‘The most fun you can have as an actor': ABC thriller warms up after chilly reception
Even for a Tasmanian, the remote northwest coast of the island state can be a land unto itself. Returning to Zeehan and Queenstown to reprise his role as loyal handyman Jeremiah in the second season of Marta Dusseldorp 's darkly comic thriller Bay of Fires, the Hobart-raised, New York City-based Toby Leonard Moore found himself re-adjusting to the pace.
'The first time I went walking in Queenstown, my one-kilometre split was three minutes slower than what I do in New York,' says Moore, who has appeared opposite Keanu Reeves in John Wick, Gary Oldman in Mank and Paul Giamatti in Billions. 'I just slowed right down.'
He also noticed a warmer reception from the locals. 'The first time, there was a sense that we were invading the town. But this time, since they'd all seen [the series], and a lot of locals were background actors, I think they felt more of a part of it.'
While shooting the first season, in which his character becomes a casual love interest for Dusseldorp's CEO on the run, Stella Heikkinen, Moore tried to get a meal at the pub. What transpired was like a scene from the script.
'I went to the bottle shop of a bar that I would later find out the crew referred to as 'The Punchy Pub',' he recalls. 'It was about 6.15pm. I said, 'Oh, g'day. Have you got a bistro out the back there?' And this lady said to me, 'Yep'. And I said, 'Great. And what time do you guys usually stop serving dinner?' And she looked me up and down. She said, 'Oh, about now, I reckon, mate'. And I said, 'Copy that, loud and clear'. Coming back [for the second season], all that had all gone away.'
Some sinister elements of the location remained, however.
Loading
'The Gaiety Theatre in Zeehan feels like you're on a back lot at Paramount [Studios],' he says. 'It's epic, the facade. And there's a real history there. One day, we were shooting in a pub across the street. It must have been about 3 or 4 degrees outside. And we went into the pub and it felt 5 degrees colder inside. And I said, 'How the hell is it colder inside than outside?' And one of the crew said, 'Oh, that'll be the ghosts'. Tassie has a dark history. That's one of the things that attracted me to the show. In Tassie, they don't shy away from that.'
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Sydney Morning Herald
5 hours ago
- Sydney Morning Herald
Joe Rogan's message can be rambling and unpolished, yet men idolise him. This might be why
Rogan's voice can be heard in Sydney boys' boarding schools, in the luxury cars of chief executives, and in gardens of home-builders as they chip away at DIY renovations. 'He's smart, and has interesting guests,' says one lawyer. Loading A Sydney-based chief executive listens regularly. 'If you go to the pub with your mates and shoot the shit for a few hours, the conversation goes from the footy to taxes to 'did you hear about the crazy celebrity?'' he says, also on the condition of anonymity. 'That's what you get from Rogan. The people who say you've got to be careful of Joe Rogan and the manosphere are people from legacy media who are losing out to him.' Rogan's podcasts are rambling and unpolished. Joe Rogan Library (JLR), a non-affiliated fan site, estimates they run for an average of almost two hours and 40 minutes. There's been more than 2575, so it would take at least nine months to listen to all of them back-to-back. The JLR also estimates that 89 per cent of guests have been men. So far this year, Rogan has hosted chess grandmaster Magnus Carlsen, comedian Bill Murray, and 'exoneree' Amanda Knox. 'He's smart, and has interesting guests.' An Australian Joe Rogan fan It's a conversation with no specific purpose, reminiscent of stoned freshmen lying on the university lawn and gazing at the stars. His schtick is open-minded curiosity about everything, even theories that are discredited. He hates talking points and scripts. He expects his guests to say what they think, rather than spin answers to avoid stepping on toes. He has the American comedian's disgust at having his conversation hampered by 'wokeness'. That's exactly what Jack, 26, who works in insurance – and did not want to give his last name – enjoys. He thinks critics take Rogan too seriously. 'He's having a bit of fun,' says Jack, as Rogan's commentary about the latest UFC fight blares across the sports bar at The Oaks, Neutral Bay on Sunday afternoon. 'He might be having a few drinks on the podcast. He's debating things. They talk about interesting topics. A different point of view. I just think he's a funny, good bloke.' But Lauren Rosewarne, an associate professor in public policy at the University of Melbourne, argues this 'open-minded curiosity' line is a slippery slope. 'This is the problem with a lot of conspiracy theory,' she says. 'It's very much in line with what we think is critical thinking; 'I'm only asking a question'. It somehow works to validate their entire message.' About 10 years ago, Rogan contacted Szeps when a video of the Australian challenging someone's posturing on air went viral. Rogan became a mentor. 'He's not a polymath,' Szeps says of Rogan, 'but he's eclectic in his interests. [He has a way of noticing] what he finds interesting about a person and guiding it into mutual areas of interest, then shooting the shit about that in a way that, if it's not fascinating every minute, is at least convivial and curious and unexpected.' The conversation can go to strange places. 'I can't intellectually tell you why I don't believe in evolution,' actor Mel Gibson said in January this year, 'but I don't. It's just a feeling.' Rogan pushed back, asking about early hominins such as Australopithecus; Gibson said they were hoaxes. They found a point of agreement in their climate change scepticism. Rogan and a stoned-sounding actor Woody Harrelson affirmed their shared conspiracy theories about vaccination, while Rogan and J. D. Vance (then candidate, not yet vice president) laughed at jokes about billionaire Bill Gates made by their mate, billionaire Elon Musk: 'The funniest thing is when Elon showed a picture of Gates next to a pregnant woman [and said], 'if you want to lose a boner real fast',' said Rogan. 'Elon is so funny. You get dumped on by one of the smartest guys alive.' Australia's stance during the COVID-19 pandemic put the country in Rogan's sights. 'I used to think Australia [could be a good place to live], but then I saw how they handled the pandemic,' he once said. 'I was like, oh f---, that's what happens when no one has guns. Yep, the army just rolls in and tells you what to do and puts you in concentration camps because you have a cold. It's crazy.' Even so, Rogan's political positions are still unpredictable. His closeness with Team Trump did not stop him criticising forced deportations ('we've got to be careful that we don't become monsters while we're fighting monsters'). American academic Jonathan Haidt, author of The Coddling of the American Mind, once tried to articulate the concept of white privilege to Rogan. 'The real enemy is racism,' replied Rogan, 'it's not just white people getting lucky.' At the Oaks on Sunday afternoon, Russell, 26, says he was once a keen listener, but tunes in less since Rogan developed his anti-vaccination stance during COVID. The open-mindedness is shrinking. 'He took a dislike to the left side of the media [during COVID],' says Russell, who also did not want to give his last name. 'He used to be very open and explore different things, now he's more closed off and [hosts] people that reinforce his own ideas. I still think he preaches healthy behaviours.' Many of Rogan's guests don't share his views, but, having weighed up potential brand damage against potential publicity, come armed with enough anecdotes to ensure that the conversation doesn't veer into risky territory. Russell Crowe talked about the dangers of fossil fuels, which didn't get much response from Rogan, and told a rehearsed tale of being 'f---ed on the neck by a tarantula'. Brian Cox, the British physicist, explained black holes and deftly batted away Rogan's theory that octopuses might be aliens. Bono gave a fascinating insight into his friendships with Johnny Cash and Frank Sinatra, but challenged Trump's cuts to USAID. The podcast recalls the popularity of talkback radio in Australia, which once attracted listeners in their millions to (mostly) men talking for hours about whatever took their fancy. The underlying appeal of both is what's known as a parasocial relationship; that feeling of cosy familiarity, almost friendship, with a broadcaster. An Australian study found 43 per cent of men are experiencing loneliness. Perhaps part of Rogan's appeal is that he is offering them blokey companionship from a studio in Austin, Texas, 14,000 kilometres away. Rogan, 57, was born in New Jersey. His father was a police officer, and his parents divorced when he was five. 'All I remember of my dad are these brief, violent flashes of domestic violence,' he once said. He won the US Open Taekwondo Championships at age 19 then dropped out. He became a stand-up comic in the late 1980s, got an acting job on the comedy show NewsRadio in the mid-1990s and hosted the stunt show Fear Factor in the early 2000s. But for many years, he was best known as an announcer for the Ultimate Fighting Championship, or UFC, a 'no-rules' martial arts competition with skyrocketing popularity among American and Australian men. The UFC is where Rogan's links to the Trump ecosystem were nurtured. UFC boss Dana White and Trump go back almost 25 years, to when so-called 'human cockfighting' was shunned by the mainstream. Trump was the only one who would host it, making his casinos available. White returned the favour by inviting Trump as a special guest after the January 20 riots. White has been credited with securing the 'testosterone vote' for Trump in last year's election. Rogan wasn't always a Trump man. In 2022, he described the former president as an existential threat to democracy. But Rogan is a big fan of fellow vaccine sceptic Robert F. Kennedy. Rogan interviewed Trump for three hours during the US election campaign, and declined an interview with Harris. White said in January that he has been 'working on Rogan for years … I knew that if I could get him and Trump together that they would hit it off'. Rogan's interviews with Trump, Vance and White House cost-cutter Musk brought the MAGA world to tens of millions of Americans before the election. Rogan's dip-in, dip-out listeners might make up their own minds about his ideas. But his audience is so big, and some of his guests so partisan or fringe, that many think he should take greater responsibility for what he broadcasts. 'I don't think it's appropriate, at his level of fame, for him not to have bothered investing in a couple of New York Times fact-checkers, to assist him in knowing if what he's putting out there is true,' says Szeps. Douglas Murray, a conservative commentator and recent Rogan guest, recently took aim at the podcast's blurring of the line between opinion and expertise. 'It does not mean that a comedian can simply hold himself out as a Middle East expert and should be listened to as if he has any body of work,' he said. Or as Sam Harris – philosopher, neuroscientist, and former Rogan guest – said, 'Joe is a genuinely good guy who wants good things for people. But he is honestly in over his head on so many topics of great consequence.' In the United States, as in Australia, broadcasters are regulated, based on the view back when broadcast media took form that the first amendment right to free speech was not designed for mass reach, and that 'that you can't just let the market do whatever it wants to do in the airwaves, that there's a social responsibility that comes with that – democracy depends on it', says Andy Ruddock, a senior lecturer in media at Monash University. But podcasts, like so many other elements of the digital age, have evolved unfettered in an era when social responsibility is less valued than freedom and the individual. 'This is why [responding to] people like Rogan is quite difficult,' says Ruddock. 'This idea of, 'if I'm in your studio, and someone says I can't say what I want to say, that's an abridgement of my personal rights', is based on the assumption that sitting in your studio talking to millions of people is the same as sitting outside the pub and talking to someone.' This hyperfocus on the individual also worries Rosewarne for a different reason. Many of Rogan's followers, particularly young men and teen boys, are attracted to his 'life optimisation' quest. This involves not only intense physical training – 'train by day, podcast by night' is Rogan's catchphrase – but also a list of physical enhancers such as supplements, testosterone injections, freeze rooms, mushroom coffee, NAD (nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide), intravenous drips, and nootropics (brain enhancers). Many providers of Rogan's supplements advertise on his show, or have his personal endorsement. Loading 'Who doesn't want to be better?' says Rosewarne. 'Unfortunately, that reasonable-sounding message leads into directions that get exacerbated. The body as a temple, and also worship of the self; these are incredibly narcissistic movements. This is at the heart of these conservative, pull-yourself-up-by-your-bootstraps ethos, too; 'you are in control of your destiny, you're the main player'.' Rosewarne suggests those who use Rogan as a road map for self-improvement should ask themselves whether it's a positive addition to their lives. 'Or does it constantly reiterate the message that you are not enough, like women's magazines did?' says Rosewarne.
The Age
5 hours ago
- The Age
Joe Rogan's message can be rambling and unpolished, yet men idolise him. This might be why
Rogan's voice can be heard in Sydney boys' boarding schools, in the luxury cars of chief executives, and in gardens of home-builders as they chip away at DIY renovations. 'He's smart, and has interesting guests,' says one lawyer. Loading A Sydney-based chief executive listens regularly. 'If you go to the pub with your mates and shoot the shit for a few hours, the conversation goes from the footy to taxes to 'did you hear about the crazy celebrity?'' he says, also on the condition of anonymity. 'That's what you get from Rogan. The people who say you've got to be careful of Joe Rogan and the manosphere are people from legacy media who are losing out to him.' Rogan's podcasts are rambling and unpolished. Joe Rogan Library (JLR), a non-affiliated fan site, estimates they run for an average of almost two hours and 40 minutes. There's been more than 2575, so it would take at least nine months to listen to all of them back-to-back. The JLR also estimates that 89 per cent of guests have been men. So far this year, Rogan has hosted chess grandmaster Magnus Carlsen, comedian Bill Murray, and 'exoneree' Amanda Knox. 'He's smart, and has interesting guests.' An Australian Joe Rogan fan It's a conversation with no specific purpose, reminiscent of stoned freshmen lying on the university lawn and gazing at the stars. His schtick is open-minded curiosity about everything, even theories that are discredited. He hates talking points and scripts. He expects his guests to say what they think, rather than spin answers to avoid stepping on toes. He has the American comedian's disgust at having his conversation hampered by 'wokeness'. That's exactly what Jack, 26, who works in insurance – and did not want to give his last name – enjoys. He thinks critics take Rogan too seriously. 'He's having a bit of fun,' says Jack, as Rogan's commentary about the latest UFC fight blares across the sports bar at The Oaks, Neutral Bay on Sunday afternoon. 'He might be having a few drinks on the podcast. He's debating things. They talk about interesting topics. A different point of view. I just think he's a funny, good bloke.' But Lauren Rosewarne, an associate professor in public policy at the University of Melbourne, argues this 'open-minded curiosity' line is a slippery slope. 'This is the problem with a lot of conspiracy theory,' she says. 'It's very much in line with what we think is critical thinking; 'I'm only asking a question'. It somehow works to validate their entire message.' About 10 years ago, Rogan contacted Szeps when a video of the Australian challenging someone's posturing on air went viral. Rogan became a mentor. 'He's not a polymath,' Szeps says of Rogan, 'but he's eclectic in his interests. [He has a way of noticing] what he finds interesting about a person and guiding it into mutual areas of interest, then shooting the shit about that in a way that, if it's not fascinating every minute, is at least convivial and curious and unexpected.' The conversation can go to strange places. 'I can't intellectually tell you why I don't believe in evolution,' actor Mel Gibson said in January this year, 'but I don't. It's just a feeling.' Rogan pushed back, asking about early hominins such as Australopithecus; Gibson said they were hoaxes. They found a point of agreement in their climate change scepticism. Rogan and a stoned-sounding actor Woody Harrelson affirmed their shared conspiracy theories about vaccination, while Rogan and J. D. Vance (then candidate, not yet vice president) laughed at jokes about billionaire Bill Gates made by their mate, billionaire Elon Musk: 'The funniest thing is when Elon showed a picture of Gates next to a pregnant woman [and said], 'if you want to lose a boner real fast',' said Rogan. 'Elon is so funny. You get dumped on by one of the smartest guys alive.' Australia's stance during the COVID-19 pandemic put the country in Rogan's sights. 'I used to think Australia [could be a good place to live], but then I saw how they handled the pandemic,' he once said. 'I was like, oh f---, that's what happens when no one has guns. Yep, the army just rolls in and tells you what to do and puts you in concentration camps because you have a cold. It's crazy.' Even so, Rogan's political positions are still unpredictable. His closeness with Team Trump did not stop him criticising forced deportations ('we've got to be careful that we don't become monsters while we're fighting monsters'). American academic Jonathan Haidt, author of The Coddling of the American Mind, once tried to articulate the concept of white privilege to Rogan. 'The real enemy is racism,' replied Rogan, 'it's not just white people getting lucky.' At the Oaks on Sunday afternoon, Russell, 26, says he was once a keen listener, but tunes in less since Rogan developed his anti-vaccination stance during COVID. The open-mindedness is shrinking. 'He took a dislike to the left side of the media [during COVID],' says Russell, who also did not want to give his last name. 'He used to be very open and explore different things, now he's more closed off and [hosts] people that reinforce his own ideas. I still think he preaches healthy behaviours.' Many of Rogan's guests don't share his views, but, having weighed up potential brand damage against potential publicity, come armed with enough anecdotes to ensure that the conversation doesn't veer into risky territory. Russell Crowe talked about the dangers of fossil fuels, which didn't get much response from Rogan, and told a rehearsed tale of being 'f---ed on the neck by a tarantula'. Brian Cox, the British physicist, explained black holes and deftly batted away Rogan's theory that octopuses might be aliens. Bono gave a fascinating insight into his friendships with Johnny Cash and Frank Sinatra, but challenged Trump's cuts to USAID. The podcast recalls the popularity of talkback radio in Australia, which once attracted listeners in their millions to (mostly) men talking for hours about whatever took their fancy. The underlying appeal of both is what's known as a parasocial relationship; that feeling of cosy familiarity, almost friendship, with a broadcaster. An Australian study found 43 per cent of men are experiencing loneliness. Perhaps part of Rogan's appeal is that he is offering them blokey companionship from a studio in Austin, Texas, 14,000 kilometres away. Rogan, 57, was born in New Jersey. His father was a police officer, and his parents divorced when he was five. 'All I remember of my dad are these brief, violent flashes of domestic violence,' he once said. He won the US Open Taekwondo Championships at age 19 then dropped out. He became a stand-up comic in the late 1980s, got an acting job on the comedy show NewsRadio in the mid-1990s and hosted the stunt show Fear Factor in the early 2000s. But for many years, he was best known as an announcer for the Ultimate Fighting Championship, or UFC, a 'no-rules' martial arts competition with skyrocketing popularity among American and Australian men. The UFC is where Rogan's links to the Trump ecosystem were nurtured. UFC boss Dana White and Trump go back almost 25 years, to when so-called 'human cockfighting' was shunned by the mainstream. Trump was the only one who would host it, making his casinos available. White returned the favour by inviting Trump as a special guest after the January 20 riots. White has been credited with securing the 'testosterone vote' for Trump in last year's election. Rogan wasn't always a Trump man. In 2022, he described the former president as an existential threat to democracy. But Rogan is a big fan of fellow vaccine sceptic Robert F. Kennedy. Rogan interviewed Trump for three hours during the US election campaign, and declined an interview with Harris. White said in January that he has been 'working on Rogan for years … I knew that if I could get him and Trump together that they would hit it off'. Rogan's interviews with Trump, Vance and White House cost-cutter Musk brought the MAGA world to tens of millions of Americans before the election. Rogan's dip-in, dip-out listeners might make up their own minds about his ideas. But his audience is so big, and some of his guests so partisan or fringe, that many think he should take greater responsibility for what he broadcasts. 'I don't think it's appropriate, at his level of fame, for him not to have bothered investing in a couple of New York Times fact-checkers, to assist him in knowing if what he's putting out there is true,' says Szeps. Douglas Murray, a conservative commentator and recent Rogan guest, recently took aim at the podcast's blurring of the line between opinion and expertise. 'It does not mean that a comedian can simply hold himself out as a Middle East expert and should be listened to as if he has any body of work,' he said. Or as Sam Harris – philosopher, neuroscientist, and former Rogan guest – said, 'Joe is a genuinely good guy who wants good things for people. But he is honestly in over his head on so many topics of great consequence.' In the United States, as in Australia, broadcasters are regulated, based on the view back when broadcast media took form that the first amendment right to free speech was not designed for mass reach, and that 'that you can't just let the market do whatever it wants to do in the airwaves, that there's a social responsibility that comes with that – democracy depends on it', says Andy Ruddock, a senior lecturer in media at Monash University. But podcasts, like so many other elements of the digital age, have evolved unfettered in an era when social responsibility is less valued than freedom and the individual. 'This is why [responding to] people like Rogan is quite difficult,' says Ruddock. 'This idea of, 'if I'm in your studio, and someone says I can't say what I want to say, that's an abridgement of my personal rights', is based on the assumption that sitting in your studio talking to millions of people is the same as sitting outside the pub and talking to someone.' This hyperfocus on the individual also worries Rosewarne for a different reason. Many of Rogan's followers, particularly young men and teen boys, are attracted to his 'life optimisation' quest. This involves not only intense physical training – 'train by day, podcast by night' is Rogan's catchphrase – but also a list of physical enhancers such as supplements, testosterone injections, freeze rooms, mushroom coffee, NAD (nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide), intravenous drips, and nootropics (brain enhancers). Many providers of Rogan's supplements advertise on his show, or have his personal endorsement. Loading 'Who doesn't want to be better?' says Rosewarne. 'Unfortunately, that reasonable-sounding message leads into directions that get exacerbated. The body as a temple, and also worship of the self; these are incredibly narcissistic movements. This is at the heart of these conservative, pull-yourself-up-by-your-bootstraps ethos, too; 'you are in control of your destiny, you're the main player'.' Rosewarne suggests those who use Rogan as a road map for self-improvement should ask themselves whether it's a positive addition to their lives. 'Or does it constantly reiterate the message that you are not enough, like women's magazines did?' says Rosewarne.
West Australian
7 hours ago
- West Australian
Screen Queen TV Reviews: Travels With Agatha Christie, Bay of Fires, The Surfer, America's Sweethearts, DWTS
I've spent the past weekend steaming through the Atlantic Ocean aboard the Empress of Australia, a passenger liner at the centre of WA author and actor Toby Schmitz's grizzly-but-great debut novel, The Empress Murders. His book, which I inhaled over the course of a weekend, is set in 1925, and is a fantastically dark rumination on the end of the British Empire, the legacy of World War I and a close-up look at colonialism and the murky confusion the world found itself in at the start of last century — it's also a ripping murder mystery. Having spent so much time in that world, I decided to stay in similar terrain and dive into this fabulous travel series, which sees Sir David Suchet, the man who inhabited Agatha Christie's best-known creation, Inspector Hercule Poirot, for 25 years on TV — as he follows her footsteps, retracing early trips the crime novelist took with her then-husband Archie before she became famous (and famously reclusive) in later life. In 1922, Christie, along with her husband, found herself crossing the world on a passenger ship much like the one that's central to Schmitz's book, tasked with visiting various countries to help promote an upcoming British Empire exhibition. Suchet's first stop is South Africa; in 1924, Christie published a detective novel set there, and in episode one Suchet, armed with his old Leica camera, is off to Cape Town. Later episodes see him travel to Australia, New Zealand and Canada — even Hawaii. It's a delight to traverse the globe in his gentle presence. And — praise be! — there are no murderers along for the ride, though there is plenty of discussion of the devastating violence wrought in the name of king and country. Seek this series out, and give Schmitz's book a read, too. Though be warned: his is a much choppier crossing. There's much to like about this Tasmanian crime series, which sees the always-watchable Marta Dusseldorp starring as Stella, a mum-on-the-run in witness protection — it's so delightfully odd! Season two sees her still stranded in off-kilter Mystery Bay with her kids, making the best of things by running the town's criminal enterprises. Mystery Bay's wacky inhabitants have got used to the spoils of their ill-gotten gains, but their harmonious anonymity is about to be tested as Stella finds herself in the sights of an 'unhinged apiarist drug lord' and 'maniacal doomsday cult'. It can't end well. Worth a second look, and a satisfying continuation of the story. Remember when Nicolas Cage spent a few weeks living down south, shopping at the Asian grocery store in Busselton? He was there shooting this psychedelic surf thriller for Stan. Worth a look for the curious. Rebecca Gibney, Susie O'Neill, Felicity Ward, Osher Gunsberg and Shaun Micallef are just some of the stars making their dance floor debut this Sunday. You KNOW I'll be tuning in to see how they fare. Sorry, not sorry, but I loved the first season of this doco. This one follows the 2024-25 cheerleading squad from auditions right through to the season, and it won't be smooth sailing. Cannot wait to feel woefully inadequate as I check back in with these impossibly glamorous gals.
