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What I've Learnt - Josh Piterman · WHAT I'VE LEARNT

• 0:05
  SPEAKER_00: Well no, I believe in the power of music to heal and to focus on us all as a shared humanity.
• 0:12
  SPEAKER_00: Because at the end of the day, we're a community and during this very complex time uh in the globe, um, I think it's important to have people like Josh Peterman who heal us with his beautiful voice and show us the universality of music and the power of music.
• 0:30
  SPEAKER_00: So, on that note, Josh, I'd like to welcome you to the What I've Like podcast.
• 0:36
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you so much, Deborah.
• 0:37
  SPEAKER_01: Hear, here to the power of music and its ability to heal.
• 0:40
  SPEAKER_01: Hear, here.
• 0:42
  SPEAKER_00: And so you've just got back recently from London.
• 0:45
  SPEAKER_00: Tell us a little bit about what you've been doing because you've been doing some incredible work.
• 0:49
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and I love the musicals that you've been starring.
• 0:52
  SPEAKER_00: And so tell me a little bit in your own words about what that experience has been like.
• 0:57
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, so obviously, yeah, for that for this year I've been um playing Jean Valjean, which is sort of an iconic uh hero's journey type uh role, um, in arguably the most iconic musical ever.
• 1:12
  SPEAKER_00: In the history of the world, yeah.
• 1:14
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, Lan Music would have to be the most universally loved and known musical.
• 1:20
  SPEAKER_00: And that's a big one.
• 1:22
  SPEAKER_01: Like I I get back and you know, you you hang out in in various corners of the world.
• 1:27
  SPEAKER_01: I I I went to a um uh a breathwork class and um chatted to someone afterwards and they're like, what have you been doing?
• 1:34
  SPEAKER_01: I'm like, uh I've uh I've been in London.
• 1:36
  SPEAKER_01: Musicals are which one?
• 1:37
  SPEAKER_01: Lambers are up, never heard of it.
• 1:39
  SPEAKER_01: Um no, never heard of it.
• 1:41
  SPEAKER_01: They must be very, very young.
• 1:42
  SPEAKER_01: I like Him that's I would say in their 20s, but anyway, so uh universally loved by everyone over the age of 30.
• 1:51
  SPEAKER_00: So over the age of 30.
• 1:53
  SPEAKER_00: That's really funny.
• 1:55
  SPEAKER_01: So anyway, I had a I had a um an extraordinary time.
• 1:57
  SPEAKER_01: There's no role like it.
• 1:59
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, I'd sort of dreamt of playing this role.
• 2:02
  SPEAKER_01: Really, it's probably the most seminal musical for me.
• 2:05
  SPEAKER_01: It's the one that got me into doing it.
• 2:07
  SPEAKER_01: Um so probably from age 16, I've sort of dreamed of being a part of the show, probably originally as Marius or Hong Jurass, who the role that Anthony Wallow played uh back in in the 80s, and and then as the years have gone on, I've gone, but I'm aging, and you know what?
• 2:20
  SPEAKER_01: If you age me up, I'm Jean Valjean.
• 2:22
  SPEAKER_01: So uh maybe the last few years I've gone, uh Jean Valjean's more of a reality for me.
• 2:28
  SPEAKER_01: So to get that opportunity to do it and to do it in the home of where it you know all began in uh 9th of October 85, about two and a half weeks before I was born.
• 2:39
  SPEAKER_01: Um how extraordinary is that?
• 2:41
  SPEAKER_01: Pretty, really cool to be a part of it, you know, really, really cool to be a part of the history of that at that show and and of that role.
• 2:48
  SPEAKER_00: And also, you know, an Australian landing on the West End and having that role, that's pretty pivotal and pretty extraordinary.
• 2:55
  SPEAKER_00: Like, so because I would imagine the competition for that audition would have been fierce and it's a very coveted role.
• 3:02
  SPEAKER_00: Tell me a little bit about the the process of getting the role.
• 3:05
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, it was a sort of a different process for me.
• 3:08
  SPEAKER_01: Generally, auditions for me have been, you know, you you're a part of a group of people, everyone sort of vying for the role.
• 3:15
  SPEAKER_01: Um, this has been this one was a little bit different.
• 3:18
  SPEAKER_01: Um, so Cameron Macintosh, um, who's you know, renowned um producer of multiple, multiple decades, um, he produces um amongst other shows, both The Phantom of the Opera and Les Miserables.
• 3:31
  SPEAKER_01: And Phantom was the Phantom was the role I was playing prior to Jean Valjean, and I started playing.
• 3:37
  SPEAKER_01: Which is also incredible.
• 3:38
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah, also, you know, they're the two roles that I I've always dreamt of playing and love the most.
• 3:44
  SPEAKER_01: And so, other than COVID, I sort of had this.
• 3:46
  SPEAKER_01: Um I was playing the Phantom up until really the week before I left for London, so Feb this year.
• 3:52
  SPEAKER_01: And and so about mid-last year, um, Cameron approached me and we had a a coffee and a chat about life and things and and what I'd want to do after Phantom.
• 4:01
  SPEAKER_01: And I said, I've always wanted to do Le Mires, and he thought that was a great idea, but um uh wanted to see me do the material.
• 4:09
  SPEAKER_01: In fact, one of the first things he asked me about it was, am I am I a spiritual person?
• 4:14
  SPEAKER_01: Um and um, I mean, I think he sort of knew that I I am very spiritual as a person, but wanted to know more about my you know, my meditation practice, uh, my meditation teaching, you know, delving to a lot of yoga and various other things that I take part in as a you know as a spiritual being having a human experience.
• 4:35
  SPEAKER_01: And it was that that made him very interested.
• 4:38
  SPEAKER_01: Now he knew that I could sing the role, but it's really, you know, Jean Valjean has such a strong relationship with God, and that really is the defining sort of part of his journey, it's his constant connection to God.
• 4:52
  SPEAKER_01: And so I think he wants to make sure that was innate within me.
• 4:56
  SPEAKER_01: And then subsequently, you know, I spent a bit of time in London, did some auditions, and then between the Sydney Opera House and Melbourne seasons of Phantom, um, I did like a video callback type type thing from the stage theatre in Melbourne, and then um found out not too long after that, you know, probably a week into the Melbourne season of Phantom, that I knew that as soon as this was finished, I was on a plane effectively, um, heading over to London to start the Lame News journey.
• 5:24
  SPEAKER_01: So it wasn't the sort of audition process of being and competing with lots of other people's people.
• 5:29
  SPEAKER_01: I had no idea who else was sort of gunning for the role.
• 5:32
  SPEAKER_01: I just sort of was in my own camp and was having a quite a direct relationship with the creative team and and Sir Cameron.
• 5:39
  SPEAKER_01: So I mean, that's just never happened to me like that uh before.
• 5:43
  SPEAKER_01: But really nice to know that you know that that someone like that is really invested in my journey and my career and and and you know wanted me to put my best foot forward to to play the role.
• 5:53
  SPEAKER_01: And it's great that it's that's happened.
• 5:55
  SPEAKER_01: And in and of itself, it was extraordinary.
• 5:57
  SPEAKER_01: You know, there's no role like it.
• 5:58
  SPEAKER_00: There's no role like it.
• 5:59
  SPEAKER_00: And to be honest, I I'm really interested listening to you because I think that what people really I mean, that highlights how important it is as a performer that you have to bring a massive part of yourself into that role and and what you've described there is is really a huge emotional investment, but also the fact that he wanted to check that you were spiritually engaged and that you had a sense of what faith means, because how would you ever play that role if you didn't have some connection to faith or to a sense of that?
• 6:32
  SPEAKER_00: And and the fact that he saw that in you and that you also have made a point of developing that aspect of yourself, which is not a given for everyone.
• 6:40
  SPEAKER_00: But acting does facilitate that, right?
• 6:43
  SPEAKER_00: It does, it does bring that out.
• 6:44
  SPEAKER_00: It's it does encourage a lot of the acting schools, encourage that deep dive meditation.
• 6:50
  SPEAKER_00: I will, you know, I've worked on the board at 16th Street Actor Studio for a long time, so I know the very big focus on meditation and internal reflection, which which really gives you the depth you need for the role.
• 7:02
  SPEAKER_00: And something like this, you know, must have required a lot of deep dive for you.
• 7:07
  SPEAKER_01: A really deep dive, and and and I'm so glad that colleges and organizations and acting schools um really promote that now because really, you know, yeah, so you know, yeah, people sort of feel that yeah, meditation is a way to get rid of your thoughts and people feel uncomfortable because they can't do that.
• 7:25
  SPEAKER_01: But really, it's got nothing to do with getting rid of your thoughts.
• 7:27
  SPEAKER_01: It's it's about understanding your thoughts and having a bit of separation between your true self and and your thoughts, so you're not just running down, you know.
• 7:36
  SPEAKER_01: Generally, the mind wants to catastrophize and just running down the catastrophe of every thought you have, which gets you very, very tired.
• 7:42
  SPEAKER_01: But in the process of of that space that you create, really it's it's it's about expanding self-awareness.
• 7:49
  SPEAKER_01: And when we expand self-awareness, we give ourselves an opportunity uh not only to be more discerning in the outward world, but be more reflective in the inward world.
• 8:00
  SPEAKER_01: And in that process, we we're you know, we're we're a very complex um being, every each and every one of us.
• 8:08
  SPEAKER_01: And and there's so much within us that goes undiscovered.
• 8:12
  SPEAKER_01: The subconscious um is a very abstract and vast space, and really I think 90% of our mind exists in the subconscious, and we use it about 10% of the time.
• 8:26
  SPEAKER_01: So by going into those spaces and and and meditating, we gives us an opportunity to sort of potentially delve into that part of us or some of that stuff uh to come up.
• 8:37
  SPEAKER_01: And in that delving, I felt as an actor, I found so many more parts of myself that I'm no longer scared of showing.
• 8:48
  SPEAKER_01: I'm happy to be vulnerable in that space, happy to open up my heart, happy to open up my soul and sort of bear that.
• 8:54
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and that's what a role like Jean Valjean requires.
• 8:57
  SPEAKER_01: You really have to bear your soul out there.
• 9:00
  SPEAKER_01: Um and and as exhausting as as that is, because it is uh the most exhausting role I've ever done emotionally and and vocally, it's just so it's so demanding.
• 9:11
  SPEAKER_01: It's with that exhaustion is also an incredible reward.
• 9:16
  SPEAKER_01: It's like climbing Everest every time you you do it.
• 9:19
  SPEAKER_00: And um I imagine it would be.
• 9:21
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it looks it.
• 9:23
  SPEAKER_01: But I'm so glad that I have a practice like meditation and various other spiritual practices that have allowed me to be really comfortable with getting into the parts of myself that I know a lot of men my age and certainly older would not be comfortable with sort of look looking um at that, staring that in the mirror and dealing with some of those things, you know, around shame and um and just lots of things that we're uncomfortable with as men.
• 9:48
  SPEAKER_01: It's uh it's opened me up.
• 9:49
  SPEAKER_01: And so I um I can, yeah, I it's it's it's maybe far more um able to access that in on stage or wherever it is that I have to feel like I can access it.
• 10:02
  SPEAKER_01: And in doing that, I my hope is really that I open up that space for others to feel like they can go there.
• 10:10
  SPEAKER_01: And that's really when I go there as an actor, an audience can can go there as a spectator, and hopefully it enables them to feel some things within themselves that they didn't know that they were going to feel when they stepped into a theatre.
• 10:22
  SPEAKER_00: Well, I you know, I've seen the um the extraordinary performance um when you sing Bring It Home.
• 10:29
  SPEAKER_00: Is it Bring It Home?
• 10:31
  SPEAKER_01: Bring him home.
• 10:32
  SPEAKER_00: Bring him home, of course.
• 10:33
  SPEAKER_00: Actually, you're gonna be.
• 10:34
  SPEAKER_00: But I heard it.
• 10:35
  SPEAKER_01: I hope I brought it home.
• 10:36
  SPEAKER_00: You brought it home.
• 10:37
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, it's goosebumps.
• 10:39
  SPEAKER_00: It's very powerful that song.
• 10:41
  SPEAKER_00: It's very iconic.
• 10:42
  SPEAKER_00: And the way you sing it in a beautiful, you've hit the sweet spot, beautiful um melody and tenderness in the way that you sing that.
• 10:52
  SPEAKER_00: And you can tell, you don't even have to, you don't even have to ask really.
• 10:56
  SPEAKER_00: You can tell that you have accessed something deep within yourself and shared that.
• 11:00
  SPEAKER_00: And there's extraordinary comfort and great universality in that capacity to do that.
• 11:06
  SPEAKER_00: And it's quite quite a unique talent, but it's also something, as you talk about, that you had to really hone, work on in order to access.
• 11:14
  SPEAKER_00: What was what was the greatest challenge for you in doing that?
• 11:17
  SPEAKER_00: And were there moments when you'd get, I mean, to do that night after night with the degree of passion and you know depth must have been quite challenging at times.
• 11:27
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, if you're having a bad day, you just got to get up there and do it and access that.
• 11:31
  SPEAKER_00: How how did you find that?
• 11:33
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I feel like it's funny, if you're having a bad day, sometimes the stage is a distraction from that bad day.
• 11:41
  SPEAKER_01: And sometimes the bad day and a moment that you had in it is a is fuel for a moment on stage.
• 11:49
  SPEAKER_01: So rather than you you either sometimes you have to distract, and sometimes you use that stuff that you've experienced in that day or that week or or whatever.
• 11:58
  SPEAKER_01: And sometimes that's too heavy, you know.
• 12:01
  SPEAKER_01: So it's it could be could be any number of things.
• 12:05
  SPEAKER_01: Valjean for me is probably the culminating adventure in many adventures that I've had prior to it.
• 12:12
  SPEAKER_01: I I think really playing the Phantom was the first time I've got to explore some very, very vulnerable acting moments with some thrilling operatically vocal moments.
• 12:26
  SPEAKER_01: And I don't think I'd ever been able to do that to that extent before.
• 12:31
  SPEAKER_01: The role I played prior to Phantom was uh in Beautiful the Carol King musical.
• 12:35
  SPEAKER_01: I barely sung, but he was uh I played Carol King's husband, Jerry, and he was an incredible talent.
• 12:42
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, a great music.
• 12:43
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I saw that in New York, yeah.
• 12:45
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, he he had a lot of mental health issues.
• 12:48
  SPEAKER_01: Uh you know, he suffered from bipolar, was very manic.
• 12:52
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and so to go into that each night and to really in a show that is full of drama but quite light, he was the darkness in it.
• 13:00
  SPEAKER_01: Um yeah, that I think that enabled me to then use my more operatic chops um to play a role like The Phantom.
• 13:09
  SPEAKER_01: So they all led to playing Valjean, which I think is the sort of mecca of this sort of slightly more operatic-y musical theatre and dramatic role.
• 13:19
  SPEAKER_01: I remember early on playing The Phantom, I was hit with immense, immense exhaustion.
• 13:24
  SPEAKER_01: I just felt like I was getting hit by a Mac truck every morning when I'd wake up and I was like, I've never experienced anything like this.
• 13:31
  SPEAKER_01: Why am I so exhausted?
• 13:32
  SPEAKER_01: And my voice was getting really fatigued, and my body just felt adrenally cooked in a way that I just never felt.
• 13:39
  SPEAKER_01: So I went to the ENT and he said, I don't think this is a vocal thing, which would you see a you know, um, sort of left of center uh performance coach psych.
• 13:50
  SPEAKER_01: She does a bit of hypnotherapy.
• 13:52
  SPEAKER_01: I'm like I'm open to whatever.
• 13:54
  SPEAKER_01: So I went to her and she works with a lot of actors and uh people in musical theater and opera, and she asked me what my sort of entry into the character was, what's the sort of nucleus of of him?
• 14:07
  SPEAKER_01: And I said, Well, that's simple.
• 14:09
  SPEAKER_01: You know, the phantom is an abandoned boy, it's beyond the deformity and beyond all the other stuff he's got.
• 14:15
  SPEAKER_01: He was his mother didn't want him, and he was put on the steps of a circus at as a child, and that's his his journey.
• 14:23
  SPEAKER_01: So abandonment's always been the thing for me.
• 14:26
  SPEAKER_01: So we did a bit of hypnotherapy, and I went back to a moment when I was about six or seven where my parents were late picking me up from after school care, and you know, uh they were working hard so they could pay for private school, and so they were doing the most beautiful thing.
• 14:43
  SPEAKER_01: But as a six or seven-year-old, I just felt unlovable.
• 14:46
  SPEAKER_01: I felt abandoned, and I just started crying and crying and crying and crying in this hypnotherapy session, and never felt the same level of exhaustion again.
• 14:58
  SPEAKER_00: How powerful is that story?
• 15:00
  SPEAKER_00: That is really incredible.
• 15:01
  SPEAKER_00: And actually, you know, I mean, my father's a psychiatrist, I grew up with a lot of very multi-layered understanding of those issues, and that makes complete sense to me.
• 15:10
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, it just packed something within you that was unhealed or unresolved, you know, hadn't somehow even it doesn't matter whether it's big or small.
• 15:19
  SPEAKER_00: And the fact also that you were prepared, I like your courage and bravery, which you seem to show quite a lot of in being prepared to go there and to try whatever it is you need to understand why you're getting this extreme exhaustion, that does take courage, doesn't it?
• 15:33
  SPEAKER_00: Because I know that happens to a lot of men.
• 15:35
  SPEAKER_00: They get exhausted because they don't actually feel safe to go and do what you just scribed.
• 15:43
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, and that they're really going to be heard and there's gonna be they that they even trust to process or the trust that there's a solution beyond their solution.
• 15:53
  SPEAKER_01: Uh so yeah, I mean, it it never stopped me um being able to play the character and feel abandonment as the character, but there was a little separation in the subconscious mind between what Josh was experiencing and what the character could convey.
• 16:11
  SPEAKER_01: And so I feel like just that in and of itself, it's a great little story, but it but it enabled me to continue to trust being open and being vulnerable, that it is it is safe and it is safe to do that, yeah.
• 16:24
  SPEAKER_00: And you found a you found a safe space in order to do that, and that's important because often that doesn't happen.
• 16:31
  SPEAKER_01: Yes, it doesn't matter people around me that that could support that if I am fatigued or I am being challenged with this or whatever, you know, um have having great people uh uh around and and um and and Jake who helped me through that.
• 16:47
  SPEAKER_01: She's an extraordinary woman, and I've seen her subsequently for various other things since then, and and um you know she's been just as wonderful and supportive and helped me to understand it not just in my conscious mind, but in some level of subconscious mind, or even just somatically within my body, so that I don't just get exhausted from every role I I do.
• 17:07
  SPEAKER_01: And so, yeah, to get back to the original thing, playing Valjong, I guess I said it, it was like this culminating adventure where all the other adventures on the way there have sort of led me to uh get the enough wisdom to play it.
• 17:23
  SPEAKER_01: And by the same token, I feel like if I was to play it in five or ten years' time, um, I'd I'd be able to bring other things to it.
• 17:30
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, I would love to play it as a father at some point in my life.
• 17:34
  SPEAKER_01: I'm not a father, and that's something I would love in in my life, and I think that would bring a whole other uh journey to it.
• 17:41
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I mean, he effectively adopts a daughter, and and and that's you know, we've talked about the spiritual connection.
• 17:46
  SPEAKER_01: I certainly feel that that would only grow, but that father-daughter thing, it would be amazing to play it if I if I was a father, even the father of a daughter.
• 17:56
  SPEAKER_00: I have no doubt, and that hopefully will be in your future up ahead.
• 17:59
  SPEAKER_00: That would be lovely.
• 18:00
  SPEAKER_00: One of the best things you ever do as a mother myself.
• 18:03
  SPEAKER_00: Um I would I I hope that is in your yeah, up ahead.
• 18:07
  SPEAKER_00: But I think I think what you referred to is really interesting.
• 18:10
  SPEAKER_00: I've interviewed a lot of artists on this podcast, musicians, actors, and musical theatre is particularly, I suppose, there's there's not many people doing musical theatre, and to not only do it in Australia, but also to thrive in it and to be so successful as you have been, in that you've been exported, in effect, to do the West End and overseas, and to it's pretty extraordinary that you have had that opportunity and it shows your talent determination.
• 18:38
  SPEAKER_00: And I suppose it's not so easy here to go on that creative journey.
• 18:44
  SPEAKER_00: It's getting better in some spheres, but not in others.
• 18:47
  SPEAKER_00: How hard has it been for you to and how old were you when you knew that this was your path?
• 18:51
  SPEAKER_01: It's been hard.
• 18:54
  SPEAKER_01: Of course it's been hard.
• 18:56
  SPEAKER_01: I like that it's been hard.
• 18:57
  SPEAKER_01: I I it would be very, very strange if something as niche and competitive as music theatre was easy.
• 19:05
  SPEAKER_01: Um, I think the hardness um builds um, you know, greater resilience, greater compassion for other people doing it hard, greater self-awareness, like we talked about.
• 19:18
  SPEAKER_01: It's helped me um expand my skill set and and want to work and want to be diligent and so work ethic um strategy.
• 19:28
  SPEAKER_01: It's enabled me to be multifaceted at times in in my in my career, trying different different things.
• 19:34
  SPEAKER_01: So that's stimulated my creative brain.
• 19:37
  SPEAKER_01: If it was just like eh, you walk into a musical and you do another one to I think it wouldn't have made me the person I am today.
• 19:44
  SPEAKER_01: So I'm grateful for the the hardness.
• 19:48
  SPEAKER_01: Um as and I started when I was 16 uh at at school and um and and I I knew not long after that that I mean whether or not I was successful or not, I didn't sort of think about, but I that's when the dream began.
• 20:06
  SPEAKER_01: That's when I put it out there that that this is this is what I want to pursue in in life.
• 20:12
  SPEAKER_01: Um and I never thought about how crazy that was or how limiting that might be or what my life might look like or job security or anything.
• 20:22
  SPEAKER_01: I just looked at what it is that I love right now, and I want to give that my all until I don't love it, and I still love it.
• 20:29
  SPEAKER_00: And as somebody, you know, as you get older, it's suddenly you you look back and you reflect and you go, well, you know, it's a great way to live.
• 20:37
  SPEAKER_00: If you can follow your passion and you can do what you love, not everyone can, and you can make a living out of it.
• 20:45
  SPEAKER_01: Not everyone can.
• 20:46
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it's it says something about your tenacity, your character, and your your preparedness to morph, grow, learn, and adapt.
• 20:56
  SPEAKER_00: What's some of the biggest lessons that you take away from the journey thus far?
• 21:00
  SPEAKER_00: And I know there's probably many, many, but can you just maybe one or two things that really you've learned about I suppose for people who would like to pursue this pathway, or just people watching you pursue your pathway?
• 21:13
  SPEAKER_01: I think you know this is very resilience project, but know that every show and every journal you have has a use by date, they're all impermanent.
• 21:24
  SPEAKER_01: Um and even as an artist in musical theater, I or you or whoever it is has a use by date, and there's a business to it, and in that business you're dispensable, you know, that's really it.
• 21:36
  SPEAKER_01: And so to be really grateful for the opportunities that that come up and really live them because they're not gonna last forever.
• 21:44
  SPEAKER_01: So suck the juice out of all of it.
• 21:48
  SPEAKER_01: Know that you're gonna come up against some challenging people.
• 21:51
  SPEAKER_01: Got a lot of egos in in showbiz, but also some of the most beautiful people that I've ever met, who are some of my best mates who are in it.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_00: Any job, you're gonna get the good, the bad, and the ugly in it in everything.
• 22:04
  SPEAKER_01: But in everyone's way, it's very rarely where people are not trying to do their best.
• 22:09
  SPEAKER_01: Everyone's just trying to do their best with what they have and the knowledge they have and where they're at in life.
• 22:15
  SPEAKER_01: And so that that's a really important thing to know because I think that breeds more empathy, more compassion.
• 22:24
  SPEAKER_01: And I think if we lead with that as humans, we're far less um likely to be judgmental or envious or frustrated or angry or so that that's important.
• 22:38
  SPEAKER_01: And the other one would be the meditation practice, the mindfulness stuff of just not getting too far ahead, you know, like as simple as Jean Valjean playing it every night.
• 22:47
  SPEAKER_01: It's so big.
• 22:48
  SPEAKER_01: The role is so big.
• 22:50
  SPEAKER_01: So big.
• 22:50
  SPEAKER_01: And if you're if you're out there at the the top of the show at the prologue, thinking about three hours later when you die in the epilogue as a much older man, you're kind of, oh my god, I've got to get through all of this.
• 23:01
  SPEAKER_01: I'm God, I'm tired, my voice is tired.
• 23:04
  SPEAKER_01: It's uh just playing it from moment to moment and being in the moment and allowing, however, your fear feeling with that to guide the parameters with it with it within which you're playing the truth of the character, you're always going to bring deep self to the role, and and all the magic happens in that flow state of present moment awareness.
• 23:27
  SPEAKER_01: It doesn't happen in the anxiety of shit, I've got to sing this song that I'm scared about in an hour, or shit, I mucked up that one moment back there.
• 23:37
  SPEAKER_01: All the magic is happening in the moment.
• 23:39
  SPEAKER_01: So present moment awareness, mindfulness, compassion, empathy, and gratitude.
• 23:43
  SPEAKER_01: I think they're the things that um Q talks about from the resilience project.
• 23:47
  SPEAKER_01: So I'm gonna connect from him with um there's certainly parts of my life that I I and the final one is um know that you know, I have a lot of people in showbiz saying we're not well we're not uh emergency staff or whatever, we're not we're not doctors, we're not saving lives.
• 24:05
  SPEAKER_01: And yeah, and and I say, Yeah, but we're there to serve and feed.
• 24:09
  SPEAKER_01: And when we are nourishing people in a way that they need to be nourished, you know, we all live in the what I would refer the horizontal plane of existence, the normal world.
• 24:22
  SPEAKER_01: And you know, that's that's the world of going to your job and dealing with the kids and paying taxes and putting it on the table, but we also live in a vertical axis of something within our heart and soul and spirit above and earth and land below, and and we need to give people the opportunity to live in that access, and that that access is so so special and so important to feeling really human.
• 24:47
  SPEAKER_01: So to give opportunity to people to transcend their horizontal life and step into something non-ordinary, um, and and really feel the depths of what it means to be human um or a spiritual being having a human experience.
• 25:05
  SPEAKER_01: I think we we are such a we are such a gateway for that, and um, and knowing that there's power in that, and it also there is um uh there's reverence in in that, but there's also responsibility in that and and knowing that and stepping into that space where you go, hey, this is my church tonight, and you're gonna come in here and and um or my synagogue or my outcome or my mosque or whatever it is for you.
• 25:37
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, and and and really owning in that space and allowing people to to to to come into that space of of of of depth and spirituality and feeling.
• 25:46
  SPEAKER_01: So yeah.
• 25:47
  SPEAKER_00: I think that is so beautiful and so poignant, and particularly at the moment, and and you and I touched on that briefly, as the world spins on its axis, which is what it feels like for many of us, and there are things happening that really on all sides of this very complex um global crisis, is how I see it.
• 26:10
  SPEAKER_00: Because I don't think it's just in the Middle East, I think it's resonating across the world.
• 26:14
  SPEAKER_00: What are your thoughts?
• 26:15
  SPEAKER_00: And and and I do agree with you because I think music and the theatre and the arts is absolutely critical to everyone's mental health, their sense of being.
• 26:25
  SPEAKER_00: And I love that notion of the vertical and the horizontal, that's a great imagery because it's true, because we all still have the day-to-day grind and the crisis and the things we're dealing with, e.g., the complexity around this war that's a that's happening.
• 26:38
  SPEAKER_00: Well, what's your perspective on this?
• 26:40
  SPEAKER_00: And how do you see um what's happening?
• 26:44
  SPEAKER_00: And how are you using and are you finding music?
• 26:46
  SPEAKER_00: Are you experiencing?
• 26:47
  SPEAKER_00: I know the arts has been thrust into some of the complex challenges here.
• 26:52
  SPEAKER_00: There's a lot of in a lot of people with very varying opinions on things that is it's really proved quite complex.
• 27:00
  SPEAKER_01: So I guess what I've learned to do in in all these matters and of deep complexity, and I think the the one that raged long enough to have to do that was COVID at first, and to not get caught in running towards one side of a uh of a view.
• 27:22
  SPEAKER_01: And I would say that's partly to do with having a strong meditation practice is to get to a point where you're not as reactive and then you can see things or try to see things from an objective lens and be a bit more able to respond, responsible, responsible.
• 27:42
  SPEAKER_01: Um in in in my um dealings with it, um, because COVID was very triggering, um, especially with how um you know sort of neglected the arts were.
• 27:57
  SPEAKER_01: Horrible, yeah.
• 27:58
  SPEAKER_00: And no, you couldn't perform.
• 28:00
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, you literally couldn't perform.
• 28:01
  SPEAKER_01: Then the audience is then not you know receiving um funds in the way that other people funds.
• 28:08
  SPEAKER_01: And sort of that sort of stuff.
• 28:09
  SPEAKER_01: And I fought that battle, and I'm always willing to go into fight.
• 28:12
  SPEAKER_01: And I had a really good chat with Josh Freidenberger about that, and um, and and so did others.
• 28:19
  SPEAKER_01: Um, I know, and uh Hugh Jackman and lots of others did.
• 28:22
  SPEAKER_01: And I know the second time around, you know, sort of July 21 onwards, yeah.
• 28:26
  SPEAKER_01: The arts received the arts received, you know, it was rather than job keeper seeker, it was the 750 a week sort of thing.
• 28:33
  SPEAKER_00: That's right.
• 28:34
  SPEAKER_01: And as great, yeah, as they should as they should have, and I think they sort of understood that that they didn't um they didn't go about that the right way the the first time.
• 28:44
  SPEAKER_01: But yeah, so that that experience sort of taught me that there's always going to be two tension points, and that's the way the world operates.
• 28:50
  SPEAKER_01: It's also the way the media would love the world to operate.
• 28:54
  SPEAKER_01: Um, binary sort of perspectives create situations of pitting two sides against each other, and we're very, very good at turning any issue into a football match.
• 29:05
  SPEAKER_01: The thing about this this particular war, in my opinion, is it's it's this is not as as easy as two sides that you're going, it's this versus that.
• 29:18
  SPEAKER_01: This is within the sides, there's complexity.
• 29:21
  SPEAKER_01: So where I stand is I always say I'm a spiritual being having a human experience.
• 29:26
  SPEAKER_01: And a part of that human experience is that I'm Jewish.
• 29:30
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, and a part of the way I'm seeing it is uh is that I I don't fully support um Israel's response to it.
• 29:42
  SPEAKER_01: I I I I think it's been very reactionary.
• 29:45
  SPEAKER_01: I am definitely supportive of free freeing Palestinians, but not just of Israeli sort of occupational control of uh of freeing them from Hamas and from any jihadist group.
• 30:00
  SPEAKER_01: I'm not supportive of jihadist groups in any way whatsoever.
• 30:03
  SPEAKER_01: I mean they have a they have a um a mantra which is to the destruction of not just the Jews but Westerners in general.
• 30:10
  SPEAKER_01: I just don't that's not something I'm ever going to support.
• 30:14
  SPEAKER_01: And so I'm I'm certainly um Zionistic in the fact that I believe in the state of Israel.
• 30:20
  SPEAKER_01: Um so there's just in that, there's a lot of complexity, just in my opinion.
• 30:25
  SPEAKER_01: It's more nuanced than saying, you know, I'm Jewish dismay, which means I support Netanyahu and the idea and everything is relevant to the case.
• 30:34
  SPEAKER_01: Yep, and or the other way around, um, you know, we are struggling to have as humans complex, nuanced conversations that exist in all the layers of the middle between the two tension points.
• 30:50
  SPEAKER_01: And and that's what, as I said, that's what the world and the media and social media especially, which is I think is destroying so much of what we do.
• 31:01
  SPEAKER_01: Like, like for the first time in since uh its existence, Instagram is off my phone, and it's fine, it's the final piece in the puzzle, Facebook, Twitter, they're all off my my phone.
• 31:14
  SPEAKER_01: Happy to have them on my iPad at the moment, as a and this might be temporary, something you know, I can get back to a message, but there's just too much binary hatred, and I don't need that to I think that's really important, Josh, because I think the toxicity, look, you know, it's it's interesting because I look at the gener, you know, the generations now have never been without social media.
• 31:34
  SPEAKER_00: We growing up were.
• 31:36
  SPEAKER_00: So it's interesting too because the arts and the the the um going to the theatre, there's this beautiful space where you don't have any interruption, you just focus, it's a bit like the cinema, and you just focus.
• 31:50
  SPEAKER_00: And you know, there's a clean line of engagement between the the artist, the performance, and the audience.
• 31:57
  SPEAKER_00: The problem with social media is the ever-present noise is an interaction and distraction.
• 32:02
  SPEAKER_00: And you're absolutely right.
• 32:03
  SPEAKER_00: And I can see from a meditative point of view and a humanist point of view, what you're saying, which is really, it seems to me, your tent, you know, that that's your they're your lenses, really, you know, being a humanist, being somebody who needs to find solace and anchoring in your meditative space.
• 32:19
  SPEAKER_00: Well, social media would be smashing those like with everyone.
• 32:23
  SPEAKER_00: Like we're all the same.
• 32:25
  SPEAKER_00: But I do feel for the generations that have never been without it.
• 32:29
  SPEAKER_00: And the beauty of theatre and what you do is that it actually is one of the oldest forms of entertainment going back.
• 32:36
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it's tribal.
• 32:37
  SPEAKER_00: It's tribal and it's actually where we started.
• 32:40
  SPEAKER_00: And if more of us could come back to that and to that calm, centered, engaged space, still tell the stories.
• 32:48
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, it's a lot of people.
• 32:49
  SPEAKER_00: Well, that's what it's about.
• 32:50
  SPEAKER_01: It's that's what and that's what it was at a tribal sense.
• 32:52
  SPEAKER_01: It's corrobory, it's it's indigenous, it's back to the Romans, back to, you know, back to Greece, and you know before that, back to, you know, uh, you know, Native Americans, Native South Americans, Native Australians, you know, you know, storytelling is as age old as time.
• 33:09
  SPEAKER_01: You know, that's that's what we do as humans.
• 33:11
  SPEAKER_01: We we want to tell stories because they enable us a pathway for understanding ourselves and the world.
• 33:20
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, and on that.
• 33:21
  SPEAKER_01: So back back back to what's happening in the Middle East.
• 33:23
  SPEAKER_00: Yes.
• 33:24
  SPEAKER_01: You know, what what I what I struggle with is um is is death and destruction and innocent lives, and um you know, a lot of people say, Well, how else are you gonna do it?
• 33:36
  SPEAKER_01: I go, I think that's a really reductive way of of looking at it.
• 33:40
  SPEAKER_01: I think there's what baffles me and saddens me to a great degree is that at 2023, after all the wars and all the havoc and all the destruction and brutality that this race, this species, has imparted upon another member of the species, that we still think that that's the only way when it's never worked, it's never made things really, really good.
• 34:08
  SPEAKER_01: So, yes, I'm um I'm anti uh, you know, movements that that want to kill and destroy other um other races or religions or whatever, but I I I would think and I would hope that we could have moved past that and found other ways um more more intelligent, more self-aware, more um community-driven ways, and having an an understanding, you know, especially Israel's part, that their actions aren't just the gonna affect what's happening locally, their actions are gonna have ripples and ripples and ripples, and how long those ripples last for, um yes, we're you know, we're seeing an increase in anti-Semitism.
• 34:52
  SPEAKER_00: I was about to ask you that.
• 34:54
  SPEAKER_00: Everywhere and the arts.
• 34:57
  SPEAKER_01: And then an increase in in anti you know, Islam and it's like it's this is this is not having uh a benefit of connecting humans um in any way.
• 35:07
  SPEAKER_00: It's been very divisive.
• 35:09
  SPEAKER_00: Very divisive.
• 35:11
  SPEAKER_00: Tell me from your perspective, and you mentioned anti-Semitism because it obviously has you know it's really gone crazy in the arts, I have to say, amongst other groups.
• 35:20
  SPEAKER_00: But is as a um you know, a Jewish Australian actor, and you know, uh somebody who's out there really in every sense, are you feeling uh in any way unsafe or has has your world changed in any way?
• 35:38
  SPEAKER_00: Because you're not gonna be.
• 35:38
  SPEAKER_01: No, I'm not I'm not feeling personally unsafe.
• 35:40
  SPEAKER_01: And to be honest, from my artistic friends and and from what I've seen, I I I haven't seen I haven't seen anti-semitism in the sense that you're Jewish, therefore I hate you.
• 35:55
  SPEAKER_01: I've seen I've seen anti-Isra-Israel um, of course, we've all seen that, yeah.
• 36:01
  SPEAKER_01: And and and to be honest, you know, I don't agree with all of it, but I agree with some of it because I don't agree with necessarily how Israel are going about it.
• 36:08
  SPEAKER_01: So to separate it the in the way that we need to separate Palestinians and Muslims from jihadists, sometimes you've got to separate being Israeli from being Jewish.
• 36:18
  SPEAKER_01: It's not they're not one and the same.
• 36:20
  SPEAKER_01: So I understand exactly what Israel is there's nuances and nuances.
• 36:24
  SPEAKER_00: There's many nuances.
• 36:25
  SPEAKER_00: But the good thing is that there's people, because I actually think the beauty, the collegiate nature of what you do and what the why I love the arts is because it is collegiate.
• 36:35
  SPEAKER_00: It's about community.
• 36:37
  SPEAKER_00: So you get on stage with an entire, you know, cast, you work with producers, directors, there's a sense of one big beautiful group working hard towards doing this beautiful performance.
• 36:49
  SPEAKER_00: And I just think it's critical that whether you're Jewish or Palestinian or whoever you wherever you come from, that is the essence is that we all work and stay engaged and in some ways and connected.
• 37:01
  SPEAKER_00: And that's really unified.
• 37:03
  SPEAKER_01: And that's what I think, yeah, yeah.
• 37:05
  SPEAKER_01: And that's ultimately you want to, when I talk about my disappointment and my upset with it, is that at 2023 we don't put respect, tolerance, unity, love, connection, peace at the forefront of our words and actions.
• 37:20
  SPEAKER_01: And that's what I'd love, and I that's what I'd love our leaders to present all around the world.
• 37:25
  SPEAKER_01: That and to know that although differences there's money to be made in lots of areas of power, greed, division, and all that, actually, what makes society operate in a way that is prosperous, all those things that I just um mentioned, they're they're the words of they're the words of expansion and they're the words of love and togetherness.
• 37:48
  SPEAKER_01: And yeah, that might sound utopian, um, but it it we should be striving to, we shouldn't be going, it's you utopian, it's utopian, let's dismiss it.
• 37:59
  SPEAKER_01: It's utopian, let's strive towards that as a as a community, as a country, uh, as a nation, as a world.
• 38:05
  SPEAKER_01: And um, yeah, I don't I don't think there's I think there's I don't think there's anything wrong with striving towards that.
• 38:10
  SPEAKER_00: I couldn't agree more.
• 38:12
  SPEAKER_00: And Josh, just what's next for you?
• 38:14
  SPEAKER_00: What what's your next?
• 38:16
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, uh, I think it's it's gonna be one of those years of lots of different creative endeavors.
• 38:20
  SPEAKER_01: I want to take a um a little rest from doing um you know eight shows a week, week in, week out, uh 20 to 24.
• 38:28
  SPEAKER_01: So I've got lots of lots and lots of ideas that I'm I'm mapping out, but I'm also just enjoying being, you know.
• 38:35
  SPEAKER_01: I feel like in in in the world of striving and success, it's very easy to get caught up in human doing.
• 38:41
  SPEAKER_01: And um it's nice just to sit in being, and that's sometimes really hard, especially when you've been doing so much.
• 38:50
  SPEAKER_01: I'm struggling with it.
• 38:51
  SPEAKER_01: I'm struggling with at times like just being like uh a bit agitated or frustrated or or just you know wanting to get something done.
• 38:58
  SPEAKER_01: I'm like, I don't have anything to do.
• 39:00
  SPEAKER_01: Like I so I'm just sort of leaning into the uncomfortability of that and just sitting, like picking a book and having a read, or like watching something crappy on Netflix or something great on Netflix.
• 39:11
  SPEAKER_01: I'm gonna head down the coast um and do it up the coast.
• 39:15
  SPEAKER_01: I'm gonna do a trip, road trip all the way up to Byron.
• 39:17
  SPEAKER_01: Never done that, stop off some beautiful beaches.
• 39:19
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, it's the best.
• 39:21
  SPEAKER_00: That's just the best.
• 39:22
  SPEAKER_01: So yeah, you know, be in the water, um, be with friends, be with family, and yeah, re reconnect a bit to to sort of other important things in my life that that I value just as much as being on stage and sharing music and being an actor.
• 39:36
  unknown: Yeah.
• 39:37
  SPEAKER_00: Well, sounds like a pretty good plan to me.
• 39:39
  SPEAKER_00: So I look forward to seeing what you do next, but I also look forward to seeing you refuel and just be because you've earned it.
• 39:46
  SPEAKER_00: And to be honest, it's actually probably critical that you do have that because if you don't refuel, you can't go on to whatever it is you want next.
• 39:53
  SPEAKER_01: So something bigger about that.
• 39:56
  SPEAKER_01: My shoulders are in my ears.
• 39:59
  SPEAKER_00: I love it, I love it.
• 40:00
  SPEAKER_00: Josh, thank you so much for joining us on the What I've Learned podcast.
• 40:04
  SPEAKER_00: I've really loved chatting to you, and you're a very worldly but also a very um uh you're quite cerebral, but you're also quite spiritual.
• 40:11
  SPEAKER_00: There's a you know, you've been a really beautiful person to interview, and I thank you for your time.
• 40:16
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you so much, Sarah.
• 40:17
  SPEAKER_01: Thanks for having me.
• 40:17
  SPEAKER_01: I've really enjoyed it.
• 40:18
  SPEAKER_00: Pleasure.
• 40:24
  SPEAKER_00: Thanks so much for listening.
• 40:26
  SPEAKER_00: I'm blessed to have so many wonderful guests coming on the show.
• 40:29
  SPEAKER_00: So check out my What I've Learned Instagram for updates.
• 40:32
  SPEAKER_00: Meanwhile, stay tuned, kind, and curious.
• 40:36
  SPEAKER_00: Love Dev.