Celia Pacquola is favourite to win Dancing With the Stars, but you can count her out for Bachelorette
Despite being favourite to win Dancing With The Stars, stand-up comedian and actor Celia Pacquola says there’s no way in hell she’d sign up for The Bachelorette or go into the jungle.
Entertainment
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Comedian Celia Pacquola is killing it on Dancing With the Stars right now.
Since her debut number cha-cha-ing up a storm to Lizzo’s Juice, she’s been a dance machine each week, topping the judges scores last weekend and cementing her spot as the bookies favourite to win the Channel 10 reality TV program. But even if she does take home the coveted mirror-ball trophy in tonight’s grand final, it’s a pretty safe bet it will also be her reality TV swan song.
Despite Ten’s love of shuffling their stars between their stable of shows, the AACTA-award-winning comedian-actor-writer insists it’ll be one and done for her. Celia Pacquola: Bachelorette? God forbid. I’m a Celebrity … Get Me Out Of Here? Not in a million years.
“And I won’t sing or dive or ice skate or any of that stuff,” Pacquola says adamantly. “That’s the thing about Dancing With the Stars – it’s a nice one. There are no villains, it’s inspirational, it’s aspirational and they want everyone to do well. So, it’s the reality show that I trust the most – they are not trying to throw anyone under the bus or create drama. Everyone is actually really lovely and supportive of each other.”
A decade ago, Pacquola performed a show at the Melbourne International Comedy Festival called Flying Solos, for which she set herself the seemingly impossible task of performing the piano solo of the Pointer Sisters’ I’m So Excited, despite having next to zero proficiency on the instrument in question. She took a similar attitude into DWTS and figured that even if the experience was an abject failure, at least she’d get plenty of comedy gold from it.
“It’s a similar vibe from something that has been instilled in me from my mum, which is ‘do something impossible because why not? It doesn’t matter what it is – if you can prove to yourself that you can do it then when else can you do?’.
“Also, I just found it funny – I haven’t stopped laughing since they asked me to do it. The thought of me doing a reality TV dancing show is so funny. I did a cha-cha on live television in front of Olivia Newton-John – that will never not be funny to me. It was a win-win-win-win-win situation. It was like ‘if I am terrible at this, I am supposed to be terrible – I am a comedian and I will get jokes out of it’.”
Learning the increasingly complicated dances with partner Jarryd Byrne has been a transformative experience for Pacquola, physically and mentally. Not only has she lost 5kg and gained a core from rehearsing for hours a day but being literally centre stage, decked out in flamboyantly spangly outfits has meant she’s had to change the way the thinks of herself as well.
“I have spent my whole career diverting attention away from my body,” she says, while admitting that she’s never been fitter and is loving her new-found, and probably short-lived buffness. “I am all about my words – don’t look at me, don’t think of me as a woman, just listen to what I am saying. I am just telling jokes, I am a writer and I want you to listen to me and not look at me. And this is ‘look at me and what I am doing with my body’. So that is really confronting.”
That said, she still has her comedian’s instinct to go for the joke and says that dancing with no one in the usually crowded, over-the-top live audience thanks to the new shutdown and social distancing measures has not been nearly as difficult as not having anyone to laugh at her zingers during the post dance chats with the judges and hosts Amanda Keller and Grant Denyer.
“I am still a goofball,” she says. “Even when we are doing sexy stuff, it’s basically the time it takes me from giggle to doing what I have to do has gotten less and less. It’s still there, but I know that I can do the thing whereas in the past I would be like ‘absolutely not – that is not happening’.”
At time of the year, Pacquola would normally be just kicking off at the Comedy Festival and while she didn’t have a show this year because of her dancing and TV commitments, says she was devastated by its cancellation. The livelihood of many of her stand-up friends and colleagues, who rely on the month-long festival for a big chunk of their yearly earnings, will be deeply affected and she’s at a loss to know how the comedy community of Melbourne will recover. But she knows it will.
“These are times we have never seen before,” she says. “It’s kind of one of those frustrating things where when it’s needed more than ever, we can’t do it. We will find ways though. Comedy will always exist – and this is all material eventually because we all want to talk about it.”
In the meantime, she’s thrilled that Amazon Prime will next month release a ten stand-up specials from Aussie comedians, including her own 2018 show All Talk. While the sometimes dark, always hilarious show brought back some confronting memories of a particular time in her own life, she’s grateful it will live on and can bring joy to audiences at home who would normally be getting their live comedy fix.
“There’s some full-on stuff in it and I spent a long time thinking about whether or not I wanted to go there,” Pacquola admits of the show that dug deep into her struggles with depression and anxiety.
“But I am so glad that I did, if just for the response that I got from people that it really meant a lot to. I have been doing this for long enough now that I can go ‘this is what I think is important to talk about – I have a platform I am aware of and I want to use it for good as well as being funny the whole time’.”
And then there’s the return of Rosehaven, the Tassie-set ABC comedy, created with her friend and co-star Luke McGregor.
“I think it might be our best one,” she says of Season 4. “It’s more of the same but we are just so comfortable. I think also maybe because the first time we filmed in spring and not in the middle of winter so we were having a much more pleasant experience in Tasmania.”
Dancing With the Stars, Channel 10, Sunday, 7.30pm. All Talk, Amazon Prime, from April 10.
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