I'm looking inside and working out why. Why do I need that validation? Why do I not believe
that what I've got to give is enough? And I wonder if that's going to be a lifetime of work.
You know, why do I need that person to think I'm smart? Why do I need that person to think I'm
thin? Why do I need that person to think I'm funny? That is definitely a work in progress.
Hi, I'm Jess Rowe, and this is the Jess Rowe Big Talk Show, a podcast that skips the small talk
and goes big and deep with our most loved personalities. From love to loss and everything
in between, I want to show you a different side of people who seem to have it all together
in these raw and honest conversations about the things that matter. I don't know about you,
but in this time of social isolation and Instagram, I really crave connected conversations.
So I'm going to dig deep to give you a new window into the souls of the people
we all love and admire. I always cry and have a laugh so you can expect some tears and laughter
as we celebrate the real life flaws and vulnerabilities that make us human.
My guest for this episode is entertainer extraordinaire Julia Morris.
Julia is a TV host, actor, singer and stand-up comedian. And if that isn't enough, Julia is
also an author. Her latest book, Makes It Easy, is a hilarious self-help guide. With self-belief
and determination, Julia is at the pinnacle of her television career. But her road to stardom
hasn't always been glittery and glamorous. And I want to know how she stayed true to herself
in an industry that can chew you up, especially if you're a woman. Julia Morris, I adore you.
There's something just about seeing your face that just makes my cheeks ache because I'm ready
to laugh and smile. You're such a darling. Oh, and it's so wonderful to see you. I mean,
what I really love about women in our industry is that we all go back a long, long way, don't we?
It's not like, you know, I cause young people coming through, I start to get to know them. But
you know, there are certain incredible women that I admire greatly. And you are certainly
pretty much the top of the list. I've been so looking forward to chatting. Oh, you're such
a darling because right back at you, because I'm now 51. I love it. I love getting older. What
about you? How old are you? 53 and wearing it like a badge. I love it. What do you think it is
about getting older that makes you happier? I think that I had a real final burst of trying
to look sexy in about my mid 40s, where I got quite slim. And, you know, I was back in wearing
sort of booby things and shorter skirts and sort of maybe just, you know, flexing
kind of for one last time. That's what I thought was happening. And then turning 50,
you're just flexing in a different way. So there's a certain sex appeal, I think. I mean,
it's odd that I'm talking about sex appeal. Who cares if you could be bothered? I mean,
I'll just be like, please, you know, seriously, can I pay someone to take the night off?
Well, it's sleep. I reckon sleep is the ultimate aphrodisiac. It's like,
I don't want the hand in the middle of the night. Yes, absolutely. And then I think what happens
with 50 is there's a real confidence in knowing what you're doing. And I have definitely stopped
explaining things twice. I think as I was younger, I'd be like, yeah, but it is because, you know,
and they have this sort of desperate need to get, I am across it. Now at 50, I'm probably
going to say it once. If you don't listen, there's nothing really I can do for you.
So I may say it twice. As you know, with children, you're kind of twice as a minimum. But I've also
stopped over-discussing and mumsplaining too much with the girls too, because, you know,
they get this look on their face as if to say, like, I reckon you should just give me a smack
because I would make this moment go pass faster. That is so true in terms of, not so much the
smacking, but in terms of, because I'm a bit of an over-explainer too. And I do like the sound of
my own voice and I do get on a roll and I think, oh, now's our chance to talk about sex or intimacy.
Absolutely. I'm trying not to let them regret sharing anything. You know, like I found when
such-and-such said this to me and then I go away and think about it and I'm like, oh, I'm going to
go and find that person. Like, I do all of that and then I want to come back and go, here's some
solutions or some things I've thought about that, you know, you are enough. If they don't like it,
they can f*** themselves, whatever, right? So then you can see the wash come over the faces where you're
just like, I am so sorry that I shared that with you now. And I remember feeling that way
where you're just like, oh my God. So you start to tell your parents less and less and less,
I think. And I'm not really a cool mum like that. Like I can just leave it and let you come to me
when you're ready. I'm kind of, how am I going to control the outcome? I need everyone to be okay.
I think I've got some of those answers. Do you want to listen to them? No, they don't.
No, they don't. But I think too, when I think about what I told my mum, my daughters tell me
far more, especially my elder daughter, and she continues to, and I have to now try and master the
calm face, like not going, not going, oh, oh no, don't, it's that, it's really hard.
And relearning and also trying to, because I've done so much work over the years,
certainly in the last five years, since menopause, I started seeing a psychologist because I'm just
like, I feel like I can't harness my brain properly to, I feel like I want to do this and I want to
do that and I need to turn down the volume on all of that. Because when you add loads and loads of
work and loads and loads of travel and maybe a little sense that time is running out for women
of a certain age, which is sort of with every passing month, that's becoming less true.
We might not be paid as fairly, but we're certainly working longer. So trying to,
trying to calm my actual farm. I think that's been my lesson, for sure. I'm still not nailing it. So
you know, and also wanting to teach the girls lessons. I didn't want to learn lessons at their
age. So why am I trying to do that? You know, I'm not long ago. I don't know if you noticed or not,
but I had all the beef cut out of my eyelids. Oh, so like an eye lift. Yeah. So because what
has happened is that the makeup artists couldn't even find a whole little up out of the way to
just get a little bit of, you know, dusty blue in the side. And so it's something I've been thinking
about for ages, but it is essentially cosmetic surgery, isn't it? Like I went to the optometrist,
I'd lost 25% of my sight. Those eyelids were hanging down. That's why you lost your sight.
You couldn't see through the eyelids. That's all it was. Oh my God. So I did like what they call a
field eye test, where they sort of test your field of vision. And the picture is amazing. It's like
this whole semicircle of darkness at the top of my field of vision. It was amazing. So at least now,
I actually went and made the inquiry and made the appointment cosmetically.
And now as the world turns, I can brag about how it's actually my eyesight. But the truth is,
it's a job I really wanted done. It was one of those things only for me. But then,
and that's sort of, I had a little, I've had Botox over the years, but it's the only thing that I've
done where I kind of wanted to be honest with the girls with also saying, I'm enough,
but this is actually something I want to do. So it's kind of, it's a weird space there. That was
sort of a good lesson in how not to push my thoughts to the girls, but at the same time,
let them know that if this comes from a place of strength, this decision, not a, I don't look good
enough, but I think I let that balloon go a long while ago. When I pulled the rip cord and started
eating, you know, raspberry bullets for every meal, I feel like. But it's about though, I think,
choice and making a choice that is right for you. And it mightn't be right for everyone,
but doing it. No, it's a pretty big choice. If someone cuts into your face. Yes, but to do it
unapologetically, I think is important because you own it. And I think good on you. Yeah. With a lot
of things that I do, I am pretty upfront about it. There's obviously things within my family unit
that I keep to myself because that's respecting my family unit. So I still have a very, very private
side, but then there's another side of me that I think I can't then sell this kind of everyday
person from Gosford and then not be honest about something like that. What, are you going to just
think all of a sudden I've woken up and all of a sudden my eyes decided to open after a year?
Yeah. Even my lashes were leaning forward. Oh, but I say good on you because I was the same.
I have Botox. I tell people about it because I thought I'm doing not only myself a disservice,
but other women who go, oh, why does she look like that? And I got so tired of reading all the
articles with various people. Oh, I drink green juice. I stand on my head. I wear sunblock.
That's why I look like this. Look what green juice did to me. No, I'm joking.
You know, let's be honest because that then I think serves all of us. And I'm a proud feminist
as I know you are too. And it sets you free. Of course it does. And my brand of feminism is very
much about supporting the choices that other people make, that other women make. And it
mightn't be what we choose, but go for broke. You go and do it. Oh, I have had to really school
myself having girls, as you know, both having two girls. Since they were little people,
I really had to turn something around in myself, which was making fun of other people
when they walked past me in an outfit that they had decided to wear. Let's put it that way.
But maybe old fashioned me in the way I had been raised. I used to do a joke about gosh,
she threw on that dress and nearly missed, which I at the time thought was hysterical.
But I never wanted the girls to hear that judgy bitching weirdness. I mean,
that just happens in life anyway. And people do speak like that. But coming from
the core location, I'm like, I'm not going to do that. And even trying not to do fake celebration
of someone either. Wow, that's an amazing outfit when it looks unusual or not what we're used to.
So yeah, that really took some training. And it really took some deep breaths to not do that
when we're walking down the street and just make fun of people for the sake of it.
It's hard though, isn't it? Because I think, because you do want to be your best self,
because you realise that your kids are like sponges and they soak up how you relate and
how you respond. And I actually find, I don't know if you find this with both of your girls or one
of them, but with my eldest Allegra, she's almost like my little conscience in the sense of,
because if people are mean to her or unkind, I'll be rude to them or I'll give them filthy looks.
And she'll be like, Mom, you cannot do that. Or I might say something that I think is funny,
but it's really not. And she'll be like, Mom, that's mean. And it's extraordinary, isn't it?
I got really taken down recently. We were in a shop and they were playing a really hardcore rap
song with all of the signature words that we're not meant to say. And we got into the car and I
was like, how's that song? And I hadn't noticed it or heard it. And I'm like, well, what did it say?
And I said, it said S-I-N and whatever. But in a very unlike me, I said the words, right?
Because I'm like, this is what the song said. Well, I got taken down. And I'm like, hang on.
I don't use that language. I don't feel that way. I don't speak down to anybody. I certainly
try not to. But what I'm telling you is what words that I heard in a shop. And that's when
I started to realize the separation of generation, where I'm like, no, hang on. I don't use that
language. But what I am doing is repeating the sentence. So surely, are we not smart enough to
know? She's just like, don't use it at all. And I'm like, yeah, but she's like, no buts.
Okay. I hear you. Yeah. And they teach us. That's what I find. And I had never expected that,
being a mum, that I would learn so much from my kids. I used to always think, well, I'll be the
teacher. But more and more, I learned from them. And what did I stand? Like I was wondering what
I stood to gain out of. Obviously, I was using the shock of what I'd heard and repeating the
shock tactic. Maybe that's the exchange. I don't know. I guess what I wanted from them was just to
go, can you even believe they would play that in a store, right? That's all I wanted in the whole
exchange. And we connect over that amazing. But in actual fact, it ended up blowing apart. And I'm
like, okay, well, the simple maths of it is, do not say that word out loud ever again in my whole
life. Which by the way, I don't think I ever had before that exact moment.
I'm like, but I'm not that guy. She's just like, just don't do it. All right.
You know, I was a bit naughty when I was younger. And so seeing Allegra sort of on the precipice of
being, and so I want her to enjoy, but also I'm like, oh no, what does this mean? It's really
so hard. Well, the only inner piece that we could feel is that we slipped through the system.
So they are going to as well. Do you know what I mean? So we're okay. We turned out all right.
I had a good gut rolling around when I was younger, let me tell you.
I was bad for it. These days, menopausal. I'm just like, back it up. No, too hot.
Bring it up, Hal. On with the dinner, off with the dinner, on with the dinner, off with the dinner.
I joke with friends about cobwebs. It's like.
It's a wrap at this location.
How has your, I suppose, relationship with your body, for want of a better phrase,
changed? Because I was really angry when I read about when you were in LA,
you were told that you either had to put on weight or lose weight, that you didn't sort of
fit a mould per se. It came from the school that I was attending, the drama school,
and the teacher whom I love deeply and dearly, she was just saying, you know,
we've been through a full pilot season. She's like, I know what your talent is.
I know the extent of your outpush. What I can't work out is that there was no roles at all,
not even a walk on. And I just can't work it out. She's like, I see you as extremely talented.
When you go into an audition room, they are looking for reasons to delete.
And she's like, honestly, the only thing that I can think of is that you are, as we know,
we know in Hollywood's life, Christina, she's like, if you want to be in Hollywood,
you bring your whole family over to Los Angeles to try and wind yourself into this.
And she's like, you're not big enough, unfortunately, and you're not small enough
to, you're just like, delete, delete, delete. So, you know, if they're seeing a hundred actresses
for this role, people wearing the wrong shoes could get deleted. So they'll just delete you
for stupid reasons. That's the only thing I can think of. And are you going to move your whole
family to Los Angeles to be a part of this system, which she said is up? There is no two ways about
it. None of us like it. Everyone's trying to change it. But it's a very big base to move steps and
stairs and steps and stairs. So she's like, what do you want to do? And it really had been on my
mind for a long time. I would like to lose some weight. I would like to, I just never got round
to it. I've not long, like Sophie was barely one. So it's kind of like that. It just kept, I just
kept putting on more weight and being okay with that and putting on more weight and being okay
with that until in the end, I'd see photos and I'd just be like, and also I definitely, I used to
do a huge routine about having reverse body dysmorphia where I think I look really hot all
the time, which always sounds like a funny joke on stage, but is genuinely the truth.
I'm like, I'm always in beautiful clothes. I feel amazing when I'm in my clothes most of the time.
And it's only when I see a photo where I'm like, oh my God, when did I, when did that happen?
I don't even remember that weight crawling on. And I've never been slim. And when I have been
slim, I've worked really hard at it. You know, we all want quick and easy solutions to looking
great. There's just not. My mum used to say a joke years ago when I was much younger and she's like,
look, here's the thing. If you want to lose weight, you just shut your mouth.
But the key is, don't you think with you saying you felt beautiful and you are beautiful, isn't
it how we feel on the inside? Who cares really about when you see that picture or that image,
it's really about how we feel on the inside. Yeah. So what's odd then is to go into an
industry that is so, I mean, until recently solely focused on the way women looked,
your brains and your humour really came in second and third. So now in this woke time and
everybody's waking up slowly and that's amazing and how wonderful it will be for our girls,
and I try not to talk about weight in the house either. If I'm having, you know,
I still have those days when I'm just like, oh God, I'm so sick in self and that, I try not
to do that in front of them. And then they'll have their own thing and that's, you know,
you are surrounded by your school friends and your gang who may or may not talk like that anyway.
But, you know, giving myself a hard time stuff certainly at 50 starts to dissolve because you're
just like, you know what, I don't care. And that's a really nice place to be. It doesn't
mean I'm going to pull the rip cord and let the balloon go, or I might. Yeah. But it's that sense
of, and I know I feel it too, that you care less about what people think. And I reckon as a mature
woman, that is so empowering. Isn't it? It also starts to make you work out, who am I bringing
into the lifeboat? Who would I have to carry? And who am I bringing? Like, you know what I mean?
Who am I bringing into my lifeboat of life? I just made that up. There's no lifeboat of life,
but you know what I mean? Like who are the featured extras that really make you probably
feel bad about yourself? And who are the people that will celebrate all of your nuttiness
and all your greatness and all of the lovely things about you that you don't necessarily
even believe? And they celebrate that. And they're the people you want, aren't they?
Yeah. Build your citadel. Because, you know, as we know from funny old Twitter and
increasingly more so with Instagram and any of those sort of social networking stuff,
which is a very big part of our business, and keeping a presence in the industry if you want
to continue working, is that the nastiness at the flick of a switch, it's just kind of boring now.
Just like, oh, trying to bully me? Well done. Yeah, block, block, block. That's what I've learned.
So with LA though, so you were there though for, was it two years with your family?
Yeah, for two years. And when I first went over, I had done the Montreal Comedy Festival,
which is a big invitation meet where all of a sudden I'm finding myself on stage with
Whoopi Goldberg or I'm finding myself on stage with John Cleese or, you know, beyond your wildest
comedy performing dreams, these people are around you, which is very, very exciting. Lifts everybody's
game. Everyone in our industry who employs comics is there trying to find the next big thing and
you're really hoping it's you. And I managed to pick up an agent and a manager while I was there.
That's big time. That's really amazing. And they were like, you need to be in LA.
And of course, everybody gets told that you're the answer. Here we go. Oh my God, America's
waiting for you. Because they actually just want everybody there because it makes it easier.
Instead of trying to find work for you and you live in another country. So now that I see that,
I'm like, okay, I get that. But once you're in Los Angeles, you're no longer interesting
as a global person to them because you're just another actor or comedian trying to chip away in
LA. So it wasn't long before I thought, gosh, there's this constant swirl of auditions.
And the agent that I had at the time, the guy named Mark, he said to me, look, there's an amazing
comedy drama school. He'd be like, please, I'd studied at the ensemble when I first came out of
school. I've kind of done study. And he said, no, the thing about Los Angeles is like even
Leonardo DiCaprio is training when he's not working. Everybody is to keep that muscles
like a footballer. You wouldn't go out and play a game of football if you hadn't trained in
12 months. So it's really about giving yourself a sense of purpose and giving yourself a sense of
forward motion when you're living in Los Angeles, because it can be a lonely place. And I feel like
everybody else is getting further advanced than I am. It's such a weird location, LA,
and it is a young person's game. And I was 40 when I decided to do it.
But I love that. You see, I think that is so fantastic that you do that, that you took that
risk, that you took your family and off you went because you wanted to make it happen,
see what would happen. Where does that come from?
Within four months. You know, a friend of mine calls it happy drive. It's not like it's
the big ego truck, let's go because I'm amazing. It's more like, oh, why wouldn't we? That sounds
like an adventure. The girls are still little enough for us to pick up and move. It felt like
a super exciting adventure. I love America a lot. And even though I love Australia more,
I just thought this is my big moment. This is it. Anyone who's ever doubted me,
I'm going to make it in America. And then they will know. And of course, as you get older,
you're just not driven by that same narrative in your head. You're kind of like, we need to
make money so we don't have to turn lights off when we're retired.
So you came home, you came home to Australia. And that was that when?
Sort of by accident. Celebrity apprentice.
It was so hardcore, Jess, while we lived in Los Angeles, because it wasn't long before
the money ran out. Whatever money I thought that I'd saved, you kind of go through when
you're not earning. In the two years I earned $1,200 in Los Angeles. I mean, I'm huge.
So what I had to do to supplement the income was I'd have to fly home every five weeks,
do some stand up gigs, do a bit of Good News Week, do a bit of whatever was going,
and then fly back again. Pretty much went like that for a year and a half, where every five weeks,
I'll be back on the plane, flying home to Australia, doing some work and kind of essentially
paying for the next month or the next two months. And as you know, as a family, I've been the sole
wage earner. So you kind of just do what you got to do. So one of those jobs that I came home for,
was that I'd been offered The Apprentice, and days before they started shooting. So I can only
assume someone dropped out. I don't know. But anyway, lucky me. And I hadn't seen the show.
I mean, I knew it was Donald Trump or whatever. And at the time, we were kind of like,
gosh, he's a big star. I wonder if he's going to be the host. I mean, thank God it was Mike Lewis.
With his hair, that lovely gray hair that he has.
I'm just, I'm overheating. Sorry. I don't know. I don't know what's happening. I'm
going to get some breezy. I can't. Anyways, a magnificent human being. So home I came for
Apprentice. And because I'd already been in the UK for eight years, and then two years in the US,
and popping home for those quick appearances where you've got a certain urgency to you,
because you're selling tickets to the next stand-up tour you're doing, and you're constantly on tour.
And what ended up happening in The Apprentice was, it was the first format, television format
that I had worked in, where I got to be myself. I wasn't trying to sell something. I wasn't
feeling urgent that I needed these, my wages. I did The Apprentice hoping that every week I stayed
in was another week's wages. I don't really feel like I'm super competitive, until I sort of got
in there, I guess. It was, you know, because there was lots of sports people and, you know,
lots of really together people. And I was just kind of like, I'm just chipping away to get
another week's wages so we can stay. Every week's wages is another month in Los Angeles. That's all
I cared about. So I, certainly for the first bit, was kind of just mucking around. It didn't start
to contrast in my own game until about halfway through. And also, even then, it's not like I was
being manipulative or planning, but I was just kind of like, who are the pests? Who do I need
to get rid of? Because the drainers are stopping me from winning each challenge. And each challenge
means another month for me in Los Angeles. So that pest made us lose that challenge right there going.
And I started to really grow up with that. Mark Burris definitely taught us all that. It was just
like, you know, like very similar actually to whatever I said about Lifeboat before. It's like,
you know, how many can you carry? Are you confident you can carry everyone? And if you can't,
you're going to need to offload them. So he also taught us about having a bit of a think about
what you need to have in terms of money in order to survive your retirement. And that's the first
time at what was like 43 or something that I'd really started to think about, oh my god, I've
got no super. Well, like 20 bucks or something that I'd contributed in 1973 or something.
So it was growing up on a lot of levels. I find all of that confrontation, I'm not,
I am such a self-sacrificer. I can't bear showing up to someone or, you know, pointing out their
foibles, but I learned to do it. I learned to do it in that show for sure. And I think, I think it
was the, maybe my honesty that cut through, I don't know if it was a combination of honesty and
kindness and just trying. We all saw this other beautiful side of you in that show and it became
a real springboard into so many other things, didn't it? Absolutely. It changed my life for sure.
And it made me want to strive for better things too, I think. It just came at the right time
where the, you know, sort of, I'd just been, I don't want to say sleepwalking because,
you know, I also had, I think, a very successful first half of my career as well.
Even in my times in London where I've been quite broke, I've never stopped working. At least my
work ethic, I guess, has helped. That's from my parents who both, you know, at different times
of my life, had two jobs at a time. So, you know, they weren't professional people, so
you just got to get in and work. You know, I went into show business to avoid
what I perceive as the hard work of going into a job each day. And the irony is, of course,
you've never worked harder than trying to keep these stupid plates in the air for as long as we
have. And because I want to pick up on what you have mentioned a number of times through our chat,
is that you're getting better at asking for help. Yes. You've been seeing a psychologist,
you're working on those sorts of things. Yes. And my girls have been training me. So,
like the other day, I was like, you know what, I got up this morning and I did this and I did that.
It's now 9.30. And I'd like, you know, when I was trying to hit ground zero on the wash,
it was all self-appointed. You know, like I was trying to get what I call ground zero in my washing,
clean the place, you know, COVID's like, you know, do this, do that, run that over there,
go and pick that up, do all those things that I've stacked into my day. And I just said, you know,
and then I have to cook everybody the dinner and then I've got to do this and now I'm going to
empty the dishwasher. And my eldest Ruby said to me, Mom, you just have to ask. And I was like,
my old school thoughts, which are probably the thoughts from my parents, are I shouldn't have
to ask. You should see how hard I'm working and you should help me out. No. The teenagers,
this is what they're going to see. Watch. The phone, exactly.
That's all they're going to see. So I'm like, you're absolutely right. Would you be able to
come in and help me unpack the dishwasher, please? Yeah, sure. In the can. Help me. I mean,
I won't remember now for the next, what, five months, but I just thought, yeah, I never asked.
Why didn't I just ask? And what about in other parts of your life in terms of how have you turned
around? You know what? I'm going to ask for this or I'm going to know my self-worth because I get
the sense from talking with you is that perhaps your sense of self-worth and actually I can just
be me as opposed to doing all the over-the-top all the time, that that's been a real knowing
for you, that that's come with age and time. Yeah, it's wrapped up in I'm enough as well.
I know it's a big catchphrase at the moment in I'm enough. I am enough. For many years in my comedy
career, for sure, I wanted the real, hip, cool comics to think that I was funny. It just gets
this sense of desperation in the way you operate, you know, trying to hey guys, everybody like me,
that sort of weirdness. I think as you get older, that all starts to dissolve as well. It's just
like, I don't care if the cool kids. Oh, a lot of those cool kids now, they're not as successful
as I am. Oh, oh, oh, I get it. So in needing that validation, I guess I've done a lot of trying to
do more work on looking inside and working out why, why do I need that validation? Why do I not
believe that what I've got to give is enough? And I wonder if that's going to be a lifetime of work.
You know, why do I need that person to think I'm smart? Why do I need that person to think I'm
thin? Why do I need that person to think I'm funny? Like, yeah, so that's that is definitely
a work in progress. And why do I allow other people to put me down? So I think now that now
it's certainly at my point in the industry, after being actively as easy going as I could,
the menopause created this reckoning within me. I don't know. But now I am calling stuff out.
I feel confident enough to know if I've got a job for another 12 months,
as long as I don't go too hard, I can start to call things out a little bit.
Like there was one time when we were in Africa early in our series. And, you know, we co-produced
with another production company in the in South Africa. And they've got Chris, this great, big
kind of Prado man, four wheel drivey kind of vibe. And they gave me like a little beep beep ladies
town car. Oh, no. The sibling in me is like, how come he gets that? No, that's my immediate
school of thought. And trying to actually say something by the time I eventually say something,
I go so hard that it's like a bushfire where you're like, I probably didn't need to go that hard.
And now I'm learning to cut back the bushfire and say something like, if I just hadn't gone in and
said, Hey, are we covering different terrain? Because I'm pretty sure we're going to the same
locations. So yes, he's taller than me. But I don't need an automatic ladies beep beep. That
wasn't an automatic big pardon. It was a geared car, geared, tiny beep beep car. I was just like,
mate, apparently I'm over it. I'm still telling the story. But now I feel like I can pull some
stuff out because people don't notice the discrepancy between men and women's stuff.
And it must get so tiresome. Some days for my beloved doctor. I mean, he's so patient. He
really is a beautiful man. Oh, he's lucky to have you. He's lucky to have you because I reckon
you've taught him a lot. We're lucky to have each other. Yeah, we have, we bring a lot. We both bring
a lot to the table. And that's why it's been such a magical combination between the two of us, you
know. But these days having, you know, like at one point, because it was so remote, like we are really
in the middle of the low veiled, you know, which is what we call the jungle floor. Like we are out
in it. You've got to walk 20 minutes into the bush to get anywhere near the set, you know.
And when we first started to do that, they had a, because you've got to go out to the road.
The road is the only place where that sort of power is for a mobile toilet. You can't like,
you know, those great big portaloos. But there wasn't a loo in its set because it was a,
it was like a wooden playground essentially. And so like a couple of weeks in, I'd be like,
hang on, like what are girls meant to do? So you can't step off set. You certainly can't step off
set for a half an hour. What? Walk 15 minutes to where the toilet is and walk 15 minutes back.
Because it had been built by men, probably signed off by men, men can wee over the side.
Like there's always this, you know what I mean? I don't have that sort of directional facility.
And then younger women than me, I mean, obviously I do, you know, whatever, I've crossed over, but
the, what are younger women doing at a time when they actually need to be closer to a bathroom
once every four or five weeks? We're only out there for eight weeks. That's one of those things
that I can make better for the women coming, you know, coming behind me. Which is what it's about.
And I think you do that so beautifully because you are now in a position where you can use your
voice when people will listen. Because I think as a woman making our way through, especially within
the media, you don't, because you've, you're made to feel so grateful. I know I was early on in my
career, but you don't want to piss anyone off or say the wrong thing. And so you keep sort of going,
okay, that's all right. I'll deal with that. I'll suck that up. No problem.
Somebody pointed out to me not long ago about, you know, being a woman in your 50s, a female
who's a little bit older. And she said, you know, if we, which we should be doing more of looking to
Aboriginal culture and looking how elders are admired and listened to and the, you know, the
fountains of information, experience and respect. And I don't know whether that's some weird white
privilege drawing a comparison. I don't mean to. As you become an elder, if I think of myself as
an elder rather than an older woman in showbiz, which by the way, like, you know, we are only
in our early 50s. I would like to think an older woman in the industry is in her 70s or 80s.
Like, you know, I've still got another 30 years in me. So to feel like an elder at 50,
just like, well, yeah, unlike the past, I reckon there is a lot more of the time I'm going to know
what I'm talking about. And the other thing I say about me to other people is don't wake the snail
leopard. You are not going to like the snail leopard when the snail leopard wakes up. Don't worry.
And that's why I think you are so special because you show up, you stand up, you do it in sparkles
and with wonderful hood spa. I just adore you, Julia. Thank you so much for talking. I could
talk to you for months, you realise. I know. We both know we're going to.
Just reload the tape. Yes, we want to keep going.
You are just a life force, Julia. Well, as are you, my friend. Oh, Julia makes me laugh
so much my cheeks are still aching. And she has this laser like ability to pinpoint those crazy
parenting moments. And she's a cheerleader for women always looking for how she can lift you up.
If you enjoyed this conversation with Julia, please take a second to rate, review and tell a
friend. In my next episode, I speak with bestselling author and minimalist Sarah Wilson about how we
can use our voices to make a difference in our world. I think when you go down really low,
you get to meet yourself, you get to meet the rawest, most ugly, most alone version of yourself.
And from there, you are forced to become your own best friend. And so then you emerge again
with that conversation, the kind conversation. The Jess Rowe Big Talk Show was presented by me,
Jess Rowe, audio producer Chris Marsh, executive producer Nick McClure, supervising producer
Sam Cavanaugh. Until next time, remember to live big. Life is just too crazy and glorious
to waste time on the stuff that doesn't matter. Listen up.