Celeste Barber on crazy cancel culture, new film Seriously Red and the power of women’s stories

Her Aussie brand of humour has gone global. But Celeste Barber says there’s a strange undercurrent in the modern comedy world.

Celeste Barber just doesn’t understand what happened to comedy.

The actor, comedian and internet sensation – she now has more than 9 million Instagram followers thanks to her self-deprecating, body-positive parody videos of preening celebs and influencers – has just returned from her biggest ever stand-up tour, with more than 70 dates of her Fine, Thanks show around the US and Europe.

While she says that the tour was a roaring success – Netflix will release a special of the show next year – and her Aussie brand of humour translated everywhere she went, she also acknowledges that there’s a strange undercurrent in the modern comedy world, with the ever present-danger of being cancelled by either side of politics just for trying to make audiences laugh.

“I don’t understand when comedians became the moral compass of the world,” she muses. “We make money off dick jokes. I don’t remember the time or understand the reasoning behind now comedians, if you say something offensive – which we’ve always said and how we get successful is to push buttons – all of a sudden, you’ll lose your career over it. I don’t remember agreeing to that.

Celeste Barber has just finished her biggest ever comedy tour.

“I also am now at a point where I still operate from a place of already been cancelled. I’m just going to act as though I am because I don’t know what else to do. People need to be held accountable but this whole thing of just going ‘no, I don’t like it therefore you are done’, I am like ‘no, piss off, go away’. Just don’t come to the show. I’m here to make you laugh.”

Barber says that the need to laugh was particularly prevalent on her recent dates in the US, a country she has visited often and home to some of her celebrity mates including Drew Barrymore, Cindy Crawford and Gwyneth Paltrow. But returning for the first time since the Covid pandemic shut down touring, she said it was “very, very different”.

“They’re very divided,” she says. “We have our issues here – oh my word do we have our issues here – but getting over there it was just like, ‘oh my goodness, you guys are not okay’. My audiences, you saw of so many in their eyes they’re like, ‘please give us 70 minutes of just raucous laughter please, please, please’.

“It’s a lot when you’re driving into towns and you get to the hotel and turn the TV on and a couple of Ks down the road there’s just been a shooting and you think, ‘oh my God, I’m in it, I’m here and you guys are living it’.”

Barber started her career as an actor in TV shows such as All Saints before she turned her hand to comedy, and says her acting training and experiences are still central to everything she does, from her writing to her stand-up and her social media profile. She says she’s always looking for the chance to do more acting, but opportunities remain few and far between despite her profile.

Celeste Barber and Bobby Cannavale in a scene from the movie Seriously Red.

“That’s the industry,” she shrugs, adding that while she doesn’t choose to work, she’s just happy that she doesn’t have to work in retail any more. “I would like to work now everyone, I am sick of selling things. Let me work. It’s absolutely where my heart lies.”

Being on set, she says, is where she feels most creatively fulfilled, surrounded by “like-minded people, creatives, people who have different ideas, people who have different approaches to things”.

“Storytelling is my most favourite thing in the world – it feeds me 100%,” she says. “I’m a better mother when I am working, I am a better wife, trust me – or ask my husband. No one likes an unemployed Celeste.”

Barber was thrilled when the opportunity presented itself to appear in the new Australian comedy-drama Seriously Red, which was written by and stars her long-time friend and former All Saints co-star, Krew Boylan. It tells the story of Red, a Dolly Parton obsessed woman who is stuck in soul-crushing job in real estate and living an unfulfilled existence with a domineering mother and sputtering love life. When she gets sacked, she finds a whole new world as a Dolly Parton impersonator and embarks on an unlikely journey to find her true calling while also discovering her true self.

Celeste Barber and Krew Boylan at the opening night of the Brisbane International Film Festival at the Brisbane Powerhouse last month. Picture: BIFF

Barber plays Teeth, the manager-agent who encourages Red to “fly her freak flag” and helps her navigate her way through the weird and wonderful celebrity impersonator circuit. Not only was she excited to be part of a homegrown production that was filming in her backyard in the Northern Rivers region of New South Wales during the pandemic, Barber also thought the movie’s themes reflected what she does so well on Instagram.

“I absolutely drew those parallels,” Barber says. “I think those themes are quite universal now. I don’t think they are as few and far between as they used to be. A lot of stories and scripts that I read now are about that, especially by women.

“They are like ‘hang on a minute, how I am going to really step into my power here? I’m a little bit different and a little bit quirky and that’s what I want to celebrate’. So it was so nice to be a part of a film like that.”

Seriously Red – which got the stamp of approval from Dolly herself – is the first film from Dollhouse Pictures, an all-female independent production company founded by Boylan, Rose Byrne, Jessica Carrera, Shannon Murphy and Gracie Otto. Byrne appears in the film (directed by Otto) as an Elvis impersonator (“she’s the greatest Elvis impersonator ever – no offence to Austin Butler”) and her husband Bobby Cannavale also co-stars as Teeth’s boss, who is a former Neil Diamond impersonator.

Barber filmed most of her scenes with Cannavale and she her husband became good mates with the celebrity couple.

Celeste Barber at the Sydney Film Festival Seriously Red premiere at The State Theatre in June.

“We bantered a lot,” says Barber with a laugh. “Not much of it made it to screen. I watched it and was like ‘they have cut most of it’ and he said ‘yeah, that’s how it works, they cut the best parts that we think are amazing’. It’s full of dad jokes that we think are hilarious and had us in stitches. And Gracie, our amazing director going ‘cut!’.”

Barber says that working on a female-driven production such as Seriously Red brings a “different perspective and nuance” and says that while great strides have been gained in bringing more diverse stories to fruition in recent years, there’s still plenty more work to do.

“I put it down to us not giving up and you just have to push and push and push,” she says. “Even now we still talk about what it’s like being a woman in the industry, or what’s it like being an all-female production company – that’s still a question. Whereas when it’s equal, it won’t be a question. It’ll just be ‘so this is how it is’. And it’s down to us just keeping going keep pushing forward, keep making it the norm.”

Next up for Barber is an adaptation of Brigid Delaney’s book, Wellmania, which will arrive on Netflix early next year.

“My character, Liv, is a journalist and a food critic,” says Barber. “And something happens in her life health wise, where she has to then take it down a notch and stop being such a party girl and really look at how she’s going to make herself well. We dive into different wellness fads and her journey through that.”

Seriously Red is in cinemas tomorrow.