TasWeekend: Luke’s Haven a real good time
Luke McGregor developed a foolproof method for dealing with ridicule at school — make fun of yourself before others do. The tactic worked so well that he has made a successful career from it.
Entertainment
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IT is no big secret that Tasmanian-born comedian Luke McGregor had a hard time at school. As a red-headed kid with bad teeth and braces, he was a target for a lot of teasing and bullying throughout his schooling in Glenorchy.
But he says he learned to deflect a lot of it with humour, even going so far as to make fun of himself first, using up the best gags before the bullies could — if they were laughing, he reasoned, they couldn’t hit him as hard.
He has gone so far as to credit these years with forging the self-deprecating style of humour that has served him so well in his comedic and television career. But it was a high price to pay for a sense of humour, and not one he would recommend for others.
Even after forging a successful career in stand-up and TV, with a third season of Tasmanian-filmed ABC comedy series Rosehaven about to go to air, high school still found a way to come back and haunt McGregor this past year.
His 20-year high school reunion for the Dominic College class of 1998 was last year and, even though he has visited his old school in the past to speak to students, the idea of going to a reunion had him rattled.
“I wasn’t quite sure what I was going to be walking into,” McGregor says. “I was quite worried. I had so many bad memories. I didn’t like school growing up. But you know what, it was fine. It was fun, actually. Turned out that everyone was nervous, nobody really knows what to expect, but after a few drinks everyone was fine. For me, seeing everyone is grown up and nice and lovely now, it was actually really healing.
“I had a mate, Tim, and we talked about when we studied Dead Poets Society. We were in the carpark at one point and Tim said to me ‘Car Park Diem’, which just made me laugh and laugh. I’m sorry, I hope that’s not too obscure to be funny?”
Seizing the day, as it turns out, proved to be a worthwhile and cleansing move for Melbourne-based McGregor and, unlike his TV alter-ego Daniel on Rosehaven, he is content in the knowledge that whenever he returns to Tasmania, it isn’t because he “couldn’t hack it on the mainland”. In fact, he pretty much knocked it out of the park on the mainland, and back home.
McGregor’s comedy career started almost by accident in 2007 when he was in the audience at the Hobart heat of Raw Comedy, a national talent search for up-and-coming comedians. That night, one of the competitors pulled out and when the MC announced there was an empty slot in the line-up, McGregor volunteered to give it a crack.
He came second.
Emboldened by this unexpected success, he started honing his stand-up work and the following year, in 2008, he won the Hobart heat and was a national finalist, which was enough to jump-start his career on the Melbourne stand-up circuit. Moving to Melbourne, he worked hard in the comedy scene and eventually broke into television with smaller roles and a regular role on ABC comedy series Utopia, where he worked with fellow comedian Celia Pacquola.
In 2016 he premiered a documentary series on ABC called Luke Warm Sex, in which he spoke openly about his sexual inexperience and bared all (literally) in his quest to learn more about sex and get better at it.
His friendship with Pacquola led to the pair teaming up to co-write a comedy series, Rosehaven, set in Tasmania and partly based on McGregor’s parents’ experiences as real estate agents. Season one of Rosehaven screened on ABC in late 2016 and has enjoyed such success that a third season — filmed entirely in Tasmania — is about to commence.
Set in the fictional Tasmanian town of Rosehaven, the series follows Daniel (McGregor) who has returned home to Tassie after a brief stint living on the mainland. Reintegrating into hometown life is harder than expected, but fortunately he is able to get a job working for his mum (Kris McQuade) in the family real estate business along with his friend Emma (Pacquola), a poster-child for arrested development.
Geeveston stands in for the Rosehaven streetscape, with other parts of southern Tasmania, including New Norfolk, serving as different locations throughout the series. The series also employs a large number of Tasmanian cast and crew.
While Rosehaven presents a typically Tasmanian snapshot of small town life, with scenery that is recognisably Tasmanian, McGregor says the show is intended to be a little bit of every small town.
“We try to make it so it could be set in a small town anywhere, as opposed to Tassie specifically. I think people from any part of Australia will be able to recognise a small town they know in Rosehaven.
“The beautiful thing about Tassie is that you can drive half an hour and be in a completely different looking environment.”
Three seasons in, McGregor says it has become simple to slip back into the familiar role of Daniel, and writing has become much easier as well.
“When you first come up with an idea for these characters, you might have an idea of who they are but it can still be difficult to know how they might respond to certain things, what they might say to people in various situations. If someone pushed in front of Daniel in a line, what would he say to them?
“But over time, playing the part and writing each episode, you slowly pull it into focus. By the time we made the second season, Daniel felt like someone living a life outside of me, which was wonderful. I can easily picture Barbara (McQuade) pottering around the house, and I definitely know what she’d say to someone who pushed into a line in front of her!”
Despite Rosehaven’s popularity, and the Tasmanian bush telegraph that makes it impossible to shoot anywhere in secret, McGregor says they are rarely watched by any local onlookers during filming. But occasionally they do get heckled.
“While we were shooting season three, we were out on a country road somewhere doing a scene and this guy drove past us in a ute and yelled out the window at us: ‘get a real job!’ As ludicrous as it sounds, it made me feel really vulnerable and I got a bit defensive about it. You know, this IS a real job, we employ people! I didn’t get a chance to say anything back though. He was gone. But hey, if he ever comes back, look out, I’ll have something witty to say back next time!”
McGregor’s parents, Chris and Julie, are still real estate agents at Moonah and he says he still hits them up for ideas and inspiration for Rosehaven from time to time.
“Oh yeah, I always ask them about how certain hypothetical situations might play out in real life. Like I’ll ring mum and say ‘what would happen if someone in the office lost the rent money after someone dropped it off?’ And she’ll say ‘oh no, that would NEVER happen’. And I’ll have to say ‘yeeaaahh, but what if it did?’ I don’t know what I’d do without them, to be honest.”
McGregor’s mum and dad are, of course, his biggest fans. Despite Luke never showing any interest in taking on the family business as a kid, dad Chris has especially enjoyed being part of the creative process for Rosehaven.
“We assist a lot,” Chris says. “I’ve been in real estate for 25 years, you come across some funny people. Luke and Celia spent some time at our office getting a feel for daily life, talking to the staff and getting ideas.”
McGregor’s parents were also closely involved with the filming of Luke Warm Sex, which Chris says was slightly less exciting.
“It was a bit uncomfortable,” he laughs, referring to being interviewed on camera about his and Julie’s sex life for the series. “When it went to air, Julie watched the entire show with her hands over her face.”
Luke Warm Sex led to Chris and Julie becoming almost as recognisable as Luke, though, which they don’t mind too much.
“One time I was on a plane from Sydney and some bloke recognised me and told me how much he loved the show. We’ve lost our names, now. I used to be Chris, now I’m ‘Luke’s Dad’. But I don’t mind that. And people associate Luke with Rosehaven now, so we do occasionally get people in our agency asking if we sell any homes in Rosehaven.”
McGregor’s stand-up and TV appearances did produce another unexpected revelation for his parents, though.
“We didn’t find out about him being bullied in high school until much later,” Chris says. “We only found out through his TV and comedy work. It can be an embarrassing thing to tell your parents about, I think. We suspected he was copping a little bit at school but we had no idea how bad it was.
“But we have a lot of respect for him as a result of that. He got through that in the best way he could and he has this self-effacing style of comedy because of it. He was always a really pleasant kid, quite funny, very sharp and quick off the mark, as most comedians are.”
With Rosehaven season three completed and ready to screen, McGregor says he has no other projects on his immediate horizon. Except for a few stand-up gigs, he is trying to take a break and enjoy some time to himself for a while. With all his success in recent years, he says he still feels like he needs to appreciate every precious moment of it.
“I just try to be grateful. When I quit my job in 2012 and committed myself fully to comedy and TV, I was so nervous that it would turn out to be a bad move. For a month and a bit I had very little money and was eating tuna, rice and peas a lot.
“But things are really good at the moment and I’m just trying to enjoy where I’m at right now. I definitely need a proper holiday though. Currently I’m just sitting at home and doing the odd comedy gig and feeling guilty about not doing something every day.”
He says he would love to do another documentary along similar lines to Luke Warm Sex. Not similar to the subject matter, mind you, but similar in style.
“The most fun aspect of Luke Warm Sex was in subverting some of the things other docos do. Like, when you film a sequence in Sydney you might normally have an establishing shot of the Opera House or the Harbour Bridge or something. We used a shot of some random side street with a bin in it.
“We made a point of having something mundane like that every time. And every time we introduced a new person I would be in the background doing something dumb. It was just fun playing around with that format and subverting it. And it was nice to be in something where I didn’t have to learn any lines.”
He still enjoys coming home to Tasmania, too, confident that nobody can accuse him of “not being able to hack it on the mainland”.
“When I first left Tassie there was that vibe that if you moved away and came back, you ‘couldn’t hack it’ but it doesn’t feel that way now. I remember getting introduced once on stage with ‘this next guy is from Tassie, sorry about that’. But I don’t get that any more, either.
“Tassie has gotten really cool now, with Mona, all the cafe culture, producing its own vodka, all that. I really like coming back to Tassie now. I would consider moving back except the comedy scene in Melbourne is so good and it’s just more convenient to live in Melbourne.”
Even though he wants to take a break and has no immediate plans for more projects, McGregor says there is something that would make him cancel his downtime in a heartbeat. “Well, my dream would be to be cast in a Marvel movie,” he says. “I mean, I know I just have to be patient, right? But my phone is on. I’m waiting for the call, guys!”
Season three of Rosehaven starts on Wednesday, January 30 at 8.30pm on ABC TV.
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