From music to television, is there nothing Hugh Sheridan can’t do
There’s plenty of drama in Hugh Sheridan’s life - from doubling up on TV to frantic Fringe - but he wouldn’t change a thing
Confidential
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HUGH Sheridan is exhausted. Not surprising really. He’s shooting two Australian dramas concurrently – Ten’s Five Bedrooms in Melbourne, Packed to the Rafters for Amazon Prime in Sydney.
Not to mention flying back to his base in Los Angeles for bushfire recovery fundraisers.
And he’s just finished a run with his band California Crooners Club while still finalising his stripped-back solo show to debut at the Adelaide Fringe this week.
Then there’s his punishingly strict exercise and diet regime for a “secret squirrel” project later in the year – Hugh promises he’ll tell Watch first. When he can.
We’re chatting at Exchange in the East End. The waitress brings the menu, and Hugh scans the delicious offerings, before reluctantly passing on them all, settling for a coffee.
“I’m not allowed to eat until after 12pm,” he shares, with a wry smile. “I’m dying. It’s the worst timing, I thought it would be really good. I can’t drink – I thought that would be great because I have so much work on and it will keep me disciplined.
“But it’s actually the worst because you come home feeling stressed and you just want to have a wine and a bowl of pasta and go into a food coma. And then maybe have ice cream and then go to bed.
“Instead I go home and I’m hangry and all I can have is some greens and some fish, chamomile tea ... and cry!”
Despite the long hours, basically working around the clock, the 34-year-old is so grateful for all of the work. It’s something he only dreamt of as a 16-year-old heading to The Australian Ballet School, first boarding with a lady who used to count how many cornflakes he was allowed to eat.
“She was literally insane,” Hugh says, with a laugh. “I had to run away in the middle of the night and stayed in houses of sort of friends of friends. Sleeping on their couches.”
It’s little known, personal stories such as this he’ll share with an intimate crowd in his one-man show Hugh Sheridan Unplugged. It’s been germinating for the last few years. The original plan was for two very exclusive shows, fortunately for us that has extended to seven shows at Gluttony’s Cornucopia. There’ll be music – of course – from usual swing and soul suspects Bobby Darin, Ella Fitzgerald, Anthony Newley, Frank Sinatra and surprise choices perhaps, including Taylor Swift and Justin Timberlake.
But it’s the stories that he’s looking forward to sharing with his very loyal Adelaide fanbase.
“For years and years, I didn’t talk about how I personally felt about some incidents in my life like when my brother (Zach) was in Nepal (caught up in the tragedy of the massive 7.8-magnitude earthequake),” he says.
Or when Hugh was cast in a massive film remake of Dirty Dancing, but it clashed with hosting a US show - a job he didn’t want to take, but his agents had counselled him to do. Then there’s opening for Liza Minnelli in New York. “At the time I remember I really, really wanted to talk about it but Seven was like ‘it doesn’t really fit the Ben Rafter thing’,” Hugh says.
While the setlist is locked in, the actual show is still being finalised. Rest assured it will be a smooth and slick production, Hugh knows exactly how it will all go in his talented mind. He’s using this weekend – his precious two days away from filming – to put the show together.
“It’s a luxury – with California Crooners Club we put it together in one day,” he confesses. “Yesterday, we rehearsed it, tech-ed it and opened it.”
He’s used to living on the edge, but says he’s fortunate to work with good people who understand his vision and on whom he can rely to make sure that creative vision is met. Hugh also credits his time at The Australian Ballet and NIDA, and working with such talent as former Adelaide Festival artistic director Barrie Kosky in making him flexible and adaptable.
“Even just having my dad (swing/jazz crooner Denis), watching him growing up and seeing how effortless it can be,” he says. “Lots of people do stress about shows and are very meticulous ... It’s all in here (he points to his head) and then I’ll show everyone what it’s going to be at the last minute. As long as you’re working with musicians that understand the way you work, it’s very doable. It comes down to a lot of work in a short space of time – so you’ve got to have a great lights person, great sound technician and great musicians, and then the show’s perfect.”
Certainly Hugh’s got that great team of people behind him. All assembled from Adelaide, he flies his marvellous musicians all over Australia.
Fortunately the crazy schedule hasn’t taken its toll on his voice. Or face. He still looks very much like the youthful Ben Rafter – the Logie-winning role he’s reprising in the reboot of the much-loved Packed to the Rafters. Hugh admits he was hesitant about revisiting the high-rating show which ran on Seven for six years, wrapping in 2013.
“But, it’s still Rafters and the writing is fantastic,” he says. “Obviously I can’t say anything about the storylines, but I know that the fans are going to be really happy.”
It’s been surreal for Hugh to go back to Ben - the role he won in his final year of NIDA, propelling him to a household name, snaring four Logies along the way. “It kind of feels like going back to school – you know, you leave high school and go back six years later and you see all the same teachers and they look exactly the same,” he says. “It’s the same faces – not just on screen. It’s very much like a family. Every family has so much history and we’ve got all of that. It’s so beautiful.”
It’s been especially joyful reuniting with his first TV family – mum Rebecca Gibney, dad Erik Thomson and brother Angus McLaren. Sister Jessica Marais sadly pulled out for personal reasons this month. They’ve all stayed in close contact since Rafters wrapped and, like any family, enjoyed good-natured ribbing of each other. Like when Erik told this journalist – after he eventually won his own Logie in 2016 – he wouldn’t work with Hugh again. But only so he could continue to win Logies without competition from his younger co-star. Hugh laughs when we remind him.
“We kept in really close touch for the first couple of years but then with everyone in different countries doing different things, it becomes an every-now-and-again conversation,” Hugh says. “Now that we are all back together again, it’s just beautiful. There’s lots of laughter and lots of fun.”
And it was just as fun, and oh-so easy to step back into Ben’s shoes. “ That’s one of the reasons I wanted to do it the most,” Hugh shares.
“I really missed playing him. He was so much of my life. We were doing 22 episodes a year then, back to back. We’d only have a month off and then we’d be straight back into feeling it.
“I was spending more time being Ben Rafter than I was being myself. It all started to amalgamate – you know, writers would start writing for you as opposed to Ben.”
It was tricky initially swapping between Ben and his Five Bedrooms character, the hopeless Lachlan (“I’ve based him on Seinfeld’s George Costanza – he’s not as bad as George, he’s just not very good with social cues”).
The first series of Five Bedrooms – also starring Kat Stewart, Doris Younane, Stephen Peacocke, Katie Robertson and Roy Joseph – was already written before the actors were cast, Hugh’s loving this second time around, with further character development.
“All of the characters are so elevated – it’s really good stuff,” he says. “They all hate Lachlan, so it’s awful shooting sometimes because (in real life) I love them all so much and you’re looking at them and they’re looking at you with such distaste. And I have to say ‘it’s not real, Hugh. They’re looking at looking at Lachlan, not you’.”
Hugh hints this second season, about five strangers who buy a house together, is even better than the first. “I have a very, very good feeling – when I read the script, I was laughing out loud hysterically to myself,” he says. “I was pissing myself thinking I couldn’t wait to get there to do it.”
At least that softens the blow of constant 4am starts, both productions working together to ensure Hugh can meet all his requirements. “They keep putting all my stuff first and packing everything into long days - so when others get a day off from shooting to rest and recuperate that’s when I fly to the other city to shoot another show.”
It’s easy to believe he does wake up occasionally not knowing what city he’s in, sometimes which country even.
“I was (in Adelaide) for Christmas, then flew to LA, then to Miami for a minute for some work,” Hugh says. “I came back to LA and then to Sydney for Rafters for three days. Then fly back to LA to do the fundraisers for two days. Then fly back to Sydney. I was waking up thinking I was in Sydney when I was in LA, and waking up in LA thinking I was in Sydney. I had absolutely no idea.”
We’re exhausted just listening to it - but if anyone can make it work, Hugh can.
Hugh Sheridan Unplugged; Friday, 11pm, Saturday, 4.20pm & 11pm, March 13, 11pm, March 14, 2.45pm & 11pm. Tickets through adelaidefringe.com.au