Why Strictly Ballroom star Paul Mercurio’s got a happy outlook on life
Paul Mercurio shot to fame in Strictly Ballroom but as work dried up he found himself being rejected for cleaning jobs. His latest career twist is as an MP.
Entertainment
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Shortly before Christmas in 2019, Strictly Ballroom star Paul Mercurio arrived at the five-star Cape Schanck resort to prepare for one of his toughest auditions.
He sat in the carpark with his wife, Andrea, a celebrated ballerina, and briefly contemplated driving home without venturing beyond the hotel’s curved glass facade.
The well-heeled waltzed towards the championship golf course as the popular actor and TV chef fine-tuned his pitch.
“My wife and I went to Cape Schanck to apply for jobs as the cleaners,” he said.
“That was one of the hardest things I’ve ever done, to get out of the car in that carpark, and walk into Cape Schanck. I used to go to those sorts of places and host 1200-1500 people and get paid really well.”
To emphasise the point, the interviewer looked him up and down before confirming he was that Paul Mercurio.
“She just couldn’t get it. I said ‘that’s my job as an artist, it’s feast and famine, I’m here because I need a job’,” he said.
“I call it an audition, but it was a great interview. My wife and I laughed, we told stories, we entertained this lady.
“She thought we were hilarious, she bought us coffee, said ‘thanks for coming’. Never heard from her again.”
Once a bankable star in the 1990s and 2000s, work had dried up since his role as a judge on Dancing with the Stars ended in 2012.
Mercurio said the “famine” resulted in a “will we lose the house type of moment” by the time the cleaning job was advertised.
The following year he broke through with a successful audition of sorts, when elected to the Mornington Peninsula Council.
A political career beckoned, and in November he secured the state seat of Hastings for the ALP, becoming part of the Andrews government.
While still uncomfortable about being called a politician, Mercurio explained that the career shift wasn’t so radical.
“If I walk on stage in the ballet … my body was the tool of expression to tell a story. If I cook you a plate of food, that’s a story; I’m a storyteller,” he said.
“I’ve always thought in telling stories, you’re nourishing people.
“I’m not doing it for fame, I’m not even doing it to be a politician, I’m doing it to continue to tell that story.”
A star is born
Born in Swan Hill in 1963, Mercurio was whisked to Perth as a toddler by his mum, Jean, after his father, actor Gus Mercurio, walked out.
The family settled in a housing commission duplex in Coolbellup, where the dark side of suburbia loitered and gangs sometimes took aim at “the strange kid doing ballet”.
During his maiden speech to state parliament, Mercurio recalls his mum helping a neighbour routinely beaten by her alcoholic husband.
“The mother would pass her kids over the fence to my mum, and we would all hide inside listening to the sounds of screams, pleading, and of fist hitting flesh,” he said.
As a young boy he escaped through “song and dance movies” but also fantasy films, such as The Secret Life of Walter Mitty.
“Maybe getting away from where we lived, and the hardships, could have been part of it; but they were just fun, positive, entertaining stories,” he said.
At age nine, after watching an Elvis Presley film, he asked his mum if he could try ballet.
“She was so surprised the cigarette fell out of her mouth and burnt the carpet, but she gave me a shot,” he told parliament.
Jean – now 86 – was watching from the public gallery.
“My mum always gave us a chance.”
Australia in the 1970s “wasn’t very sophisticated”, which made it tough for male dancers, but there is no trace of bitterness when Mercurio describes that time and he seems baffled when asked if he thought about quitting.
“It never crossed my mind. It was just kind of what I did. And I loved it.”
As a teenager he returned to Melbourne to pursue dance as a career, and became the principal dancer at the Sydney Dance Company by the age of 19.
A decade later, in 1992, he won the role of Scott Hastings in Baz Luhrmann’s offbeat Australian comedy, Strictly Ballroom.
He still loves the affection from fans, even though many now say “my mum used to love you”.
That role, and others that followed in film and TV, took him out of the shadow of his famous actor father, Gus, who was also a former boxer and a “deeply flawed man”.
In 2010, shortly before Gus’s death, Mercurio’s perspective was altered while filming ABC TV’s Who Do You Think You Are? and learning about his US ancestry.
FBI archives showed Gus’s father Vince – Mercurio’s grandfather – was a suspected member of the Milwaukee division of La Cosa Nostra, the feared Sicilian Mafia.
“He was a ‘made man’. To be a made man, you’ve got to be involved in murder,” he said.
“I look at Dad … he’s a flawed bloke trying to do his best, but he certainly didn’t have much to look up to.”
Speaking with pride and love about his three adult daughters – Elise, Erin and Emily – Mercurio said he “learnt what to do (as a parent) by not doing what my dad did”.
Strictly political
The FBI file relating to Vince “McGurk” Mercurio included a photo of him shaking hands with Richard Nixon.
The discovery made Mercurio angry because he “saw ‘McGurk’ and all his self-importance, but behind him was a family that he completely neglected”.
That wasn’t the only political link he found.
Mercurio’s great-great grandfather on his mother’s side was a shire president in country Victoria during the 1800s.
With a famous face and reputation as a good bloke (he was dumped from Dancing with the Stars because an executive thought he came across “too nice”), Mercurio was pursued by Labor and Liberal parties once elected to Mornington Council.
He says he chose the ALP due to its support for the arts during his life.
Determined to advocate for “grassroots” issues, such as poor transport links on the Western Port side of the Mornington Peninsula, bigger issues also drive him as an MP.
Mental health has impacted his family deeply; his mother battled depression, and his brother Michael took his own life in 2000.
Mercurio’s gesticulations and voice slow as he remembers burying his brother and returning home to Mittagong, NSW, almost 23 years ago.
“It was a beautiful day in spring, the smell of fresh cut grass, I’d hedged, I’d trimmed the photinia, the bees were buzzing,” he said.
“I was sitting on the back step having a Cooper’s red, and I’d think about Michael, and I would cry.
“And then I’d have a moment thinking ‘f---, this is so beautiful here’, and I’d be happy. “And I was trying to work out, how can I be happy in this space? And in that moment I went: ‘ohhhh, happiness is a choice’.
“I don’t always succeed. I’m not always happy, and I’m probably not always positive, but it’s a choice.”
Mercurio seems happy to put his other careers on hold – as well as a potential “rehash” of his TV cooking show, Mercurio’s Menu.
He laughs at the timing of his most recent TV offer, which arrived the day he was confirmed as the new Hastings MP.
“My agent rang and said, Dancing With the Stars are doing this show. I can’t tell you when … They want you back.”
Changing Mercurio’s menu
As his 60th birthday approaches, Mercurio gives no indication his working life is in its swan song.
But a recent diagnosis of atrial fibrillation – “when your heart goes out of whack” – made him take stock and recalibrate his lifestyle.
The condition meant he would sometimes sweat profusely on the election campaign trail, with stress a likely trigger for more frequent attacks.
He booked to go under the knife in December, despite some ominous family history.
“My grandfather (Vince) died in the operating theatre and there are people that say, ‘they got him on the operating table’ – the mafia or whatever,” Mercurio said.
“Then, my dad died on the operating table.
“I did tell my surgeon, I don’t think I’m going to die, but just so you know …
“He was like, ‘we will be right mate, I’ll look after you’.”
Mercurio’s passion for homemade salami and sourdough was reined in, and while he still enjoys the occasional beer he no longer brews his own, which may disappoint fans of a short-lived DVD series released in the 1990s.
“I still get people coming up saying, ‘oh man, I’ve got your videos, they’re awesome’,” he said.
“I say, ‘Strictly Ballroom?’ They say, ‘No no, the Cooper’s home brew videos’.”
The arrival last year of his first grandchild, Grace, underlined the importance of getting fit and healthy.
It also brought a renewed appetite for stories – however he can tell them.
“You said, why politics? It’s a lived experience isn’t it?” he said.
“I’m not (telling stories) now through choreography, or film, or cooking, so this is another way that I can share that lived experience, share my stories, and still nourish people.”
STRICTLY QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS
First job (and salary)
Head Chef at Red Rooster, Hamilton Hill – paid $1.45 an hour plus chicken wings.
If you weren’t doing this job, what would you be doing?
Sitting by the phone hoping my agent will ring me with a job offer.
Five people you’d invite to a dinner party (dead or alive)
My three daughters and two sons-in-law – there would be much laughter, music, singing, sometimes tears, and great food.
A book everyone should read
So many books … one that has always stuck with me is Think on These Things by J Krishnamurti
If you could live anywhere in the world besides here, where would it be?
Somewhere tropical near the sea where I could walk from the house to the beach and have a surf – I surfed as a kid and a young adult but haven’t had a surf since my third daughter was born and she just turned 28.
First concert or dream concert (dead or alive)
It was my first big concert and my dream concert – Pink Floyd at the Entertainment Centre in Sydney.
Most inspirational living person
My three daughters – they continually teach and inspire me to be a better person.
What advice would you give your 18-year-old self?
Be better with your money.
First car, current car, dream car
A Suzuki GSX 250 motorcycle, a 2009 Suzuki Hyabusa which I love — the 2023 model Hyabusa is gorgeous but so, too, is the 2023 Indian Springfield.
One thing people don’t know about you — what’s your hidden talent?
I am an oversharer – there is nothing people don’t know about me, although not a lot of people know I hold the Guinness Book of Records for the fastest sorting of coloured jelly beans using chopsticks.
Best or worst birthday present you’ve ever received
I normally get socks but a couple of years ago my kids surprised me with a 24-inch curved computer monitor ! Best birthday gift though is just a simple hug from loved ones.
Rainy day TV binge
Years ago I found Rick Stein’s Food travel shows where he travelled through France or Spain and binged watched those over Christmas. I happily sit quietly and watch food/cooking shows – Chef’s table, Tacos Chronicles, Best Ever Food Review Show, etc.
Song to get you pumped
I’m a ballad guy – Black Eyed Peas, Where is the Love; Jeff Buckley, Hallelujah; Joe Satriani, Surfing the Alien (instrumental); Eva Cassidy, Fields of Barley.
Death row last meal
Moules and Frites with a couple of bottles of Duval ale.
Biggest career regret
I don’t believe in regrets – they’re disappointments you didn’t learn anything from.
Best piece of advice you’ve received
Keep at it.
This year i’m most looking forward to …
Learning stuff, doing stuff and being grateful for being able to do so.
One thing I’d change about Victoria
Not so much change but improve – public transport — which is happening!
One thing I love the most about Victoria
The opportunities, the lifestyle and the friendliness of the people .
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