A-list Confidential: Jessica Mauboy’s backup singer to star on The Voice
A former So You Think You Can Dance star who toured with Jessica Mauboy is ready to take the lead on The Voice, auditioning for the singer she used to share the stage with.
U on Sunday
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Brisbane dancer Jessica Stokes is determined to prove age isn’t a factor in becoming a pop star.
The 32-year-old, who first appeared on So You Think You Can Dance in 2010, had a successful dancing career and toured as a backup singer for Jessica Mauboy in 2017 as well as Ricki-Lee, before stepping away to become a mother to her son, Dynamite, two.
Now focusing on her singing, she auditioned for the new season of The Voice, in front of Mauboy, who is among the new panel of coaches.
“I definitely had to take a massive step back as a performer (when I became a mother),” she said.
“When he was old enough I took the opportunity to recreate myself as a performer and singing was an easy step because it wasn’t as strenuous on my body and being a mum.”
“I feel like I am starting a little bit later. I’m trying to catch up for so many years of not focusing on signing.
“It (the show) has inspired me to be better, and not give up on a dream no matter how old you are.”
“It was the perfect time to audition; in my heart I was ready.”
Stokes said the blind audition was “one of the scariest things I’ve ever had to do”, especially with Mauboy among the coaches.
“I definitely looked up to her a lot as a performer,” she said. “You are really putting yourself out there and she will see me as a frontwoman rather than one of the girls on stage with her as a friends. It is really intimidating and there’s a lot of pressure.”
The Voice, which also stars Rita Ora, Keith Urban and Guy Sebastian, premieres on Channel 7 on Sunday, August 8.
ON THE BALL
Queensland comedian Nikki Osborne had one message for her struggling compatriots interstate: follow the footballers.
The actor and presenter moved with her husband and two children from Melbourne back to her home state late last year and is currently house hunting, recently losing out on a Sunshine Coast home to an NRL player moved to the region due to Covid outbreaks in NSW.
“Cockroaches keep beating me in price. A footballer just bought my dream home. I’m not bitter,” Osborne told Confidential
She will perform her show Too Far? at the Brisbane Comedy Festival this week, after a host of interstate performers were forced to postpone their shows due to border closures.
“I messaged all of my comedy mates and said ‘the footballers are being moved up to Queensland which means the borders are closing. Get you’re a** up here’. Always follow the footballers. Except to an auction,” she said.
“This festival needs to happen. I’m not sure if anyone’s noticed but everyone has lost their minds. They need a really good laugh. I plan on giving them an hour where they forget about the last argument they had on Facebook.”
Osborne has previously performed shows that carried a strong message, including the challenges of parenting a son with autism, which led to the venue employing security guards to stand either side of the stage.
“I felt like Britney. Only with hair and control of my estate,” she said.
“In my previous shows I’ve tried to carry a message. Not this one. I just want to have a solid laugh with the audience at the world’s expense and I don’t mind crossing a few lines to do it.”
On that note, Osborne has also become an ambassador for Moments Condoms, with billboards popping up around southeast Queensland.
The extra supply of condoms has come in handy at her new Sunshine Coast home, for different reasons.
“We’d run out of games for my son’s birthday party so we used the dingers as water bombs. Nobody knew but us. We had a good chuckle though as the kids kept saying ‘these are indestructible’,” she said.
Osborne will perform five shows at the Brisbane Powerhouse from Wednesday to Sunday.
REALITY BITES
Despite launching a career on reality TV, Ryan Gallagher says it’s “complete rubbish” he would never watch.
Gallagher first appeared on Married At First Sight before starring on I’m A Celebrity … Get Me Out Of Here! and launching a career as a stand-up comedian. He will next take aim at the industry in a comedy show called Reality’s Ducked! later this year.
“I just hate it (reality TV), I always have,” Gallagher told Confidential. “I’ve never watched it, never will. I’ve never even watched anything I’m on.”
“It’s complete rubbish. I just think it’s s***. It’s pure s***. And the fact I went on it is also pure s***.”
Gallagher, who was a tradesman before he appeared on MAFS, admits he used to binge drink on the weekends during his twenties and was initially approached by a producer when he was “p****d as a fart” at the pub.
When they called him the following Tuesday he turned them down, before eventually agreeing when they contacted him again a year later.
“I’d actually stopped drinking for eight months,” he said. “I was 28. I was out with mates and I had a drink and I put it down and said ‘I don’t feel like doing this anymore’. I just wanted to have six months off and I ended up having eight and then they rang.
“I didn’t want to do what I was doing with life anymore with work and I wanted to have a break so I thought f*** it and I took it on.”
He adds: “I definitely don’t regret it. It changed my life for the better so do I regret doing it absolutely not. I mean it’s formed where I live now, I love what I do for a living, I love entertaining.”
Gallagher was in town this week, hosting the Girls on Tour Luncheon at the Gold Coast Turf Club yesterday after performing some intimate comedy shows in Brisbane.
He has quit drinking entirely and is looking to settle down with an “everyday girl” and start a family.
“I probably lost the love of my life from drinking and gambling and that was someone who if I met now it’d be a lot different,” he said.
“You have to figure out whether they want to bang Ryan off TV or actually be with Ryan, and 95 per cent of the time it’s just wanting to be with Ryan off TV, and I don’t want that, I’ve got no interest in it.”
BRISBANE’S NEW RESIDENT
Actor David Wenham has quietly become a Brisbane local.
The acclaimed Australian star left his Sydney home during the Covid outbreak in 2020 and has been based with his partner in Brisbane for the past year.
During that time he filmed a role as country music star Hank Snow in Baz Luhrmann’s Elvis movie on the Gold Coast, reuniting with the filmmaker he previously worked with on Moulin Rouge! and Australia.
“I’ve been here (in Brisbane) for over a year. I absolutely made the right decision,” Wenham, 55, told Confidential.
He was on the Gold Coast on Monday to announce the return of the Asia Pacific Screen Awards (APSA), for which he is an Academy member, to the city.
“I was fortunate earlier this year to work on Baz Luhrmann’s Elvis – it’s going to be good – and I saw Baz last Friday here at HOTA and he said it’s one of the best places in the world to shoot,” Wenham said.
“His home is New York right now, but he wants to be here. He said he’s never had a better time shooting anywhere in the world than here on the Gold Coast, in Queensland, which is no small thing.”
Wenham was now considering turning down acting work elsewhere in order to stay in Queensland.
“I’m considering a job overseas and the major factor making me deliberate is personal safety,” he said.
FILM SET IN THE SUBURBS
Speaking of HOTA, the set of Netflix movie True Spirit is in plain sight from the Gold Coast arts precinct.
The production of the Jessica Watson biopic has taken over Korman Family Park on Chevron Island, making use of the Broadwater, where a sailboat is moored.
Oscar winner Anna Paquin was spotted on set this with Teagan Croft in character as Watson. With cameras rolling on Monday, the cul-de-sac will be taken over by the film crew until August 10.
On filming the role as Watson’s sailing coach Ben Bryant, New Zealand actor Cliff Curtis told Confidential with a laugh “I’m rubbish at sailing; that’s why I’m an actor”.
EVENT OF THE WEEK
A packed crowd of Brisbane theatre dignitaries, local identities and musical lovers dressed to the nines and side stepped down the red carpet for the opening night performance of West Side Story at QPAC’s Lyric Theatre last Saturday. The much loved musical will run in Brisbane until August 23.
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