Jonathan LaPaglia on intense Survivor pressure, more Strife and Trump’s ‘simpleton’ tariff plan

Filming two seasons of Survivor back-to-back was so difficult for Survivor host Johnathan LaPaglia that a lightning trip back to Australia for three days of shooting drama series Strife felt like a holiday.

Jonathan LaPaglia had precisely five days off between shooting two gruelling seasons of Australian Survivor last year.

After wrapping Brains V Brawn II, which aired its dramatic final episode last month, you’d think the actor and host might put his feet up on a sunny Samoan beach with a mai-tai or two before charging headlong into Australia V the World, which will hit our screens later this year.

But instead taking a well-earned tropical time out, LaPaglia jumped on a plane for Australia – a day of travelling each way – so that he would squeeze in three days of shooting on the second season of the hit Binge dramedy Strife.

He was initially supposed to make Strife over a couple of months before his Survivor commitments but after filming was delayed both he and the producers were so keen to have him return as “dick-swinging” publisher Peter, that they moved heaven and earth to make it happen, albeit in a rather reduced capacity.

“God bless the Strife production,” LaPaglia says from his Los Angeles home. “They moved the schedule around, they put my scenes together. I think my role was bigger originally, but they had to reduce the role because of the availability … I don’t have a lot but I’m there.

“Weirdly, Survivor is so intense and so difficult to shoot that even though it was a lot stuffed into three days, it was actually a bit of a vacation for me to get back to Sydney and I really enjoyed it.”

Jonathan LaPaglia as publisher Peter in Strife.

Adding to the degree of difficulty for LaPaglia was flipping between what he describes as two very different, and not necessarily complementary, skill sets. Acting in an ensemble production such as Strife, he says, is “a collaborative craft” that requires a team to find solutions together. But being front and centre on Survivor for 11 seasons, “I’m like a department of one”.

“I’m it,” he says. “I’m the host and sometimes I’m referee, sometimes I’m the psychologist – I wear all these different hats, but it’s just me driving each of those situations as opposed to a group of us working together to an end goal.

“I actually find it much more relaxing to be an actor than the host of Survivor because with acting you’re all stumbling your way through it and you know if it doesn’t work then we’ll just go again and we’ll do another take.

“Whereas Survivor is reality – it is what it is. There’s 20 cameras rolling and you’ve got to get it right the first time – there’s no going back to fix it. I feel that pressure because I’m in the driving seat all the time.”

LaPaglia thinks that Strife, which centres around Asher Keddie’s new media journalist Evelyn Jones and her ongoing struggle to balance work, family, love and what it means to be modern feminist, struck such a chord because of its topicality and relatability.

“So many of those issues are relevant now,” says LaPaglia, who has been married to wife Ursula for 27 years and whose daughter Tilly is at university in the US. “Women’s issues, diversity issues and it’s easily digestible. It’s a very watchable dramedy and Asha is fantastic in that role. It’s sharp, it’s witty. Often when I get scripts it takes me ages to get through them because I get distracted or bored but I just whipped through those scripts – they were so much fun to read and I think that translates to the screen.”

Jonathan LaPaglia and Asher Keddie in season two of Strife on Binge.

After LaPaglia’s character Peter poached Evelyn’s protégé to set up a rival women’s website (the ridiculously titled Whoman) in the first season, this season comes with the realisation that success won’t come from a simple copy and paste job.

“It’s missing Evelyn’s voice and vision and I think by the end of the season he realises that,” says LaPaglia. “At the same time he also gets caught up in Evelyn’s mud … because she has a disgruntled ex-employee who writes a book about her and how she’s the toxic boss, and then I become in the book ‘the dick-swinging publisher’.”

Just about all of LaPaglia’s scenes are with seven-time Logie winner Keddie, and LaPaglia says that he was “pleasantly surprised” when they first started working together at how generous, approachable and collaborative she was an as actor.

“There’s no ego,” he says. “It’s really about getting down to it and making it work the best way possible. That’s part of why it’s such a pleasure to work on the thing. I don’t want to sound like a dickhead actor, but I do love the craft of it. If you find someone who also shares that and you have the same common language, it becomes fun.”

As for the return of his day job, LaPaglia says he was initially sceptical about the concept of Survivor: Australia V the World, which he describes a “hyper-season” featuring seven returning local players and seven from the US, Canada, South Africa and Finland battling it out over a shortened, 16-day season for the $250,000 prize.

Host Jonathan LaPaglia was initially sceptical about the concept of Survivor: Australia v the World.

“I was actually a little concerned about compressing the game that much that it wouldn’t work but I was really pleasantly surprised when we got into it,” he says. “The great thing with such well established players is that they know what to do as soon as they hit the beach. And that’s the only way something like this really works.

“And, boy, did they get to it straight away – it really is a hyper season and it’s crazy what happens for the entire season. There’s a bunch of unexpected stuff and some incredible gameplay.”

As someone who has called America home for three decades after tossing in his fledgling career as a doctor to land parts in TV shows including New York Undercover, Seven Days, The District and The Sopranos, Adelaide-born LaPaglia says he’s giving more and more thought to returning home given the current political climate in his adopted country.

“Every day, we’re like, ‘Oh my god, this is just ludicrous’,” he says with a laugh. “I don’t know what you guys think of it, but it’s pretty wild politically what’s going on here right now. I’m still not quite sure what to make of it.

“You become weirdly desensitised to it on some level, which is problematic and I think that’s part of their plan. Slowly they just keep chipping away at the Constitution and then one day we’re going to wake up and democracy is not what it used to be.”

And as for the recent tariffs that President Trump announced for foreign produced films, LaPaglia says he’s not against the concept – just the slapdash execution.

Jonathan LaPaglia isn’t sure yet whether he will reunite with Beau Ryan (left) and Blair Joscelyne (right) for another season of Top Gear Australia.

“I like the sentiment, because a lot of Hollywood has been decimated by productions going elsewhere because there are so many places overseas … that offer incentives. So, that really has killed the local Hollywood industry.

“There’s a lot of really talented of people, not just in front of the camera, but a lot of talented people behind the camera who can’t work in the industry anymore or can’t make a living. I think that’s a real shame. So, I like the idea that he wants to try to bring it back but again I just don’t think the approach is the right one.

“Putting these blanket tariffs on everything – it just doesn’t work that way. It’s a bit of a simpleton’s approach to it. It’s a way more complicated economic system that you need to address.”

Strife is streaming on Binge, with new episodes every Thursday.

Originally published as Jonathan LaPaglia on intense Survivor pressure, more Strife and Trump’s ‘simpleton’ tariff plan