Julia Morris on balancing filming in South Africa, comedy tour, family and her ‘unique chemistry’ with Dr Chris
Australia’s busiest TV star reveals why she loves being paired up with “beloved” celebrity vet Dr Chris Brown.
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She’s currently on our screens in Taskmaster, about to start packing her bags to head to the African jungle for the first time in three years, and then there’s the small matter of a 10-city, national comedy tour kicking off mid-year, plus managing home life with her teen daughters – you could almost argue Julia Morris is as busy as some of our world leaders.
“Look, maybe Joe Biden’s got a whisper more on, and maybe he’s slightly more important,” says Morris, with her trademark self-deprecation.
And, no, this crazy busy schedule is nothing to do with escaping her 16 and 14-year-old daughters, Ruby and Sophie.
“That would have been my way of thinking – but over the last couple of years they have lost their punish,” she laughs.
“I think I had it way earlier. They were tricky then and now I cannot believe it, in fact I am still waiting for the other shoe to drop, but for some reason the 16-year-old is a proper, full, helpful dreamboat. I don’t trust it for a moment.”
In fact, she’ll be bringing her girls with her when she heads back to South Africa to film I’m A Celebrity … Get Me Out of Here. The Ten reality show spent the last two years filming in the Aussie bush at a site near Murwillumbah, in NSW, thanks to Covid, and Morris can’t wait to get the two families back together – the “beautiful South African crew and the Australian team”.
“The problem with Africa is – it gets into your heart,” she says.
“We’ve spent a long time – seven years in this location – and while I know it sounds very cliched, but it definitely is a home away from home.”
And while her home-away-from-home accommodation is infinitely better than the poor old celebrities on their camp beds out in the elements, Morris barely gets any time in it.
“(Contestants) are always like ‘you’re going home to a comfy bed’. And I’m like ‘Mate, for four hours’,” she laughs.
She’s also not fed a steady diet of rice and beans, or the occasional creepy crawly, but Morris says she’s often so tired that making decisions about what to eat is basically beyond her.
“Most of the time, by the time we get home, you have about an hour-and-a-half window to eat, shower all that makeup off and get into bed because you need – well, I need a minimum of seven hours,” she shares.
“And you don’t need to worry about winding down, you’re so dog tired that you don’t even know if you’ve got the energy to clean all the way to the back of your teeth.
“While I certainly do not have it as bad as our contestants, we are also away from our loved ones. And also away from the food that we know, from the water that we drink, from the way that we maintain our days.”
Of course the long days are made a whole lot easier with her “beloved” Dr Chris Brown.
Brown says it’s an equal delight for him. and while many people were originally puzzled at the combination of the over-the-top comedian and the vet, it’s been an inspired – and successful – pairing.
“We’d done a bit of stuff together and we knew we got along; we knew we had a very unique connection and this unique chemistry,” he says.
“It’s been great to explore that for so long. And you know we’ve been part of each others’ lives too – the ups and downs as well, and always a supportive influence to each other.
“So it’s great to be going back to where it all began.”
With Brown going to rival network Seven mid-year, it’s likely the last time they’ll go to the African jungle together on camera. And the last time they’ll make one of the highly anticipated promos for the reality show. Brown’s swung from a trapeze as a bare-chested Tarzan, dressed as drag queen from iconic Australian movie, with Morris always by his side singing and dancing along.
This time the pair are singing. Again.
“I tell you what,” Morris says. “It makes me cross that he can sing so well. Can I just have one gift that I’m better at? Just at the minimum. He surprises me every year when we do things like that. Sometimes I’m like ‘Oh My God this is going to be funny’ and then he’s really good. How dare he be so fabulous.”
Brown is quick to add that there are plenty of things he is not great at.
“I can give you one thing immediately. It’s dancing,” he laughs.
“Just have a look at the promos and the choreography becomes less and less, and the singing becomes more. You can Auto-Tune singing, but you cannot tune dancing.”
The pair is also still stunned by the show’s Logie win last year.
“We almost try to be the anti-reality show,” Brown says.
“We don’t like to use the j-word – journey. We try to almost poke fun in a very gentle, but fun, way about the other reality shows and formulas.
“So to be seen as the most outstanding in that category was really, really special. And also a tribute to the incredible work that goes in behind the scenes to make a really special production.”
Morris adds: “There are a lot of people in our industry who would have an understanding of the high-level – I don’t want to say brutal – but full-on shoot that it is and that we manage to pull together what we do considering the elements, the location and that it’s going up to a spaceship and coming down to Australia.
“But I was beyond surprised. (Especially because we won in) a category that hasn’t gone anywhere near us ever.
The harsh 14-hour days of I’m A Celeb meant Taskmaster and its mental tasks set by the eponymous and imperious Tom Gleeson were not quite so taxing on the comedian. While her fellow taskees have likened their time at Taskmaster HQ in New Zealand to torture, Morris says not-so much for her.
“It’s so funny because producers prepare you, they’re like ‘it’s going to be a pretty full-on day’ and then you have a really tough six hours and everyone’s super tired and you’re like ‘mate – we’re not even halfway through a jungle day yet’,” she says.
But she says it reignited some things in her that she feels had been laying dormant for some time.
In the early years, once Morris had finished the punishing six-week shoot in the jungle, she’d head off on holidays with her tribe. These days she just wants to go home and get back into the swing of things.
“That used to be my thing – every time I’d finish a big job, I’d be ‘right, we’re going on holidays’,” she shares.
“These days I just want to be home and travel directly back to the stillness.
“So, now I let my home feel like that holiday.”
Morris is unlikely to get much downtime this time around. She’s only got four weeks before her tour – 75 Years in the Business – kicks off. It’s a case of bad timing – stand-up tours are planned some 18 months in advance. She thought – like every other year – I’m A Celeb would kick off the network’s new year of programming.
“It did not even vaguely occur to me that I’d only have a four-week window before touring,” she laughs, heartily. “But I do what I like to call lazy touring – two days at a time and then I get a bit tired and I come home.”
She also brings her daughters with her. One takes a turn each week in a different location.
“I’m like, ‘Right, who wants to come to Perth? Who wants to come to Adelaide? Who wants to come to Brissie and Tassie? `
“And we do different things while we’re there. So it’s kind of this weird six-week family adventure of just doing weekends.”
I’m A Celebrity … Get Me Out of Here, Sunday, April 2 7.30pm, Ten
Originally published as Julia Morris on balancing filming in South Africa, comedy tour, family and her ‘unique chemistry’ with Dr Chris
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