Tuning in…
Tuning in…
Castaway
1 appearance
Australian pop star and actress, best known for chart-topping hits and her role as Charlene in Neighbours.
On the island
Eight records
I performed Dancing Queen at the 2000 Olympics in Sydney, which was just an epic moment for me.
The reason I've chosen a Stevie Wonder song is that when my parents used to have dinner parties, Stevie Wonder's album, Songs in the Key of Life, which is a double album, was played all the time.
The theme song from the movie Cinema Paradiso brings me to tears every time.
I performed this on my last World Tour and I would kind of have a word to him in my mind before I performed it every night.
My brother played it to me and I just thought it was so simple and lovely, and it reminds me of being home on our family farm.
As I Look UpFavourite
I would like to have a surprise from Josh. I figured if I was a castaway on an island I'd very much like to have a surprise, and I'd like to know what someone else thought.
It's Louis Armstrong with What a Wonderful World.
In conversation
Presenter asks
1:42Why do you put yourself through that?
Yeah. Thank you for that lovely introduction. You're welcome. I'm either a show off or I'm a complete shy kind of mouse. So why do I do it? I guess because I like it and it comes very naturally and I'm completely unqualified to do anything else.
Presenter asks
2:23Where is music in your life? Not your music, but the music you listen to for pleasure?
Oh, it's everywhere. I wouldn't say my family or my parents were especially musical. I didn't kind of grow up in a house that was. Full of music, and we all, you know, they didn't play instruments, it's not that kind of family. But, you know, as a kind of eight-year-old getting into Greece, that was a life-changing. A lot of Australian bands. And then as a teenager, I just became a pop fanatic and would hover, hover for who knows how long above my mono radio cassette player, which I still have. It's like it's a relic with complete with graffiti and all the stuff that I put on it when I was 13, 14, you know, hovering to record my favourite song. I literally cannot imagine a world without music.
Presenter asks
5:10Tell me about your Year Eight piano exam. How did you get on?
Oh, the eights and unders. That's a story my dad loves to tell to this day. I guess even then I wanted to do things my own way. I hate rules. I hate being boxed in. I literally can't stand it. And that was part of me even as I was younger because I didn't want to do the grades. I didn't want to have to learn. I liked playing and I'd learnt everything by ear. So when it came to going into this little piano Stairford I walked on to the stage, my dad says I was sat and I looked over to the judges and gave a really big smile. Went back, played run, sheep, run, or whatever it was, finished. Big smile to the judges, and I don't recall anyone telling me to do that. I came second only to some piano child prodigy, and it kind of illustrates how I work today. I don't do all that background stuff. I'd rather have a kind of natural feeling for it and have space to breathe in. And if if I am forced to do something, I will do everything not to do it.
The keepsakes
The book
Not recorded.
The luxury
I just love them so much. So if they wouldn't mind parting with them just for my stay on the island I would just love to have [them].
Presenter asks
8:04Did that [your sister's success] fire your ambition?
I think it did a little, yeah, to see that it was possible. I mean, had Dan not been doing Young Talent Time, I don't think we would have had any connection to Showbiz at all. I do remember having a fantasy that my neighbours there was a family with a a boy next door. And I would imagine that his father was a record producer and would hear me singing. I mean I was eight or nine and I just thought all kids dreamt of being a pop star or or being a singer.
Presenter asks
11:08How much input did you have [on your early pop career]?
Oh, I had none. I had zero. And you know what? I think that worked perfectly at the time. Sometime later, I'm curious and I like to learn and I like to do. So there was a period where I became more frustrated. I wanted to be more involved. But I mean, it was called the Hit Factory. There wasn't really much room to kind of hang around and get to know your craft, man. It was like, here it is, you're on a flight tonight, let's do it, go. So it worked out strangely perfectly.
Presenter asks
15:18Why do you think you had the resilience to bounce out of being a child star?
My family. No matter what happens, I know, I know unequivocally that they're there. I have had my moments, of course, I've had especially when I was just starting and and it was pretty crazy and you know the press can be s so horrible at times. There was definitely a period where I had my version of a breakdown.
“I literally cannot imagine a world without music.”
“I hate rules. I hate being boxed in. I literally can't stand it.”
“I don't do all that background stuff. I'd rather have a kind of natural feeling for it and have space to breathe in.”
“There was definitely a period where I had my version of a breakdown.”
“I started successful and then I had to learn everything in front of everyone.”