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News.com.au
18 hours ago
- News.com.au
British comedy actress Sally Phillips gobsmacked by first Logie nomination
Best Lead Actress in a Comedy at this year's Logie Awards is a stacked category – including, perhaps controversially given it's Australian television's 'night of nights', an American (Leighton Meester) and a Brit (Sally Phillips). Phillips is nominated for her role in the first season of the acclaimed ABC comedy series Austin, which returns for a second series tonight. Speaking to the British actress is sad that she won't make it down to Australia for the big night – not that she likes her chances of winning. 'I'm not going to win,' she insists. 'But it is voted for by the public, which is partly why I'm so completely thrilled to be nominated... I think I see it as a step on my citizenship journey.' Phillips' relationship with Australia started when she was a child, and her father, who worked at British Airways, moved the family to Mosman on Sydney's north shore for several years. 'I had an Australian accent, and when we came back to the UK, my English teacher was Australian and so I got mercilessly bullied for trying to suck up to the Australian English teacher... people thought I was just putting it on, but I couldn't hear it, I couldn't get rid of it,' she explains. 'But we loved it out there and consequently, if I get offered a job to do in Australia, I always say yes. Where other people might say 'That's a long way,' I say 'yes please'.' The latest Aussie job for Phillips has been Austin, an Australian / British co-production starring former Love on the Spectrum participant Michael Theo in his debut acting role. Theo plays the titular character, a young man living with Autism who reaches out to his long-lost birth father Julian (Ben Miller) – much to the shock of Julian's wife, played by Phillips, who had no idea this son ever existed. One delightful surprise from the show's first season was just how good Theo was at carrying the show – not because of his disability, but because he'd never acted before (and 'reality TV star to acclaimed comic actor' is not a path well-worn). 'What makes him such a brilliant actor is that he has no armour, so he doesn't have any defences,' Phillips says. It also made filming particularly intense at times. Phillips reveals that her co-star struggled when season one wrapped, finding it hard to adjust to the reality of life as an actor: One minute the cast and crew are like your family, the next minute the show's over and you don't see them at all. 'Making the show, he was living independently for the first time. We were having dinner together most nights, and there were lots of people checking in with him every day, asking: How are you? Do you need anything? And he didn't want to go back to reality, really. It was pretty tough,' she admits. But with Michael in mind, the cast made sure to keep up their connection between seasons – one Phillips says she's sure will continue for years to come. 'Michael held us all to account, and has kind of gone: 'Tell me this is real, this friendship. ' And it definitely is. I mean, we spoke yesterday. But I think he does find it quite hard, the on again / off again thing of acting.' Now, the first time actor is in an unusual position: He's nominated for a Best Lead Actor in a Comedy Logie... the same category as his on-screen father. 'I've told him, it's all right, it's not a competition, and he said, yes it is,' Phillips says with a laugh. 'So I really hope he beats Ben, because it is a competition, as it turns out.' While Phillips' acting career started earlier in the 90s with roles in UK comedies like I'm Alan Partridge, In The Red and Hippies, it was her role in the hilarious sketch comedy show Smack The Pony that became her breakthrough. Running for three seasons from 1999, the show saw Phillips form a comedy trio with Fiona Allen, Doon MacKichan for a surrealist look at everything from modern dating to pop music videos. Despite a rabid fanbase, Phillips confesses they always felt like 'also-rans' in the UK, typically losing any TV comedy awards to Sacha Baron Cohen and his Ali G character. They, did, however, win two international Emmy Awards for the Best Popular Arts Show – but as Phillips recalls, their comedy nemesis Ali G still got the last laugh. 'I remember flying back [from the Emmys] and we were a bit drunk and had the Emmy with us. Sacha was going into first class and I remember Doon going, 'We've got a f**king Emmy. And we're still in economy!' There was a flurry of excitement earlier this year after an announcement that the trio will reunite for shows at the Edinburgh Festival, taking place next month. Tempering expectations, Phillips explained the new show is more of an interview-style format about their TV days, with a couple of sketches thrown in. Might it be a test run for bigger things to come? 'Well, we're going to share a flat and see what it's like being together – we're all going to live toether for five days. Because we used to hang out so much, and so the show became like a diary, really. You'd come in and say 'this thing happened,' then you'd give it a twist and make it a sketch.' Phillips also recently reprised her role as friend Sharon in the latest Bridget Jones film Mad About The Boy, reprising a role she's now played in four films across almost a quarter of a century. Mad About the Boy earned the best reviews of the whole series, striking a markedly different tone to the slapstick antics of some of the earlier films. But despite the positive reception, Phillips says she and the rest of the cast felt sure this was their last outing. 'The last scene that we shot together was a birthday party. We were in this beautiful house and we danced like crazy for four or five hours, and at the end of it we all put our arms around each other and burst into tears,' she recalls. 'It's the last one, and that's it … but it's been nearly half my life. I went for the first read-through on the day of my 30th birthday, and I'm now 55.'
ABC News
a day ago
- ABC News
Hard Quiz: I'm back to test your trivia skills. Have you used your time off wisely?
Did you miss my Sunday serving of sass? The rules are simple — five points for a correct answer. Got it? Let's play, HARD! Stream new Hard Quiz episodes on ABC iview or watch Wednesdays 8pm on ABC TV.
News.com.au
2 days ago
- News.com.au
‘What the actual f**k': Coldplay frontman's ex, Gwyneth Paltrow, appears amid kissgate drama
Coldplay singer Chris Martin's ex Gwyneth Paltrow became a 'temporary spokesperson' for Astronomer after its former CEO was caught having an alleged affair with another employee. Andy Byron, the married CEO of software company Astronomer, was publicly outed cosying up to his co-worker Kristin Cabot after footage of them caught in an embrace at the concert went viral around the world. Byron has since resigned from his high-profile role while Cabot, who is also married, has also left the company. Now, in a bid to deflect from the negative press, Astronomer has given a satirical response with the help of Oscar winner Paltrow, who says she has been hired on a 'very temporary basis' to represent the 'more than 300 employees' at the company. She said that she had been asked to answer some serious questions that the world has had for the company ever since Coldplaygate. 'Hi, I'm Gwyneth Paltrow,' she begins. 'I've been hired on a very temporary basis to speak on behalf of the 300-plus employees at Astronomer. Astronomer has gotten a lot of questions over the last few days, and they wanted me to answer the most common ones.' At this, a question is typed on screen: 'OMG What the actual f.' 'Yes,' Paltrow replies while deadpan, saying: 'Astronomer is the best place to run Apache Airflow, unifying the experience of running data ML and AI pipelines at scale.' 'We've been thrilled so many people have a new-found interest in data workflow automation,' she adds. The attempt at rebuilding the company's public image comes after Byron resigned from his job as the firm's CEO last week. 'As stated previously, Astronomer is committed to the values and culture that have guided us since our founding. Our leaders are expected to set the standard in both conduct and accountability, and recently, that standard was not met,' a rep for the tech company said on Saturday. 'Andy Byron has tendered his resignation, and the Board of Directors has accepted. The Board will begin a search for our next Chief Executive as Cofounder and Chief Product Officer Pete DeJoy continues to serve as interim CEO.' Then, just days later, it was revealed that Cabot had followed suit and left the company. 'I can confirm that Kristin Cabot is no longer with Astronomer, she has resigned,' a spokesperson for the company told Page Six. Byron, who is estimated to have a net worth of $A76 million, is married to a woman named Megan Kerrigan Byron, who has since removed his last name from her Facebook and deactivated her social media accounts.
