#002 - Sam Hayden-Smith - In This Universe with Craig Griffin

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
You're in my heart and soul. You turn those dark days into
shimmering gold. I gotta The true Lord always got
in me home. You're in my heart.
And. Soul, my heart and soul.

(00:28):
My soul, my heart, and. Soul, welcome along.
Sam Hayden Smith, thank you so much for agreeing to do this.
Absolutely honoured to have you here.

(00:48):
Thanks for having me. So as we were just kind of
chatting about before we startedrecording, it's amazing where
time has gone in terms of prettymuch that whole COVID period.
I mean, it was COVID-19, so it was 2019, didn't really sort of
take effect, at least here in Australia till 2020.

(01:11):
I was reading the news on community radio at the time and
just starting to do all the stories about sort of Tom Hanks.
It was around the time Tom Hankswas here and it was all just
becoming a bit of a thing. So it wasn't really in sort of
until 2020. But yeah, it's it's amazing how
that whole period has just. Disappeared.

(01:33):
So we probably haven't seen eachother since No 19 or 18, 2018 or
19 I think. It was 2019.
I remember us last chatting why it might It was probably 2019.
We caught up and then into 2020,we're actually chatting on the
phone. Yeah, because I remember us
chatting about when COVID was sort of starting to to be a

(01:57):
thing and take hold. And of course, no one knew what
to expect or what it was going to look like.
We're all kind of. Stressful times.
I was half into a house build and that I didn't have a home
loan for because I built a houseout of shipping containers.
So non traditional build like that.
I was just staging it and using cash that I had that was coming

(02:19):
in and then the cash coming in stops.
And so I was in 1/2 built house,living in a small house with
that was on the original land ifit's an acre in Telebudgera.
But yeah, I told my wife, yeah, we'll just be in that old brick
house with one toilet for six months.
The house would go together quickly and then we'll be good

(02:39):
to go, but that turned into 2 1/2 years.
Yeah, wow. And.
It's not my wife and I we got wehave 4 kids I.
Was just about to saying you don't exactly have a small
family. Family of six with one toilet,
one shower, but can't complain, Yeah.
Made you closer, right? Yeah.
How did you find that whole period going from what we used

(03:01):
to know as normal to? Yeah, the biggest thing for me
was probably just stopping all travel because my career was
gaining momentum in China. So I was spending, I was
probably flying to China like four or five times a year.
I had back to back projects from1718 and 19 and things were

(03:22):
going good. And then it just stopped.
Yeah, yeah. So it was.
It was tough to stop travelling and stop working.
Especially when you would have gone from making that your
normal in that you're used to travelling, you know, obviously
your family's used to you being away and, and that would have
become your routine to then just, yeah, like someone just

(03:46):
flicked the sweets. That's right.
All just stop. And also the whole international
relations things, because China was blamed and horribleized
through the whole thing, which wasn't really fair because even
now, who knows? Like it seems pretty obvious
that it did come out of a coronavirus lab, which was in

(04:07):
Wuhan, but everyone's denied that.
And the US was, I don't know, the US had fun.
I don't want to get into conspiracy theories, but had the
US, like they knew about that lab and I think that they had
sent scientists there. Yeah, yeah.
So then to say that it came froma wet market in that area, it's
just like that's a little bit toambitious.

(04:31):
Yeah. Coincidental.
Yeah. And like everything, there's a
lot of, like any incidents, yeah, there's a lot of finger
pointing. There's a lot of misinformation,
whether it's intentional or not.Yeah, there's a lot of
intentional disinformation spread as well.
Yeah. And I think that's one of the
ways, whether it's a conspiracy or not, that that's one of the

(04:54):
ways that a lot of information is, is is used to throw people
off the scent because it gets tothe point where you're like, you
don't know what's what's true, what's half true.
That's right. And code was a pressure test for
the way that we get our information because we started
relying on things through socialmedia.
And then that's when everyone started policing words and

(05:18):
content. And so that's probably the start
of the great division of people.And how interesting was it you
you pointed out an awesome pointthere.
Like, at the time it started to become a thing of, you know,
like fake news, the whole fake news thing.
Yeah. A lot of the social media

(05:40):
companies were supposedly cracking down on, you know,
false information. Yeah.
Facebook, I think, well, I was going to say famous famously,
but probably more notoriously. Yeah.
You know, we're really cracking down on information that was,
you know, not not true, not proven, not.
Fact. Yeah.
But Mark Zuckerberg recently said that he was forced to do

(06:02):
that. Do you see that?
Yeah, I did. I was about to say and and has
in fact flipped back the other way.
Yeah, and has gone, you know, more for the free speech.
Yeah. You know, that's right.
Let everyone be responsible themselves for checking the
information that they get, you know, which is very interesting

(06:22):
to compare. I think if you compare that to
YouTube where it's like we're just a carrier just the same as
like, you know, I guess if you compare it to traditional media,
you know, we're not saying that as a, as a, you know, say as a

(06:43):
traditional channel, channel 7, channel 9, channel 10, we're not
responsible for the advertisers.We're just the means the
information comes through. And I think YouTube have very
much taken that approach of like, I wouldn't say no
censorship, but not a great dealof censorship.
It's like you can put the information out there and then
it's up to you to decide what you view and what you do with

(07:06):
the information. Whereas I think more your
Facebook, you know, Facebook better Instagram, we're really
proactive on trying to police people's opinions and police.
But that it's weird because all of those platforms that you just
said all have a comment section below.
So everyone's free to post content and then underneath

(07:28):
dispute that. And and yeah, it's not like
there's no comment section, you know, that that this is this has
been posted. So this is gospel truth.
Yeah, it's just someone's opinion or or someone's video
and you feel free to discuss it below.
Yeah, exactly. And look, I take that exact
approach with Craig Gryphon Universe socials in as much as

(07:50):
there's no moderation on comments, there's no restriction
on comments. Like you can swear, you can, you
can do what you like. It's it's open slather.
Now that I say that, you know, I'll be like, wow, was that a
good move? But no, seriously, like that's,
that's intensely my approach. If you want to swear in there,
if you want to have a, an opinion that's extreme one way

(08:13):
or extreme the other, it's like,go for it.
That's, you know, that's your thing.
Admittedly, if it was say, you know, a brand or a business
channel, totally understand the need to, to have some moderation
on both the content and the language used in terms of
swearing and that kind of thing.But, you know, for something

(08:35):
like this, I'd rather just have that more of a, you know, a free
speech approach of, of, you know.
I pretty much only swear in Chinese.
Please do, I mean, look, I wouldI encourage swearing at the best
of times. I think it it shows a great deal
of personal liberation and in any language it's encouraged.
Give us a fuck in Chinese. It's ha.

(08:57):
Nice apologies to any Chinese viewers.
So how did you find that your personal circumstance again
going back to the COVID thing, just because that is kind of a a
major turning point. How do you fit?
How did you find at the time that you had to change your day

(09:20):
to day, your routine, your. I had to try and keep busy, so
we had kids at home, obviously doing home schooling.
We were halfway through buildinga house, but I'm not a builder.
I wasn't building. I was doing whatever I could,
but when the building stopped, there wasn't much that I could

(09:41):
do. So I started doing just little
landscaping jobs. I'd be out there pulling weeds
or planting trees or doing stuffto just keep my mind because,
you know, we couldn't even go tothe gym.
Like it's just like I, I honestly feel like I've blocked
a bit of it out. Like, I can't remember how I got

(10:02):
through that, but at the same time, I don't want to be like,
oh, poor me. Because it would have been, it
was worse for a lot of people. Yeah, 100% everyone in Victoria
and people that lost loved ones.And, but my dad did die in
February 2020. So, but, and at first I thought
because I'd just come back from China in January.

(10:22):
So when we started finding out and, and he, he passed away
from, he had a routine he had like, so when he was peeing, he,
there was blood in his urine. So they, he had some sort of
stones and he had to go and havea day surgery.
So it was supposed to be like kind of in and out.
My mom researched which private hospital was the best 1 He went

(10:43):
up to Brisbane, had the surgery and then, but my dad didn't want
to have the surgery. But in April 2020, my little
brother was getting married in Hawaii.
So we, we all the brothers and sisters because it's, I've got
the six kids in my family. I'm second oldest of 6, so we're
all like, dad, you've got this paranoia about hospitals and

(11:04):
doctors and operations, but you'll be fine.
It's just like a simple surgery,but it's like everything that my
dad imagined could go wrong wentwrong.
Like he had a stroke in recoveryand then he got a pneumonia and
just then he got a blood clot and it just, and then within two
weeks after this, and my dad wassuper healthy.

(11:24):
He was 76, so he was getting up there, but he was super healthy.
Like one of those guys that walks burly every day and just
never drank or smoked or smoked or, you know, used to run a lot.
And so there was that. We also had that to deal with,
but then because he had this lung infection and stuff and it

(11:44):
was just February and then I waslike, then when we learned about
COVID at the end of February andMarch 2020, I'm like, did I
like, did I bring back COVID from China and give it to him?
And we no one even knew what it was yet because it's just so
weird that he, a healthy guy, just went downhill so quickly.
But I mean it, it wasn't. It was just a cluster.

(12:07):
That there is is that kind of was it me?
Was it something I did? You know which and we, we all
just told him to have the surgery.
You know, you'll be fine. And, and so then we had my, we
had my funeral and then we're dealing with my mum and her
grieving. And if you, if you go back to
work and about your business andlife, well, then that kind of

(12:30):
probably helps you get through tragedy and trauma.
But when you're just at home sitting there, then you're in
your own head and you're, you know, I think it was a lot more
of a traumatic experience. I think anyone that everyone's
going to lose their parents. So that's always going to be a

(12:50):
traumatic experience. And I think that you don't
understand the gravity of it until you go through it.
But yeah, I think it was worse in those circumstances 100.
Percent yeah, yeah, that's to behonest I not having been in that
situation that that you're in itit hadn't occurred to me but

(13:13):
yeah how much more magnified yeah the the whole.
Everything was magnified. And not having the distraction
like you say that that most people do have of going back to
your trying to find your way back to those normal routines.
Yeah, You know, even if the loved one's no longer there, you
try and get back to that that routine as much as possible and

(13:34):
throw yourself back into your work or whatever it is.
But. Yeah, yeah, and I think those
first few kind of maybe the first month, you just keep
thinking I was telling people inChina I'll be back soon, you
know, and so you just keep thinking life's going to get
back to normal soon. It's going to Everything will go
back to normal soon. Grocery, grocery prices will
come back down. We'll we'll be able to go back

(13:55):
to the gym, but as it. Prolongs go back up.
Oh my. Gosh, it just just things got
worse and worse. And like I said, I feel like I
can't remember how I got throughit.
I can't remember the the anything from March forward in
2020. No, yeah, no.
Can't remember how long we were locked down even here.
Yeah. How long the kids were at home
from school I can't remember because I just like.

(14:17):
Yeah. Blocked it out.
Yeah, definitely. And it it's even even then, it's
not something that you intentionally did.
It's not something that you wentOh my God, this is a horrible
time. I'm just going to do everything
I can to block it out. Yeah, but I do know that myself
from, you know, I remember it because of, as I said, you know,
I was doing the community radio at the time, so there was that

(14:39):
thing of me doing broadcasts of some news segments.
So I was keeping up pretty regularly with what was going
on. I mean, we all were, but it kind
of allowed me to keep a little bit of a, it was almost like a
journaling each time I was doingan announcement.
And I'm like, wow, that's happened, This has happened.

(14:59):
But I think that whole, I reckon3 year period from say sort of
20 to 2023, it's just a blur. It's a bit of a.
Flash. That's right and.
We just had to kind of, I guess,resign ourselves to the fact
that, as a lot of people said atthe time, this is our new normal

(15:19):
moment and what it looks like. The other side of this, who
knows, Nobody knows. With the benefit of hindsight,
thankfully we've gone back to pretty much the way things were.
I'd like to think we took some upsides out of it.
It did make us re evaluate what was important, what wasn't.
I I think that's one thing for me personally that I took away

(15:41):
from. It was just that, OK, this is
important. That's not it.
It kind of gave me a chance to think about, yeah, you know,
where I fitted into to all of those things around me too.
Yeah. I'd be very interested to know
what I and this is certainly nota a COVID podcast.
It's. Just yeah, yeah.

(16:02):
That is. Kind of we we're like not going
to talk about anything political.
And we went straight into politics, stranded.
I was not political at all before COVID, Yeah.
But now I'm just, I don't know. It's made me.
Feel like, and again, I, I mean,I guess you can take that as a,
as a positive, you know, taking positives wherever you can,
which I always try and do. It's good that it's developed a

(16:22):
certain awareness, whether it's because you've got more, hey,
I'm going to intentionally be more aware of things, or because
you're like, because you're pissed off.
It's an act of rebellion. It's like, damn, you know, this
particular group that did this particular thing.
So you intentionally, yeah, try and become more aware of it.

(16:43):
You know, I'd be very interested, though, to get your
perspective as someone who does have a lot of Chinese friends,
fans, followers. What was the difference between
our reaction and their reaction?How, how was it kind of
perceived over there? I know there was that like a

(17:03):
little bit of a, a kickback of, you know, our Prime Minister at
the time doing a bit of finger pointing and.
Yeah, they didn't take that finger pointing well because it
shut down their economy as well.It's like, do you think that we
released this into the world on purpose so that we could somehow
benefit from it? Like we've been screwed.

(17:25):
So they didn't like that I wasn't there, but I know that
they all had to be tested like weekly, which is a huge thing
for 1.6 billion people. But they put in systems pretty
quickly to be able to because a lot of Chinese people live in
kind of a little community with say, 10 towers and then this

(17:47):
little park in the middle of this.
So they might have locked down that community.
There might have been a convenience store downstairs and
they could have maybe walked down around there.
But then I also did see where they boarded up some front doors
and stuff. But I don't know if that's
propaganda, but all of my friends over there said that it

(18:09):
was tough time. They just watched a lot of
movies and got a lot of Uber Eats and and waited it out.
But I think for the most part, they didn't fight against it
like like we did. They just kind of the one thing
that's good about Chinese is that they seem to be able to

(18:31):
sacrifice for the greater good. And and whereas we were kind of
sold that we were kind of sold that story that we had to
sacrifice for the greater good. Like, for example, I didn't want
to get the jab, but then we're told like, well, but you could
kill your mom. Like you might not get sick, but
you might give your mom coronavirus and she would die.

(18:53):
And I just lost my dad. So I'm like, I don't want to
kill my mom. So I got the jab out of fear.
And I'm not like anti, I'm not like against vaccinations.
I'm not, I'm not an anti vaccine, but I still felt a
little bit coerced. And then when it turns out
that's not the truth and then I got COVID anyway.
And sure, to be fair, it had morphed into something not as

(19:17):
strong as it was before, but butyou, you did feel like there was
a bit of coercion there. Especially when you learn after
the fact that, you know, some ofthe companies that made some of
the vaccines made some of the largest profits in history.
Yeah. Billions and billions and
billions of dollars made out of vaccines that we had to have.

(19:40):
Yeah, and again, I'm pretty muchin the same boat as you in as
much as I'm certainly not an anti vaxxer by any stretch.
But again, the, you know, a lot of what we were sold was just
straight out horseshit. Yeah, yeah, we unproven like
nonsense. Yeah, yeah, that's right.

(20:02):
But if you you're either guilty,like you said, you know, you you
could kill a family member. And and I know myself, like we
only just had Gabrielle Rogers on the show.
Yeah. Who?
Similarly spoke about her husband passing away.
Yeah. Lost her husband Andrew Jack
right at the very start of things.

(20:24):
So I think that had a a great effect on me.
It probably made me more, I guess, willing to toe the line
at the time. And as much as it's like, well,
now I remember people saying to me, well, do you really know?
Like, do you know anyone that's actually died from coronavirus?
And I'm like, well, yeah, I actually do.
Yeah. So I think that had probably

(20:46):
influenced me pretty heavy heavily as well, similarly to
what you would have been. And I knew people in New York as
well that were like, when it started, no, this is real.
There were, yeah, makeshift morgues on the street.
So I'm not denying that. This is no, no, I'm not denying
at all. No, I'm I'm exactly the same.
And it's great that you're clearon that.
And I'm the same not, not denying that it was a thing or

(21:06):
any stretch, like there, there were people dying and it was a,
it was a draining situation. It was one of the toughest
things that I think we'd all been through at the time in
terms of it on such a level, on such a scale.
But there'd been little outbreaks prior to that, you
know, chicken flus and pigs swine flus, swine flus kind of
bit nothing like this. This was just just totally

(21:27):
unprecedented. Yeah, yeah.
Anyway, enough about COVID. Yeah, 100% like this.
I wasn't, I had no intention to be with the ticket.
I I guess the only reason we started on we, we did start
talking about it prior to the show was just the fact that that
was it. It is kind of a milestone.
It's like the before COVID, after COVID and we were both

(21:47):
commenting about how basically that whole 3 year period had
just disappeared yeah that you know we'd been in in quite
regular contact yeah way to thatand you know I think things just
got just super busy and and justit it was a strange time and
it's like it just that three hours sorry that three years

(22:09):
just flashed by I. Think in terms of career, one
thing I would say about COVID isthat I wish that before COVID I
had done social media because before before COVID, I thought
my acting career is taking off and I'm working back to back and

(22:30):
I'm not going to do like TikTok and I would post things on
Instagram. I've always had Instagram, but I
never thought that I should try and be any sort of influencer.
And then during COVID, when all the acting work stopped for a
while and a lot of actors had nowork, it was the influences that

(22:53):
blew up because they had this good direct contact that this
direct connection with their audiences and fans and were able
to live stream and film things every day and even just like
Vlog. And they blew up and they became
more powerful than actors. And so if I had been doing
Chinese social media before that, man, COVID would have been

(23:17):
a way better experience and I would have been probably able to
support myself financially through those three years.
Yeah, yeah. And look that that basically
brings up two points to me. My initial reaction to what you
just said is that I anyone that already had any kind of a an
audience or a presence was able to leverage off that really
quickly. But I think the thing that was

(23:38):
very interesting, and I know youcertainly did this at the time,
the people that were able to pivot really quickly and go,
hey, I'm at home, I've got the access to these tools, let's do
something with it. I remember watching a lot of
Ryan Serhant, the the real estate guy in New York, who at

(23:59):
the time had, admittedly, previously done $1,000,000
listing. So he did have that little bit
of a presence anyway. But he jumped straight on to.
I can remember him doing posts and, like, posting out the
window or posting out the street.
He, I believe, lived maybe two blocks away from where he

(24:19):
worked. And he'd be like, this is me
walking through the streets of New York.
And it was like, it was like, I am legend.
Yeah. Like there was no one anywhere.
It was around that time where a lot of people were either had to
stay pretty much indoors or couldn't go anywhere or they'd
actually left New York. Like they'd get up.
And I, I think it's at one stagehe even did the same.
They ended up going sort of upstate New York.

(24:42):
But I can just remember some of the footage and there's like,
that's apocalyptic. Yeah, he pivoted.
Legend. Yeah.
Yeah, it was crazy that he pivoted really quickly.
And I know like you said, a lot of other people did and were
able to to jump on that pretty quickly.
Well I will. I had another Instagram account,
our Container Home, which I was going to document the build of

(25:04):
my because a lot of people are interested in container home, so
I was going to is. That still up?
It's still up. What's that?
What's the handle? Our container home.
At our container home. Yeah.
At our container home. Yeah.
But because I stopped building and had no money, like I stopped
making that. And so I feel like if I had
somehow just kept doing things on that and documenting that,

(25:27):
what that would have been good. But in hindsight, I probably
just had some sort of, you know,post and.
While I haven't seen it in person, the final product from
the photos and and anything thatyou've posted that I've seen it.
Looks since it's pretty cool, it's pretty cool.
Like everyone that comes, they're just like, oh, I wanted
to do this, but now I know why people don't do it because it's

(25:50):
not that easy. There's some big things that you
don't think about. There's big crane days, there's
big a lot of welding and just kind of trying to fill up gaps
and stuff that you wouldn't haveif you just clad the whole thing
with a coloured bond. Yeah, you were the first person
I know that had ever done it. Yeah, the first.

(26:11):
I mean, there was certainly examples of where people had
more built sheds and that kind of thing.
Yeah, container homes. You were the first person I was
aware of. Even when I tell people that
I've done a container home they think it's going to be like 2
smashed together and I'm like noit's actually 12 containers.
I've got like 2 levels, cantilevers, open area in the
middle and it's pretty like, it's the biggest I've ever seen.

(26:31):
Yeah, yeah. But yeah, it was was crazy.
I think sometimes, you know whenyou go into a project you need
to lead, you need to be a littlebit naive or else you wouldn't
have a. 100% could not agree with you anymore.
Yeah, you would have done it in the first place.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. So yeah, lucky I was stupid.
Yeah, you kind of like, you know, the, the, the early

(26:51):
frontier, you know, the people crossing America for the first
time. It's like if you knew how hard
it was or what was going to be out there, you probably wouldn't
have done it. That's right.
But just that blind leap of faith and just going, let's just
do it. Yeah, let's go.
We've got to get to California. Yeah, exactly.
There's gold in them there, heels, which comes back to

(27:14):
another point, jumping back to Iguess where we first met.
I'm leading up to California, but going back to where we first
met. So this the the scene was set.
It was circa 2015. 2015 was it. Which again.
It's crazy. It's like. 10 years years ago?
Yeah, 10 years. So a bit of a shout out there

(27:36):
to. The warehouse workshop?
Yep. And it's like we were both
launching our our acting careersat the time and cutting our
teeth. And had you had previous acting
experience I. Had acted before I I, I did a
couple of years at doing a screen acting course at neither

(27:58):
in Sydney. And then, but then the global
financial crisis came and so I was married with two young kids
in Sydney in 2009. And I was like, man, I don't
want to be a broke actor bartender because I don't even
know how to make a drink. So.
So that's when I convinced my wife.

(28:19):
I said I'll stop acting and we'll move to China because I
had a friend that said come to China and we'll start some sort
of business. So I put acting aside and we
moved to China for three years. Yeah.
Wow. Yeah.
I didn't realise she's lived there for three years.
Yeah, in Xiamen, a city between Shanghai and Guangzhou.

(28:39):
It's beautiful. And so that was what year was
that? That was 09 to kind of 2000 and
end of 2012 thirteen. So so I'd just come back and
then I got an agent again, but Ijust felt like a bit rusty.
So that's why I did the warehouse workshop to just
because if you don't pick up a script for even a few months,

(29:02):
it's just like your ability to memorise lines and just make
choices and stuff just goes. It's like a wasp and you need to
like work that out. So I'm one of those actors that
thinks that even if I'm a working actor, I'd love to just
do some acting classes just to keep sharp and fresh.
Yeah, definitely. So that was great for me to just
have that with three days a week.

(29:23):
Yeah. Yeah, three days, yeah.
Three days a week. It's.
Part of the full time course, yeah.
So it was January 2015. We both went into that course.
So shout out to the warehouse workshop.
Tomic Sweeney, I think Studio Holden.
Yeah, yeah. Phil Holder, Tom McSweeney,
shout out to them both and all of the other great staff along
the way there as well. At least James, you know, there

(29:46):
was so many people, Stephen. Stephen David Mace, Calf.
Shout out to Stephen. Yeah.
And of course, yeah, the legend that is Mace Calf.
Yeah. Who going back to microphones
and cameras and the the production side of the thing,
it's interesting how many of those things stick with you and

(30:10):
look, I'll be 100% honest and say at the time, because all I
wanted to do was be an actor, I'm like, what the fuck is with
all this production stuff? Yeah, you know, I don't give a
fuck about cameras and camera angles and.
Holding the boom. Yeah, yeah, composition and all
that other stuff. With the benefit of hindsight,
it was one of the best things ever.

(30:31):
It was one of the best parts about that course compared to a
lot of other acting courses thatare just acting.
You've got to see things from a production side, so you've got a
great understanding of how the whole process works.
And again, there's so much rightthrough, you know, through the
the editing and that the whole production side of things that I

(30:53):
use all of the time. Like I wouldn't be able to do
half of this podcast if it if ithadn't have been for for what we
learned. In that learned a bit about
sound, a little bit a little bitabout camera angles, a little
bit about lighting. Yeah, yeah.
And it makes you a better actor by understanding those things.
Yeah, makes you a better angle, a better actor because you have

(31:16):
an understanding of, of angles, of composition, of light, of
what the editing process is actually going to be like.
And, you know, just just having that, that overall understanding
of things. It's such a great course.
Yeah. Had a ball, I mean.
I came, I went back for a secondyear like they had a really a

(31:37):
not master class. They just offered like a second
year. Yeah, I remember you could do
the second year. Yeah.
So I went back and did that. It was great with a smaller,
smaller group. I did like our big group.
How many was in our group? Like 16 or something?
I was going to say 1616. Yeah.
Yeah, yeah. And I think at the time, one of
the, one of the things that we kind of, I guess, bonded on was

(32:05):
being the older of the, yeah, older.
Students, some young. There was some young kids in
there, yeah. Definitely fresh out of high
school. 16 Oh, yeah, Nick Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
And there was some young girls straight out of high school.
Yeah, 100%, but I think we also kind of connected in as much as

(32:28):
I think we have. I was going to say had but have
a very similar sense of humour. So we we definitely connected on
that and I remember saying to you at the time like it I'm so
glad you're you're in this course.
You know, it's good that we we and you're like, well, yeah,
it's because we're like apart from Linda, you know, it was
pretty much the three of us thatwere like the grown.

(32:50):
UPS and Chelsea. Yeah.
And Chelsea, Yeah, yeah, definitely.
Well, I think I, I, when I went to NITA, when I did this course,
the guys that put that together were NITA graduates that that
went through the four year programme and did the degree.
And then the old way when they came out, they just would go to

(33:11):
auditions and realise that they weren't very screen ready
because they've done all this Shakespeare and it had a very
theatre. Yeah.
And so they put together a course to for screen acting and
that's the course that I did. But they told me that neither
doesn't usually take people straight out of high school

(33:31):
because they want people to havea few years experience, because
this is all part of your act as toolkit and you need to learn
some stuff and take that on board and that all becomes part
of your craft. And so I think that's another
reason that we bonded because wehad that life experience and
some of those young kids in the course, I actually actually met

(33:53):
up with a few of them. We went to Paddock Bakery and
we, and one of them, I forgot who said they said, are you
still doing the acting thing? And I was like, do you mean the
acting thing? I I'm an actor.
I'm a thespian. That's not a thing that I do.
Whether I have to go and work asa waiter or cleaning floors for

(34:17):
to to supplement my income, I'm still an actor.
I'm still doing the actor thing.So I will always do the actor
thing. You know what?
It's not like a passing phase that I went through.
Yeah, Fad. Yeah, I'm an actor.
Which, I mean, look, I totally get if you are that young and
you're still trying to work out what you're going to do.

(34:38):
True. And I was talking about this
exact thing only just with Gabrielle Rogers.
Yeah. Who had gone through the night,
of course, of things, which if you're going to be an actor, you
know more in that time. Yeah, that's what you did.
Like you went to your Mel Gibson's.
You know anyone from that kind of era is a night of graduate it

(35:03):
guaranteed. You that's work in the industry.
That was pretty much the only way.
I mean, there were I they're. Whopper, NYDA and Whopper.
I was just going to say, and then later Whopper in WA, so
that was more your Hugh Jackman's that generation.
But prior to that it was like NYDA or nothing.
That was that was you. That was the part, yeah.

(35:26):
And Gabrielle Rogers was only just saying the same thing that
in this day and age, sure that going to night or going down the
the path of of doing a degree isgreat, especially if you're
young, just out of school, not sure exactly.
Yeah. What you want to do thinking
about maybe something in in performance space, then it

(35:47):
certainly is a great way to go. But there is another option and
I think kind of related more to us in terms of doing shorter
courses, our courses 66 I think just over six months at the
time. And also that ability to learn
on the job, to learn by actuallyauditioning, to learn by doing
student films, free work, doing short films.

(36:11):
There's so much information out there now on YouTube, on Google
that you don't have to go down the path of, of doing a four
year degree. Yeah, a friend of mine, Sean
Marshall did a, a, a the four year degree in one of the
universities in Sydney. And same thing at the time, like

(36:31):
that was kind of the, the way you, yeah, about things, you
know, that was, that was the, the, the path, that was the way
you did it. It certainly doesn't guarantee
you a a career anymore doing a four year degree, but what I
think it might give you is because you know how some people
become successful and then they've still got this, they

(36:53):
still one doubt themselves. Like I haven't done a degree.
Am I qualified? Am I have I flipped it here?
And then there's a term for it that I can't think of.
Yeah, yeah, impersonator. Yeah, impersonate an
impersonator syndrome. Yeah.
So I think if you've done the hard yards and studied all the
all the greats like Stella Adler, Stanislavski, all the

(37:16):
techniques, then you would probably believe a bit more in
your craft possibly. I don't know if I could go back.
I probably would try and get into Nada straight out of high
school or try a few times. But I just at the time when we
were around that age, it was pretty just kind of felt like

(37:37):
home and away. Your neighbours was your only
career path. Yeah, Yeah, that's right.
And to be honest, it is a reallydifferent animal, the
entertainment industry in Australia compared to the some
of the opportunities that do exist in somewhere like America
just on sheer population. Yeah, there's it's a totally
different and talk about punching above our weight for

(37:59):
2627 million people. You know, the successes that
we've had interactionally, both in terms of the, the
productions, the the films that we've done.
Our the amount of superheroes Thor. 100%.
The Hulk. Who else?
Like our our talent, yeah, as well as sorry.

(38:22):
Wolverine. Wolverine.
Thor. Hulk.
Come on. Yeah.
Yeah, and that's just in the superheroes.
Yeah, I mean, what about James Bond?
Yeah, that's right. Like way back, yeah.
We had an Australian, how many countries apart from apart from
England, apart from Great Britain can say they had a James
Bond? Well, we had a James Bond, but I
mean, punching above our weight,even behind the scenes, even now

(38:45):
in in special effects, Yeah. You know, we, we lead the world.
There's stunts. We've got great stuntmen too.
We've got a great stunt trainingschool, yeah.
Cinematographers, editors, so many yeah, you know, both cast
and crew on the camera and behind the camera.
We just, we punched so far aboveour weight.

(39:07):
It's just just mind blowing. And what a great industry like.
It is, yeah. Because it's just you never know
what you're going to be doing. So it's exciting, yeah.
I think we were talking earlier about pivotal moments in your
life and and things that you look back on that that

(39:29):
internship that we did at the Warehouse Workshop 2015 for me
is something I'll always carry with me, not only in terms of
what I learned about acting, butwhat I learned about myself.
Yeah. I I've mentioned this previously
again, this sort of came up talking to Gabrielle, just those
things that you learned about yourself.
And I didn't see any of that coming.

(39:50):
Yeah, I thought I'm going to learn about acting and that's
it. It's like doing an
apprenticeship. It's like learning to be a
mechanic or a plumber, you know,But the amount of things that I
learned about myself through that process, which is mind
blowing. Things that you carry with you.
That's right. Instead just mind blowing.
Because you look, you're able toplay a character, but sometimes

(40:15):
to play a character you have to strip things from yourself.
So you have to know yourself. Most people never see themselves
on camera. At the very least, they hear
themselves, their voice, and they're like, Oh, I hate the
sound of my voice. But we get used to the sound of
our voice and we get used to watching ourselves on the
screen. And then objectively, and you'll
be like, Oh, I always do this thing, or I was, I didn't notice

(40:37):
that about myself that I have this thing that I do little
nuance or this little habit or this little tick, I don't know.
And so you can try and work on that to get rid of it.
And then if you're going to playthis character, you can kind of
pick up his yes and put that into.
So I I always tell my kids, I think everyone should do acting
classes because it really teaches you about yourself.

(40:58):
Could not agree more. Yeah, definitely.
And I know myself at the time I was doing quite a fair bit of
theatre as well. Yeah, Which I hear both schools
of thought on. Some people say, look, it's
acting's acting. It's exactly the same thing
other people say, which I tend to learn more towards that even
though it is acting, a lot of the skills do carry over.

(41:19):
Yeah, it's its own beast. As well.
Yeah, it's its own beast, yeah. Things that are very specific to
just the IT up. But that ability to, I guess the
cliche is to stand up in front of people, RIP open the chest
cavity and you're kind of exposing yourself emotionally.
Hopefully not physically, but, you know, exposing yourself to

(41:40):
an audience. Yeah.
And, and kind of revealing what's inside.
You know, it's it is, it's a totally different thing.
Unlike on the camera where you can just go, OK, let's just stop
there. Yeah, just need to.
There's there's no stop. Yeah.
Like you're on for that hour or 90 minutes or however long the
play is. And it's like, it's just you and
the audience and you're out there.

(42:02):
And there's there's you draw energy from the audience too.
Like if you do a play that runs for five nights or something, on
the second night on this particular line, you might get
an audience reaction. So on the next slide, on the
next night, you might deliver that line and you're waiting for
the same laughter that came fromlast night, but it doesn't come.
Crickets. It's like there's like different

(42:22):
energies and so it's just this thing between you and the
audience and it's great. Live.
It's real live, yeah, yeah. And I imagine stand up comedians
go through. That.
Oh yeah, I think, yeah. It's like you deliver that line,
you're like, OK, I know this is gold.
And the next night you're ready to deliver the punchline and
then there's nothing. Bombs.
Yeah, yeah. So you kind of learn that and

(42:42):
that's not me, that just that crowd on the night.
It could be related to my energyor my delivery, but it's just
that ordinance on the night. That's right.
I I did the majority of my theatre through Moolenburg
Theatre Company. Oh yeah, that's right.
Yeah. Had a ball, great bunch of
people, absolutely awesome. Yeah, see a lot of them still

(43:05):
regularly around the place and keep up with them on socials.
I was doing a play, Bridesmaids Secret Bride.
Secret Bridesmaids Business was the play.
Secret bridesmaids business. Yeah, so I was basically about

(43:27):
to get married. Yeah.
And I'd also been on with one ofthe bridesmaids as well.
And then this had come in, I'd come to light.
Previously. Yeah, pretty much right up until
the point of of, you know, the, the preparations for the
wedding. And so like, they're getting
their dresses fitted and one of the bridesmaids, the bridesmaid

(43:50):
that I'd been having the affair with, comes over.
And so there's this whole thing of like, you know, the tension
between me and my fiance, and now he's the bridesmaids and
they know each other. And it was so cleverly written.
It was such a great play, but the the reactions, because I was
basically just, I mean, you interpret how you're going to

(44:15):
play the role. Yeah.
So I was playing it. I mean, look, essentially it was
written that I was a bit of a a Chad.
I was an ass Chad, you know, a Chad.
You use the you use the vernacular.
I was, I was an asshole. Like I just basically I was on
with one of the bridesmaids. Yeah.
I'm about to get married. So I'm not a great guy to begin
with. I played it that I did genuinely

(44:39):
love my fiance, but I was just basically a, a kind of a, you
know, someone with faults. Not a not a great guy, not a bad
guy. Yeah, not a good guy obviously,
but the reactions that you wouldget from the crowd and again,
different crowds, different nights and you know, there's

(45:00):
there was some lines in in the play like saying to my fiance
like this has been terrible for me, a line that I still use with
my wife. Was a bit of a joke, you know?
It's like, this has been terrible for me, you know, and
the the reaction from just that line from the crowd.

(45:21):
I remember doing it might have been the second, second or third
night of the performance. And this lady jumps up, jumps to
her feet out of the crowd and yells it out.
You're nothing but a fucking bastard.
I'm like for half a second I am jumped out of character and I'm

(45:43):
like wrapped in the head, like, wow.
And then I'm like, oh, I guess Iam.
And it's like, you know, you have all these things going on
in your head and you're trying to stay in your character, But
it's like, well, this guy is an asshole.
Bit close for home. That guy is totally deserved.
And I'm like, great, like feed off that, you know, and then

(46:08):
even after after the play, you'dbe, you know, you're saying
goodbye to people and thanks forcoming along.
And I don't know if she's the same person or something
Exactly. You're like, well, just a rock,
just an actor, but just some of the erection.
It's like that was so good, likeyou're such a fucking mumble.
But that was so well done. You know, it was just there was

(46:31):
such a great experience. Just awesome.
Your Curry, Is it a Curry? Tough crowd.
Yeah, done much in the way of theatre.
I did just after COVID, when I still couldn't travel, I got an
offer to do a two person show. So it was, do you remember Dee

(46:55):
Dee Leslie? Yes.
Yeah. So it was just me and her on the
stage and it was probably like Ithink there were and it was like
15 minute play. So it's just like a 15 minute
play but just me and her. So I hadn't done theatre since
probably high school. So that was terrifying for me
and that's why I did it just like so all the lines of me and

(47:17):
her and it's just me and her up there and we don't, you don't
leave to change or anything. It's just like a once one act 1
scene play. And it was called Checkmate.
So just me and her playing a chess game.
But all the dialogue, she knows that I've been having an affair.
And it's just like we're talkingwhile we're playing chess.

(47:38):
Wow. And that was.
Yeah, that was great. That was a good challenging,
challenging thing for me. Yeah.
Yeah. Which you get so much out of.
Yeah, it's just at Southport, atthe Little Theatre in Southport.
Yes, yeah, yeah, I've seen some great stuff up there.
Yeah, yeah, that was fun. Yeah, we saw, I think it was the

(48:00):
Jersey Boys, the play up there. Oh, musical.
Yeah, it was absolutely. Oh, cool.
Yeah. Like I, I wish, like if I'd
studied, if I had studied this straight out of high school and
I would probably would have beeninterested in doing some musical
theatre. So I, I love the musical
theatre. It's not like I just want to be
a screen actor. That's what I want to be now.

(48:20):
Yeah. But if I had, if I could have
done some musical theatre earlier, yeah, that would have
been great. Yeah.
I love musicals. I love Broadway productions.
You can see. I think I can sing.
All right. Yeah.
Yeah. I.
Unfortunately for me, fall into that category of having a a
voice that I consider to be OK. It's certainly benefited me a

(48:41):
lot, both as a screen actor, yeah, great.
As a theatre actor because I'm naturally quiet, loud.
My voice is quiet, resonant, yes, but I Can't Sing.
Oh really? I Can't Sing a note.
The second I try and sing, it's just horrible.
I can't speak, I just Can't Sing.
So for me, the musical thing wasnever on the table, but theatre.

(49:05):
I've got a, I've got a, a long background in karaoke, yeah.
Actually, I've heard you. I've heard you sing, I've heard
you do karaoke. You are a bit of a natural.
Very good. I remember us going out just
after we graduated. Oh, in on that island, Chevron
Island. Chevron Island.
Yeah, yeah. Ran out to that bar and you were
doing some karaoke there. Actually, I think you were doing

(49:27):
karaoke in Chinese was high. Yeah, they had Chinese songs
there. I can't remember that.
I don't know if you were just singing in Chinese or if you'd
actually found a Chinese song. I.
Don't know, but yeah, you know, I had a Chinese.
I had me singing a Chinese song go crazy viral on Chinese

(49:47):
TikTok. It was just last year in May,
this Chinese Taiwanese singer came to Australia, he came to
Melbourne and I went to the concert and I sang along and my
friend filmed me, uploaded it toTikTok, 80 million views.
Yeah, that was. 80 million, but I didn't have, I wasn't doing
social media yet. So after that I actually started

(50:09):
my, my friend was like, you got to do it.
Yeah. So that's when I started.
It is such an important side to the entertainment industry at
the end of the day. And I remember saying this in
2015 and I stand by it now. It's it's show business.
It's socials. Oh yeah, socials.
Yeah, yeah, you are a product, whether you like it or not.

(50:31):
Yeah, for reasons good, bad or different.
And I think in a lot of cases, you being a product is a bad
thing because sometimes, yeah, it's basically you're trying to
find that balancing act between the creative and the business or
the marketing side of things. Rightly or wrongly, they have to
meet somewhere in the middle. I think if the balance goes too

(50:53):
far one way or the other, it's not good.
I think it has to meet somewherein the middle.
It still has to be a a, A. It's a product, it's a business,
but it also has to give emphasisto the creative side of things.
Unfortunately, I think the entertainment industry now has
got to a point where they want to play to safe and I'm seeing,

(51:18):
you know, they would rather makethe 120th Spider Man movie,
Spider Man. Don't get me wrong, nothing
against Spider Man, but they'd rather make the 120th Spider Man
movie then see some new up and coming independent film, get a
run. You know that.
What was that? I think it was called A St Cat

(51:42):
named Bob. Did you ever see that film?
Absolutely, Brent. A true story, like a lot of
those good independent films. Australian or English?
English. It was an English one.
Yeah, real story about a guy who'd been living on the street
and he had this cat, had basically kind of adopted him.

(52:02):
Absolutely brilliant. Check it out if you haven't seen
it. Same to anyone else.
Check it out if you haven't seenit.
A street cat named Bob. But I remember at the time
thinking this is not your blockbuster.
This has no CGI or very little if there was any.
It's just a great fucking story.Yeah, it's kind of the reason

(52:24):
that Doctor Who was so successful back in the the 70s
and 80s. Sure, all of the stuff was made
out of painted Styrofoam and youknow, that kind of thing.
But the stories were so good it didn't matter.
And then I think Hollywood swungtoo far the other way and went,
we have to have the greatest CGIand Transformers has to have so

(52:49):
many mega battles squeezed into the one film that by the time
they got to like the fifth one, it was like all battle.
Yeah. And no story, it's like, so
again, it had to find that balance back the other way.
The stories, everything. That's why I think shows like
any of Taylor Sharon and stuff, any of the yellow Yellowstone

(53:10):
stuff is so successful because the stories are so good.
If you can combine that with great budgets, with special
effects, with great actors, great writers, great direction,
great production, then you're going to have a massive, massive
hit on your hands. That's.
That's. You know, going to break all
records, but you know, coming back to my point, I think we

(53:32):
still have to try and find that balance of the creative.
The creative is as important as as the business and the business
as important of the creative. So I'll jump off my soapbox.
TV is so good now. Oh, it is, yeah.
Do you think that going back to the COVID, do you think that
COVID like shortened out concentration spans?

(53:53):
So a lot of people like a movie is too long for them now and
they and they prefer to watch a show even if they binge watch
that show. I don't think it was so much
COVID. I think it was social media in
general at the time, and I do think it was happening prior to

(54:14):
COVID. Yeah.
It was that everything went frombeing longer form to short form
videos and everything got shorter and shorter and shorter,
you know, to the point. I mean like even Twitter, it was
what, 160 characters I think originally.
And then it cut it. Yeah, when it started.

(54:35):
So everything had to be really concise and to the point.
And that's cool. Like that was that platform.
It was aimed at short form text.It was almost like text
messaging a friend. But it went out to everyone.
You know, that was the the platform.
But I think social media at the time generally made us have

(54:57):
short attention spans. It's it had everything, you
know, shorter and shorter and shorter.
Whether or not that happened more during COVID or not, I
don't. Know yeah, I'm not sure either.
I love shows now that I love. But yeah, 100% but and so you
think that's had an impact on why TV's become more?

(55:20):
Yeah, I'm not sure. I'm not sure.
I don't know if it's because there's the convenience of
staying home and watching streaming.
Yeah, yeah. And there's so many of them now.
But 100% I think. I do feel sad when I go to the
movies though, and there's like 10 people in there.
Yeah, because I still love. That experience, does it still
go to the movies? What is that a thing?

(55:44):
Yeah, it's sad. But I mean, the cinemas are now
feeling, I guess, what the Dr throughs went through.
Yeah, it's too expensive in Australia too, Yeah.
Yeah, that's right. Like, but I mean, there's the
television is certainly where the writers have gone.
It's where the budgets have gone, Yeah.
And therefore. That's White Lotus is like

(56:05):
fifty, $60 million an episode, Yeah.
Yeah, well, I seem to, you know,even Game of Thrones at the
time. Oh, Game of Thrones, Yeah.
I forget what it was. It was it 30 million or 50
million an episode or whatever it was at the time, the the
budgets fire out, it was. In multiple countries they had
like B units that never even metthe that like a crew in Tunis,

(56:28):
Tunisia, a Group A crew in the island, you know there.
Was Croatia. There was all kinds of places.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. So cool.
Yeah, yeah. But.
And it's led to some of the the best television ever.
I mean it. Yeah.
Back in the day, it was like, ah, you know, you're a
television actor. You're not a yeah film act.

(56:49):
Yeah. And now, ironically, I think
it's swung back completely the other way.
It's like there's a lot of big film actors that have jumped
over to TV because that's where the money is, that's where the
audience is, that's where the the.
Stability is too, because yeah, you get on a good show and you
could go through. Seasons, seasons, you know, if

(57:11):
it's good. Some even.
Some do longer, some do less. Yeah, yeah.
But yeah, some of those, some ofthose series that we've seen as
a result, like your Game of Thrones, are just phenomenal,
like mind blowing. And yet I find myself sometimes
sitting down trying to find somereally good films and they

(57:33):
they're still out there. Don't get wrong, there's still
great films being made. But again, it's the money's
more, you know, or it's gone over to television.
That's where the the money is. That's where all of the the
great writers and the producers and the directors are going.
Yeah. Do you, do you have a
preference? Are you happy?
Would you be happy to to to do either or?

(57:57):
Well, because film I've only really done a couple.
OK, so like, I don't have like acareer spanning decades or
anything. I've done a few big, I've been
lucky to do a few big budget things, my last few things, but.
I can still remember the first time you got that film on

(58:18):
Netflix. The Cho.
Was it that Cho Chosen, Chosen. Chosen.
Not to be confused with the the biblical, the chosen.
Yeah, yeah, which is great. Mine's chosen.
Yeah. Chosen.
Which was it was a big deal at that.
It was only a $5 million budget.We shot in Sydney.
Oh, only. Yeah, only.
It was sensational. The reason that was a big deal

(58:40):
though is because that was the first Chinese Australian Co
production to be sold to Netflix.
So that's why that was kind of abig deal.
And then that led to something else where I shot in Vegas for a
few months, a Chinese productionand that led to a big budget
thing in 2019 about the, the 70th anniversary of the

(59:02):
Communist Party where I played a, a, how do you say that?
Sometimes I think in Chinese andit's embarrassing.
A diplomat diplomat, an AmericanAUS diplomat.
And his parents were missionaries.
So he was born in China. It's a true, it's a, it's a real

(59:23):
guy. And so that was really cool to
play like a real person from history and I because you're
able to do research on them and read real journals and, and
information about them. So this guy, his parents were
missionaries in China. So he was born there and grew up
there. And so that's how he spoke
Chinese. And then he went back to America

(59:43):
to university and came back to China in the 40s as a diplomat
and he met Mao Zedong. And he, this guy actually, it
was interesting. He was trying to get President
Roosevelt at the time. So there was a scene that I had
in the Oval Office. With President Roosevelt, he was
trying to get him to support thecommunists at the time because

(01:00:08):
Japan was invading and there wasand there was two parties, the
Communists and the nationalists,and they were kind of butting.
Heads. Yeah, they were loggerheads.
Yeah, but this guy, his name is John Service, he was trying to
get Roosevelt to supply weapons and meet both of them and help
them to get rid of Japan first, and then they can work out their

(01:00:31):
own problems. Yeah, yeah.
But he he actually snobbed the Communists, he snobbed Mao
Zedong. He didn't come over to see him
and he didn't fly Mao Zedong over to see him.
And then that actually is Mao Zedong's origin story.
And that's what led him to go tothe Soviets for support, because

(01:00:52):
at the time he was more of a there were, there were, he was a
court, a communist, but he was more like a socialist, like a
Bernie Sanders type. He wanted what was good for the
people. He wanted equality and he wanted
he wanted to help the the the farmers and he wanted to he was
a good. Guy yeah, rather than more of
like a a Leninist. Yeah, but then he, because he

(01:01:15):
was snubbed by America, he went the Lenin Stella away because
that's who held his hand. And then he turned into Darth
Vader. Don't play this in China, Mao
chair, Chairman Mao, Chairman Mao.
But yes, so it's kind of interesting.
And that's what started a 25 year whatever.

(01:01:37):
No US, China negotiations thing because he went, he turned into
a communist. US was so America was so scared
of the word communist, even though it didn't really mean
that he wasn't a communist. He was a socialist at the time,
so if if this character in history had been listened to by
the president, things would havebeen way different.
And do you think in real life that still has an effect today?

(01:02:00):
Is that still? Yeah, I mean, I still really
hated how US and China butt heads.
It really, really annoys me. And a lot of Chinese people call
Australians like puppets, like we'll just do whatever the US
does. And I and I just try and say,
Hey, we were attacked by Japan as well.
Like if it wasn't like Japan bombed Darwin and if it wasn't

(01:02:21):
for, for the US, we, we would have been taken over by Japan.
And then they're like, oh, OK, so so we had, we do have this
history with the US And I grew up in the UI, lived in America
from 4:00 till 12. And I used to love and just
worship everything America and think that America was better
than Australia. But I mean, I don't think
America has been the best country in the world since then,

(01:02:41):
since the 80s. And it's just like progressively
got worse. And now I'm just like so
grateful that I live in Australia and we can kind of
learn from America's mistakes. But I definitely think that we
need to not listen to US propaganda about China because
China, like China has not started wars.

(01:03:02):
China just tries to protect their borders.
Like who America's the one that's starting all the wars.
They, they, they fear monger us that China is going to take over
this and there and everywhere. But like, what war has China
started? I do think that comes from a
place of, and I'm not saying in every case, because there are
things that happen behind the scenes without opening, going

(01:03:22):
down the whole conspiracy theoryside of things.
But I do think it I, I almost cringe to have to use this
cliche because it is one that isdone to death.
But it is so true that with great power comes great with
great. Yeah.
With great power comes great responsibility.
Yeah. And as much as I cringe to have

(01:03:43):
to use that, it is so appropriate.
I do think there is a position where it's not about being the
world police, but it is about being much like the responsible
adult in the world. Yeah, on the world stage.
And I'm not saying America is the only one or should be the
only one. I do think that any of the
superpowers should be in that position of going, OK, sure,

(01:04:05):
let's do what's best for us first and foremost.
Any country should. That's, that's what you do.
Yeah. But also having that, that
obligation to go and let's also,now that I'm OK, let's look
after our neighbours and let's look after our area and let's
look after the whole planet. And I think that's a a
responsibility too. I think America it's it's they

(01:04:30):
often describe it as the great social experiment.
Like you're talking about a country that's only what, 400
odd years old, Like it's brand new.
Yeah. And as we we're only just over
200 years old and we're so we'renot even as far down that, but I
mean, you know, new countries. So with what they've been able
to achieve in that time, you're putting the first man on the

(01:04:53):
moon. A lot of these these firsts.
Yeah, you know, it, it, it is phenomenal.
But yeah, it's very interesting just to see.
But you say what? Look at what the US has been
able to achieve in in its history.
Yeah, let me say, look at what China has been able to achieve
in 20 years. Yeah, they've taken probably 700

(01:05:16):
million people out of poverty and they have created, they've
looked at the best of the US, the best of Japan.
They've looked at, they've looked at Japan's high speed
rail and be like, we need high speed rail.
They've built the best high speed rail systems in the world.
They've built like when, when myfamily would come and visit us

(01:05:37):
and this is 2009 to 2012, they'dcome and be like, my gosh, I had
no idea that life was so good here and that China's so
advanced and like, you should see it now, like when I went
there, when I could finally go after COVID.
You should see the electric vehicles in China.
They are unbelievable. And that's just happened in it

(01:06:00):
happened in the three years thatI couldn't travel there.
I come back there and there's like all these super quiet
vehicles that look like, you know, you look like you're from,
in a scene from back to the future where Mahdi's gone to the
future. And there's these, you know,
the, all the like, they make Teslas look a little bit boring.
Some of the, some of these Chinese EVs and just the
skyscrapers and, and the public transport like Shaman where we

(01:06:24):
lived is an island off the like about two, one or two kilometres
off the coast. So there's a few land bridges
and a tunnel. But it was, it was pretty
packed. It's like, I think there's like
2 or 3 million people on this island.
Yeah, but they built a subway system underneath, like existing
infrastructure. And they did it in like 2 to

(01:06:45):
three years. Wow, like.
It's mind blowing. We can't even widen the M1 in
yeah yeah in it. Takes us seven years to put
another layer on the on the M1 motorway.
Yeah. So it's still not finished.
That's right. That's right.
Just just just by the way, you know, here we are in May 2025,
still not finished. Still not finished, still don't

(01:07:06):
have a high speed train in Australia.
I know we don't have the population in, but like China
gets stuff done and it's not like the it's not the do.
You think we use that as? An excuse.
That we. Don't I think we do.
Yeah, I I get that there are financial constraints and there

(01:07:27):
are population constraints, but I think sometimes we fall back
on that. Like you go back to when we were
kids, we had like Ford and Holden being made here.
Yeah. You know, we had a lot of the,
we, we had a train that just about went all around the
country. Like there were trains between

(01:07:48):
capital cities and stuff. Yeah.
And we got rid of them. It's like.
Why? What are what?
Were we thinking? Why does a train from the Gold
Coast of Brisbane take to the Brisbane airport take like 2
hours and cost you 45? Dollars.
Yeah, it's like. So I do, I do think we use that
as an excuse sometimes of going,oh, you know, we don't have the

(01:08:10):
popular to support it. It's like, well, do we or have
we just not made that a priority?
Yeah. And I do think there are other
factors at play. For example, I think half the
reason that we don't have a a national, right.
I mean, I'm of the belief that there should be trains between

(01:08:30):
every capital city. Yeah.
In Australia, yeah, you should be able to travel anywhere by
train. And you know, the bulk of our
our goods should be. Because the ones in China, like
when they're, they can go like 300 KS an hour, like we could
get from to Sydney in three or four hours and not have to go
through airport security cheques.

(01:08:51):
Yeah, well, that'd be awesome. Have you seen that?
I don't know if you've seen it. It's somewhere in China.
I've only seen it online. There's a high speed train and
I'm trying to think how it works.
It's been that long since I've sort of been you don't get off
the the, you don't get off the carriage.
It somehow docks at the platform, but the train keeps

(01:09:12):
going. Have you seen that?
No. It's bizarre.
I don't know if it's actually a thing, but it it, it works like
it's, it's super. It's gotta stop it.
Doesn't it's going like 300 KS an hour?
How can it? It it slows down but I think it
goes from so. You just have to say 800.
K an hour to 200 K an hour if any.

(01:09:33):
If anyone knows about it, put the link in the comments, but it
it somehow slows down enough that this thing that this like
just say 1 Section 1 carriage stops at the station.
The train keeps going yeah, and I don't know if it picked up
another one or there's some kindof thing.
And then so it didn't even have to stop.

(01:09:54):
It was just this mind blowing tech technological.
Oh wow, I have to. Check that out.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I remember seeing it just Yeah.
Well, but even like the I only saw a video only just the other
day of the high speed train in Japan and there's a Japanese guy
watching it and even he just he sees it.

(01:10:15):
Him. I don't know if he hadn't seen
it before, but he sees the traingo past and he turns to the car
and he's just like, wow, just that the sheer speed of actually
see. It's one thing to see it, you
know, online or in a video, but to actually see it in real life,
it's mind blowing. It's weird to be on it too

(01:10:36):
because you see the speed up on the digital display and you got
I'm going 320 KS in now. You thought your face would be
like spies like us like. Yeah, yeah.
But. This feels like you're going. 30
KS I I think the that's unusual because it is out in the open.
Yeah, I think we could achieve even faster speeds if it's

(01:10:59):
contained, if it's actually in atunnel.
Yeah. Whether that tunnel's above
ground or below ground, but but I think the speeds that we could
achieve that way, that'd be coolwould because then you're not
having to worry about about traffic, about cars, about
crossings, about wildlife, things that could be on the

(01:11:20):
track. I do think like I'm not saying
that a one party system is better because I'm not like a
communist or anything, but you can definitely see the
advantages advantages of a one party system planning for the
future and doing things long term, not just trying to look
good for this administration andthen blaming everything on the

(01:11:44):
last guy or letting everything build up for the next guy.
You know so because. Even if they've been in office.
I'm not talking about any specific party here or any
particular government, but regardless of how long they've
been in office, they still want to blame the last.
That's right, that's right. That was all, man.
That was all. Man, whether it's Australia.

(01:12:04):
Matter if they've been in government for 50 years that we
inherited that yeah yeah. And it's it's this very short
the classic example is back to the M1, back to the motorway.
Yeah, like, why the fuck are they only putting in another
lane or another two lanes? Yeah, rather than going, what
are we going to need 20 years from now?
Yeah, what are we going to need 30 years from now?

(01:12:25):
What are we going to need 50 years from now?
OK, you know, what we really need to do is have a totally
separate motorway that bypasses the Gold Coast altogether.
Yeah, let's start working. And they've talked about it.
They've started talking about it, but there's no actual
concrete plans. It's going to do a lot more than
a light rail that goes to Palm Beach, you know?
Like what? Yeah.
That's it. That's exactly right.

(01:12:46):
And any this any successful large city relies on its
infrastructure. The ones that are successful are
the ones that have a great, great, great infrastructure and
a great public transport system.Yeah, that's right.
Yeah. And without that, you're letting
yourself down. But back to your point, that

(01:13:06):
inability to see beyond the nextelection.
Yeah, plan long term, you've got1.6 billion people, you've got
to think we're going to, we needto feed these people so we'll
invest. They do invest in other markets.
They might build a train line inAfrica or or just have solid
trading partners in Australia. Australia needs to be smarter

(01:13:29):
about not selling everything to China.
Like make sure that we retain ownership of things or else we
will become China, not by attack, but just because we've
sold everything to them. Yeah, like we're not a political
podcast. We're not trying to, no, but
like, we don't own Australia Post, we don't own any.

(01:13:51):
Everything's privatised in Australia.
Yeah. And I think there is room for
both, but I think there are. I've always said that there are
certain things that should be privatised because because of
market forces, because of the efficiency that business can
bring. But there's also certain things
that that you shouldn't privatise.

(01:14:11):
Yeah, you know, there are certain things like, I guess the
example that always springs to my mind is gaols.
Yeah. To me, that's the sort of thing
you should never. Privatise should not privatise
like you. Also prison system system
becomes a business. Yeah, it's like.
So why has the US got the most incarcerated percentage of

(01:14:34):
population? Because you privatise the prison
system. Yeah.
And made it big business and IT.Becomes about how can we get
more people into that system, about how we can reduce cost to
the the lowest point. Like there are some things that
just should not be privatised. But then there are.
I mean, look, I'm all for the capitalist system.

(01:14:54):
I'm all for business. I'm all for, yeah, you know, for
profits. But it also has to, it should
never. Look, my secret to the universe
is balance. Balance is everything.
That's like, yeah, you know, thesecret to the universe is not
42. The secret to the universe is.
Balance so. We have to find that balance
between profitability and also the greater good.

(01:15:17):
Yeah, doing good for ourselves in the here and now and doing
good for our future generations.100 a 1000 years from now.
Yeah, having that, that long term focus which we just don't
have. Don't outsource everything to
China and then blame China for. Yeah.
For making everything cheaper oryou want, you wanted them to

(01:15:41):
make. You know, there's all these,
there's all kinds of stuff on Chinese social media about,
about Trump's tariffs and blaming China for the cost of
things. But there's all these videos
saying, yeah, we make the, we make the Ms bag, for example,
but we make it for $1000 and we might make $100.

(01:16:04):
Smart. We, we give it back to, we send
it back to Paris and they do thefinal stitching and logo and
then they sell it for 30,000 China's like we're not the ones
making the money. You've outsourced us so that you
can make more margin. Yeah.
Yeah, yeah. Yeah.
Interesting. Yeah.
And again, balancing that off against, there's a great

(01:16:29):
emphasis now on, you know, what do they call it?
The modern slavery? Yeah, requirements and where
things are sourced, going through the entire supply chain.
I think it started with coffee, went into chocolate and now it's
becoming. Like diamonds?
Yeah, exactly. It's becoming a thing across a

(01:16:50):
lot of products again, especially retail products now
of going back to the initial source of the initial products
and and what countries they comefrom and and sort of what the
conditions are. So again, we have to balance
that out against you're comparing, you're not comparing
apples with apples, you're comparing apples with oranges in
terms of incomes. Yeah.

(01:17:10):
And you know what people are making to to make one thing in
one country with another. So it's going to be very
interesting to see how that plays out in terms of.
I think a lot of Westerners think that things are being made
in China for cheap labour, but that might have been the case in
the beginning. But the the real cheap stuff has
already like left China has goneto Vietnam and Bangladesh and

(01:17:35):
Cambodia. Like the stuff made in China now
is like very advanced and technical.
Like you can't like dog on Chinafor making iPhones because
nowhere else in the world would be able to make iPhones.
The amount of like engineers, and I don't know the term for
it, like tech people that know about the chip and all the

(01:17:59):
science and tech that goes into an iPhone, they're only found in
China in that kind of concentration.
So yeah, wow. So it's interesting.
Yeah, yeah, China's like got so many educated engineers and IT
people now so have. Some countries let themselves
down by not investing in those things.
Yeah, probably, yeah. I know that in the case of of

(01:18:23):
England, of Great Britain there,there was a lot of that where
they were basically they startedthe Industrial revolution.
They were more or less at the forefront of it all.
Yeah. And slowly but surely, bit by
bit, you get to a situation where there's just about nothing
even made there anymore. Yeah.

(01:18:44):
And so then you've left yourselfmassively vulnerable and you're
like, well, what are we actuallymaking here now?
Yeah. There's that balance that you
talked about. It's gone, which is consumers.
We're not manufacturers, Yeah. Yeah, it's crazy.
It's, it's so interesting when you do step back and you kind of
look and you go, let's move awayfrom the specifics of a certain

(01:19:08):
thing and let's look at what theoverriding like.
Is it about balance? Is it about the greater good?
What's what's behind what we're seeing?
I, I think it's very easy going back to our earlier conversation
about short attention spans and about what's really going on
behind the scenes. I think that it's very easy for

(01:19:29):
us to become so focused on the here and the now and, and what's
in front of us. And sometimes you do look,
sometimes. What do they say?
It's just because I'm paranoid doesn't mean they're not out to
get me. Like, sometimes it might be a
conspiracy theory, but sometimesthere's actually a conspiracy
there as well. Yeah.
It's not to say that there aren't things going on behind

(01:19:51):
the scenes that you don't see. Sometimes they're intentional,
sometimes they're not. Yeah.
But I think it's really good to step back and and step out of
the here and now and the me And you know, I think society is
very much about keeping us busy with.
Putting food on the table and. Raising our families, keeping us
on that treadmill. Yeah.

(01:20:13):
Yeah, yeah. That it does distract us away
from the bigger picture of what's going on, you know?
Yeah. So what are you working on at
the moment? I'm kind of in between now, so I
filmed. I was in China for 2 1/2 months
last year filming a part four ina in China's most successful

(01:20:36):
film franchise called Detective Chinatown.
So whenever I I hadn't heard of,I hadn't heard of it.
But when I told people, it's like saying that you're in the
next Fast and Furious, like, yeah.
So. So the first one, so basically
the story is that it's set in somewhere else.
So the first one was set in Bangkok Chinatown.
I think the second one was TokyoChinatown.

(01:20:59):
The third one is New York Chinatown.
And crime or a murder has taken place and these two Chinese
detectives come in and they workwith local police and solve the
murder. So it's it's like a comedy
action. It's really cool because China,
Chinese films, especially this Detective Chinatown, it's not
really like you can't put it into genre because it's got a

(01:21:21):
bit of everything. Yeah.
And so my, the film that I did is Detective Chinatown 1900.
It's the first one that's not set in modern day.
Modern. Time.
It's still set in a Chinatown, which is San Francisco, but it's
set in the year 1900. And it's, yeah, it's really
cool. And it's set in a time where

(01:21:43):
we've just had the gold rush. So a lot of Chinese people have
come there and Chinatown's growing really fast, has become
the biggest Chinatown outside China in the world, I think.
And the all the whities are like, there's too many Chinese
people here, you know, we've gotto get them out.
And so there's a lot of racial tension and I learned a lot

(01:22:07):
filming it. You know, you, you do get white
guilt from watching and being inthat.
So I played the chief of police Lance and John Cusack was in it
and he played the the governor. He's running for governor and me
and him are kind of in cahoots and but, but I'm I my
character's cool because he's not just like a stereotypical

(01:22:31):
bad, corrupt chief of chief of police.
He does help the these Chinese detectives and he does have a
moral compass. Even though when I got the the
sides to do the audition, it just seemed like God, this was a
corrupt policeman. But I didn't play my audition
like that. I played like he was troubled.

(01:22:52):
And I think whenever you get a bad guy role, if you play it
like a good guy. I'm only bad because of my.
Circumstance or a particular goal?
That's right. Yeah, Yeah, that's right.
I think it makes for a way more interesting bad guy.
Definitely. Than like a he, he, he, he, he,
he. Yeah, yeah.
Yeah, so I played it like that. Swelling the the handle boxes.

(01:23:15):
And I got the part and it was great and it launched, it was
released at Chinese New Year andit's done 500 million at the box
office. That's.
But not yeah, so I, I contacted Phil Holder at the warehouse
where we went and studied drama and I said, so am I the biggest

(01:23:36):
box office for sure. Warehouse graduate.
And he goes, what's the film done?
And I said 500 million and he said, I think you're leading by
about 490,000,000. But who's?
Counting. Who's counting?
So I wonder if I'm the most Austria.
I wonder if I'm the most famous Australian actor that no one's

(01:23:56):
ever heard of. Definitely.
You're the most famous Australian I know that I've
actually met in real life what you're talking about.
I mean, who's been in a film, unless it's like a Marvel or a
Star Wars, who's been in a $500 million film?
A. 100% yeah. Yeah.
Look, I'm so proud of you having.
Thank you having studied alongside of you and I'm yet to

(01:24:16):
do my $500 million film. That's US too.
That's US. That's US.
Who's counting right? So what's that like?
Over a billion Australian with the dollar right.
Now in Australia, or is it goingto be?
Yeah, it it was that event and Hoyts, but it was it just kind
of ran for two weeks during Chinese New Year.
Oh, I see. I think it's still at the at the
cinemas in China because it's had a prolonged.

(01:24:37):
Yeah, definitely. Because to them like to say it's
a big deal, yeah. But in Australia, I had friends
go and see at the cinemas, at the Chinese Theatre in Los
Angeles. Wow.
Yeah. So I had a worldwide cinematic
release. I did a little junket tour in
Sydney and Melbourne. Chinatown.
Yeah. And I've, I've seen some of the
behind the scenes footage that you've been.

(01:24:59):
Posting as well. It looks amazing.
Yeah, like you should have seen this set that they built in the
in this little city in the middle of nowhere, a four hour
drive from Beijing. We just got some, I guess.
I guess the the local governmentsaid, yeah, you can build the
set here. And it just, it wasn't a set.
It was a functioning block, probably the size of Surfers

(01:25:24):
Paradise, like 4-5 or six streets that way, 5 or 6 streets
this way. And they weren't like cardboard
buildings. It was like the back lot at
Universal Studios times 20. So the car chases, well, not car
chases, whack horse and car chases.
And there was a few cars, but the chases that you see like

(01:25:45):
they're real going through thesestreets and there's people
running alongside the building. There's like minimal green
screen. So I often saw John Cusack on
set just like filming 360° and I'd just see him and he'd be
like he said, I've never seen anything like it in America.
We'll build one side green screen, the rest, it's all fake.

(01:26:08):
But whereas here, the cobblestone streets, the, the,
the laundromat, the, you know how they've got those fire
escape things on the outside we filmed inside each one is a
functional building. And you know how San Francisco's
got hills? There's this, it's all built up
on concrete pylons. So they've got those hills and

(01:26:33):
John Cusack was just like, neverseen anything like it.
Because it's one thing to recreate San Francisco.
Yeah, hard enough on its own. It's another thing to recreate
San Francisco 120 odd years ago.With the hills, a functioning
tram that goes through it, a courthouse, a everything.

(01:26:54):
Like when you get to set, you know, you got to start make
believing You don't have to there.
Like before you get your hair and makeup done, before you're
in your costume, you already feel like you've gone back in
time and you're in San Franciscoin the 1900s.
Like it makes your work as an actor.
So I, I, I, I've never been in afully green screened like Star

(01:27:16):
Wars film anyway. So I don't know.
But I imagine it would be hard to to just pretend in that in
that. Well, I've heard a lot of
actors, even from Star Wars, that have said exact and, like,
really good, really established actors have said the same thing.
It's you, a green screen and a tennis ball hanging from a
stream. Yeah.
And, like, OK, go do your scene.Yeah.

(01:27:38):
Whereas as any great actor will tell you, the the more you can
actually immerse yourself in that actual situation, the
better. Yeah.
The more there's an actual set and the costumes and everything
around you. It was 80% done the the
remaining 20% was just your performance delivering the

(01:27:58):
lines. And that's got to make your job
as an actor that much easier. Way easier.
It's incredible. And now it's turned into a
Universal Studios type open holiday tourist destination.
I'm sure that they'll they'll use it for another film.
If there's like a 1900 set film though, they just or they can
just tweak facades. It'd be really interesting to

(01:28:19):
see what becomes from it, whether they do turn it into a
permanent studio that they use for other things.
Or I think that's the plan. Yeah, yeah.
Well, that it definitely makes sense.
Yeah. And then, you know, so cool.
I mean, you would have just beenblown away.
You've got to see the film, yeah.
Yeah, where can we see it in Australia do?
You know, I watched the first one on Apple TV.

(01:28:42):
Like when you how you rent it? Yep, I'm sure that this one will
be available somehow on some streaming service because it's
been a success and there's stillgoing to be demand.
Yeah, definitely. Yeah, yeah, I'll see what we can
do and we'll see if we can get some OK information in the
comments about where people can watch it.
And all right, I can obviously hit IMIMDB and find out a lot

(01:29:03):
more about it. What about you?
Where can people go to find out more about the let the man the
mix the. Legend trying to do more social
media my I've got quite a big following in China on the
Chinese TikTok which is called DOI in and red note and.
Please say hi to all of your friends, followers, and fans in
China. Thank you.

(01:29:25):
I will tell them you said hi. I also have Instagram and
TikTok. Sam Hayden Smith look me up.
I'm trying to post more on my western social media.
Yeah, definitely. Yeah, yeah, very important.
Yeah, yeah, it is very importantjust for people to have that
ability to, to have that point of being able to connect with

(01:29:46):
you, keep up with your latest projects, keep up with with
where you're at and what's goingon.
For sure, 100%. I think one of the a really good
point just quickly on that too, is that you are the, you're the
owner and the producer of that media.
Yeah. So that's right.
You're not relying on someone else's version of you.

(01:30:08):
Yeah, you have control on it. And I think we've seen that a
lot, whether it's by politiciansor celebrities or actors, you
know, they've realised that theyhave the full control over that
media. And that's been one of the
greatest things for anyone, whether it's because you've got
a podcast or because you're an actor or because you're a
politician or a celebrity, that ability to have that control

(01:30:31):
over the entire process and whatgets released and what doesn't.
And it's you're releasing your truth that way.
Yeah, and not someone else's narrative, the the story or
agenda that they're trying to push forward about you.
So that's one of the great, I mean, how lucky are we to have
that that ability for you to talk to?
Yeah. 10s Hundreds, Thousands. Millions.

(01:30:54):
Can live stream and speak to yeah people in real time.
Yeah, yeah. Crazy.
Unbelievable. Yeah.
Well, hey, look, thank you so much for today.
It's been awesome catching up with you.
I can promise you that we won't wait until another major
outbreak or some kind of some kind of major upheaval, yeah,

(01:31:18):
some pandemic before we catch upagain.
But thank you so much for comingalong today.
It's been fantastic and we will definitely be doing it again
soon. Thank you.
Craig Gryphon, official. Thank you.
The man, the myth, the legend isSam Smith.
Thank you, Sir. Thank you.
Peace out. Peace out.

(01:31:40):
My God always got me home. You're in my heart and soul, my
heart and soul, my heart and soul.

All Episodes

#002 - Sam Hayden-Smith

Episode Transcript

Popular Podcasts

Las Culturistas with Matt Rogers and Bowen Yang

The Joe Rogan Experience

Stuff You Should Know

.css-15opob5{left:0;position:absolute;top:0.8rem;} All Episodes

.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}#002 - Sam Hayden-Smith