Talkin’ Bout Your Generation’s team captain Laurence Boxhall set for new season
He’s a Gen Z funnyman who doesn’t post Instagram selfies or keep up with the Kardashians. But Laurence Boxhall says he’s more normal than the social media-obsessed stereotype, as he prepares to do battle on the new season of Talkin’ ’Bout Your Generation.
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He doesn’t tweet. Or post selfies on Instagram. And he’s never kept up with a single Kardashian. An out-and-proud nerd who prefers Shakespeare to Snapchat, Laurence Boxhall says he is a more realistic representation of the millennial generation than any of the pouty people on shows such as Married At First Sight.
The 22-year-old is back to captain the Generation Z team on Channel 9’s Talkin’ ’Bout Your Generation after finishing his studies at the National Institute of Dramatic Arts.
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The made-in-Melbourne comedy game show celebrates the generation gap, with three age groups — Gen X (born 1966-1979), Gen Y (1980-1994) and Gen Z (1995-2012) — battling it out each week with the help of special guests.
“I think there’s a huge temptation for people to be patronising towards Gen Z because we are young and, oh yes, we have social media and take selfies and stuff like that,” Boxhall says. “I mean it makes you want to slide your hand down your face and go, ‘Oh God.’
“I keep coming back to this strong truth that, in two years, Gen Zs will be graduating as doctors and lawyers. They are people, too.
“I think that generally — as a global representative of my generation on this TV show — the social media-obsessed people, they are the oddities of my generation.”
Boxhall believes young people are often unfairly portrayed as shallow, stupid and lazy.
“We are living in a world where we know we will never be able to afford our own house, where rent is increasing to the point where we have to move back home,” he says.
“Grocery prices are increasing. The environment is completely messed up. We have to work several jobs just to be able to have as a good a wage as our parents did.
“And yes, I know, it sounds like I am complaining, and every generation has their challenges, but there’s a lot to take on and a lot is beyond our control.
“How do we fix the (Great) Barrier Reef? That wasn’t our generation. That was the ones before us, and now we are the ones who have to live with that.
“We weren’t the ones who went into Iraq looking for WMDs and now we are the ones who have to reap the direct repercussions of that. So that’s why we are so cynical.”
Even though he had been working steadily in film, TV and theatre throughout his teens, when Boxhall joined host Shaun Micallef and fellow team captains Andy Lee and Robyn Butler on the rebooted TBYG last year, he was the new kid on the block.
“Oh yes, I was easily the least known. Nobody even knew who I was,” he laughs.
He says his cast mates have quickly rallied to make him feel confident and comfortable.
Micallef liked Boxhall straight away.
“He has a nerdish way about him and is unfashionably knowledgeable of things his generation should not be acquainted with. He’s also from Adelaide,” Micallef says.
“My fondness for him would be simple narcissism, but for the fact that Laurence is genuinely smarter than me and a much more assured performer.”
Throughout his career, Boxhall has often found himself being championed by entertainment luminaries.
US actor and comedian Amy Schumer urged her millions of followers to watch Ronny Chieng: International Student, a cult comedy series Boxhall starred in for the ABC.
One of the first theatre roles Boxhall had was Melbourne Theatre Company play Jumpy, which starred Jane Turner and Marina Prior and was directed by Pamela Rabe.
The three women took teenage Boxhall under their wing throughout the show’s run in 2015. And now as a panellist on TBYG, Boxhall is learning from Lee, Micallef and Butler.
“The first season I was completely out of my depth, I think,” Boxhall says. “But I had a lot of fun. And Andy, Robyn and Shaun were terrific.”
Boxhall can remember the moment he realised he wanted to be an actor.
“I was seven years old,” he says. “I was at boarding school in England and we were doing a play called Bobbin and the Mystical Pathway.
“The teachers said, ‘If you want a big part, you can just come to us and let us know’.
“One day, I saw one of the teachers coming down the corridor and I don’t even know where this came from, but I felt myself careen over, this tiny Laurence, and said, ‘I think I would like a big part’.
“And the next day they said, ‘And Laurence will be playing Bobbin’. And Bobbin, obviously, is the main character. I wore big hat and a green tight and a red tight and I was very important.
“I remember doing the play and my parents came up to see it and in the car ride home I said, ‘I want to be an actor’.
“Mum and Dad were like, ‘Ha, ha, of course you do.’ But because I’m stubborn, I just never gave that up.”
The son of a military man, Boxhall lived in three countries, stayed in 11 houses and attended six schools. He credits his transient childhood with helping him adapt quickly to any situation — a handy skill for an actor.
“I was raised an army brat so I travelled across England and then to Australia,” he says. “I do think it has opened me up because a huge part of acting is working on yourself and studying people.
“Being able to meet so many people, adapt to different climates, learn so many languages, learn different dialects and lifestyles, patterns of behaviour and be exposed to so much humanity, I mean you would have to be incredibly cold and bitter to not take that on.”
Even though he had been a working actor throughout school, Boxhall wanted to hone his skills with formal training at NIDA.
He missed out on a place and was urged to get some more “life experience”. He spent two years getting practical experience with roles in the teen drama Worst Year of My Life, Again, Foxtel’s Deadline Gallipoli and Jumpy before securing his place at NIDA.
While many actors leave NIDA and then spend years waiting tables or doing the rounds of auditions hoping for a big break, Boxhall walked straight into season two of TBYG.
He is also about to start rehearsals for the MTC production of Shakespeare in Love, which starts in July, in which he’ll play Sam, a male actor who performs the role of Juliet.
Boxhall laughs that drama school prepared him well for the role.
“After three years of drama school, I take flight in a dress,” he says. “They are very freeing. At NIDA, we did a lot of corset work.
“I have worn corsets and those peculiar platform shoes they wore in that period. Corsets are actually more comfortable for guys than they are for ladies, I think.”
Boxhall recently watched the 1998 big-screen Shakespeare in Love starring Joseph Fiennes and Gwyneth Paltrow and was captivated by it.
“It was such a beautiful film,” he says. “And I love Shakespeare. I have a real soft spot for Shakespeare and language. Etymology and all that fun nerdy stuff.
“I am absolutely a nerd. I wear it with pride. But I am cool. Nerds are cool.
“They are coming back in a big way and hey, the people who you bullied in high school are now your bosses. It’s very reassuring.”
TALKIN’ ‘BOUT YOUR GENERATION RETURNS ON WEDNESDAY, MAY 1, AT 7.30PM on CHANNEL 9
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