker 2: what Adriano had done for his play. But then when
Speaker 2: we got in the room and that was the writers
Speaker 2: and myself, Adriano, Jane Allen, who was the script producer
Speaker 2: and just really pulled the show together, Jonathan Gavin, another
Speaker 2: fantastic queer writer. The four of us sort of sat
Speaker 2: down and worked out what the rules of this show
Speaker 2: were going to be and without sounding naugh about it.
Speaker 2: We sort of looked at it and said, well, we
Speaker 2: know that we've got a core audience that we want
Speaker 2: to speak to. What are the things that we would
Speaker 2: like to see. This is probably the first show that
Speaker 2: I've done where there's more queers in the production process
Speaker 2: than there were straits. Not to say that that means
Speaker 2: anything more than you know, we felt like it was
Speaker 2: a really safe space. We had the innovation, we had
Speaker 2: the support of the ABC. We knew that we only
Speaker 2: had four episodes for one hours, so we had to
Speaker 2: find something that was both bold and exciting.
Speaker 3: So that's where we started.
Speaker 2: We started talking about the use of speaking directly to camera.
Speaker 2: We loved this idea of this Greek chorus that really
Speaker 2: represented the fact that the queer community was omnipresent, that
Speaker 2: it was everywhere, and that we could use that as
Speaker 2: a beautiful little signpost for our audience to sort of say, look,
Speaker 2: they are a Greek chorus. They give us important information,
Speaker 2: but also just to say we were everywhere. We were
Speaker 2: in the halls of Parliament, we were on the streets,
Speaker 2: we were in our hospitals, we were in We're just everywhere.
Speaker 2: So we took that piece one of the other really important,
Speaker 2: beautiful components to this story was of course talking about
Speaker 2: a community that was grieving and traumatized and in free fall,
Speaker 2: not knowing what this disease was going to do and
Speaker 2: how it was being transmitted in those early days.
Speaker 3: But what we didn't know is this.
Speaker 2: Grieving community would find its hubs. In some ways, those
Speaker 2: pop songs that were of that era became anthemic to
Speaker 2: that community. It was a way for them to sort
Speaker 2: of take a breath and really look at the fact
Speaker 2: that they exist and that those communities were there. And
Speaker 2: we wanted to embed that and embrace that in the show.
Speaker 2: And so what evolved was this beautiful chorus of characters
Speaker 2: who one speak directly to camera and to also perform
Speaker 2: these fantastic eighties iconic songs, which was so much fun.
Speaker 1: So much fun, and it also offers a little bit
Speaker 1: of relief to some of the darker moments of the show.
Speaker 1: But I just think it highlighted to me the importance
Speaker 1: of music within the LGBTI community and the power of anthems.
Speaker 1: As you said just then, I think those those things
Speaker 1: have been so instrumental in the gay community and finding
Speaker 1: our home and finding our place to be ourselves. A
Speaker 1: lot of the songs that were chosen represent well for me.
Speaker 1: I grew up in the eighties as well. I just
Speaker 1: every time i'd hear the first few bars of the songs,
Speaker 1: I'd be like transported to that time.
Speaker 2: It's funny because in some ways, you know by the
Speaker 2: time it goes to where I've seen the show h
Speaker 2: of times in different iterations, and every time I'm like,
Speaker 2: oh God, I hope this doesn't ruin my favorite song
Speaker 2: that I'm hearing it a thousand times, but it hasn't.
Speaker 2: One of the interesting things about this is I've done
Speaker 2: hundreds of hours of television, but I've never made a musical.
Speaker 2: And I really went into this saying to ABC and
Speaker 2: all of the sort of decision makers, look, you're just
Speaker 2: going to have to trust.
Speaker 3: Me on this one.
Speaker 2: Like I don't know what I'm doing when it comes
Speaker 2: to the musicals, I sort of do, but I've never
Speaker 2: made one, and I think that was a huge learning
Speaker 2: for me.
Speaker 3: It was, but I made sure.
Speaker 2: That I surrounded myself with the best and Elliot Wheeler,
Speaker 2: who was the composer and did all the arrangements and
Speaker 2: the recordings for all the musical numbers had just come
Speaker 2: off Elvis, so I knew I was in good hands.
Speaker 1: Oh wow. I was sitting there with my partner at
Speaker 1: one point and I turned over and said, at one point,
Speaker 1: I was like, Oh, it's kind of a bit American
Speaker 1: Horror Story in a way where the characters are allowed
Speaker 1: to break into song, and just it's important for that
Speaker 1: to be there in the story. Did you have anything
Speaker 1: like American Horror Story or maybe other shows that it
Speaker 1: influenced that decision to have singing in it.
Speaker 2: Look, there's a bunch of those movies that we've all
Speaker 2: watched that we've loved. The fine line that you tread
Speaker 2: is that you can't have the style over substance. And
Speaker 2: you know, you can imagine in those very early days
Speaker 2: of developing this, we've probably had three times as many
Speaker 2: songs in the show, but you just can't. You need
Speaker 2: to make sure you've got that balance right. Ultimately, we're
Speaker 2: telling a serious drama, so we can't let the playfulness
Speaker 2: of those songs outweigh the importance of this story and
Speaker 2: the people that were involved. Don't forget, this is inspired
Speaker 2: by true events, so all of those characters have their
Speaker 2: roots in real people, real events. For us, it was
Speaker 2: very important that we honored that and we respected it.
Speaker 2: We didn't want anybody to walk away from this feeling
Speaker 2: like they'd been misrepresented, but we did want to make
Speaker 2: sure that we had something that, like you said, wasn't
Speaker 2: the dark ordeal. We wanted to have those moments of
Speaker 2: lightness and also just allowing the audience to sort of
Speaker 2: just take a breath and just enjoy it and hopefully
Speaker 2: in the execution of the way that we've done those
Speaker 2: songs too, just makes it a far more interesting drama.
Speaker 1: The other thing I was going to mention is the
Speaker 1: casting is just so brilliant. Was it important or was
Speaker 1: it a choice to have some relatively unknown actors in
Speaker 1: this series over maybe some other more recognizable Australian actors.
Speaker 2: Yes, what was more important to us was where we
Speaker 2: could we cast queer for queer. You know, that was
Speaker 2: important to us that we had people that really resonated
Speaker 2: with this material, really understood that this was going to
Speaker 2: be the show that was a safe place, you know,
Speaker 2: I think from in front of the screen and behind
Speaker 2: the screen. That was an ambition of ours to sort
Speaker 2: of give as many opportunities to our queer community to
Speaker 2: sort of help contribute to telling this story, and I
Speaker 2: think it just made the whole process so.
Speaker 3: Much more enjoyable.
Speaker 2: And that's that's only because it felt like a safe place.
Speaker 2: And you know, I think we innovated behind the scenes
Speaker 2: as well, conscious and respectful of pronouns and trauma and
Speaker 2: you know, all of those sort of things that you
Speaker 2: know in a production machine are sometimes not ignored, but
Speaker 2: I think they're not. They don't have as much of
Speaker 2: a priorities as we made them have on this show.
Speaker 2: But the casting was amazing, and what a beautiful process. Sadly,
Speaker 2: you know, what was really amazing was just seeing all
Speaker 2: of those casting tapes and seeing how passionate the cast were.
Speaker 2: The actors that were actually auditioning for the roles. You know,
Speaker 2: we heard some amazing stories. And normally it's just they
Speaker 2: auditioned the scene and that's it. But so many of
Speaker 2: the people that were auditioning wanted to take that opportunity
Speaker 2: to one welcome the show and embrace the show, but
Speaker 2: also maybe tell a little bit of a personal story too,
Speaker 2: And that was beautiful and I feel very privileged to
Speaker 2: heard those stories.
Speaker 1: What have you made of the debate over you know,
Speaker 1: gay characters should always be played by gay actors, you know.
Speaker 1: Was that a part of the process when you're putting
Speaker 1: this down.
Speaker 2: I don't really have an opinion around, like, obviously, my
Speaker 2: my feeling is it's great if you can find if
Speaker 2: you've got a gay character, then obviously for me, the
Speaker 2: preference would be to some who can actually resonate at
Speaker 2: a personal level. And I certainly don't criticize other shows
Speaker 2: or other productions that cast people in straight roles. I
Speaker 2: just think for me, it's an ambition of mine. You know,
Speaker 2: there's so many different factors to how somebody gets that role,
Speaker 2: from the financing through to you know, availability and talent
Speaker 2: and skill and all of those sort of things. But
Speaker 2: we were just I say, lucky, but it was it
Speaker 2: was quite strategic in just you know, trying to do
Speaker 2: that as much as we could. I think the flip
Speaker 2: to that is that I wonder if actors now make
Speaker 2: more considered choices around roles that they go and test for.
Speaker 2: We've seen that over the last few years in Hollywood,
Speaker 2: especially where actors that I have played queer roles but
Speaker 2: might identify as straight are coming up now and sort
Speaker 2: of saying, look if it was twenty twenty three. I
Speaker 2: probably wouldn't have tested for that role or taken that role.
Speaker 2: And I think that's just an evolution of Hollywood itself
Speaker 2: and also the educated audience. Our audiences have far greater
Speaker 2: access to information, their film language is a lot more evolved,
Speaker 2: so I think they expected as well.
Speaker 1: Tim sensational in this as well, and he's really the
Speaker 1: backbone to the story. I wanted to know, did you
Speaker 1: see him in Jag A Little Pill, which I also
Speaker 1: thought he was sensational in.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: I mean I've been following Tim for quite some time
Speaker 2: and I think it was a natural fit. And certainly
Speaker 2: I know now having worked with him, how excited he was.
Speaker 2: You know, you don't know that stuff. All you sort
Speaker 2: of get as a tape. You have a couple of conversations,
Speaker 2: but then at the end of this process you sort
Speaker 2: of sit down and you have a chat to Tim
Speaker 2: and you realize, actually Tim knew that he was right
Speaker 2: for this role.
Speaker 1: Well. Story is quite heavily focused on the way on
Speaker 1: which the Australian government handled the arrival of the AIDS virus.
Speaker 1: Was that a bit scary to be responsible to tell
Speaker 1: that part of the story accurately.
Speaker 2: Yes, it was, and we had a bunch of people
Speaker 2: working behind the scenes. Obviously it's still a fictional piece,
Speaker 2: but what we wanted to do was to honor the
Speaker 2: sentiment and the chronology of the events that took place. Look,
Speaker 2: in four hours, we can't cover every meeting, every argument,
Speaker 2: every poll, every sort of thing. We had to really
Speaker 2: pick and choose our moments. We've had to concertina some
Speaker 2: of those moments into meetings, but ultimately our goal was
Speaker 2: to make sure that the message was going to be
Speaker 2: clear and that it was still going to be compelling.
Speaker 2: From the beginning. There was always the fact checking around this.
Speaker 2: I think one of the things that we regret but
Speaker 2: we couldn't do anything about is just in four hours
Speaker 2: we sort of had to really stay to stay true
Speaker 2: to the story, the queer story, the queer version of
Speaker 2: events on this There were so many other players and
Speaker 2: so many other communities that were affected by AIDS at
Speaker 2: that time. We give nods to them in the show,
Speaker 2: but ultimately we sort of start to our very core story,
Speaker 2: and ultimately we also wanted to make sure we had
Speaker 2: rings to tell that beautiful love story as well.
Speaker 1: Yeah, which you do effortlessly you know, it all seems
Speaker 1: to come together quite easily. How do you remember because
Speaker 1: I was you know, I was born in nineteen eighty,
Speaker 1: so I very clearly remember the commercial with the Grim
Speaker 1: Reaper and the fear that that put into Australia. And
Speaker 1: I remember being in my lounge room. I think I
Speaker 1: might have been seven or eight, and I remember my
Speaker 1: mother and my stepfather fighting over if they were going
Speaker 1: to ring a phone number to complain of the ad,
Speaker 1: and there was very opposing arguments to complaining about that commercial.
Speaker 1: What was your relationship with that commercial when it came
Speaker 1: out and what did that do to you and your
Speaker 1: story with this?
Speaker 2: Well, I would have been probably thirteen, I think when
Speaker 2: that campaign came out, But and I remember being just
Speaker 2: as horrified.
Speaker 3: But I also didn't know who I was.
Speaker 2: I mean, what's interesting about that is I didn't know
Speaker 2: how to describe myself at that point. But having watched
Speaker 2: that commercial, I was always worried, you know, But I
Speaker 2: look at it now and I look at where they
Speaker 2: got to and why that was such an important component
Speaker 2: of the AID story in Australia, And you know, I'm
Speaker 2: forever grateful for it, for the fear campaign and for
Speaker 2: what it did. You know, the fact that you had
Speaker 2: federal government by the time slot on every channel to
Speaker 2: make sure that there was no way you could miss
Speaker 2: this ad really punctuate the importance and the urgency of
Speaker 2: getting people to be aware that.
Speaker 3: This wasn't just a gay disease.
Speaker 2: I think it would be really interesting to explore like
Speaker 2: our obviously our show finishes at that point, but looking
Speaker 2: at the impact of that campaign for a decade after
Speaker 2: that is probably another story that I'd like to tell.
Speaker 1: Do you think that that kind of a commercial would
Speaker 1: work today? And I don't necessarily mean in relation to
Speaker 1: HIV or AIDS? Do you think that kind of confrontational
Speaker 1: type of warning still would work?
Speaker 3: Good question. I don't know.
Speaker 2: I haven't really thought about it, you know, I think
Speaker 2: there's so many different platforms now, you know how I
Speaker 2: don't have the answer to that. I guess my question
Speaker 2: back to that is how would it work? You know,
Speaker 2: where does your audience sit. We had in the eighties,
Speaker 2: when you only had a handful of channels, you had
Speaker 2: a captive audience, So it was quite a good way
Speaker 2: to sort of just expose the the crisis to an
Speaker 2: audience in a very very mainstream way now with so
Speaker 2: you know, the platforms are so fragmented, the way that
Speaker 2: people get their entertainment, get their content is so much
Speaker 2: so diverse. Now, I don't know what that would look like,
Speaker 2: but look, shock tactics will always work. I guess it
Speaker 2: sparks debate, it sparks conversation. It does create stigma, it
Speaker 2: does create fear. But you know, as our catch line
Speaker 2: for the series is fear it made infectious, but courage
Speaker 2: is contagious. And I feel like that's where we sort
Speaker 2: of came to with this show, is you know, people
Speaker 2: that fear brought this issue out into the open. It's
Speaker 2: just that I feel very grateful that at the highest
Speaker 2: levels of government we had people who were just seeing
Speaker 2: this as a disease and not a cultural blight.
Speaker 1: Well, for me, I don't really like censorship, you know,
Speaker 1: and I think that these days there's a lot of
Speaker 1: people coming out there with cancel culture and ship when
Speaker 1: things where i'mlike, you know, oh please, you know, when
Speaker 1: we don't need to be wrapped in cotton wool, you know,
Speaker 1: I don't think I.
Speaker 2: Think yeah again, I think it's a really interesting time.
Speaker 2: I think the pendulums swung to sort of a cancel culture.
Speaker 2: At the moment, I'm much more in favor of correction culture.
Speaker 2: You know, I don't think it's about getting letting people
Speaker 2: get away with sort of outlandish sort of views or
Speaker 2: sort of but I do think that there is Once
Speaker 2: the conversation stops, it's very hard to get people back
Speaker 2: in the room together.
Speaker 3: So, you know, I.
Speaker 2: Think it's it's it's a tricky one.
Speaker 3: It's a very gray area.
Speaker 1: It really is. It really is. And I am kind
Speaker 1: of running out of time, so I'm going to quickly
Speaker 1: get to the last question, but I will say just
Speaker 1: before I get to that, that this show is something
Speaker 1: that I think the wider community will appreciate. And I
Speaker 1: think anyone that's listening to this to give this show
Speaker 1: an opportunity to watch it, because it's it's very potent,
Speaker 1: but it's very and it's very entertaining, and I think
Speaker 1: that's not an easy thing to do when you're handling
Speaker 1: subject matter like this. So I hope people listening to
Speaker 1: this want to take that chance on it. Everyone who
Speaker 1: joins the podcast, I asked them this question, what is
Speaker 1: something that happened behind the scenes kind of maybe like
Speaker 1: a behind the scenes secret or an anecdote that we're
Speaker 1: as an audience won't see that we might appreciate to hear.
Speaker 3: I did think about this.
Speaker 2: I don't have one specific one, only to say that
Speaker 2: for me, this show was the most visible show that
Speaker 2: we've ever shot. And what I'm talking about is every
Speaker 2: time we're on the streets. I thought it was really
Speaker 2: fun to see we shot something that was said in
Speaker 2: the eighties, and then you add drag queens and our
Speaker 2: queer community, with usless chaps walking around as extras and
Speaker 2: gim masks and you know, great mission brown suits, it
Speaker 2: was probably the most visible, you know. I just remember
Speaker 2: sitting there and clocking just how many people would stop
Speaker 2: and watch us shoot.
Speaker 3: Or ask what are we doing? What are we shooting?
Speaker 2: And normally now people are getting used to sort of
Speaker 2: having films on streets, and I just thought it was
Speaker 2: a real interesting observation that I had where I've never
Speaker 2: been on a show that's had so much attention from
Speaker 2: the beginning, and it was really supportive, you know, Like
Speaker 2: I thought that was The other bit was that I
Speaker 2: was never scared. I felt like we've created a safe
Speaker 2: space for our cast and crew, but also there was
Speaker 2: something really encouraging about people walking past and being genuinely
Speaker 2: interested in the story and us telling them a little
Speaker 2: bit about what the story was. I never received any
Speaker 2: negative feedback, and I really like that, you know, because
Speaker 2: sometimes we can fall into a hole or our bubble
Speaker 2: and think that this is just us speaking to our
Speaker 2: own community. But ultimately, you know, it was a great
Speaker 2: reset for me to go no, no, Actually, at a
Speaker 2: base level, we as humans just care about each other.
Speaker 2: So I know it's not a funny one. I know
Speaker 2: it's not a great secret, but it was one of
Speaker 2: those things that I think was quite unique to this show,
Speaker 2: so I loved it.
Speaker 1: Well, speaking of being a storyteller, I have been in
Speaker 1: your audience for a very long time and will be
Speaker 1: for a long time to come. Keep telling stories like this.
Speaker 1: I can't wait to see what you do next.
Speaker 2: Me too, And look the callers out like, I'm ready
Speaker 2: for it. I've come up for it now I'm ready
Speaker 2: to find the next one. So yeah, thank you, Ben,
Speaker 2: great chatting