Julia Zemiro’s big leap as host of All Together Now on Seven

SBS and ABC have been ­Julia Zemiro’s main homes but Seven is betting she will attract an audience | LISTEN

Julia Zemiro preferred acting to presenting. Picture: Jenny Evans

Sitting on a sofa in an ABC audio studio, Julia Zemiro cuts a seemingly reduced figure as she grabs a few moments before her next ­interview.

Then we walk in and the TV presenter turns up the charisma that has made her a top-shelf star on two networks, and about to ­appear on a third in a big new format she hopes to make her own.

There is a self-effacing quality to Zemiro, in that she knows her talents but doesn’t particularly feel the need to shout them from the rooftops. And she has revealed herself to be a particularly adroit interviewer, which means that she doesn’t have to be particularly ­revealing if she doesn’t want to.

Nevertheless, we persist.

What is her special knack on the ABC’s Home Delivery, now in its sixth series? Why do stars such as Sam Neill and Rebecca Gibney, who on Wednesday’s series launch details her grandfather’s attempted assault of her when she was 12, give extraordinarily ­revealing interviews?

“That’s a good question. You know a lot of people say ‘no’. They say, ‘we love the show but I’m not prepared to talk’ or ‘I’d rather not talk about my childhood really or return to that place’,” Zemiro tells The Australian’s Behind the Media podcast, available online.

It was Zemiro herself who pushed production company CJZ away from a studio interview ­format. It was based on her hunch that taking stars now aged in their middle years back to a childhood environment would spark nostalgia and self reflection, and it has paid off.

“They don’t need to do this show. We need them more than they need us really. I think there’s something about ‘you’re going to take me back to my home, you’re going to let me talk, you’re going to let me open up, you’re going to let me reflect’.”

Eventually, after a bit of prodding, she gives herself some credit. “I guess they trust me. We don’t go in there looking to catch them out. In fact, I would be mortified if that was the approach that we took.”

Zemiro, 51, was born in France and moved to Australia aged two. But despite approaches, she rules out appearing on SBS’s Who Do You Think You Are?

“Both my parents don’t really want me to talk about their past really. And I think that it’s their call. It’s too close. I don’t think there’s anything in the background, but I just think they’re like ‘well we’d rather not’.”

She acknowledges all this is a “fine line”. “We make content for television but it’s still an important story, it’s still someone’s personal story; if you’re willing to share it, fine. So I’m willing to maybe share mine but it has to include them and if they don’t want that done I’ve got to agree to that.”

Being a TV presenter wasn’t ­really Zemiro’s ambition. She preferred acting, but the waves of employment and unemployment cycled through and there reached a point where lots of TV programs needed hosts.

“And then the call comes through that says there’s a show that’s auditioning and it’s a music quiz show and music,” she says.

The year was 2005 and the program was RocKwiz, SBS’s much-loved music quiz program. RocKwiz is still touring live around the country. It has run for 14 seasons. But will it return to SBS?

Everyone is in talks. “It’s more than 70 per cent but it’s not 100 per cent,” she says.

With Sam Pang, Zemiro presented the SBS Eurovision coverage for years, but is pretty clear that she won’t return. Australia’s entry into the competition changed everything.

“I didn’t feel as free. At one point Sam and I were going, ‘do we make fun of each other now?’ That takes you down a really limited road, I reckon. I thought, maybe I was the midwife of Eurovision commentary for Australia. We did eight years, a long time — time for someone else to do it.”

But fast approaching is a jump into commercial television. Zemiro will host All Together Now, a big new format for Seven, and the network hopes Zemiro will combine her warmth and ­irreverence in a family singalong show that has proved popular in Britain.

Despite numerous appearances on commercial networks, this is her first big hosting role.

So her career must be on the up? She draws breath. “Oh, look — these things go in waves, I’m going to say to you, Stephen.

“SBS and ABC have been ­obviously my main homes. Maybe I just want to see how the beast works as well from the inside of what commercial television is.”

Zemiro is at pains to emphasise that All Together Now, where each act performs in front of a giant panel of 100 judges, who stand and join in if they like the performance, will have a very different tone from previous contests. “And I reckon I can make this my own,” she says. “Can we start concentrating on the playful side of performance and not the critical side of ­performance? The blaming, also the setting up things that are ­completely contrived, as reality TV can be.”

She was once asked in an interview if she thought she was thick-skinned. Her response was: “I thought I was, but I am not.” Why does she think that?

“I can’t please everybody. It’s impossible. Seventy per cent of the people who saw the show or like that performance — that will have to do, because it’s impossible to please everybody.

“However, the thin skin comes from social media. It annoys me that it makes me thin-skinned but also it makes you less brave. You might take chances less.”

But she also has a thick skin. “I know what I can do. I know what I’m capable of. And I think I do it well and I think I do it authentically. So you can’t hurt me about that.”