Health Franklin: Australian Comedian on his New Zealand tour and iconic character 'Chopper'

One of New Zealand’s favourite comedians, Heath ‘Chopper’ Franklin is back from his break. 

The Australian comic is returning from his three year break with a bang, back in New Zealand with fifteen shows as well as his set in the International Comedy Festival. 

His tour kicks off today, as Chopper's 'Not Here To F*ck Spiders', the name of his tour setting the tone for the show.

His iconic persona ‘Chopper’ was based off the real life criminal in the 2000 movie by the same name, his career taking off from there. 

“I watched it when I was... early twenties, and you know, like a lot of the movies you watch when you get to that age, you just sort of watch it and then you absorb it slowly.” 

Franklin recounts hanging out with friends at parties and, prompted by friends going off to sleep early, doing an impression of the character. He then brought this through into the sketch comedy shows he was doing at the time. 

The movie came out in the 2000s, and Franklin told Mike Hosking that there’s a level of freedom in people no longer knowing the original story. 

“I find the thing that kind of weighs me down the most is, especially when I go to Melbourne where they’re quite parochial and proud of even, you know, even the violence of their criminals, that yeah. You know, there’s a constant kind of reference between what I do and what he would have done.” 

“So I really love coming to New Zealand where I kind of get to define what the character does, and I get to kind of step out of that shadow.” 

He was never trying to be a biographer, he told Hosking. 

“I was just a guy who liked a movie and made a dumb sketch.” 

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