Chris Lilley
The Aussie comedy genius lets his mask (and mickie) slip to Angus Fontaine
You're supposed to be a crazed recluse - yet you've just uncoiled a third DVD version of Summer Heights High... It's true I'm letting more of myself go by putting out these DVDs, and there are bloopers from Mr G and Ja'mie where I slip out of character and appear from behind the mask. We were going to do making-of featurettes too but I want people to hang onto the illusion that it's all real because 99.9 per cent of it is Ja'mie, Mr G and Jonah as real characters in real life. There is no Chris Lilley.
That's kinda spooky. We heard you were the purveyor of the highest selling Aussie DVD ever. I certainly notice those things when I'm on the street. The other day I had six Foxtel connection guys in two vans pull over wanting photos and begging me to say: "Puck you!" I just wrote "Dicktation" on piece of paper for them and left it at that.
So you've got stalkers? Mostly kids with camera phones and 16-year-old girls who have been emailing Ja'mie. There are also a couple of full-on trannies that work the street down from my house and they know my name and yell out. They're not transgender freaks... just fans."
Uh-huh. We hear you're about to start soliciting hate-mail from the "Rusty Crutch" community too... Yeah, Sorry Ranga Day is a chance for all Aussies to apologise to bloodnuts and carrot tops everywhere. We've had the ‘Tsunamarama' t-shirts and ‘Slap the Butcher' singlets and the Summer Heights board game. Now it's time to apologise to people who unfavourably compare to orangutans.
Jonah's other legacy is the Dicktation graffiti we still see. Yeah, we hit a big problem with the first batch of DVDs: apparently you can't display penises on the shelves of the ABC shop. So we couldn't draw the dick on the DVD; we had to write the dick in Dicktation."
Speaking of dick, how'd you go down at Mardi Gras? There was talk of a Ja'mie float at the Sydney Mardi Gras but the ‘Naughty Girl' single debuting was enough. There was something in a gay magazine earlier this year about how Mr G was perpetuating gay sterotypes and should be taken off TV but I've never said Mr G was gay.
And nor was Liberace. Didn't you experiment with indecently tight spandex as a musician? Not quite. I did do a gig once at an outdoor roller-skating rink in Sefton in far-western Sydney. It was the early 90s and I was the only art rock act amid all these grunge bands. I had hideous blonde crimped hair and a velvet blue suit - a sort of game-show host persona. It was an outfit so hideous I thought it was cool. I did the whole show standing on an Ikea children's chair performing for two guys dancing like crazy up front... no doubt drug-induced.
You're the son of a Turramurra pharmacist. Didn't you ever experiment with his stock? Ha! My dad was hilarious, always in the naughtiness with me. He dabbled in musical theatre on the sly when I was young - I think he wooed my mum while doing The Merry Widow. He loved it. I remember I wrote a show in my first year at uni and he came along and said it was the best hour of his life. That was pretty massive for a son... as I recall it wasn't the best hour of anyone else's life.
Maybe we'll call your Mum and siblings to check the drug thing. Ah, I'd be pretty anxious about that.
I mean my family are very supportive - they think I've based all my characters on them, in fact - but that's scary 'cos I don't like anyone talking about me, whether they know me or not.