Charlie Pickering’s blunt confession about The Project

As he prepares to captain a team on the new season on Would I Lie To You?, comedian and TV personality Charlie Pickering gets real about his relationship with The Project, the show that made him a household name.

Charlie Pickering can spin a convincing yarn. And that’s a good thing, because the comedian has been given license to use his sharp storytelling skills and fib freely on Would I Lie To You? But what he isn’t going to lie about are the chances he will return to the panel show that made him famous – The Project. As Pickering reveals to Stellar about going back: “They’ve not asked, and I don’t think I would”

Completely impervious to being starstruck. Charlie Pickering had that air about him when he took a then UK-based Kitty Flanagan out for a posh dinner to thank her for being his tour guide during a visit to London.

“She was gesticulating wildly for me to look over and see that Keanu Reeves was at the next table,” he tells Stellar. “But I looked around and didn’t see him, so I just carried on with my story.

“It was only later, on the walk home, that she said, ‘You’re a cool rooster not to be impressed by Keanu Reeves,’” Pickering adds with a laugh, noting that in his simultaneously incredulous and excited state, “I was like, ‘That was Keanu Reeves?’”

In some ways, you can’t blame Pickering for not being fussed. The TV and radio personality has spent a large portion of his career either interviewing or being flanked by a formidable line-up of talent.

During his five-year tenure at The Project (which began in 2009 as The 7PM Project), he chatted easily with stars such as Brad Pitt and Will Ferrell while sharing co-hosting duties with Dave Hughes and Carrie Bickmore.

Then, when he launched his ABC current affairs-comedy series The Weekly With Charlie Pickering in 2015, he tapped good mates Flanagan and Tom Gleeson to join him.

“They were the two funniest people in the country who didn’t have their own TV shows,” he says. “And I thought [they] absolutely deserved to be on TV more.”

Charlie Pickering will return to Network 10’s Would I Lie To You? for a second season, this time as a team captain. Picture: Sam Bisso for Stellar.

Charlie Pickering: ‘Carrie [Bickmore] and I started out together. I just deeply love Carrie’ Picture: Sam Bisso for Stellar.

Yet his bonds with Bickmore, Flanagan and Gleeson go deeper than being work colleagues who can share easy quips.

In October, Bickmore confided in Pickering about her decision to leave The Project the night before her on-air reveal.

“Carrie and I started out together. I just deeply love Carrie,” he says of Bickmore.

But when it comes to knowing more about changes at the hybrid current affairs-panel series, Pickering insists that Bickmore’s announcement “was the closest I’ve had to any gossip at all with regards to The Project.

“I will say it’s a great show, and it’s been a wonderful opportunity for some really smart, funny people to make some great TV,” he offers. “But it’s natural that people are going to want to seek other opportunities.”

Meanwhile, Pickering is keen to tell more porkies on the second season of Network 10’s Would I Lie To You?, a panel show in which two teams of gifted gabbers attempt to out-lie one another.

While Chrissie Swan returns as host, Pickering will replace Chris Taylor as the opposing team captain to comedian Frank Woodley.

Pickering is looking forward to performing in front of a large audience after Covid restrictions wreaked havoc with local productions.

“A joke told without an audience takes a certain level of self-belief that I’m not sure I would have for another season,” he concedes of having done two seasons of The Weekly in an empty studio.

“The joy of Would I Lie To You? [now] is everyone being in the room together, back in the studio with a nice big audience. It really is the way TV should be.”

Time spent in his youth as a precocious prevaricator has made Pickering uniquely qualified for this particular format, he admits.

“But,” he adds, “I’ve learnt in my ripe old mid-40s that I’m not the liar I thought I was – which has made me think maybe everyone knew I was lying all along, and they were just being polite.”

Even so, he says he tells some whoppers on the show “so I’m not a complete failure in the art of deception”.

Charlie Pickering: ‘I don’t think I would [go back to The Project]...I left The Project because I felt that I’d achieved everything I could in that job’ Picture: Sam Bisso for Stellar

Charlie Pickering: ‘It’s really hurtful how many jobs I wasn’t considered for.’ Picture: Sam Bisso for Stellar.

The truth, Pickering says, is that his love of the original UK version of Would I Lie To You? with Rob Brydon, Lee Mack and David Mitchell was a large reason why he wanted

to be part of its reimagining in 2023. The new gig, however, will not pave the way for

a more permanent return to Network 10.

Happy at the ABC, Pickering asserts that he has no regrets about leaving The Project nearly nine years ago, nor has he been approached to return.

“They’ve not asked, and I don’t think I would [go back],” he says. “Never say never. I left The Project because I felt that I’d achieved everything I could in that job, and I wanted new challenges.

“So, I don’t have that scoop for you today,” he says, before adding wryly, “I was never considered for A Current Affair, either. It’s really hurtful how many jobs I wasn’t considered for. Those conversations definitely haven’t happened and it would be pretty unlikely.”

Besides, a co-host on The Project has become a more scrutinised position since he left in 2014.

“Back then, one person would say a bad thing [about you] on Twitter and it felt like your world ended,” he explains. “We weren’t used to what social media would become, which is something you can by and large ignore and get on with your job.

“[Current Project co-host] Waleed [Aly] isn’t even on social media so he’s the smartest man in the world, but Carrie, Peter [Helliar] and Lisa [Wilkinson] use social media effectively to build their careers and promote themselves, and I’m sure they’re very attuned to shutting out negativity.”

And while many comedians have voiced their concerns about cancel culture’s effect on entertainment, Pickering isn’t too worried because his brand of humour has never been particularly cruel or derogatory to others.

“Your own personal viewpoint as a human being should always be evolving. If you still have the viewpoint that you had 30 years ago and want to make jokes from that viewpoint, I think maybe you need to evolve,” he says.

“I don’t live in fear of getting cancelled. It doesn’t take much to be thoughtful, really.”

Charlie Pickering features in this Sunday’s Stellar. Picture: Damian Bennett for Stellar.

In any case, Pickering predicts The Project can survive the 2022 exits of hosts Bickmore, Helliar and Wilkinson and the arrival of Sarah Harris, Michael Hing and Sam Taunton to the desk with Aly, Hamish Macdonald and Georgie Tunny.

“The Today show has been going for however long and had so many changes of hosts,” he offers with a shrug. “I can’t wait for Karl [Stefanovic] to go and come back again.”

The strength of The Project is being an incubator of talent such as Aly, who “started filling in for me on a Friday or when I was on leave and, now, he’s a Gold Logie winner,” Pickering says.

Then, thinking about his friends Gleeson and Bickmore, he marvels, “God, everyone seems to have a Gold Logie except me. It’s time for Tom to run a campaign – for me!”

Season 2 of Would I Lie To You? premieres at 8.30pm on February 13 on Network 10 and 10 Play.