Talking about the past few decades of performing arts in Australia without Julia Morris's name coming up would be a challenge.
It was just over 40 years ago that she came to the fore as an energetic 17 year old on talent show New Faces, her rendition of Bonnie Tyler's "Holding Out For a Hero" imbued with an inimitable confidence.
It took another decade before Morris landed her breakout gig on 90s sketch comedy show Full Frontal, alongside the likes of Shaun Micallef, Kitty Flanagan and Eric Bana. But since then, Morris has toured her stand-up routines at every international comedy festival that counts. She's performed across the stage, in television and film, and been nominated for the Gold Logie Award no fewer than five times.
For the past 12 years, however, Morris has predominantly been associated with one thing: hosting the Australian iteration of competition reality series I'm A Celebrity … Get Me Out of Here — first alongside Dr Chris Brown, then Robert Irwin.
Then in May, Channel 10 announced it wouldn't be commissioning a 13th season. And while Channel 7 later picked the show back up, no hosts were attached to the format.
That's how Morris came to face a question she hadn't had to ask herself in a long time: What next?
To start with, she's returning to school — in a way.
Morris leads as the principal in new TV game show Class Clowns, responsible for corralling her six "students" — really, comedians including Nina Oyama, Matt Okine and Becky Lucas — as they try to complete assignments in everything from maths to sex ed for points.
With heapings of innuendo and the sort of schoolyard banter real teenagers wish they were capable of, the series makes for the easy and frequently titillating viewing you'd expect of a comedy competition show, but the softness and vulnerability Morris extends to her pupils adds an unexpected and earnest depth to this series that could have easily stopped at being silly fun.
And yet, the role comes a little over a year after Morris announced she was diagnosed with ADHD. In doing the promo rounds for the show, the 58 year old has repeatedly said school was not "one of her special gifts".
So, we of course had to find out what made her want to go back, how she's handling all these big life changes — and where we can expect to see her next.
Where did you go to school?
I went to St Joseph's Catholic College in East Gosford, NSW, and then Santa Sabina College in Strathfield, where I commuted to and from Gosford — it took an hour and a half on the train, where I busked with my flute.
I left at like 6:00am and returned around 6:00pm, so it was a big day for a student, but it's not like I was doing the schoolwork, so… [Laughs]
Did you actually busk on the train?
Yes! You've gotta busk on the train with your flute, right? It's the only way you can get the coins to buy musk sticks.
The children yearn for musk sticks. What's your fondest memory from Santa Sabina?
All the laughter. My focus was on being funny and liked and lightening moments.
I mean … I must have been so neurodiverse; I didn't realise how bad I was at school. [Laughs] I got 198 out of 500 when I did the HSC.
How do you think your teachers would have described you?
The teachers continuously described me as lovely, but disruptive.
I actually have all the physical copies of my reports, and the signs couldn't have been clearer, but unfortunately, we didn't know that's what it added up to then.
What was it like attending school in the 70s and 80s as a young woman with undiagnosed ADHD?
It was a lifetime of being in trouble for something I had absolutely no control of.
I just assumed there was something wrong with me, and I didn't know what to do about it.
There was no support. There were kind teachers, but not everybody understood the difference between inattentive and naughty. So, I was in trouble a lot at school — and at home — for what I now understand was my brain function.
Because I was likeable and funny, that's the gift that I worked on.
Was there an element of wanting to reclaim that time, returning to the school environment as Class Clowns principal?
I still had a great time at school — I loved it, I loved my friends. I just couldn't do the work.
Maybe I wanted to show a capability.
Even before the decision with the jungle [I'm A Celebrity …], I was just desperate for Class Clowns to go to air and be seen in an entirely different light … It was fun to show a pared-down version of my output.
A lot of the time, if we're being interviewed, if we're on a television show, you're kind of on your own high-octane output, "must be funny".
I think people forget comedians aren't just one-note.
Loading...Which comedian did you think would do the best going into the show, and why?
Bron Lewis, because she has such a strong existing relationship with the school system. But each of the comedians had to work in pairs they didn't choose, [which impacted their results].
Some of them excelled. But the other thing that happens when you get back into school uniform is you revert to your childhood self, maybe just with the added confidence of who you've become.
I got to watch how their minds really work and see a different side of them all after having known most of them their whole careers.
There was a gentle vulnerability … [and] a sense of discovery that I think a lot of them haven't had for a long time.
Did any school principals of note inspire your performance?
I thought I'd be like the principal in Picnic at Hanging Rock — I really thought I was gonna be much more stern. But that isn't the type of principal I was exposed to as a kid.
And once I got face-to-face with the students, I could see their vulnerability and I didn't want to just knife them for the joke. I found being a school principal akin to being a parent; I wanted to encourage them and get the best out of them.
What's the hardest thing about being in the public eye today as a woman working in the arts?
Days like today, I've had interviews since early so then I'm like, "OK, what am I getting in trouble for today? What is someone gonna take offence to that's gonna have a direct effect on whether I'm earning or not?"
As you get older, and as you get more brutally honest, it's not that you're admired for your honesty — you just look difficult. And you then get more scared, because it becomes easier and easier to lose everything.
So then it's like, what do you do? Do you not talk to anybody? I don't know what you do.
Not a lot of people have to think of really big answers to questions they didn't know were coming and edit on the move while trying not to get into trouble, while trying not to release all of their true feelings, while being neurodiverse and trying to work out that new recipe. [Laughs]
And then you have to try not to take things personally when people are like, "You're s**t, you're dumb, you're this, you're that". It is exhausting.
When the jungle went away, I was like, "Would my services be better on a reception?"
The hardest thing today is not the same as what it used to be.
What's one thing that's changed for the better since you first entered the scene in the mid 80s?
Women are allowed to take up more space, so many women are in charge [now].
When I started, it was men saying, "Your t*ts look great in that top". Now it's people talking to me on the level of a human being.
On the one hand I'm glad to hear that, on the other … the bar is low.
The bar is so low … But look, it's very difficult to be angry with men when I've got men in my life like [fellow I'm A Celebrity … host] Robert Irwin.
He really is an example of someone actively out there being decent, speaking out where he can.
He gives me hope that there are more out there, they just need to show themselves a little bit louder than the other ones.
After it was announced Channel 10 was dropping I'm A Celebrity … you were quoted in an interview with TV Week as saying you plan to "Betty White this" …
Oh god yeah!
… So I'm wondering, what would be your dream career trajectory from here?
Everything.
The jungle remains one of the greatest things I've ever been a part of and I'm going to miss it desperately … [But it] took up a lot of the year where I simply had to say no to so many other projects.
In having the jungle removed from my path, albeit unexpectedly, what that's done is it's completely reignited my original hustle and delivered me to the Betty White phase [of my career].
The one thing we saw with her was she did many, many, many different projects, from movies to television appearances, to being a talking head pundit, to speaking at symposiums.
I love the idea of going back to showing all the talents I have.
I feel like I'm looking my best, mentally I feel like I'm in a pretty great place. So, it's time to have some fun.
Quotes lightly edited for clarity and brevity.
We've got a story for you. Stream Class Clowns on ABC iview or watch on Wednesdays from September 30 at 8:30pm on ABC TV.
