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I have always wanted to ask a Bake Off host this – how much cake do you actually get to eat during the filming of The Great Australian Bake Off?
We are told to leave the cakes alone until after the judging has happened. It doesn’t always happen that way, but they don’t cap how much cake we eat after that. Sometimes we are told, “Hey, I know you want to eat that, but don’t!” But the bakers know so they make us little extras. It’s like we’re little birds in the wild. Trash birds. They put cut-offs on the side of the bench, and we go past and swipe them.
Following your previous comments in the Guardian: do you still believe it should be illegal for people to not own rice cookers?
Yes, 100%. Jail time. No questions asked. I’ve watched a lot of people make it in a saucepan and it blows my mind. When I said that, I got a lot of comments in the comment section of that article – I just put all their names on a list and submitted it to a court nearby. All go to jail. It’s so easy.
I’m afraid to admit I don’t own a rice cooker.
You don’t own a rice cooker? Do you make rice?
Yeah, quite a lot.
In a pan? But don’t you have to clean it afterwards?
Yeah, it’s all right.
[Pained silence] But your life could be so much easier. I don’t understand why you live like that.
What is your least favourite bird and why?
I actually have a specific bird. I’m not scared of birds the way some people are, but I am really cautious around them because they remember things. There’s this bird in my neighbourhood. I walked around the corner and I saw it standing on top of a magpie and it was screaming at the magpie and all these birds were around it. I ran up and was like “Oi!” I don’t know why – like, why get involved in bird gang wars? I don’t know the backstory. But I did it and this bird looked up at me and I was like “Oh no, it’s gonna remember this”. So then I had to pretend I was doing something else and walked past them going “Oi, oi oi”, hoping that the bird would go, oh, that’s just a weird thing that she does. But this bird still visits sometimes. I’m worried.
Do you ever feel envious of your Bake Off co-host Tom Walker’s nice knitwear?
Yes. But he sweats so much in it. No way, Jose. It’s not that he smells bad. He smells delightful. Well, he smells OK. I have neutral feelings towards Tom Walker’s scent. But some days are warm and I look at him and laugh. So no, actually I’m not envious.
What has been your most cringeworthy run-in with a famous person?
Steve Carell was coming on for a segment for an Australian show that my partner was working on, so I begged to come along. My partner said, “OK, but you have to stand in the corner and pretend you’re listening to comms”. So I did that. But then Steve’s person came over and asked, “Can I have a listen to what you’re listening to?” I wasn’t listening to anything, I was just standing in the corner with a headset on. So I just ignored them and pretended that the audio was too loud. And they asked again and I was like, oh my God. And I just stood there and I guess we all died inside. It was horrific. And this happened after I had held out my hand to Steve and said “Hi!” But Steve didn’t see, so he didn’t shake it. My partner saw all of this and he had the biggest smile on. I was like, “I’m going to kill you”.
You rose to fame as a YouTuber in the 2000s. If you were starting out on YouTube now, what do you think you would be doing on there?
Probably one of the many niche things that I’ve really enjoyed watching other people make videos about. I hope I would have learned some really cool woodworking skills. I don’t know if I’d be a YouTuber now. There’s so many more people now and they’re all very skilled. I watch so many barbering and woodworking videos. They’re amazing.
What is your most controversial pop culture opinion?
I didn’t think there was going to be so much backlash about the Timothée Chalamet ballet-opera thing. I didn’t know that those institutions were so powerful they could come down and destroy his Oscars run. That was amazing. Don’t fuck with opera people.
What is the weirdest thing you have done for love?
On my first date with my partner, I made a PDF of activities. I made two versions so he could pick the itinerary that he would want to do. I thought it was nice, but other people have said it was weird. One of the choices was to go to the observatory, have dinner, go bowling and see a movie. Or if he wasn’t into that, he could have dinner first, do a walk and go to the library. I had times and maps in it. I like to let people know what they’re in for. I’m big into letting people know if there’s parking around before meeting up with me.
Who is the most surprising person who has talked to you about Mr Inbetween?
If I need a tradesperson to come and help me do anything, because I’m useless, when I open the door they usually look at me and go, “Are you in Mr Inbetween?” It makes me sad, because I must look really angry or grumpy when I open the door. That is all I do in that show. But I do enjoy it when they’re like, “Are you the angry wife?” That’s me, I’m the angry wife!
What’s the most chaotic thing that has ever happened to you on set?
When we film Bake Off, I have a little hot water bottle that I sometimes put in my clothes, strapped on my back. Once we were filming and it fell down into my jumpsuit bottom so I looked like a baby with a nappy. I don’t know if that’s chaotic. It was just inconvenient. But the crew were behind me so they just watched my bottom slowly grow, then fall slowly to my knees.
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