Robert Morgan: From Hacksaw Ridge to The OA - A Hollywood Journey

Hey, screen rats, couch potatoes, idiot box watchers, how is everybody?

I'm here today with Rob Morgan, the Australian actor.

You know him from films like The Proposition, Hacksaw Ridge, TV shows like The Secret She Keeps and The OA.

He's a constantly working actor.

He's most recently been in George & Tammy, the Showtime miniseries and the film Babylon.

We have a great talk.

I've worked with Rob before in the past in China, so we cover a bit of that for quite a lot of it.

We hit the format points eventually, but it's a bit more of a pally chat for quite a lot of it.

I hope you like it.

It's one of my favorite ones so far.

We're not going to number these things anymore.

I think this is episode 4, but I'm not going to reference that anymore apart from when you see it on your devices.

Enough chat by me.

Let's get on with it, shall we?

What are you waiting for?

We'll be discussing television in all its glorious forms.

From my childhood, your childhood, the last 10 years, even what's on right now.

So join me as I talk to people you do know and people you don't about what scared them, what inspired them and what made them laugh and cry here on Television Times.

Hi, Rob.

Very well.

I've got a sore back at the moment.

Oh, yeah?

But I'm stretching my knee.

Oh, I see.

I can see it.

And I'm having toast and strawberry jam and a cup of coffee while I talk to you.

That's very nice.

Yeah, I'm delaying my own dinner to do this.

Oh, what can I say?

You're breaking my heart.

That's all right, mate.

I'm trying to do intermittent fasting, but I've got to not able to do it tonight because this will go too late.

But you know.

That's what I do.

I usually fast between 8 p.m.

till 12 p.m.

overnight.

But I broke today because I'm talking to you.

I've heard that's the best time to do it.

Like the best.

I was trying to do like half 7 till half 11.

I was like, well, if I eat late tonight, then I can, you know, and you just end up playing games with yourself.

Yes, it's a fucking stupid game.

Can I swear on this, by the way?

Yeah, of course you can fucking swear.

It's an absolute fucking nightmare.

It is a fucking nightmare.

10 minutes.

I was 10 minutes early.

Oh, I went over it.

Oh, fuck Jesus.

I fucked it up for the whole week.

It's stupid.

Yeah, I know.

I was looking, I actually, for the first few days, I noticed when I ate dinner and if I ate dinner at like seven, 12 or something, I wrote it on the chalkboard.

So the next morning I could go, oh, I can actually eat at 10, 12.

This is all right or whatever, you know.

Sitting there with my stomach gurgling, trying to have another black coffee to fucking settle it down.

Absolutely insane.

This is what we do.

Anyway, how are you?

You look great.

You look healthy and it's really great to see you after so many years, eight years.

I know.

Oh, geez.

Well, one of the points I do put in, so I'll just put, even though we're chatting, I mean, this is supposed to be a chat.

It's not supposed to be all formal stuff, not with me and you.

One of the things I do say is like how we know each other.

Oh, yes.

So I can just put that in here really.

Because...

Do you know, can I just say that?

You were the boogeyman.

Everyone was so frightened.

Who is he going to record?

It was like, who is he?

What's he going to fucking do?

So we should explain this.

So Rob was working on a show, which we cannot mention for legal reasons, for fear of being sued regarding what I'm about to say about it, in Beijing.

And I was flown in as an audio dubbing engineer, and nobody knew who the hell I was.

So I just appeared in this hotel in the outskirts of Beijing, and everyone was like, who is he?

What is what's he here for?

We're going to.

The show did die.

So yeah, with that live show, that was obviously done with massive, massive creatures.

Massive.

They were really great.

And it was the biggest touring show in the world for about two years when it started in the United States and England and Australia.

And the amount of time and trucks they used to haul it around the United States, they said, fuck it, we'll sell it to the Chinese.

And they did.

And the Chinese, unfortunately, just didn't know what to do with it.

Do you remember, you were there, I don't know.

They had this huge circus tent.

It was basically that.

And right next to the bird's nest in Beijing.

Yeah, I remember it being built.

Were you there?

I was there when the roof went on, I think I got there.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Well, do you remember the storm that came through?

It blew the whole thing almost down.

Yeah, yeah, of course I do.

Yeah, there was, the roof came off about three times in the sandstorm.

Yes.

And then various spanners and adjustable wrenches were falling from various heights.

It was mental.

Am I right, we got sent home quite a few times because the temperature got to some sort of insanely illegal number.

I can't remember.

It got very, very hot.

But I had one bad experience there, if I may.

My father died when I was there.

And it was very sad.

And I couldn't get my passport back in time to get back for the funeral because they were just slow in their process.

And that was, but apart from that, and I love my dad dearly, Welchman, I enjoyed it immensely.

The people you'd meet, the people walking around the street, beautiful, beautiful time.

And it was really great.

I mean, I met you and I keep in touch with a couple of people in the show.

So it was great.

I look back on it very fondly, actually, because my wife obviously came out after about two months.

And that was a whole ordeal, trying to get the passports and the visas for that.

And I knew for the listener, I had a three month old son when I flew out to Beijing and I didn't see him for two months by the time he landed.

So he landed in this taxi.

We didn't land in a taxi, not very weird.

He landed in a plane, got in a taxi and there was this big white baby.

And we sort of haul him around Beijing and people would just come up and kiss him.

They just kind of kiss him.

They just think it was okay to come and kiss him.

He was like the little star of the area when he went out.

It was the second coming, mate.

Do you remember when he got covered in beer?

Yes, I remember.

I remember your wife and your beautiful child.

I remember those nights we'd sit at that big open air bar place, like a German Oktoberfest place.

It was a good time.

It was such a joy to meet you.

Thanks, man.

We got on famously.

Oh, yeah.

I love you.

Of course.

It was a weird time because I was all set to come out for quite a long time.

Yes.

Relocating the family and everything.

Then at some point, I don't know what I can sound here.

I'll dub over some of this.

I'll make some noises over some of this.

I was brought out on the wrong visa by the production company.

Me and one other actor, who we both know, got sent to Hong Kong on a visa run with fake documents.

Then we had to apply for a visa and I had to go into, at least this was Hong Kong before Chinese total rule.

I have to go into this visa office knowing full well that what I was saying was lies and hand them this fake piece of paper in hope that I get the right visa.

Anyway, all that worked out okay.

It was me and another guy and we had a great old time staying in the Novo Hotel, eating wonderful food and hanging around Hong Kong.

It was brilliant.

We didn't have anything to do except wait for this.

And I was trying to keep him out of it.

So we had a great time, me and him, we were walking around, having a great time, eating food, taking in all the sights.

And then I flew back.

My wife and child had been in Beijing about a week.

I flew back and I walked in to a production meeting where they were telling us that the show was being pulled.

Such a fucking waste of time.

This has got nothing to do with the UK, Australia or American producers, purely the made up Chinese production company that was created in Beijing at the time.

Even before that, when I was there about a week or two, they decided some of the dubbing, we went over it with an interpreter and I remember there was a line in the show, something about one of the characters having a hat.

We had the recording of it and it said, titty hat.

And then from that one, we flagged up loads more and then it transpired that there was like about 15 of them.

So they flew me and the director to Shanghai to re-record with the original cast of, I cannot mention the name of the film because it's the same name as the show, who do the voiceovers for the actual films in China.

And I got to spend like two days in Shanghai doing that and then editing it on the plane on the way back.

It was just like, there was just like fucking money.

It was like, money was no object in some ways.

Yeah, I don't know.

I mean, the audiences weren't huge.

No.

Yeah, and they didn't know how to sell it, whether it was a kids' show or a young adult show or just a theatrical spectacular.

Yeah.

So it was a fucking mess.

I had fun, met great people and they paid me enough money to have fun.

Yeah, me too.

And send money home.

Did you, how did you feel actually, I mean, I'm sure I've asked you, but how did you feel when you would go on stage and you would speak knowing that it's probably me and just a few other people that can hear you and you were trying to sync up with the sample of Chinese language that I was pressing?

It was very hard.

Because I tried so hard to get it to come out of your mouth or to look like it came out of your mouth.

You were marvelous.

It was very hard.

You get through it as the professional that I am.

You just have to work, just do it as best you can with the other actors, you know, and that's the hardest thing because you can only control yourself, what you're doing.

And a lot of stuff around us, people didn't care after a while.

They just didn't care.

You ended up doing the show for yourselves in a way, right?

Basically, I was doing it for myself.

I love the show and I love the people who created it.

What I normally ask people to do, even though this is sort of informal, is tell the audience who you are and a bit about yourself.

Okay, me, I'm Robert Morgan.

I was born in Wales, then moved to Australia when I was a kid, six years old.

That's why I sound the way I do.

But I still call myself Welsh, because I'm just an African fucker.

But I love the Welsh, the Welsh poetic core.

Yeah.

Anyway, and I grew up in the country Australia.

I became a boxing champion, professional boxer.

I fell in love with a girl, so I joined an amateur drama company.

I went to drama school after that.

I worked a lot in Australia, in a lot of theater and television, some films.

Then I left the industry because I had a family and I wasn't making enough money.

I was selling cars, Subarus by the way.

In my 40s, I got the gig doing the show we cannot mention, which was great.

Then they chose me out of all the people they could have chose throughout the world because they liked me.

That brought me to America.

I got my green card.

I worked a lot of film and television here.

I still do.

I still am.

I'm still here now in Los Angeles.

I got my US citizenship because it's easier to come and go.

With a US citizenship.

So, my family are back in Australia.

I go back and forth and me, I don't know.

It's a long journey to get to this very point.

It's very spiritual.

I personally had to fight a lot of things of not being frustrated, angry, what have you, as a human being, as an actor.

I feel very good being here.

My work is good.

I get a lot of great auditions and great shows.

Some I get, some I don't.

Here it's longevity.

For me, at my age, to come in and say, hey, here I am, I had to earn, people say, oh, he's good, please ask him to audition.

Ask him to come and see us.

It takes a long, long time.

There's a lot of flip-flopping here.

There's a lot of bullshit.

There's a lot of people who don't work.

But I'm here by myself.

I live in a very huge movie trailer on a hill next to a graveyard in Glendale.

Glendale, okay.

Remember that.

And I'm very, very fortunate.

I have some great friends.

I've worked with some great people.

The last time I did was with Brad Pitt.

Yeah, Babylon.

And what do you do with it?

But that's the truth of it.

And I'm very, very fortunate.

And I'm very, very fortunate.

I have some great friends, I've worked with some great people.

Babylon.

Again, it was like, it was too big and what do you do with it?

And I'm going back to Australia to do some, who'll hear this?

How long do you spend in LA now compared to, do you basically live in Australia?

In LA and just go to Australia on breaks?

Yes, I do that.

I don't want to bring my family here until he finishes high school.

He's in year 11.

We 16.

I don't want to take him out of school because it's very hard here and it's very difficult.

He's still working out what the hell he wants to do.

Who knows what you want to do when you're 16.

They're there.

This is just the choices you make.

People accept that.

We accept that.

My eldest son, who's almost 30 because I'm an older man, he's okay.

He still looks the same.

He hasn't aged a day.

No, I haven't.

I'm very fit.

No, you haven't.

It's all the boxing.

There was boxing.

Yes.

He's okay, but I spend a lot of time here because I choose to.

There's no other argument for it except I choose to.

It's where the work is, I guess.

It is the work, even though there's a writer's strike here at the moment.

Yes, of course.

And that's why, unfortunately, I can go and work in other places like Australia.

And of course, I have a British passport too, so I can work there as well.

He's the International Man of Mystery.

I do enjoy seeing you in many things.

I mean, I did watch George & Tammy, we watched the whole season of that.

That was fantastic.

Did you like it?

I loved it.

I haven't watched the whole season.

I haven't watched it.

I have to say, I mean, I loved you in it, but I loved the whole show.

And I'm not a country guy at all.

And when I found out that Jessica Chastain and Michael Shannon were actually singing, it blew me and my wife's minds.

We couldn't believe it.

I was in the studio once.

Do you know the scene where I'm listening to the cut of one of the songs he's singing?

Yeah.

And fuck, he's all right for a country singer.

But you know, I have no qualms saying that my time with Michael Shannon was great.

He's a generous person and we had such a good connection ever so brief, really a personal connection, just talking, shooting the shit and Jessica Chastain was very welcoming, you know.

And I don't get intimidated by people anymore.

I never used to, but even when I was young, but these people are just good people.

And most good people who are about the work, you know, there's all the trappings around it, all the bullshit, but it's about the work and Michael Shannon is a really fine actor.

And so it's Jessica Chastain, she's great.

And my friend, so yeah, I am fortunate to have me on a sofa with Brad Pitt.

I mean, I remember saying to Jessica Chastain when she won her Oscar, and we were, I saw her a few days later and said, Congratulations.

I'm very grateful to work with you.

And she said, Rob, Rob, I'm grateful for you.

That's a truthful but wanky thing, but she actually meant it.

It was really nice.

High praise indeed.

Yes.

But so look, you do just good work for me, look, I'm wanking on here a little bit.

If you can't do good work, you know, it's about that business, the creativity, what you feel when you're trying to be the essence, as I used to discuss with you, and we discussed in Beijing about what you get out of it, it's like you're doing it for yourself, to give to other people to take on any way they want.

And it's like whether you're being dubbed or not, whether you're doing it in a film set or TV set, you have to do it honestly and be there in the moment.

And I'm wanking on here, mate, I'm sorry, sorry, sorry.

And that's okay.

I'm interested.

This is what it's about.

That's what you get, like when you work with good people, because it's like they're not trying to make something happen.

It's just there and you get in a great connection.

And that's what I got out of the things I do.

Like one of my favorite shows was to do was The OA, which was a very strange show.

I love The OA.

So weird, though.

It was such a weird show.

Weird.

We were hooked on that.

They cancelled another season because they just didn't know what to do with it.

And I met a good friend, Jason Isaacs, and he came and worked on a film I did in Australia, because I asked him to.

And it was a great film called Streamline.

You should have a look it up.

The director is really good.

He works here called Streamline.

The director is Tyson Johnson.

But Jason came along and he was great.

And I spent hours with him trying to teach him doing Australian accent.

I will have to check that out now.

Have a look at it.

But he was great.

He came in there and he sat with everybody and he started sort of throwing shit around and with conversation like, you know, fucking you, can't fuck you, yeah, he got really into it.

So, when you're doing something like The OA, did it seem as odd a show?

Obviously, when you're watching it, it's kind of a certain way, and it started to make sense at the end of season one, but you sort of have to stick with it.

I didn't quite understand it, because the journey the character I was, which was the cop who wanted to save his wife, I'm not spoiling it, but that was a simple singular journey.

What was going on beyond that, I had no idea, no idea.

But the funny thing, because Jason is right, he's English, proper English chap, and I'm Australian, and the director, I even forget his name, it's a strange name to pronounce.

Jason and I were having a cigarette out the back, and the director was listening to us, and he came up to us and he said, you're not Americans, what the fuck?

No one is, no one in the...

Yeah, we were just talking like you and me.

I know, it's like I'm watching a show right now called Silo on Apple TV.

A friend of mine is about to appear in an episode of it.

And everyone is British and they're all pretending to be American because it's such an ensemble cast of people who I know aren't American.

It's hard for me to watch because I think, well, I know it was filmed in Hertfordshire or something.

I know they're all British.

Just why can't...

They might as well have just been British or just get some Americans because they are available.

Yes, they are because...

But I find other people do American accents much better than Americans doing other accents, I find.

But I think it's just because the American content is so prevalent and also, you know, I mean, I always imagined LA, Hollywood, the work here was better quality.

And I have to say sometimes it is.

Have you done any filming over here recently?

No, no, the last time I was there was a long time, eight years ago, I think, or before, just before I came there because my I'm dropping a name here, my good friend, Ray Winston.

Oh, yes.

He's a man of mine.

And because he used to be a boxer and I was a boxer.

And we met on the set of The Proposition, which is a great film.

And we just mates and we keep in contact with each other.

But I went over there and I did a little bit of work.

I did a lot of theatre there a long time ago, touring theatre from Australia.

And it was really great.

But film and television?

No, no, because I didn't stay there.

I just, I don't know.

I wanted to go to America, and here I am.

Well, that's where our world's sort of similar thing is like.

With me doing this now, I now do stand-up comedy, and I write, and I'm doing this podcast.

And for me, the transition from basically a backstage technical kind of person, and then sort of almost out in yourself as a creative to other people is kind of difficult because I just expect people to go, why the fuck would he, who's he, why would he do it?

What, the guy who was mixing the sound on the play, who the fucks do you think he is?

But it's very hard, but you've got to take that leap and I've found it to be quite positive actually.

I'm getting a lot of-

Well, Steve, always when I met you, we had the most wonderful conversations.

You are such a broad and intelligent man.

I'm not sucking up to you because, but I always felt that, I knew that and we had great times and I would expect you to do something more than just press buttons, like that sounds terrible.

It's great to see you do what you want to do because you're such a bright human being.

That's nice to say.

Thanks, Rob.

That's very sweet of you.

Let's get to some silly format points just for some fun.

I do have one question I want to ask you about your television appearances.

It's just something I noticed.

The accents are bad?

Fuck you.

No, the accents are fantastic.

Always, absolutely always.

But what I have noticed is you always play a character that is in charge of people.

So let me just read these few out.

So the OA, you're a sheriff.

In The Secret That She Keeps, you're an inspector.

In The Proposition, you're a sergeant.

In Hacksaw Ridge, you're a colonel.

So obviously people see something in you that some kind of gravitas and authoritarian kind of persona.

I think gravitas is the word.

I think maybe the way I physically carry myself and also I look at people very intently when I work.

And this is another name in Hacksaw Ridge.

I did an audition for Mel Gibson and they sent it off and I got the role as Colonel Sangston or whatever the fuck his name was.

But I'll tell you a story about the real guy, the real guy, they changed his name.

The real guy in the real story couldn't hack it on the front and he left when he was returned to the States after all the shit he put private DOS through.

Anyway, I remember Mel Gibson telling the casting guy, I want that guy because he's like a fucking wolf.

He never stops looking at people.

And because I was a fighter, you would always engage intently with what you were doing.

I think that's it.

I think maybe that's why because I have an intensity and I look as though I could punch the fuck out of you if you don't do it.

You do look, I mean, he's absolutely sweet, hard, big, softy, but he does actually look, you can look very scary.

Yes, I can.

You can look a little bit, you can look a little intense, it's very unnerving.

I think that's it and I'm not that short, I'm 6'1, I think, and it's because a lot of actors are short.

Oh, how can I say this?

I don't give a fuck, you know?

It's like, you know, people say, oh, you can't talk to that person, oh, you can't email that, you can't do that, you can't fucking say, G'day, how are you?

It's like, I know people who are very powerful in this city, right?

In the business, the TV world.

Yeah.

And, you know, people dance quietly around, and I can't say, I'll do that, I'll move that.

I said, G'day, man, how are you?

Good to see you again.

What the fuck's going on?

I don't care.

If he gives me a job, great, if not, I can't control that, but I don't, maybe because I'm older now, I don't give a fuck.

I mean, if people don't want to fucking buy into saying hello to someone, or say, hey, here I am, I don't care.

Hello, you may be wondering why we're not hitting any other format points.

Well, this was on the episode four, and Rob's kind of my friend, so we kind of got off track a bit, talking about stuff and anecdotes, but come on, we'll get on with it now.

Right, let's hit some format points just for comedic effect.

I won't ask loads of them because, you know, I'm still sort of getting to grips with how this show goes together.

So, Rob, obviously, I'm not going to ask you your age, but I know that when you were a kid, there would have been some very, very, very strange things on television.

So...

We didn't have a fucking television when I was a kid.

Did you not have a telly?

Yes, I'm not going to work.

Okay, that's it.

The podcast is over.

I remember sitting on my mother's lap watching a TV in the house we lived in in Liverpool.

And I remember watching it in Australia, of course, we had a TV.

And it was a long time ago.

But what I remember, I remember the Benny Hill Show.

Wildly inappropriate.

Wildly inappropriate for a kid my age.

I remember some a lot like when I was in Australia, there was just I don't remember much in England.

But in Australia, I remember a lot of American shows like cartoons like Lassie.

Lassie was Skippy a thing in Australia because I remember there was a thing called Skippy Wee Watch.

When Skippy came out, I was sort of a late teenager.

I didn't give a fuck about the fucking kangaroos.

I'd rather shoot the fucker and eat it.

Get yourself some roostakes.

I'm vegetarian.

I can't eat them.

Anyone that knows me knows that kangaroos are by far my favorite animal on this earth.

So all this talk of eating them is very, very, very naughty.

The question I wanted to ask you really was, was there a TV show when you were a kid that scared the shit out of you?

Oh, it scared the shit out of me.

Yes.

I was a late teenager, maybe 13, maybe not.

There was a film, which I don't know how it got on the TV, but it was called Barren Blood.

It was a movie, Barren Blood.

I think it was Vincent Price.

I don't know, but I've never been so scared as a sort of middling 15-year-old teenager watching that film.

I was scared shitless.

Before everybody starts writing in to complain that films aren't television, let me just reiterate that some of these films would have been watched on a television set, because it was back in the day.

Now, I might have to come up with some kind of film button in the future, but for now, we're just going to let it slide until the part gets going.

Okay, everyone, I know the accent changed, but bear with me.

This one, I know you're going to know.

If that is not a clue.

What's the first TV show that you saw which had a person or a character in which gave you those funny feelings?

Funny feelings?

Basically, which one gave you the horn?

Which show gave you the horn?

Who was.

It?

It was certainly something in Australia.

I think she's passed away now, so I don't know if I'm allowed to say, but it was, I think it was Skippy, actress called Rowena Wallace.

She was a very beautiful woman, gorgeous woman.

I was would have been about 15.

And she was gorgeous.

Yeah.

And I thought, wow, I could look at her, trace like a fucking kangaroo all day.

There was a show called Division 4, which was a cop show, and that was pseudo violent, you know.

But no, my parents didn't give a fuck.

Yeah, they didn't care what was on.

And, oh yes, there was...

Ha ha ha.

Um, there was a...

When I was maybe 12 or 13, I cycled very quickly home from my school.

I watched Kimba the White Lion.

Do you remember that?

It was a cartoon?

I don't know it, no.

You'll have to explain it.

Kimba the White Lion.

It was a cartoon.

And it was like this, you know...

Basically, it's like, you know, The Lion King.

But way back...

This is the late 60s, mate.

We're talking about.

And if you look it up, and it's about a lion cub, Kimba, and he had a few mates in the jungle.

Now you're saying Kimba the White Lion, which makes me immediately think of Simba.

Did they nick that?

No, I don't know.

But it was Kimba the White Lion.

I remember.

It was Japanese.

It was a Fuji TV Japanese, a Japanese show.

Yeah.

And now another show I loved watching when I was that was Shintaro, which is another Japanese Shintaro.

It was a half hour sort of samurai thing.

And he is the good ninjas, the bad ninjas battling it out.

Called the Eager Ninja and the something else ninja.

Well, those two were Japanese, I think.

And they were great.

And also Monkey.

Monkey.

The original TV.

Here is the insight.

The original TV Monkey series.

The woman who played the monk was gorgeous.

And I loved watching her.

But that was a man.

That was a very...

See, there we are.

It was a woman.

Yes, I know it was a woman.

But the character was male.

Yes.

And we all fancied her.

Yes.

And that was confusing in a time before.

Before you're allowed to be confused.

Tripitaka.

The monk was gorgeous.

Drop dead gorgeous.

He was.

She was.

When I first went on tour, I didn't have access to television.

There's nothing on in England.

No shit.

Coronation Street, East Enders.

I remember sitting in my first tour I ever went on, first theatre tour I went on, sitting in my first digs, looking at the television.

And the thing that was on when I got back from the theatre was the See Here Quiz.

It was a quiz show for the deaf.

The thing was, it contained like background music through all the questions.

And I was wondering like, who wrote this?

And are they happy about that?

And I was like, that's all that was on.

It was so beautiful and sad at the same time.

Yeah, it really is.

And then like about five years after that, I finally fucking, you know, got someone was on tour and they had a DVD player.

And then we were like, oh, let's watch House.

Check out this show House.

And I was like, oh, what's House?

And then I started Devouring House and Alias and Monk and all these other shows at the time.

So was there a time when, I don't know what age, like in your forties and maybe fifties where you start watching telly again in this kind of binge world that we now live in?

Or do you not watch telly?

Do you not watch?

No, no, I don't watch a lot of, like I used to watch a lot of cop shows when I was in my thirties and forties, especially The Bill.

I loved The Bill.

The Bill, really?

This is so proper.

Every British actor is in one of the episodes.

Yeah, it was really, really great.

And like I would have Saturday night, English nights where I'd have sausages and eggs and baked beans.

This is intriguing.

And watch The Bill.

That's amazing.

Yeah, because I loved the state, you know, the feet walking along the fucking...

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

And I remember the characters and some of them dying, some of them being fucking...

But I didn't think of it as a soap.

I thought it was a really good show.

I thought it was really well.

Z Cars, I remember watching with my mum.

Do you remember Z Cars?

I only know of it.

I've never seen it.

It's black and white, right?

Yeah, I remember watching that with my mum.

That was pretty intense.

So I got a love for British TV because I always thought the writing was really, really great.

Even as I progressed through my life, the writing is really, really good.

I do binge watch shows if I get them on a streaming service.

But I don't have the regular NBC, ABC channels here.

No.

Well, I found like when you do binge watch something, like say The OA, when you, I have to keep remembering those letters the right way around.

When you're watching The OA, I remember it's one of the typical shows that this happened to me on, where I binge watched it.

And then there was a gap of well over a year, I think, between that and season two.

By the time season two came around, I really did need a recap because I couldn't remember.

So I had to go back and sort of watch, you know, some fucking asshole American YouTuber yammering on about something he doesn't understand.

You're like your good self.

Yeah, I mean, for me, I just always watch the last episode and it all sort of comes back.

But do you find that when you binge watch something that you-

Oh, yes, absolutely.

It doesn't go in.

It doesn't go in.

But there's several TV shows on at the moment, which I get on Brit Box and I do have Brit Box, which I like.

They're not the highest quality shows, but they're pretty good.

Some of them, like McDonald and Dodds.

I'm waiting for that fucking next episode.

McDonald and Dodds, what is that?

It's a cop show, but it's like this Sergeant Dodds and Inspector McDonald.

She's a really great black inspector down some sort of fucking country place in England.

And he's a doddering Sergeant Dodd.

They really get together.

And things like that.

Some of them are extremely good.

Some of them are just comfortable because they're nice.

But yes, I wait for the next series.

I wait for the next episode.

I check in every Tuesday to see if the episode has been dropped.

But yeah, look, I like binge watching.

I think that's like a drug.

It's the way things go nowadays, you know.

No, I just, it's a hook and, you know, it's a good way to run your business.

You binge watch and then they bring you back because they have another series.

It's really very clever.

The things I liked when I was watching sort of George & Tammy, knowing that it was a finite TV show made it much more enjoyable for me.

I'm noticing that I love a mini-series.

I love it to be over because like watching Silo, watching Last of Us, things like that, I do think, so am I going to be watching this for 10 years now?

Is that my line?

Anyway, back to you, back to you, Rob.

Let's cut all that out.

We're not gonna get the council.

You need a job.

Back to me.

And we're always looking out for Australian TV.

We watch even the sort of silly stuff.

Like I watch the silly stuff, like, what's it called?

Five bedrooms and bump, things like that.

Just like sort of light stuff.

They're great shows too.

They're fun.

And we watch gritty stuff like Mr.

In Between, which I fucking loved.

I expect you to turn up in that, to be honest with you.

You should have been in that.

Well, yeah, I want to tell you about a show I'm creating with a friend.

But I can't because it's very, very funny.

And I just want to, we're trying to find a producing partner and that's the hardest part.

Is it a comedy?

It's a dark, dark comedy.

I'd send you the link and maybe I'll do that.

I'll send you the actual pitch deck and the proof of concept.

You can have a giggle, okay?

And you can tell me what you think of it.

I'll do that.

I'll send the email to you tonight.

Oh, thanks, Rob.

I'd be absolutely honored.

So living in LA, do you get to see much Australian television?

Television, I don't get to watch a lot of it because I'm not there a lot.

Yeah.

But some of the stuff is really good, like...

The secret she keeps is pretty good, isn't it?

Yeah, that was good.

That was the English girl who played the lead.

Really?

Yeah, she's English.

They made a second series.

Of course, I was in it.

Have they really?

I'll have to make a note of that.

I didn't get that memo.

But currently, I don't get to watch Australian TV much.

To be honest with you, I miss out.

I'm going back to do a TV show in the next few weeks.

Really?

Can you say anything about that or not?

It's called High Country.

No, I can't say any more about that.

Watch out for High Country.

It's a lot of secrets.

You're not in any Marvel films or Star Wars.

Oh, you're in Picard.

Is that true?

Or is that a mistake?

Are you in Picard?

Yes, we're doing an episode of Picard.

It was great fun.

You're in Picard?

Yes.

Were you heavily made up or did you look like yourself?

Yes, I was.

Not like an alien, but I had very bad scarring down my face.

Yeah.

Which burned scars and they did a good job, you know?

And they said, I asked them, do you want an American accent?

No.

You know, Australian.

Yeah, fuck it.

And they let me do it in an Australian accent.

That's great.

Because the guy I was working with, he's an English actor and so it sounded really good.

Two different accents.

Space.

No one can hear you accent in space.

This is my problem with Silo.

It's like they don't all have to be American.

This could be anything.

No.

It's like you don't have to.

Anything.

You don't want a bunch of Liam Neesons wandering around going in and out of accent, you know?

I'm not saying a word.

Yeah, I mean, I've got some laughs.

I didn't not get laughs, so that's all right.

And they want me to do it again, so it couldn't have been total shit.

I'm doing another one tomorrow night in a pub, a rowdy pub in...

Oh, my fucking hell.

They're going to love all my gags about Back to the Future 2, aren't they?

Okay, now.

Nice and current.

Yeah.

I looked out at the crowd, and everyone was about 25 years old, and I thought, oh, man, I'm going to have to change some names here because Michael Flatley lined up.

Yep.

Exactly.

Who the fuck is that?

Let's not do any more of this.

You can ask me what you want.

Go on.

That's all right.

We'll throw the format away.

We'll just have a chat now.

So is there anything you want to plug though, at the end?

Plug?

Just in case people actually listen to this thing.

Oh, look, I think High Country is a good show, and I'm happy to do some episodes on that.

That's good.

And Australia here, actually, you know, no, there's nothing I want to plug except me.

So are you on social media, like TikTok, things like that?

I hate TikTok.

I hate influencers.

But you know, you're in the same game.

This is what you're doing.

You know, we all are.

We all play our game.

Yeah, we're going to need their help.

Yeah, absolutely.

Help me influence the Kenobi.

Yeah, it's terrible.

Well, I think we'll wrap this up, Rob.

I'll say something after I stop recording.

And thank you.

Thanks, man, I really appreciate this and what this is allowing me to do, which, you know, like, as you get older, you have less friends as a man.

I think that's quite normal.

Well, with you, that's normal.

You have less friends.

With me, I'm down to zero at this point.

But yeah, it's nice to actually be able to talk to people I like and really admire and able to have a conversation because I think we think we're in contact because we see each other on social media and things like that, but we're not really talking.

And this is an actual talk.

So hopefully, if this all goes well, I'd love to get you back on another point in time.

Anytime.

You're my friend.

I love talking to you anyway, mate.

So it's all good.

Thanks, Rob.

Keep punching.

Thanks for coming on.

See you later.

Can you hang up?

I don't know how.

So that was Robert Morgan, IMDb, Australian actor and former boxer.

Fantastic guest, real good talk.

Loved hanging out with him online.

Felt really, really easy to chat to, and it was really good fun seeing him on the other end, even though we were eight hours apart for our little chat.

Okay, enough of me chatting.

The outro track this week is We Are Animals, which is the title track of the same album recorded in Japan, but purely because Rob is Australian, We Are Animals is the only song I can remember fully writing whilst in Australia.

Written in about January 2006, as I recall, recorded that same year.

Hope you like it.

I still do.

Thank you.

Bye bye.

So there we have it, that's the song We Are Animals from the album We Are Animals, which will be remastered and put up quite soon to the interweb.

Anyway, if you like this podcast, please follow the show and listen to us every week.

It's only going to get better and better.

Bye bye for now.