# Broden Kelly - When Anger & Creativity Collide

An episode of [The Imperfects](https://invisiblenetwork.ai/podcast/1476501557), 14 May 2023, 1 h 09 min.

Audio: https://enrichment.soundstack.com/4vjqq8/episode.flightcast.com/sieusqvkngwzo8yehfca2ig7.mp3

If you don’t know comedy sketch group Aunty Donna, then take a moment, open your local internet browser and watch their incredible stuff for a bit (some of it is linked below). Then come back and listen to this episode with Aunty Donna's, Broden Kelly. In this Vulnerabilitea House, Broden talks about his own and Aunty Donna’s creative process, and how it’s evolved over the years while working together on stage and on the telly. But at the heart of this conversation, is Broden’s vulnerability in regards to his anger - how it affected his life and work, and what he did to get on top of it, before it got on top of him. To watch Aunty Donna's Coffee Cafe on iview, follow this link: https://bit.ly/450zgVE To watch Aunty Donna's Real Estate Agents video, that is mentioned in the podcast, follow this link: https://bit.ly/3nTvEV4 To Listen to Broden's podcast, The Footy with Broden Kelly, follow this link: https://bit.ly/3pv8S6

## Transcript

[0:00] My name is Emily and I'm a psychologist and regular guest on The Imperfects.
[0:04] I was proudly born and raised on Wurundjeri country and now live, work and raise my own children on the lands of the Whadjuk Noongar people.
[0:13] I'm inspired by the strength and endurance of the world's oldest living culture.
[0:17] We at The Imperfects pay homage to traditions of story and in particular its role in healing when we share and create space for stories on this podcast.
[0:27] Together with The Imperfects, I acknowledge the Wurundjeri people of the Kulin Nation as the traditional owners of the land on which this podcast was recorded and extend my respects to all Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples.
[0:39] I acknowledge this land always was and always will be Aboriginal land.
[0:50] The Imperfects invites you into a very safe place.
[0:58] A place where we share without judgment and drink heaps and heaps of vulnerability.
[1:10] Grab yourself a cup.
[1:12] This is the Vulnerability House.
[1:19] Who's excited?
[1:22] Me.
[1:22] Good.
[1:23] Good.
[1:23] Josh?
[1:24] Me, big time.
[1:25] Braden Kelly?
[1:26] I'm so excited.
[1:28] Good.
[1:28] This tea has got me revved.
[1:30] Good.
[1:32] What tea did you select?
[1:33] I don't remember.
[1:34] It was one of them.
[1:35] It had like a health cross on it.
[1:37] Oh.
[1:38] I think you got what we got, the revive.
[1:40] And you don't agree with it?
[1:42] I don't agree with it.
[1:43] Well, I may be influenced by Hugh going... LAUGHTER
[1:48] Maybe I'm being swayed.
[1:49] That's very common, isn't it?
[1:51] When someone says a negative thing, your mind goes to it first.
[1:54] Yes.
[1:54] But if you say a positive, do you like it?
[1:56] Yeah, I do.
[1:56] Yeah, I like it.
[1:58] Look at that.
[1:59] I'm a great influencer.
[2:01] You are an influencer.
[2:02] I mean, that's what we're here to talk about.
[2:03] That's what you're on for.
[2:04] Let's talk numbers and data.
[2:08] So, yes, Vulnerability House.
[2:11] Broden Kelly from Aunty Donna.
[2:14] One of the funniest comedy groups things in Australia.
[2:20] Agreed.
[2:20] By far.
[2:22] I just wanted to...
[2:24] I remember when I first saw you guys on stage at the Comedy Festival years ago.
[2:29] And it was...
[2:30] I mean, because for anyone who hasn't seen Aunty Donna perform live, the energy is...
[2:36] unlike anything.
[2:39] And I was just, I was just, I didn't really know what to expect because I hadn't heard of you guys when I saw you and I went with a friend and they said, I think you'll like it.
[2:48] And, and it was just this, the experience of it is unlike any other comedy show.
[2:53] I'm being serious because it's like, you go to the comedy festival, there's lots of good stuff, but rarely do you see a show because there's three of you and a lot of singing.
[3:00] And it's just this nonstop, um,
[3:03] It's like a ball rolling down a mountain.
[3:05] It's just like gathering, gathering, gathering.
[3:07] I remember, I reckon this is about 2014, 15, we used to write our shows behind closed doors and then present them to people, which is not the best way to make comedy because you should always be writing comedy with your audience and letting that kind of guide you and make your decisions for you by what they find interesting.
[3:25] So we started to do these things called...
[3:28] Test shows.
[3:29] I went to one.
[3:29] Right.
[3:30] So this is my first memory of seeing you at a show.
[3:32] We were in a room where we maybe had 10 ideas that were statistically bad, really bad ideas that weren't developed.
[3:39] Statistically bad.
[3:39] Yeah, like no chance they were good.
[3:41] Let's get an audience in.
[3:42] Yeah, like three months until Comedy Festival, we had these mailing lists of people like Danny Boy or like Big Acts, and we would send them an email saying, free tickets to a show tonight in like a 30-seater, and we'd do these awful, awful shows but learn heaps.
[3:58] Wow.
[3:59] Imperfect shows, you might say.
[4:01] And not saying this show is bad.
[4:03] I'm saying that it was an imperfect show.
[4:05] No.
[4:05] We're only a couple of minutes in.
[4:07] Yeah, no.
[4:07] So far, so good.
[4:09] And I remember doing some awful sketch and looking and going, Ryan Shelton's here with like 10 – and you were one of like 10 people in the audience.
[4:17] And you were very supportive and lovely.
[4:19] But I was like, of all the shows to come to, this is so embarrassing.
[4:22] Yeah.
[4:23] But I knew it was a test show.
[4:25] So I had that expectation.
[4:28] If I had come going like, oh, this is the one they're hanging their hat on.
[4:31] Then maybe.
[4:33] But it was still funny.
[4:34] Like it's just, I mean, I loved seeing that test show and then coming to the actual show.
[4:40] And I loved seeing that process.
[4:42] Yeah, cool.
[4:43] That was great.
[4:45] Talking about the energy and everything, we came from a very different background to a lot of other comedy.
[4:51] Usually a lot of comedy comes from the writing angle.
[4:55] I think something funny and then I'm going to express this and people learn along the way how to be on stage.
[5:01] And we came from the exact opposite direction where we went to acting school and learned to do Shakespeare and how to hold the stage and have a balanced stage and transformations of props and characters and...
[5:12] And none of us were really super writers, particularly for comedy.
[5:16] And so the first show we ever made, we would book libraries around here for $15 for three hours and just show up and try and write comedy.
[5:25] And for the first maybe 10 rehearsals we did, we walked out with no jokes or sketches.
[5:31] I think we're in big trouble.
[5:33] And then so we finally, we made this show and put it on the Comedy Festival 2012.
[5:38] And we just went, we don't know if this is any good at all.
[5:43] We don't know if any of the jokes were.
[5:45] 2012 was your first show?
[5:46] Yeah.
[5:46] Is that a long time ago or more recent?
[5:49] For some reason in my head, I thought you've been around for longer than that.
[5:51] Yeah.
[5:51] I don't know why.
[5:52] No, it feels like a lifetime for me.
[5:54] Wow.
[5:55] But we went on stage and went, let's just trick them.
[5:57] Let's just act like we're doing the best show that's ever been done.
[6:00] Oh, like full confidence.
[6:02] Yeah.
[6:02] Like, how good are we?
[6:04] And we just did that for an hour and people got on board.
[6:07] That is so – that explains so much of what you guys do.
[6:11] Yeah.
[6:11] Because so much of it is this sort of like false bravado.
[6:14] Yes.
[6:14] Because you guys are the least –
[6:17] toxic masculine people, but you kind of bring this kind of like false bravado to it, which makes it so funny.
[6:24] And you have full belief in the most, I think it's like full belief in the silliest ideas.
[6:28] Yeah.
[6:29] And it's just- Full commitment.
[6:30] Yeah.
[6:30] Full commitment.
[6:31] It's hilarious.
[6:32] Do you have a bit that you've done, which is like on YouTube or whatever, that is your favorite that you look back on and just think that-
[6:39] What's going on the gravestone?
[6:41] There's a sketch... What link?
[6:42] There's a sketch we did.
[6:45] When you die.
[6:49] What VR experience are you putting on that?
[6:51] Yeah, exactly.
[6:52] Very early on...
[6:57] I rang Zach or something and we just, I just, he rang me actually and just said, I want you to go to your front door.
[7:06] There's a little surprise there.
[7:07] And so I went to the front and there was nothing there.
[7:08] And we just started to do a riff that just kept saying like, you know, the Ellen thing where like you open a door or something, there's a car outside for you.
[7:16] We just kept doing that.
[7:16] It was just a fun conversation.
[7:18] And I wrote down, like, that's really funny.
[7:20] And it was one of the first times we wrote a good sketch, I think, which is just the idea that I was sitting on stage.
[7:24] I was Ellen.
[7:28] someone to tell them they'd won a prize and every time it got to the point where they were winning the prize it starts with a car and then I'm like hop in the car and it's like how's it feels good now open the glove box and what is it oh it's a check for 100 grand and then just kept going becomes like a heist and it's all done through imagination and off stage I think that's the best thing and like
[7:47] It's really comforting to know with comedy when on stage that you can just go to something that will work.
[7:53] Yes.
[7:53] I mean, that's a really good point.
[7:56] And also there's the three of you obviously on stage and there's like more of you, there's like six of you, is it six of you in the full team?
[8:04] But often, like even just you talking about that, like often in comedy, this is just in my experience, watching comedy, I often watch it and I think,
[8:15] is that really the funniest joke you could have come up with?
[8:18] Because I feel like that's like, I don't believe that all of you felt that was hilarious in the writer's room.
[8:24] But then watching your stuff on stage or in the new show as well, in Auntie Donna's Coffee Cafe on Ivy, you watch it and you're like, oh, this is like obviously a team of people who can compliment each other enough to get to that point.
[8:40] Yeah.
[8:41] There was this really good interview I once heard with Seth MacFarlane who created Family Guy.
[8:47] And someone was asking him because the type of jokes that Family Guy were doing when they first started were quite different, you know, different than The Simpsons at least and different than a lot of things.
[8:57] And he said, oh, well, the rule we have in the writer's room is, you know, because I'd worked in writer's rooms before, he said, you know, and often you'd come up with a joke and everyone would laugh and be like, oh, that's good.
[9:09] But then like naturally, the writers would keep adding on jokes and it would escalate and escalate and escalate to this point where it was like either really wrong or really off context.
[9:20] Like it was just didn't belong in the story.
[9:23] And everyone's pissing themselves at this like escalated joke.
[9:26] But in most shows you go, well, that we can't put that in the show.
[9:29] It's friends.
[9:30] So let's bring it back to this joke that makes sense.
[9:33] But he said the rule on Family Guy is we always do the escalated joke.
[9:38] And that's what Aunty Donna feels like.
[9:40] Our writing room, we've been told is very different to other writing rooms.
[9:43] And it sounds very similar to what you were just talking about there is we –
[9:48] when we're making a new show or making a new TV show, a TV show or a live show, the goal is to build on everyone's idea.
[9:57] And even if, you know, people are at their most timid and most vulnerable when they're bringing an idea that they like, or they, maybe they think there's something there that I'm, that I think is good.
[10:10] And to, in that moment to shut that down is so toxic and crippling.
[10:14] Yeah.
[10:15] And, uh,
[10:16] So we kind of have this unwritten rule that's kind of unspoken really that when we're doing that round table and you bring an idea, we're going to sit in it for five, ten minutes.
[10:24] And a lot of that might be silence and it might be just thinking and it might be saying the wrong journey.
[10:30] But there's kind of this rule that we're going to sit and think in it because it's mutually beneficial.
[10:35] It encourages that person who's brought the idea to it.
[10:39] keep bringing ideas, but then 95% of the time, if you sit in an idea through the awkwardness, it gets somewhere and gets to something cool.
[10:48] I mean, that is, I mean, it really is.
[10:50] And I would never have thought this before we did this podcast, but that, that a really good writer's room is a really vulnerable space.
[10:58] And it's like scary because it relies on everyone.
[11:01] Yeah.
[11:01] Just being open and accepting of everything you say, even if it seems wrong.
[11:07] It's scary to put an idea out there.
[11:09] And they're not often like that.
[11:12] Often they're a bit of a, you know, there's a culture of...
[11:17] even with comedy is like if something goes wrong is to laugh and make fun on, on that thing, because it's all a comedic, you know, you're trying to look for laughs and that's often the easiest place to go for a laugh is like the self deprecating or shooting someone down, but it is, it's not good.
[11:31] It's not, it's not helpful.
[11:32] And if you can get, if you can get past the awkwardness and sit in the, in the challenge or the conflict of that, it's so, so valuable.
[11:40] That's where the best moments come from.
[11:41] So who came up with the real estate agents?
[11:43] Because I think it's been viewed 50 million times and I reckon I'm nearly half of them.
[11:49] By you, yeah.
[11:51] So that, I believe that was all done during COVID and it was just a, we were like, we all hate them.
[11:57] We're all in our early thirties and none of us own houses and we all get kicked out of our rentals every two years.
[12:05] And it was pretty instinctive.
[12:06] Like that was a pretty – sometimes sketches are written in 30 seconds and you don't need to go any further than that.
[12:12] Because you're trying to create the smallest journey between your idea and your audience and feeling connection.
[12:20] The further you have to go, sometimes the harder it is.
[12:22] But it's pretty simple.
[12:23] Am I allowed to swear on this?
[12:24] Yeah, yeah.
[12:25] You know, a real estate agent is a cunt and everything else around that is kind of –
[12:29] I had to get it.
[12:30] I'm trying to buy a house at the moment.
[12:31] I had to get a buyer advocate because every time I walked into an open house.
[12:35] Oh, yeah.
[12:36] You're not getting this house.
[12:38] You can't go into cafes.
[12:39] You can't buy houses.
[12:43] That's hilarious.
[12:44] I mean, was there a chance that when you were writing that real estate sketch or performing it, it was like, is this funny or just true?
[12:51] Yeah, it was a bit of both.
[12:54] Because I think it came out of the idea of,
[12:58] Real estate agents are starting to put their toe into the world of media and good film quality.
[13:04] They've got their steady cams.
[13:05] They've got really nice cameras.
[13:08] It's about them.
[13:09] Often you don't even – like on these videos on the websites, you don't even go through the house for like a minute because the guys are like, my name's John, welcome to my house, beautiful part of the world, great driveway, I'm a real estate agent, have been for 15 years.
[13:23] Why don't we –
[13:26] Why don't we hop inside and have a look and take it?
[13:28] And then you're like, show me the ensuite, please.
[13:31] I have noticed there's now a slow-mo often of the real estate agent walking through the house.
[13:35] Like, why are we seeing that?
[13:36] Getting out of the car or something.
[13:37] The higher the – because when you look at $20 million houses for fun, the bigger the price, the more they talk.
[13:46] If it's a 300 grand house and it's like, you know, old Kent Road on Monopoly, they're like, come on, quick, let's look.
[13:53] They don't want to really put their face to that one.
[13:57] Yeah, it's a lounge room, normal lounge room.
[14:01] Yes, well, we'll link to that agent sketch, but also your show, Auntie Donna's Coffee Cafe, which is an incredible just example of all that stuff we were just talking about with...
[14:13] ABC and iview.
[14:15] It's so funny.
[14:16] So good.
[14:17] But vulnerability house.
[14:20] This is, Broden, you've come on a very exciting day.
[14:22] We have for years we've been using unlicensed bluey cards and putting post-it notes on them.
[14:30] But now...
[14:31] For the first time, and you are the first person to use them, we have our own imperfect vulnerability house cards.
[14:39] They are extremely premium.
[14:40] They are.
[14:41] Can I say that?
[14:42] Yes, you can.
[14:42] This whole experience has been premium, can I say.
[14:45] The only thing you're missing now is like your own signature tea.
[14:49] Well, yeah, that would be nice too.
[14:51] Yeah.
[14:52] But this is beautiful.
[14:53] I'm just getting a nice shot there for the camera.
[14:54] Thank you.
[14:55] Thank you.
[14:56] A little house on there.
[14:57] If you could just give that a quick endorsement, actually, that would be really handy.
[15:00] When I'm getting vulnerable cards, I choose...
[15:04] I choose the imperfects for my cards.
[15:07] Just down the barrel.
[15:08] When I'm picking cards that have vulnerable questions on them, I choose the imperfects every day of the week.
[15:16] Thanks, Broden.
[15:16] It's nice.
[15:17] And they feel good in your hand.
[15:19] They do.
[15:19] We chose the matte finish, which stoked about.
[15:22] Good stocking stuffer.
[15:24] Yeah, well, I guess it is, now that you mention it.
[15:28] But yes, anyway, enough of that.
[15:31] Broden, how this works, you may or may not know, but you pick top three cards, and those three cards will have questions on them that may invoke some form of vulnerability, maybe a story or a memory of yours from your life.
[15:46] You could choose one of those three.
[15:47] If you read them out as you pick them out and choose the one that speaks to you, if none of them speak to you, then you can just keep picking until one...
[15:54] is good and if I get draw four if you get draw four then you have to you have to do four vulnerability okay great okay I forgot the first three okay do I read them all out yeah great what insecurities have held you back hmm
[16:08] What character traits do you worry people will see in you?
[16:12] And in what ways do you fear you could negatively impact your children?
[16:17] So I'd like to talk about that one.
[16:20] Right.
[16:21] Straight up.
[16:22] Yeah, I don't have children.
[16:26] But I do have a dog that I just got and he's got one eye.
[16:30] Oh.
[16:31] So that's all I want to say about that.
[16:32] Okay.
[16:33] Good answer.
[16:34] Knock it on the head.
[16:35] What insecurities have held you back?
[16:37] You don't have to answer all of them.
[16:38] You just choose one.
[16:38] Yeah.
[16:38] And what character traits do you worry people will see in you?
[16:40] I'll talk about what character traits do you worry people will see in you.
[16:43] I'm sad putting down the other cards because they're so premium.
[16:46] Oh, yeah.
[16:47] They'll still be there.
[16:48] Yeah.
[16:49] That's true.
[16:50] Okay.
[16:50] So read that again.
[16:51] What character traits do you worry people will see in you?
[16:55] Okay.
[16:58] That's been – this question is like the journey of my creative writing professional adult career.
[17:04] Wow.
[17:05] Good pick.
[17:05] Yeah.
[17:07] Because essentially we're talking about the vulnerability of writing and sharing a room with people and being vulnerable and being honest.
[17:18] I've become an adult writer.
[17:21] in Aunty Donna and learning to write and learning to collaborate with people.
[17:26] And, um, it's something that always comes back to me is like, you know, you have those days where you're like, well, um, I'm,
[17:34] did I say the right thing today?
[17:36] Have I behaved in the right way?
[17:37] And it comes from a very vulnerable place for me of talking about anger and how I have expressed myself from the start of my career to where I am now.
[17:48] And it's a story of journey for me.
[17:52] Yeah.
[17:52] Wow.
[17:54] Okay.
[17:54] So when you say story of journey, do you mean like just growth and how you've grown and changed?
[18:00] I started making comedy...
[18:03] when I was maybe 21 and I hadn't... You hadn't done any comedy before that?
[18:08] No, just performing.
[18:09] I'd always wanted to, but never thought I would have the chance to, or like the skills to, or the guts to, to be honest as well.
[18:15] But you know, that thing about, I think Dil talked about it on yours, is when the more painful thing is to not do it than to do it.
[18:23] Yeah.
[18:24] And yeah, so the first time I'd ever been creative or written was in Aunty Donna.
[18:29] Do you mind if I ask who were the people you admired and looked up to when you were a kid?
[18:35] My North Pole, or the thing I'm always looking towards, is Santa.
[18:41] No.
[18:43] My North Star is Lane on Woodley.
[18:47] I just thought everything they did was fantastic and wonderful.
[18:49] The way they worked in a group, the way that they were childish and fun.
[18:52] And also...
[18:54] To sidebar their career trajectory.
[18:57] So they did live shows until they had a TV show, and I thought, that's the way you do it.
[19:01] And our journey's been very, very different to that, despite the fact we now have a show on the ABC, but it's taken a really long time.
[19:08] But so when I started writing...
[19:11] And creating, I was learning everything on the fly.
[19:14] And I was so afraid the whole time of being bad, being, you know, the imposter syndrome.
[19:21] And for years of writing and collaborating with people, I was an angry little boy.
[19:28] Oh, wow.
[19:29] So this is before you met Mark and Zach?
[19:31] This is before?
[19:32] Yeah, I knew them from uni, but...
[19:35] The thing you also learn when you work in a team or work in a group is there's a difference between friends and work colleagues or teammates or collaborators.
[19:45] They're two very different things.
[19:47] And often making a friendship turn into…
[19:52] a work relationship is the best way to kill it.
[19:56] As in to kill the friendship.
[19:57] Yeah, that's right.
[19:58] Because your friendships are about, you know, seeing the best in people and a holiday from your work or a holiday from whatever you need.
[20:09] And if you take your friends and make them, you're talking about cash flow and paying rent on an office or, you know,
[20:18] and disagreeing on things, that will eventually fatigue you.
[20:23] The times, because everyone gets busy, and so the few times you have to see each other, you don't have any choice but to talk about work.
[20:31] You can't just hang out.
[20:32] Yeah, no, exactly right.
[20:33] And so you kind of lose your friends.
[20:34] The last thing that us guys want to do now is go and hang out together because we see each other Monday to Friday, 9 to 5.
[20:41] And that's fine.
[20:45] The work relationship I now have with the people in my group is closer to brothers and siblings than anything else.
[20:52] And I mean that in the whole sense is that you know each other very deeply.
[20:58] You know what annoys them.
[21:00] You know what they love.
[21:01] You know what their strengths and weaknesses are.
[21:04] You know that you can have a fight with them and it's going to be fine.
[21:07] Um, it's just, it's a different thing.
[21:09] And, um, when, and often you see, you see bands and things fall apart because they never really engage with that transition from friends to business partners almost.
[21:19] But in my early years, I never really, never went to therapy.
[21:25] never engaged with how I was behaving.
[21:27] And so it was almost like I was primitively working through how to communicate and learn with people.
[21:33] So over the last decade, it's been me learning how to be a person who works well collaboratively.
[21:41] The main thing that used to happen is working from fear and working from a place of fear.
[21:47] So, and that's my main lesson that I teach a bit at uni now to young writers and creators.
[21:53] And the main thing I try and tell people is not to work from fear, which is what I did in the early years.
[21:58] So what did that look like as far as working from fear?
[22:00] What would you do?
[22:02] So if I have an idea that I really like and I think it's going to be great in the show and it's going to make the show better and you have an opposing idea...
[22:11] My instinct would be if we don't do my idea that I know is going to work, it's going to make the show worse.
[22:17] The show is going to go bad.
[22:19] It's going to be horrible.
[22:21] No one's going to come see it.
[22:22] It's all going to blow up.
[22:25] So I'm working from fear there.
[22:26] So in that moment, what I've learned, it took me 10 years to do this, is that I was working from a place of fear.
[22:34] And when people are in that fight, flight, freeze situation, I was going to fight every moment.
[22:41] So instead of going, let's try your idea out or let's find a middle ground, I would go to getting angry and getting pissed off and shouting people down and everything like that.
[22:49] Like defending your idea.
[22:51] Yeah.
[22:51] And never really learnt for a very long time that that was the wrong way to go about it.
[22:56] It was damaging to situations, damaging to creativity.
[23:00] It took me until I was 29 years old.
[23:03] I was playing in a basketball game on a Monday night.
[23:07] Like just a social game.
[23:10] And I was driving home and my glasses were fogging up because I'd gotten so mad in the game.
[23:15] At referees.
[23:16] And I was like, why am I like this?
[23:20] Why am I doing this?
[23:22] And I'd always been against therapy.
[23:25] I don't know why, but I was like, I don't need that.
[23:27] And finally, just went and did it and learned very...
[23:30] It took me like two sessions to realize that I could fix it and I didn't have to work like that.
[23:36] You weren't trapped by it.
[23:37] Yeah, that I wasn't trapped by it.
[23:39] And as soon as I did that, the way I've worked has been so much better is this...
[23:45] If you're in a moment and you're genuinely panicked or worried, instead of going to that aggression, just taking a moment, thinking about it, and also just letting things go.
[23:56] If someone's passionate about something, letting them have that.
[23:59] And often you think you're in a moment of conflict where it's do or die, and it's very rarely the case.
[24:07] It's almost like it's because, I mean, I have no idea what you're talking about.
[24:13] But it's almost like you realize that, oh, mate, even though, of course, you know, we're not psychopaths, so we don't actually think that we're always right.
[24:20] Yes.
[24:21] But there is, in the heat of the moment, you do think you're so certain that you're right.
[24:26] Yeah.
[24:27] And then the fear is that, well, if I'm wrong about this, then that's terrifying because I'm so certain of it.
[24:35] So even to open the door for someone else to suggest something different, it's like that feeling of your mind starts going...
[24:42] hang on a second, I think this other idea is better.
[24:45] Yeah.
[24:45] Then you kind of start fighting it and you start going like, no, no, no, no, no, no, it can't be.
[24:50] I must be, my idea must be better because I'm, otherwise I'm an imposter.
[24:56] Otherwise I shouldn't be here.
[24:57] We all, I think we're all guilty sometimes if you start a conversation or a disagreement about one thing
[25:03] and then just slowly becomes a philosophical battle that's not actually about that core thing you're talking about.
[25:10] No, I stand for this, and you're not going to win on this chance.
[25:13] This time, you're not going to win.
[25:16] You may very well agree with the opposing opinion, but it's just gone so far that you're like, I can't agree with this.
[25:22] So, yeah, and I think it's about the ability to be conscious in a moment and really be aware of what you're saying and what you're trying to say and what's happening in a room
[25:30] I think a lot of that just comes with age, but just staying calm and not too hot about it.
[25:37] So was the anger an issue?
[25:40] So I can understand how it comes to the surface professionally when you're hell-bent on an idea.
[25:44] Yeah.
[25:45] And also having played social basketball, I feel like I see how – Yeah.
[25:49] I ended up stopping playing because I realized it was a place where men went and took out their anger from their life on 14-year-old girls trying to umpire a game of basketball.
[25:57] Yeah.
[25:58] And so I feel like that's a common area for it to come up as well.
[26:00] But was it also infiltrating other areas of your life, like personal relationships, the anger?
[26:04] Or was it more just confined to professional?
[26:08] No, like anger across, I never got to the place where I was, you know, aggressive to the point of like really bad.
[26:14] But just stopped interesting conversations, stopped honesty, stopped people coming into my lane and on the road.
[26:23] Yeah.
[26:25] Yeah, it just stopped.
[26:27] But the biggest thing it did for me is just stopped me feeling well and coming back to this idea of I spent so much time in my day worrying about what I'd said that day.
[26:37] Right.
[26:38] I don't know if that resonates, but the idea of I said something real prickish at 11 this morning and then I got home and go, why did I say that?
[26:45] That's so awful.
[26:46] And sometimes when you say the wrong thing at the wrong time, it doesn't matter if you apologize, the damage has been done.
[26:52] And so for a large part of my 20s, a lot of my time was spent at home going –
[26:56] Why did I talk like that and being so conscious of always coming home and saying, have I behaved the right way today?
[27:03] And not knowing that – and not having the skills to be able to catch myself in the moment or catch myself before it gets to that thing.
[27:12] The main thing I learned just from a really cool, you know, bulk build therapist was just the daily check-ins and like getting to your number every day of today –
[27:25] when was I at my most stressed or anxious?
[27:27] That was the main thing he taught me is I came and said, I'm too angry.
[27:30] I'm angry all the time.
[27:32] And he went, and then we talked for a while.
[27:34] And don't you fucking disagree with me.
[27:37] And he was, yeah.
[27:38] And he, the main thing is,
[27:42] Your problem is not anger.
[27:42] Your problem is anxiety.
[27:45] And the way you react to anxiety is aggression.
[27:49] And so you need to start thinking about your anxiety as opposed to your anger and marking moments when you are at your most anxious.
[27:57] So when I came home every day, I'd just mark, when was I at my most anxious today and what number was it?
[28:03] And how did you respond?
[28:04] As in like out of 10 or whatever?
[28:05] Yeah, out of 10.
[28:06] Okay, yeah.
[28:07] And...
[28:09] Just that daily check-in.
[28:10] I've had it with different things as well.
[28:11] I remember at drama school, I had a bad voice and I was like, and the voice teacher's not helping.
[28:18] And then I had this thing click.
[28:20] I was like, well, she's saying if I do it every day, it will help.
[28:24] And so I was like, well, I'll do it so I can say that she's wrong and then it very much helped.
[28:29] And there was a real switch in my head where I went, oh, if I work at something regularly,
[28:34] even if it doesn't seem to make sense now, it probably will help.
[28:37] Yeah.
[28:39] And you can't knock something until you've genuinely given it a go.
[28:42] It's a beautiful message and lesson around like your mental health is the same.
[28:46] You want to have good mental health, you also need to work at that.
[28:48] Yes, exactly.
[28:49] And even though it might not make sense at the start of the journey, you've still got to give it a crack because there's a good chance it probably will.
[28:56] So just in that group with your Aunty Donna group or whichever creative collaboration...
[29:04] Because that is, it's such a hot pot in a group of, in a creative situation where, especially in your 20s.
[29:14] And like, you know, I've been in groups of friends that make stuff together.
[29:19] And it is, it's, I think one of the reasons it's so tough is because the reason that you start doing it is because it'll be fun.
[29:29] And so there's this expectation of like...
[29:32] If we're not having fun, then people start getting annoyed.
[29:36] It's like, well, you're not making it fun.
[29:38] You're taking it too seriously.
[29:40] Let's just have fun because that's what we signed up for.
[29:43] And then all of a sudden, if you get a little bit of success, the stakes rise a little bit.
[29:47] And it's like, okay, there's a little bit of skin in the game now.
[29:50] Stakes rise.
[29:51] And even though you're still forcing this fun, you're trying to have fun.
[29:56] you also have to take it seriously for the first time.
[29:59] And then maybe it becomes more serious and more serious until you're on stage in front of about to do a thousand people venue or something.
[30:06] And you're like, shit.
[30:08] I mean, obviously have fun, but guys, this has got to be good.
[30:12] I'm going to quote a tweet I saw once that I can't credit, but it was something like, you know, this is where we've gotten to.
[30:19] At Kirstie.
[30:20] I think it was Donald Trump.
[30:22] No, the quote is something like, you know the original quote, do what you love and you'll never work a day in your life.
[30:29] I saw a quote that was like, do what you love and the line will blur between your happiness and your work and you'll never truly know what joy is because you'll always be stressed about what you love and you won't know your identity.
[30:41] There's something along those lines.
[30:42] That is just...
[30:43] Yeah, bullseye.
[30:45] We're in this sort of generation where people are more open to go and pursue what they love.
[30:49] My parents were both, I think, struggling and conflicted artists who never got the chance to go and genuinely do what they love and have a good crack at it.
[30:59] And so me and my brother are the results of go and do what you want.
[31:03] Finances, be damned.
[31:04] Yeah.
[31:06] Yeah, the idea of pursuing what you love, it's nothing more vulnerable because what you're genuinely saying is here is myself.
[31:15] Here I am.
[31:17] And also going back to what you're kind of selling as a group is, look at, come be our friend.
[31:24] Well, you guys particularly.
[31:26] Yeah.
[31:26] I mean, I worked with Haymes and Andy, obviously, and that's exactly the same for them.
[31:30] It's like they're – it's selling a friendship.
[31:33] Yes.
[31:33] And so it's like for you guys, you've got to be –
[31:36] you have to be really having the best time of your lives every night on stage.
[31:41] Yeah.
[31:42] Even if you've just had this really big disagreement.
[31:44] Yeah.
[31:44] An hour before.
[31:45] And, um,
[31:47] We've all been on maybe a Bucks night or a holiday where it's outstayed, it's welcome.
[31:56] And it's just truth.
[31:57] Even your best mates, you can't be around them forever.
[32:00] Friendships are sort of defined by a holiday or a resort.
[32:04] So there was, I think, genuinely a point where we were running on...
[32:09] the vibes of being around each other and we had to shift to like, how do we capture the great moments and share them?
[32:16] And, uh, so, so with it was, can you remember a time like in the auntie Donna history, uh, where you've had, you've got a show coming up and it's like a sold out show and you, you know, I've, I've seen your shows.
[32:29] So it's like, you are like having the time of your lives.
[32:32] You love each other.
[32:33] You're so supportive of each other on stage.
[32:35] But is there a time where you've had to do that on stage, but moments before there's been a blow up?
[32:40] Like Edinburgh's are the boot camp of comedy.
[32:43] So in one of the biggest festivals in the world is the Edinburgh Fringe Festival.
[32:48] And it's where you go to be made and comedians go there and you do Melbourne comedy festivals pretty hard.
[32:53] You do 22 shows with three nights off in it and you get completely fatigued by the end of it.
[32:59] But Edinburgh is 26 nights, one night off, and you're doing it to three people a night.
[33:03] So you spend the whole day out flyering, begging middle-aged Scottish people to come see this show that they're not going to like.
[33:10] You're like, please, come set.
[33:13] And you might get it to like 15 ticket sales.
[33:16] And you're like, great, that's enough.
[33:18] And then you do the show, it goes okay.
[33:19] You wake up the next day, you've got two pre-sales for tonight.
[33:21] You've got to do it all again.
[33:22] And you hope that builds and everything.
[33:24] And it really is altitude training for comedy in festivals.
[33:27] And it's something to do in your 20s.
[33:29] I remember the first one we did, Celia Bacola said to me, you're going to cry.
[33:34] You're going to cry.
[33:35] And I was like, I don't know, it's just comedy.
[33:37] She's like, you'll be crying by, I reckon, the mid-Monday of the festival.
[33:41] And totally the case, like just in tears after a show, just completely fatigued and broken down by the whole process.
[33:47] Because people weren't coming and you're working so hard.
[33:49] Yeah, and just like...
[33:51] It's such a vulnerable thing and you're bearing yourself every night, even though it's just stupid jokes about, you know, Ellen or whatever.
[33:57] Yeah.
[33:58] You are bearing yourself every night and getting good reviews and bad reviews.
[34:02] And it eventually just takes its toll.
[34:04] And as a group, we share the most wonderful moments and the worst moments.
[34:10] And you learn about each other in all those moments.
[34:12] We had a phone call.
[34:13] This is a nice moment.
[34:14] We had a tour through the US that was really hard, really long, really challenged us all mentally, and we saw the best and worst of each other.
[34:22] At the start of the tour, we...
[34:27] We pitched to Netflix and then went on tour after pitching the TV show and did it around.
[34:32] And some shows were empty and some shows were good.
[34:34] But by the end, we're just absolutely wrecked.
[34:37] And we got back two weeks later and got a phone call like, yeah, they're giving you six episodes of a TV show.
[34:43] And you've got to move to America in a few weeks.
[34:46] And that's just a microcosm of… That's how it always happens.
[34:51] The great moments.
[34:51] Like, it's a… Yes, exactly.
[34:54] After 13 years.
[34:55] Yeah.
[34:56] It's a rollercoaster relationship.
[34:57] It's like a really intense relationship where, like, you're seeing these moments where you're just at your absolute lowest and then a few days later, your absolute highest.
[35:05] Um, and like there's so much, you need to just work with just so much care for one another.
[35:12] And even when you don't understand where someone's coming from, you just kind of have to accept it and understand it and appreciate that they're saying that for a reason.
[35:18] So like if someone says, I, um, I just can't do the show tonight or I can't, or I can't make it today, even though whatever that means, you've just got to be okay with it and be as compassionate as possible.
[35:30] But that, I think now we can all say that, but I feel like for me, speaking for myself, in my 20s, I wasn't doing that.
[35:38] If your career's on the line every time there's a little moment, it's huge stakes.
[35:43] It's Cliffhanger with Sylvester Stallone every time you... Yeah.
[35:49] That's exactly right.
[35:50] Now that we're kind of in a place where we feel a bit more comfortable, it's easier to have those conversations, thankfully.
[35:55] But when you're in the moment and every decision is do or die, it's intense.
[36:03] But I think even in those moments, it's even more important.
[36:06] Yeah.
[36:07] God, yeah.
[36:07] I was kind of struck by, I'm going back a bit here, but the thing you were talking about with writing or coming from a place of fear, and I think Ryan sort of touched on it a little bit and we sort of got a little bit into it, but I'm really fascinated about how this interacts with what you're talking about there.
[36:23] So to what degree was the fear, because of you coming to writing comedy a little bit later and coming from the acting background, and I hope this isn't too pointed, but to what degree do you think the fear was related to fear that I'm actually not good at this?
[36:37] Yeah, entirely.
[36:39] My whole career is based on chip on shoulder, proving people wrong, and tricking people into thinking that I belong here.
[36:49] Yeah, okay.
[36:50] That's the two pillars of my teens and 20s.
[36:55] There's people in the back of my head who I'm still trying to show.
[36:58] Show them like my maths teacher in year nine.
[37:00] I'm going to show you, mate.
[37:03] And that's a lot to carry.
[37:08] it's all built on anxiety of showing people that I'm inadequate.
[37:12] Yeah.
[37:14] Particularly very early on in our career, there was four of us.
[37:18] And the third one, the fourth one, the fourth one left too because he didn't see where it could go and just wanted to do other things, which is completely valid.
[37:28] But...
[37:29] after he left, there was a real mentality of, this is going to work, whether I die doing it or not.
[37:36] It's almost like you wanted to prove to that person.
[37:39] And to myself as well, because I think before that it was more of a casual get-together, do some rehearsals, maybe this will go well.
[37:46] And it shifted from...
[37:47] When we were doing it, it was like, we'll rehearse a few days a week.
[37:51] Some people are doing uni.
[37:52] Some people are doing this.
[37:53] This is something that will probably fade out in a few years if it doesn't crack off.
[37:57] If one of our shows just doesn't get an award and someone rings up and gives us a TV show, this will probably fade out.
[38:05] And I remember us being in 22, 23 and going, when he left, going...
[38:12] this has to work now.
[38:14] So no days off, work a crappy job three days a week, spend four days full-time for no money making this work, and it's going to work.
[38:26] And that's encased with so much anxiety and stress because at any moment you're constantly thinking, what am I doing right now to...
[38:37] to further the group.
[38:38] Yeah.
[38:39] And, but it's a double-edged sword because I don't think I'd be here unless I treated it like that.
[38:44] Yeah.
[38:45] So I, I, yeah, I don't know that there's probably a great analogy for it, but my biggest strength is my biggest weakness in that the fervor and the drive and the, that the anxiety and the anger to do things is why I'm here.
[38:58] But also when it turns it's, it's completely toxic and, and unworkable.
[39:03] Did you think that's the reason why you do it at all?
[39:07] Yeah.
[39:08] Like, as far as, like, to... Like, what is, like, the true motivator of you doing any of this?
[39:19] When I was about...
[39:20] I'm talking about my early 20s a lot, but when...
[39:24] I lost my job at the MCG because I couldn't show up enough because I was doing Aunty Donna.
[39:30] I had to get on Centrelink and you have to go and do jobs.
[39:33] Yeah.
[39:34] And I kept applying for jobs and none of them were working.
[39:38] And then I got a trial shift at a cheese factory.
[39:44] Yeah.
[39:46] It sounds like the start of a bit you did.
[39:50] It could have been.
[39:50] I was like, maybe I'll be a cheese guy.
[39:52] Maybe I'll make comedy a few days a week and then I'll go and make fresh artisanal cheese.
[39:57] It's just Tom Green.
[39:58] It just reminds me of a cheese sandwich factory.
[40:02] So they were, all right, so stand here and you're going to make burrata.
[40:06] which was when you get the mozzarella, I think, and then you tie it into a little bag.
[40:11] Yeah.
[40:11] So my job was to get the warm burrata skin and tie that into a knot and put it in a thing.
[40:19] And I just couldn't do it.
[40:21] Yeah.
[40:21] I didn't have the capability of doing it.
[40:23] Wow.
[40:23] And it was like six-year-old ladies around me just going to town, doing like 20, and I was struggling to get the not done on one.
[40:31] And I was like – and then they're like, at lunchtime, you can go.
[40:35] They fired you.
[40:36] Yeah, and they gave me 50 bucks.
[40:37] I'm like, thanks for the trail.
[40:38] Have a good one.
[40:39] I was like, yeah.
[40:41] And I remember sitting in this farm –
[40:44] in my car looking at a cow going, I'm stuffed if I can't make this work.
[40:50] Like I can't do anything else.
[40:52] This is the only thing I'm good at.
[40:54] And you often hear that.
[40:55] As in performing.
[40:55] Yeah.
[40:56] Writing comedies is the only thing that's ever...
[40:59] ever garnered any sort of positive feedback on me.
[41:02] Everything else was mediocre at best.
[41:04] And I was like, if I can't make this work, I'm going to be miserable for the rest of my life.
[41:08] So do you look at that as a good memory?
[41:11] Is it a positive memory?
[41:11] It is for me, yeah, because it was a real, it was really clear, a real moment of clarity where I went,
[41:17] This is my best chance at having a fulfilling, nice life where what I do is valuable to people.
[41:24] And it was just one of those moments where I was like, because I remember that morning thinking, I could just be a cheese guy who does comedy for fun.
[41:30] And then by the end of the day, I was like, no, I need to make, I can eat cheese whenever I want.
[41:35] I can buy the cheese, but I'll need to find a way to make this comedy thing financially viable.
[41:40] So I can afford the cheese.
[41:41] That's right.
[41:41] Yeah.
[41:41] So some nice cheeses.
[41:44] So, I've never felt the ability to do anything else is what I'm saying.
[41:48] It's always been the thing that I think people value in me.
[41:53] Have you ever had feedback that your anger was a problem to the group?
[41:58] Yeah.
[41:58] Totally.
[42:00] Without getting into it too much because I don't want to betray relationships and everything like that.
[42:05] I don't mind if you betray.
[42:07] Yeah, no, that's good.
[42:08] That's good.
[42:09] In fact, I insist.
[42:11] I think it's often the case with men is we'll wait for someone to come and tell us that there's a problem.
[42:15] Actually, not just men, anyone.
[42:17] We'll often wait for someone to come and…
[42:19] do that awful thing where they have to confront us and say, what you're doing is unacceptable.
[42:24] Rather than do the sort of harder work.
[42:25] And then be going to come and say, hey, sorry about today.
[42:27] I really regret doing that.
[42:29] Or there's moments where I've needed to do it with other people as well, not just in the group, but in the world.
[42:36] It's a hard thing to do, but it's so, so important.
[42:39] So I've been sat down and told that how I behave negatively affects people.
[42:44] I'm proud to say that I learned and responded and reacted to that.
[42:50] Was that a shock when someone told you or were you kind of aware of it?
[42:53] It was one of those, you know, I think for a lot of people, you're like, here it comes.
[42:56] I know what this is going to be about.
[42:58] And you're just sort of going along hoping that no one ever brings it up.
[43:02] And it's just kind of...
[43:03] It's not as bad as you think.
[43:04] Okay, yeah.
[43:05] So I'm really grateful that I have been confronted about it because...
[43:11] I kind of mark one particular moment, um, as the moment that I started to be a better collaborator, better partner, better friend, better person for myself.
[43:21] Like I, it was when I started to be able to go home, leave how I behaved at work at work, feel okay about it, go to the movies, like go to the gym, feel okay about myself.
[43:32] And as soon as I was fully open and,
[43:36] vulnerable about it.
[43:37] I just...
[43:38] It made me... As I entered my 30s, it made me feel so much better and balanced and happier.
[43:43] And did it help approaching just like general relationships like that?
[43:47] Did it help the writing process with everyone?
[43:51] 100% for me.
[43:51] I think it was...
[43:52] Yeah, so you can see if you look through our work, there's early years where our writing is not as great, but the energy's there, and then there's years where you can see the hard years where we're like, we need to make videos to sell the tour, to make the money to be the stars.
[44:11] And then there's a shift where all of a sudden,
[44:13] As a group, I think it just happened.
[44:15] We're all the same age and we're all going through the same things at the same time.
[44:17] There's a moment where we just go, oh, I think we really know who we all are now.
[44:21] I think we know what our strengths and weaknesses are.
[44:23] Let's take all our strengths from each other and laser focus them on things that are going to work.
[44:30] And we made...
[44:32] We made it, we made our best shows.
[44:34] We made our best music.
[44:36] TV shows started to happen.
[44:37] Tours became really positive.
[44:39] And more importantly, when didn't mean, mean everything was perfect, but when problems did come up, they were addressed in the right way.
[44:45] And, um, communication became better.
[44:48] Yeah.
[44:49] Um,
[44:50] I think there's the seven-year itch in relationships, but there's probably like the five or six-year itch in bands and groups, I think, where you go one or two ways and you either break up or you start to become really collaborative and work well.
[45:03] Because it's tough because it requires all three of you or all six of you to kind of have a similar approach.
[45:10] You all kind of have to be open to it to a certain degree.
[45:13] Because like in a brainstorming room, someone once said to me, it only takes one no.
[45:19] You can have six people saying, yeah, that's great.
[45:23] But if one person goes, I'm not sure, then for whatever reason, they win.
[45:27] Yeah.
[45:27] Like it's a weird way.
[45:29] Democracy doesn't really work in creativeness, does it?
[45:32] Because if one no, you really want to explore why that is a no.
[45:37] It's not what's five wins, is it?
[45:39] And it probably also has something to do with the fact that maybe in a group of people who aren't friends and are just working together, maybe the democracy then works.
[45:47] But when you're friends, if someone's saying no, then you really want to respect that person's no.
[45:52] It's like really disrespectful to go like, yeah, well, I know you don't like it, but we're doing it anyway.
[45:56] Yeah.
[45:56] Yes.
[45:57] And you want to explore why you would know because you wouldn't, if you have a good relationship, you wouldn't say no unless something was really up because most cases you go, oh, I don't quite agree, but I'm happy to go with it because you guys are so passionate about it.
[46:09] I know you really at least want to get someone to a place where they're okay with.
[46:12] not going the way they...
[46:14] Someone once said to me, you know, because I still do to a certain degree, but used to really hate brainstorming rooms, like kind of group think room things, like writer's room situations.
[46:27] What was that?
[46:28] Um, because I didn't feel like I was quick enough to be able to keep up, to be able to let my, the best of me get out.
[46:35] Right.
[46:36] Because it's like, if you're not quick in those rooms, then you just get left behind.
[46:39] Can be a fight.
[46:41] If, if the personality types go that way.
[46:43] But someone once said to me, um.
[46:47] people are not their ideas.
[46:50] Because I would always just get stuck on me being like, well, if you don't like my idea, then you're having a go at me, or you don't think I'm good.
[46:59] And I thought that for years, it was like, well, if I say an idea and it gets a bad response, then I would just negatively judge myself and my ability as a person.
[47:08] And I would often do that for other people.
[47:10] Like if someone in a group said an idea, I'd be like, oh, that's not good.
[47:14] And then I'd catch myself thinking they're not funny.
[47:17] But I know they are funny.
[47:19] So why am I thinking that?
[47:20] But then when this person told me people are not their ideas, I was able to separate what people think from who they are.
[47:26] And it was so freeing.
[47:27] That is a huge thing.
[47:29] Don't be attached to the results is something I come back to a lot.
[47:31] Don't be attached to the results.
[47:33] I find that really interesting because...
[47:36] I imagine, because I agree with you 100%, but I feel like when you're doing something that's creative and putting it out in the world, the results are also the thing that determines to a degree in your mind whether it's good or not.
[47:49] I don't understand when people say, I don't care what people think about this.
[47:52] I've made it and I'm proud of it.
[47:56] Particularly for comedy, it's all about a relationship with your audience.
[47:58] Yeah.
[47:59] Yeah.
[48:00] As you go on, though, what's been frustrating for me in more recent years with feedback from fans is, like, people associating what you do with a moment in their life and, like – Yeah.
[48:13] And not being able to –
[48:15] separate, you know, your last show, I was at this point in my life and I felt this and I like this about it.
[48:21] And now, now I'm different and you're different and it's your fault.
[48:26] I struggle with that.
[48:27] And as a creative, like there's a point where you're like, yes, I'm, I'm just, we're just making what we like.
[48:33] And I think our fan base is the biggest it's ever been.
[48:36] And most people give us the most positive feedback, but when someone says,
[48:41] It gives you that feedback on something you've worked so hard on.
[48:43] It hurts, particularly if it's done without much thought or this is good, this is bad.
[48:48] Because as a group, we talk about, we know that creativity is personal and what someone thinks is the best joke ever, someone else thinks is the worst thing ever.
[48:58] We understand that.
[48:59] But when someone is talking in a binary way that you're good or you're bad...
[49:04] Particularly a fan who has liked you who now doesn't like you or something like that.
[49:08] I struggle with that.
[49:09] Yeah.
[49:10] That would be particularly hard.
[49:11] But there's nothing you can do about it.
[49:13] All you can do is just not worry about it.
[49:16] But the thing that really helped me on that, you know, when I used to get really bothered if not everyone liked what I was doing.
[49:23] But then once I realized that all of the comedy that I've ever loved in my life...
[49:28] is definitely not for everyone.
[49:29] Yes, exactly.
[49:30] Like everything that I've ever really loved.
[49:33] There are some people who don't like Monty Python.
[49:35] Lots of people.
[49:35] I mean, people have told me they don't like Seinfeld or The Office or whatever, and I'm like, what?
[49:39] But then it's kind of liberating because it's like, oh.
[49:44] And like what you guys do, like Aunty Donna, it's like that is not for everyone.
[49:47] No.
[49:48] But if it's for you, it is really for you.
[49:51] Yeah, we had a moment the other day where it was a real like we've made it moment is we had a Batuta Advocate article written about us.
[49:58] That's huge.
[49:58] That's huge.
[49:59] I got tingles.
[50:01] But it's that like everything they do is done with like a tinge of pain to it.
[50:06] Where like, what was it?
[50:06] It was like...
[50:08] weird improv guy who makes weird noises excited for new Auntie Donna shows.
[50:13] And I was like, should I be offended?
[50:16] But it's like... Well, just so you know, I have you guys in a very similar folder in my head of like Auntie Donna, Baturavka, do something different, but at the same level of brilliance.
[50:28] Oh, that's nice.
[50:31] And aspirational type.
[50:32] Imagine being like an Auntie Donna or a Baturavka.
[50:34] You're very much in the same folder in my head.
[50:36] That's really nice, yeah.
[50:38] yeah that's really lovely um yeah when you're in it you don't really feel it and that's i think talking about imposter syndrome and there's so many moments in my life that i've had where i imagine something happening i go wouldn't that be incredible if that happened or and i have this i had this image i went to america when i was in in 2011 with a friend and i was in boston and i was i never traveled overseas before and um
[51:03] I saw a Starbucks and I had this whole – I played out this whole fantasy in my head of imagine when my comedy group gets started.
[51:09] We might do a show in Boston and we'll go and get a coffee from that Starbucks because we'll have jet lag.
[51:15] I just had this whole thing.
[51:18] I was like, we're on tour.
[51:19] And then 2017 it happened.
[51:22] Oh, that exact – I saw the – I was in Boston doing a show.
[51:27] I was up with jet lag and I walked past the Starbucks.
[51:31] It happened.
[51:32] That is weird.
[51:33] Isn't that crazy?
[51:34] That is crazy.
[51:36] I mean, I do play out those scenarios all the time.
[51:39] It is a weird thing.
[51:40] It's like this weird fantasy thing.
[51:43] Yeah.
[51:44] What was I talking about?
[51:45] I was talking about the idea of like I had these moments that like if I ever did them, they'd be incredible.
[51:50] And like you get to whatever level you're at and there's always someone who's doing better and it's really hard to separate from that.
[51:58] Yeah, I'm so happy that we've gotten to do what we did.
[52:02] It's taken so much hard work, but I'm so proud of – it's been hard at points.
[52:09] I talked about all the challenges and learning and growth in myself.
[52:11] But as I sit here, I'm just so, so proud.
[52:14] What do the other guys mean to you?
[52:17] Well, everything.
[52:19] We're about to take a long break.
[52:21] We haven't taken a long break.
[52:22] We're taking four months off, which we've never done.
[52:24] It's been little breaks here or there when we could to get this thing to where it is.
[52:28] And I was just thinking the other day, I'm really excited for it.
[52:31] In a loving way, I'm excited not to see them for four months and see how they are in four months.
[52:36] But then...
[52:37] Part of me is like, I talk to them about every stupid Marvel movie.
[52:40] I talk to them about, you know, we're constantly checking in.
[52:43] Most of my opinions are based off their opinions.
[52:46] My personality is based off, Zach's such a smart guy and he'll say something and that will inform my opinion on most things.
[52:53] How am I going to grow?
[52:54] Without them?
[52:58] Yeah.
[52:58] Like, they're a huge part of my life and they always will be.
[53:02] And there's always been this point that we'll go, Aunty Donna will end at some point.
[53:05] But I'm starting to think now that even if we never perform together again next week, they'll always be part of my life, whether we like it or not.
[53:15] And they'll always be a reunion to a company.
[53:17] Yeah.
[53:18] You've got to make that cash.
[53:19] Lane and Woodley broke up.
[53:20] I was like, they're broke up forever.
[53:23] Not true.
[53:23] No one ever is.
[53:25] Can I ask another question about the anger?
[53:26] Yes, please.
[53:27] Please.
[53:29] It's listening to the way you've talked about the growth of Aunty Donna and the sort of validation that you guys are good at what you do.
[53:37] And it's pretty clear that you're incredible at what you do.
[53:40] To what degree, and this might be an impossible question to answer, but to what degree do you think the anger subsiding is due to the success of Aunty Donna versus the therapy that you've taken?
[53:53] Yep.
[53:54] I think they're a bit of both.
[53:56] I think we wouldn't have grown if I had let it go We wouldn't be around.
[54:00] So it was something that needed to happen Wow to for the group to to continue to exist.
[54:06] Yeah Because if I kept fighting everyone every time they disagreed with me Then why would you stick around even if it was so successful and so positive?
[54:15] There's it's it's it's too hard and
[54:16] Or you'd stick around and it would just be hell.
[54:18] Yeah.
[54:19] And presumably the quality of the work wouldn't be as high either.
[54:22] And that great thing, Dil said that the pain, which pain is worse, you know, they would have, it would have outweighed, even though we had so many positive things happening, it would have just become too much.
[54:31] So...
[54:33] No, it needed to happen for myself to continue to be someone who was okay in themselves and could grow and was comfortable and balanced.
[54:41] Yeah.
[54:41] And it needed to be for working with everyone else.
[54:44] And it's not something that I've mastered either and will never master.
[54:48] Yeah.
[54:48] I think it's heritage in my family.
[54:52] It's in my lineage, angry dudes.
[54:55] So it's something I always want to check in on and keep growing with.
[54:58] Yeah.
[54:59] Wow.
[55:00] Fascinating.
[55:00] It's also like the angry man is like one of the main character types you play.
[55:05] It's funny because so much of my comedy is also based around making fun of the bloke.
[55:10] Yeah.
[55:11] And like, and the talking like this champ and bloody having a gutful and all that.
[55:15] Yeah.
[55:15] And to the extent where this, I mean, we haven't even talked about your pod, you're doing this new podcast called The Footy with Broden Kelly.
[55:22] It's got to be one of the best titles of any podcast.
[55:26] I thought I'd be upfront about it.
[55:28] But yeah, sorry.
[55:30] Yeah, but it's funny.
[55:31] I was making fun of that whilst also just enforcing the behavior as well.
[55:36] And I was able to sit back in calm moments and go, isn't it funny how men behave in this situation and how they put on a face and bravado and get pissed off?
[55:46] But also not being able to handle it myself was a bit of a part of me at the same time.
[55:50] It's a beautiful...
[55:52] It's one of my favorite types of...
[55:54] people to observe is the the man who has got you know who's like very blokey bloke has so much so often you'll go to a character it's the funnest to play for me it's like it's like there's if he could just find someone to talk to it would be really helpful yeah we all know we all have a family member who's like that and everything but i just i
[56:23] Come to the footy with me and you'll be like, he was full of shit.
[56:25] That whole podcast.
[56:28] He's the most angry man I've ever seen.
[56:31] The shit I say at the football.
[56:33] But yes, we all have our avenues to express things.
[56:37] So just to, I guess, to drill into the anger a bit more precisely, when you're... You want to try and get him angry?
[56:45] Yeah.
[56:46] What can I do to trigger you?
[56:49] When you feel that happening and when you do get angry, what does that feel like for you?
[56:53] Like how does it manifest and what does it look like?
[56:55] The main thing, my worst anger was always a compound thing.
[57:01] So a little thing annoys you and it's a two out of ten, but that doesn't mean you go back to zero after that.
[57:10] So the first time that I talked to my therapist and then experienced like getting to the point of pure anger,
[57:17] that I could sit down and write was so valuable to me.
[57:20] I remember I had a day of like a two stress and then another two stress and then maybe a four and then a five.
[57:27] And then I found my, I was the end of the day after a day of just little annoyances that had built and built and built.
[57:35] And I was tense in my arms, my shoulders, my vision was closed.
[57:39] I was driving, but not really thinking about
[57:42] where I was like, I couldn't tell you, I couldn't remember driving home.
[57:46] I wasn't there.
[57:47] I might've been driving fine, but I wasn't mentally there.
[57:50] I was elsewhere.
[57:50] I was out of my body.
[57:54] And then I remember just like a car going slowly into a driveway and I beeped and like yelled.
[57:59] And I was like, why am I...
[58:02] And then I caught myself going, this is, I was thinking about something that annoyed me at work.
[58:06] I'd been, these things had all happened.
[58:08] And I was at a point now where my heart rate was up.
[58:11] I felt hot.
[58:13] I felt tense.
[58:15] I felt geared up.
[58:17] And was irrationally mad at something that should not have made me mad.
[58:21] And it was a very clear moment where I saw I'm not resetting, I'm not checking myself.
[58:27] So after that, I started to bring in just a very simple quick meditation of one in breath, hold for five, one out breath, hold for five, and five turns of that and then just check your body.
[58:37] So what's my... Is that after every two sort of thing?
[58:40] Yeah.
[58:41] Or whenever I'm feeling myself getting angry or heated or stressed or anxious about anything, to be honest, or upset or...
[58:48] Where is my head?
[58:49] Where are my shoulders?
[58:50] Just a clock of what you're doing.
[58:52] Not a fixing.
[58:53] I always thought of meditation as this spiritual thing.
[58:58] You're connecting to the other, the third eye.
[59:03] And it's just not that for me.
[59:05] It's just literally going, I'm going to, it's like stretching almost.
[59:08] Like I'm going to go through this mechanic to help me check and feel better.
[59:14] And it might not make me feel better, but I know what to do because this is the, it's, it's a, it's a, it's a physical exercise to do to help you.
[59:25] help a muscle, the brain muscle.
[59:27] Yeah.
[59:29] That must have been life-changing.
[59:30] Yeah, it really was.
[59:31] I remember sitting in meditation going, you have to just think about nothing, which is the worst thing to do is to go, I have to think about nothing, when it's really just about resetting and simplifying.
[59:40] And I remember thinking, I can't hear that car.
[59:42] I'm not allowed to hear that car.
[59:43] I'm not supposed to think about that car driving past.
[59:48] But what I've eventually found with meditation is it's actually about going, I hear the car.
[59:52] but I'm coming back to breath.
[59:54] And that separation, this is something I think lots of people do now, but it's that separation of I'm not trying to be something other.
[1:00:01] I'm just trying to come and sit with and be okay with whatever I'm feeling.
[1:00:08] Hugely, hugely valuable.
[1:00:09] Yeah, we had Jeff Warren, who's a mindfulness guru on our podcast, and he talked about,
[1:00:14] one of the benefits of meditation is equanimity, so like, which is just letting go of stuff.
[1:00:20] So he'd use the word frictionless, which I just love.
[1:00:22] So something happens and you just let it go straight away, it doesn't stick to you.
[1:00:26] And that's what I thought of before when you said, you know, letting stuff go was something you weren't able to do.
[1:00:31] It's just, I think that's the perfect example of how that.
[1:00:34] It's gonna be fine.
[1:00:35] Yeah.
[1:00:36] And if something is, if you're in a moment of conflict or an argument, if something is important enough
[1:00:42] you will come back to it.
[1:00:43] And it's better to come back to it when you're not feeling 10 out of 10 fury or anxiousness or whatever.
[1:00:48] What you said then about the buildup I find really interesting because we had Lael Stone on the podcast.
[1:00:54] We've had her a couple of times.
[1:00:55] But a few years ago she talked about kids and when kids have a big tantrum and often parents will be like, where did this come from?
[1:01:02] And then you look back at the day and it's like they were running late so they were rushed to go to childcare and then their favorite carer wasn't there and it's this build up of stuff.
[1:01:12] And it made so much sense as a parent but ever since then I've also noticed how much that applies to my life.
[1:01:17] Yeah.
[1:01:18] And exactly what you're saying is it's just these little things compounding throughout the day and then you blow up at the old lady driving into her driveway too slowly.
[1:01:26] Yeah.
[1:01:27] Something outside of yourself is really valuable, particularly – I don't mean to compare children to this, but I recently got a rescue dog and a reactive rescue dog.
[1:01:37] So he had a really bad first two years with people and is a bit scared of people.
[1:01:44] working with him every day and marking his experience every day.
[1:01:47] And when I go on a walk and a dog or something stresses me out, how that affects the rest of your day and marking that.
[1:01:53] It's been the best, most recent therapy I've done is watching on the outside.
[1:01:57] We talk about with him the bucket and filling up the bucket every day.
[1:02:02] And every time something stressful happens, you're filling the bucket up until you overflow.
[1:02:06] It's been, yeah, Annie and I, me and my partner, we've been together forever.
[1:02:11] 400 years um uh since we've been together since we've been together 13 years and at no point have we ever we don't own a house together we don't own we have no commitments together apart from that we just really like each other um some would say love each other and um
[1:02:28] Some would say.
[1:02:29] This dog is the first commitment that we've had together and shared together.
[1:02:32] And it's, um, it's so interesting.
[1:02:35] Like all the lessons you learn from and how wonderful and joyous that addition can be to your life.
[1:02:41] I know everyone talks about that with their children and everything.
[1:02:43] Yeah.
[1:02:44] No, we, my, my partner and I got a dog before we had kids and it was the same thing.
[1:02:48] It was this like, it's definitely, well, I think it's, some people say it's like a transitional thing for the first step for a reason.
[1:02:55] Um,
[1:02:57] I hope you don't mind me asking this, but you mentioned Annie there.
[1:03:00] And, yeah, I hope this isn't too far to go.
[1:03:04] But was anger – did you bring anger home when you were talking about this anger that you'd had at work?
[1:03:09] Was that ever something that she was present for and saw?
[1:03:13] She predates Auntie Donna, Annie.
[1:03:15] So the first time we ever met, we met at Starbucks Southern Cross Station.
[1:03:20] Starbucks comes up a lot.
[1:03:21] Yeah.
[1:03:22] That classic story.
[1:03:24] And it's funny.
[1:03:25] I remember that story.
[1:03:26] But Annie went for a walk around DFO while we met.
[1:03:28] She's been there the whole time and been supportive the whole time.
[1:03:31] And isn't the first person I go to for notes and everything.
[1:03:35] So she's as big a part of Donna as anyone else.
[1:03:37] Yeah.
[1:03:39] And she has seen me.
[1:03:41] grow as a person we've both seen each other grow which has been what's so special as we've known each other since 20 to 30s now um i definitely have been angry with her irrationally and unfairly um never to the point of physical or anything like that but just unfairly angry yeah to someone who is just completely accepting and understanding it's probably to a fault sometimes to understanding of shitty behavior yeah um
[1:04:07] But thankfully, in the early years, she was so supportive of that and has been on her own journey as well without telling her story.
[1:04:20] therapy has been great for both of us and we've never had couples therapy or anything like that but it's improving ourself i've been able to see how that helps a relationship so much and we i think we have a relationship where why i think we're so strong is because we have a relationship where we choose to be together as opposed to needing to be together and we're not dependent on one another but we we enjoy being together and
[1:04:43] One of the great moments that I felt like I'd grown as a person was when she said, you are so much calmer and nicer now.
[1:04:49] And it just came out of nowhere, her saying one.
[1:04:51] It was just really, really lovely.
[1:04:54] How long ago was that?
[1:04:55] It'd be like five or six years ago now.
[1:04:57] Yeah.
[1:04:57] Yeah.
[1:04:58] Wow, that must have been incredible to hear.
[1:04:59] Yeah.
[1:04:59] It was really lovely.
[1:05:00] It was really cool and lovely to hear.
[1:05:02] Yeah.
[1:05:02] This is a bit off topic.
[1:05:03] Did you just bump in?
[1:05:04] Well, it's actually very on topic.
[1:05:05] Did you just bump into her at Starbucks or that was where your first date was?
[1:05:08] No, no.
[1:05:09] We met at acting school, but then I was like, I'm going to go have a meeting with these guys.
[1:05:12] Do you want to come into the city while we're doing it?
[1:05:13] Oh, right.
[1:05:14] Yeah, great.
[1:05:14] But it's just funny that she was there, that she's been there the whole time.
[1:05:17] Okay.
[1:05:17] Our date's Donna.
[1:05:18] Yeah.
[1:05:19] Amazing.
[1:05:19] Amazing.
[1:05:20] I also have to say, I don't know if this is the right time to say it, but you won't remember this.
[1:05:24] Definitely won't remember this, even though it only happened a few weeks ago.
[1:05:28] But you are the only person I've ever gone up to in the street and said, as a fan, I like what you do.
[1:05:34] Where were we?
[1:05:35] We were at Dr. Morse under the bridge in Abbotsford.
[1:05:39] And I'd just come out of Dr. Morse and you were just like right there.
[1:05:43] What is Dr. Morse?
[1:05:44] Coffee cafe.
[1:05:45] Coffee cafe.
[1:05:46] No, right.
[1:05:46] It's a coffee cafe.
[1:05:47] I don't go to them anymore.
[1:05:50] We're walking under the bridge in Abbotsford, just down Johnson Street.
[1:05:53] Yeah.
[1:05:54] And I just sort of walked out, and you were just like right in front of me.
[1:05:57] I like to do that to people.
[1:05:58] I like to wait out in front of cafes.
[1:05:59] But I was in a really good mood, and I'm like, I just wanted to tell you how great I think you are and what you do.
[1:06:04] And you were so lovely.
[1:06:05] But I was thinking about it this morning.
[1:06:06] I'm like, you're the only person I've ever gone up to.
[1:06:09] Oh, really?
[1:06:09] In the street who I'm a fan of.
[1:06:11] Get out of my fucking way.
[1:06:13] And you punched me.
[1:06:14] I used to work at the MCG.
[1:06:16] I told you this.
[1:06:16] You won't remember this.
[1:06:17] This is my famous Ryan Shelton story.
[1:06:19] I was about 18, 19, and I was working on level three in the MCC, and you needed a card to get in, so I was checking cards.
[1:06:25] Do you remember this story?
[1:06:26] I don't think so.
[1:06:28] And you're like, which way to the toilets?
[1:06:31] Oh, I said that?
[1:06:32] Yeah.
[1:06:32] Straight up.
[1:06:33] Which way to the toilet?
[1:06:34] You would have been like, hello, I'm Ryan.
[1:06:36] Can you tell me which way to the toilet?
[1:06:37] You're a very nice one.
[1:06:39] From Rove.
[1:06:39] That Rove guy.
[1:06:40] And then I said, yep, just down there.
[1:06:42] And I think I meant to say, go down the flight of stairs, but you may have heard go up.
[1:06:47] And so you walked and then went up the stairs.
[1:06:50] And I went, oh, no.
[1:06:54] There's no toilet up there for Ryan's shelter.
[1:06:58] What's he going to do?
[1:06:59] You don't pee his pants.
[1:07:02] Wow.
[1:07:02] I think I told you about this and you've forgotten.
[1:07:04] I've forgotten.
[1:07:04] Yeah.
[1:07:05] But that's typical, really.
[1:07:07] I forget most things.
[1:07:08] Don't take it personally.
[1:07:10] I think I apologized to you like seven years later.
[1:07:13] Good.
[1:07:13] I'm glad you did.
[1:07:14] Yeah, yeah, yeah.
[1:07:15] Well, that's nice.
[1:07:16] I'm glad I was okay.
[1:07:17] It's the best thing in the world to have people come up to you and say that your stupid stuff is nice.
[1:07:25] So meaningful that you've forgotten it two weeks later.
[1:07:27] Yeah.
[1:07:27] Right.
[1:07:28] It happens a lot, I'm sure.
[1:07:29] Yeah, totally.
[1:07:31] Yeah, I remember the first time it ever happened and just thinking, holy hell, this is incredible.
[1:07:36] Yeah.
[1:07:37] And yeah, no, I love it.
[1:07:39] Well, thank you for everything you do.
[1:07:41] Yeah, no, cheers.
[1:07:42] Well, this has been so great.
[1:07:43] Thank you.
[1:07:44] We chatted on the phone late last week and I was...
[1:07:48] I was in the car when we were chatting.
[1:07:50] And as soon as we hung up, I pulled up at the lights and my window was down.
[1:07:53] There was someone in the car right next to me, their window.
[1:07:55] Now we kind of made eye contact.
[1:07:57] And I felt this urge to go, I was just on the phone to Brian Kelly.
[1:08:00] We were talking, but really?
[1:08:01] Yeah, I was so, I was at such a high point.
[1:08:04] I just love chatting to you.
[1:08:05] Oh, that's nice.
[1:08:05] And like these guys are such a huge fan.
[1:08:07] So to have you here today is such a thrill.
[1:08:08] Oh, it was a pleasure.
[1:08:09] I didn't actually yell out that I'm on the phone.
[1:08:11] But I felt like- I don't know who that is, mate.
[1:08:14] I really felt like it.
[1:08:15] But anyway, it's so great to have you here today.
[1:08:17] Oh, pleasure.
[1:08:18] And congratulations on everything.
[1:08:19] And ABC and iview, it's such a wonderful show.
[1:08:23] Auntie Donna's Coffee Cafe.
[1:08:25] Yeah.
[1:08:25] I've only watched one episode, but so far, very good.
[1:08:29] Well, hopefully people can watch it now and go, there's a bit more going on there with Broden.
[1:08:32] He's a thoughtful guy.
[1:08:33] I think it'll really help the viewing experience.
[1:08:36] I'm dressing at Karen's diner outfit.
[1:08:38] Oh, yes.
[1:08:38] And I'm just swearing at customers.
[1:08:41] But he's got something to say.
[1:08:43] There's substance, though.
[1:08:44] There's substance.
[1:08:46] Yeah.
[1:08:46] Great to see you, Broden.
[1:08:47] Pleasure.
[1:08:48] Thank you, mate.
[1:08:48] Thank you, guys.
[1:08:49] Thank you.
[1:08:52] The Imperfects is hosted and produced by Hugh Van Kylenberg, Ryan Shelton and Josh Van Kylenberg.
[1:08:56] Our executive producer is Bridget North East.
[1:08:58] This episode is filmed by Andy Poole and edited by George Martin.
[1:09:03] The Imperfects is not a licensed mental health service and is not a substitute for professional mental health advice, treatment or assessment.
[1:09:10] The advice given in this episode is general in nature, but if you're struggling, please see a healthcare professional or call Lifeline on 13 11 14.

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