Matt is one of the most recognisable faces in Australia due to his role as a judge on Masterchef.

But his story started in England, going to boarding school, then the University of Kent before following his father into journalism.

Matt wrote about television in Britain before the company he worked for sent him out to Australia to write about TV here.

He then segued into writing about food for The Age, News Corp and the magazine, Inside Melbourne.

In this interview, Matt tells us about the random way he won the gig on MasterChef - a juggernaut of a show which played in 110 countries to an audience of 180 million people.

He starred on MasterChef for 11 seasons and now he has written his eighth book – Matt Preston’s World of Flavour where, among other things, he has uncovered the genesis of spaghetti Bolognese.

Spoiler: It’s actually an Australian invention. Or more accurately - a South Australian invention.

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Welcome to a special episode of 10 Questions – called “Another 10 Questions” -  which gives me a chance to have guests return to the podcast.

On the first episode is Dave O’Neil, who was the first guest on the show back in 2015 – 64 episodes ago.

Dave O’Neil’s a veteran comic, radio host, screenwriter and definitely the person who gets name-checked the most on this podcast. You’ll know him from everything – and by “everything” I mean Spicks and Specks, Agony, Randling, The Nuggett and more recently, great cameos in Utopia and Fisk. He was also the head writer on Totally Full Frontal, and with the screenwriter, Mark O’Toole, he wrote the feature films Take Away and You and Your Stupid Mate.

 

We start Another 10 Questions with – How do you think your fellow workers would describe you?

 

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ANOTHER 10 QUESTIONS:

1: How do you think your fellow workers would describe you? 

2: What the most unhelpful feedback you’ve received? 

3: What is the failure you most cherish? 

4: if you could go back five years, what advice would you give yourself? 

5: What about your job keeps you awake at night? 

6: What’s an obstacle you had to overcome? 

7: Which word or phrase do you most overuse?

8: How do you remain calm under pressure? 

9: Career high and career low? 

10: Do you have a motto?

 

10 Questions with Adam Zwar is distributed by and part of the Nearly Media Network.

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Dave grew up in Geelong, took his first steps into stand-up comedy in his early 20s, and his gift of the gab was quickly recognised by Nova and then Fox FM – where he hosted various shows including the top rating Fifi, Dave and Fev.

On television, he hosted This Week Live and appeared on such shows as Talkin’ About My Generation and Hughesy We Have a Problem.

Personally, I was always grateful to be able to cut to yet another hilarious piece of Dave Thornton wisdom on the Agony series.

These days he’s bringing up two girls and doing some of the best stand up of his life.

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Welcome to the 63rd episode of Ten Questions where Adam talks to Shaun Grant - the multi-AACTA Award winning screenwriter of Nitram.

Shaun’s debut film, Snowtown, about the infamous Snowtown murders in South Australia in the 1990s – won multiple awards and screened at Critics’ Week at the 2011 Cannes Film Festival.

And that’s when Shaun’s career took off – writing the feature films Jasper Jones, Berlin Syndrome, Penguin Bloom, The True Story of the Kelly Gang and Nitram.

He also wrote for David Fincher’s Mindhunter on Netflix and the mini-series, Deadline Gallipoli.

He’s possibly Australia’s most in demand screenwriter, known for his willingness to tackle the weighty emotional subjects that others might see as too dangerous or too difficult to make.

Nitram premiered at Cannes a few months ago where the response to the film was unaminously positive. And that’s where my conversation with Shaun started.

When asked about the time he was most happy, he said “now”. And he wasn’t just referring to his professional success, which he credits as being partly due to his continuing working relationship with the director Justin Kurzel,  but also the fact that he’d recently got married.

"The violence isn’t on the screen. It’s not that what interests me. It’s what leads to it."

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This week’s guest is the actress Georgina Haig.

Selected credits from Georgina’s fabulous career include the first season of Underbelly, Queen Elsa in Once Upon a Time, The Crossing and Snowpiercer.

And now she’s back in Australia playing Rachel Rafter in Packed to the Rafters for Amazon Prime.

In our chat we get into the weeds of what it’s like to be a working actor and to have a father who wrote the Australian classic BMX Bandits.

I’ve known Georgina, her husband, Josh, and daughter, Greta for quite some time and we talk about all of them here.

As usual I started our conversation by asking George when she was most happy.

 

Back To The Rafters is available exclusively on Amazon Prime Video.

 

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10 Questions with Adam Zwar is produced in part by Nearly Me

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Four-time Logie Award winning actor, singer, and dancer, Hugh Sheridan.

Hugh grew up in Adelaide with six brothers and sisters, studied ballet with the Australian Ballet, sang with the State Opera of South of Australia and went to acting school at the National Institute of Dramatic Art.

Hugh’s major break was playing Ben Rafter on the Channel Seven hit, Packed to the Rafters.

What followed was the limited series INXS: Never Tear Us Apart, House Husbands and Five Bedrooms.

Right now Hugh’s  in Brisbane launching his new stage show, HughMan, which is a mixture of disco and old school cabaret, while a new series of Packed to the Rafters returns to Amazon Prime.

In our chat, we talk about religion, spirituality and the importance in coming from a tough Irish Catholic family.

 

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10 Questions with Adam Zwar is produced in part by Nearly Media.

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Dr Chris graduated from the University of Sydney in 2001 with First Class Honours in vet science.

After practicing in Sydney’s North Shore as well as remote communities in the Northern Territory, a chance meeting in a pub with a media manager helped him land a presenting role on Harry’s Practice in 2003.

After that, he went on to win a Logie for Most Popular New Talent and write the best-selling book, The Family Guide to Pets.

Then, in 2008, came the all-conquering reality show Bondi Vet, which chronicled Chris’s life at a Bondi Junction clinic.

Along the way, there were shows for CBS and Animal Planet in the US before broadening his hosting palette to include The Living Room and I’m A Celebrity Get Me Out of Here.

During our chat, Dr Chris tells some glorious animal stories and recounts a botched meeting with Nelson Mandela.

As usual I started by asking Dr Chris, when he was most happy.

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Back in 2018, Christian was the most popular breakfast host in the UK – with three million people listening to his show each morning.

Then, a combination of panic attacks and wanderlust made him decide to leave his top rating show, uproot his family and move to Australia to become the breakfast host on Melbourne’s Gold FM.

In his book, No One Listens to Your Dad’s Show, he charts his experiences with mental health, his decision to move to Australia and then the battle to take his show to number one.

I loved the book, and here we dig even deeper into his hilarious struggle to make friends in his adopted country, how he cries nearly as much as I do and the sessions he had with an unconventional therapist.

Right at the end, I asked what I thought was a professional question about how he acquired such a resonant voice – and the answer was surprisingly personal.\

 

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10 Questions with Adam Zwar is produced in part by Nearly Media.

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We talk about her broadcasting beginnings from newsreading on Channel 10 to co-hosting The Today Show opposite Karl Stefanovic, the controversy surrounding her departure from The Today Show, her battle with post-natal depression and her mother’s battle with bi-polar disorder.

Jess and her mother, Penelope, would go on to write the book, The Best of Times, The Worst of Times, which charted her mother’s struggle . 

 

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10 Questions with Adam Zwar is produced in part by Nearly Media.

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This episode is the Denise Scott episode.

It’s such an honour to have her on the show.  

Yes, she’s hilarious and an icon, but she’s also one of the most generous and supportive performers in our industry.

She started off in a clown troupe, gained national recognition on The Big Gig and Tonight Live With Steve Vizard, put in several Most Valuable Player performances in the Agony series before writing a couple of best-selling books and touring the nation with her comedy bestie, Judith Lucy.

In this interview, she leaves nothing in the shed. For your reference, “John” is her husband, and her children are “Jordie” and “Bonnie”.

And “Judith” is of course Judith Lucy. As usual, I started by asking Denise, when she was most happy.

 

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10 Questions with Adam Zwar is produced in part by Nearly Media.

More about Out of the Question: https://www.nearly.com.au/out-of-the-question-with-adam-zwar/

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This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit mrzwar.substack.com