Robert William Hoskins, actor, born 26 October 1942; died 29 April 2014.

It didn’t matter that this guy—who left school at 15 to become a bouncer, porter, window cleaner, and fire-eater—went on to become ridiculously famous. He was always down-to-earth: "Actors are just entertainers, even the serious ones. That's all an actor is. He's like a serious Bruce Forsyth."

Hoskins could play serious and scary, then turn on a dime to reveal sweetness and a big heart.

A chance audition led him to the theatre, which opened the door to roles in BBC dramas and a beloved ad for British Telecom, where he delivered the catchphrase "It's good to talk." Around that time, Francis Ford Coppola cast him in The Cotton Club (1984), and suddenly he was in movies. Brazil followed, then Sweet Liberty, his Oscar-nominated turn as an ex-con in Mona Lisa, the blockbuster Who Framed Roger Rabbit, Heart Condition, Mermaids, Hook, and Oliver Stone's Nixon, where he played J. Edgar Hoover.

"You don't go to Hollywood for art," he said in 1999. "And once you've got your fame and fortune—especially the fortune in the bank—you can do what you want to do. It's basically f**k-you money."

In 2012, at 69, he announced his retirement after being diagnosed with Parkinson's. Two years later, he died from pneumonia.

Miss you, Bob Hoskins.

This week’s guest on Out of the Question is the comedian and TV host, Tom Ballard. You all know Tom from Triple J, multiple hosting and guesting engagements on the ABC and Channel 10 as well as the iconic Tonightly with Tom Ballard. We talk about that here. There’s also his stand up and his book, I Millennial. And now he’s back with a new Melbourne Comedy Festival Show, It Is I, which is at the Victoria Hotel from March 30 and ALSO Yes/No – A Comedy Lecture, which is also at the Victoria Hotel from April 15. Tickets at the Festival website.

Tom on Tonightly being cancelled.

Too much has happened since Dave O’Neil recorded this episode of Another 10 Questions back in the peak pandemic days of November, 2021. The point of Another 10 Questions was to invite guests back onto the pod as a catch up or check in. And since Dave was on the very first episode of this podcast back in 2015, there was a lot to talk about.

Most listeners will be familiar with Dave’s work on Spicks and Specks, Agony, Randling, The Nugget, and more recently, great cameos in Utopia and Fisk. He was also the head writer on Totally Full Frontal, and with the screenwriter, Mark O’Toole, he wrote the feature films Take Away and You and Your Stupid Mate.

Catch Dave’s new Melbourne Comedy Festival show Overweight Lightweight at Morris House from March 29 to April 9. Tickets here.

This week’s guest on Out of the Question is the comedian Mel Buttle. I’ve been a long-time fan and this is our first ever chat. I particularly love her Mum character, which she occasionally releases on social media. We talk about the genesis of that here. We also talk school, jobs, growing up in Queensland and the Great Australian Bake Off which Mel co-hosted for five years. Stay tuned for her handy baking tips.

You can also check out Mel’s new Melbourne Comedy Festival Show Let Me Know Either Way which is at the Melbourne Town Hall from April 11. Tickets at the Festival website.

“I feel like I'm a very, very big energy in a world that wants you to be a little bit smaller.” - Nikki Britton.

This week’s guest on Out of the Question is the comedian Nikki Britton. Apart from her live work, you might have seen Nikki on Have You Being Paying Attention, The Project and How to Stay Married.

She’s returning to the Melbourne International Comedy Festival with her show, Getting Out in Front of It, from April 11. You can get tickets at the Festival website.

We had some tech difficulties in this chat, which I hope aren’t too obvious. I was stuck in a motel in Castlemaine, where I’m filming a TV show, and Nikki was in her car after doing some sort of fitness thing. Also, I had food poisoning. Which probably didn’t contribute to anything.

This week’s guest on Out of the Question is writer, comedian, and musician, Sammy J.

It’s a great chat. How could it not be? We talk about Sammy’s start in comedy, some of the formative shows he was involved in as a writer performer, the sitcom he created with Heath McIvor called Sammy J & Randy in Ricketts Lane, and then his transition to political satire with Sammy J's Playground Politics. Now he’s taking a live version of his political satire featuring stand up, songs and storytelling around Australia. For bookings check out Sammy-j.com

Right now, you can hear him host Breakfast on ABC Melbourne.

This week, I’m extremely excited to have Osher Günsberg on the show. Most people know him from hosting the Bachelor and it’s associated spin offs I was more an Australian Idol guy who loved the on screen chemistry shared by Osher and James Mathison.  But that’s just me showing my age. 

During our conversation, we talk about all that, as well as his radio days, as well as getting back on the horse when you’re down as well as the extreme heights he hit hosting TV shows in the US. 

This week’s very special episode of Out of the Question is a Wilfred reunion episode with my fellow Wilfred creator, Jason Gann. We talk about the origins of Wilfred and where Jason is in his life right now. I met him as an acting student at the University of Southern Queensland. After graduating, he performed for the Queensland Theatre Company and the Twelfth Night Theatre in Brisbane before moving to Melbourne and appearing in The Wedge, Wilfred, and also the feature film Rats and Cats, which screened at SXSW. He then went on  to make the Channel Ten series, Mark Loves Sharon, before moving to the US where he starred in, executive produced and was one of the writers on the US version of Wilfred, which ran for four seasons on FX.

Don’t forget to check out our Wilfred Australia tribute page.

My guest this week is satirist, humourist, author and stand up – Titus O’Reily. Titus used to be called Alex Twomey. He was a corporate guy who specialised in crisis and issues management. As we discover in this interview, Alex started writing a blog while still working in his office job and gave himself the pen name “Titus O’Reily”. The blog was hilarious and it turned out I wasn’t the only one to think so. He was soon asked to write books and perform live shows and more success followed. Now you see him regularly casting his jaundiced eye over every AFL season on radio and his regular appearances on The Front Bar where he mocks his own team, Melbourne, for being posh and my team, Carlton, for everything. His blockbuster podcast Sports Bizarre with Mick Molloy, in which Titus tries to bamboozle Mick with the strangest stories to occur in world sport, is back for another season. So check that out. This conversation looks under the bonnet of how you transition from a real job into becoming a comedy professional. It’s full of wisdom and revelation, but always returns to the theme of hard work.

Check out Sports Bizarre here.

This week’s guest is my long time pal and work colleague, Sarah Wilson. 

Sarah is a multi-New York Times and Amazon best-selling author, podcaster, international keynote speaker, philanthropist and climate change advisor. 

She founded the I Quit Sugar movement – a digital wellness program and 13 award-winning books selling into 52 countries. And in 2022 she sold the business and gave everything to charity. 

In what seems to be a lifetime ago, Sarah was the editor of Cosmopolitan Australia; host of Season 1 of Masterchef Australia; was a journalist at the Sunday Magazine, which appeared in the Sunday Herald Sun and Sunday Telegraph – and that’s where we became mates.

I always leave a chat with Sarah feeling a little wiser than I did at the start. I hope you enjoy.

I’ve been lucky with the content offered by the guests on this podcast – but this guy has an unusually inspiring story. Working class boy, becomes a political operative at 19, works his way up to being an advisor in the Rudd and Gillard Governments before pivoting to cricket commentary and becoming one of the best-known cricket broadcasters in the world. His name is Adam Collins, and in 2018, he saw there was no Australian radio presence covering the test series between Australia and Pakistan in the UAE, so he used the money he was saving to buy a house and bought the rights to broadcast the series. He talks about the stress of that deal here, particularly finding a station he could on sell the broadcast to, as well as overcoming tech and censorship issues. Right now, the whole saga is being developed into a feature film. 

Quick shout out to The Final Word - the best cricket podcast going around hosted by Adam and his on-air partner, Geoff Lemon.

I hope you enjoy this chat. Check out the exclusive bonus video below where Adam discusses the two funniest cricketers he’s met.

Links:

The Final Word Podcast

Adam's collaboration with Wayne Swan which set his career pivot to cricket journalism in motion.

BONUS VIDEO: THE FUNNIEST CRICKETERS ADAM COLLINS HAS MET