From Chubby Kid to Celebrated Athlete & Host of Dancing With The Stars

Some people are artists. Others are athletes. It's the rare individual who can excel at both. As I kid, I was interested in sport and things creative. But for some reason, I came to the conclusion that you just can't do it all. I had to pick and never the ‘twain shall meet. Call it a left brain, right brain thing. Most of us lean in one direction. We're either logical and calculated by nature, or we're whimsical dreamers. We settle on a side and call it a day. But what if we really could excel at both? My Australian mate Daniel MacPherson is great example of someone who seamlessly traverses back and forth between seemingly unrelated worlds, tightrope walking both hemispheres of the mysterious cranium with facile grace and ease. Not only is he a tremendously talented and gifted athlete – a guy who has competed at the highest levels in triathlon, he is also a quite gifted artist – as an actor, television host and media personality. Not to mention an exceptionally successful and celebrated one at that. It's by no means a stretch to call Dan the Ryan Secrest of Australia — and I mean that in the most complimentary, non-perjorative sense. Brimming with good looks, endless charm, intelligence, athletic prowess and creativity to boot, quite simply put it's hard to imagine there is anything Dan can't do, and do well. Dan has qualified for and raced the Ironman World Championships, the Half Ironman 70.3 World Championships, and began his triathlon career at the storied Cronulla Triathlon Club in the suburbs of Sydney, training amidst the sport's greatest athletes – world champions like Craig Alexander & Chris McCormack (my guest on RRP episode 24 ). This is the same club that produced triathlon legends Greg Welch and Michellie Jones – the biggest names in the more formative years of triathlon. As a youth, Dan was intent on becoming the best triathlete he could be. Then something totally out of the blue happened. At the conclusion of a local race, he was “discovered.” The rest is history. Best known for his role on Australia’s long running series Neighbours, Dan starred in City Homicide , the British police drama The Bill and was the host of Australia’s X-Factor. He is the currently co-host of Australia's wildly popular Dancing with the Stars and is starring in a soon to be released independent sci-fi drama called Infini. But despite Dan's blinding good looks and impeccable fitness, what is amazing is that it wasn't always this way. You might be surprised to learn that Dan was actually a chubby and somewhat insecure young bloke. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Rich Roll?

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• 0:44Rich Roll?

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• 1:08Rich Roll?

  Welcome to the Rich Roll Podcast, episode 105 with Dan McPherson.

• 1:22Speaker 01

  The Rich Roll Podcast.

• 1:25Rich Roll?

  Hey, everybody. Rich Roll here, not surprisingly your host of the Rich Roll Podcast. Welcome to the show. Welcome to the RRP. Thank you for listening. Thank you for sharing the show with a friend. Thanks for all the great feedback. Got a lot of great feedback from last week's episode with Mishka. That guy's super popular. That really was a cool conversation. Glad you enjoyed it. Also, wanted to let you know that I was on the phone with John Joseph last night. He was out here in Los Angeles. The other weekend, last weekend, for the Malibu triathlon. And unfortunately, I didn't get a chance to see him because I was in Washington DC at the same time, so we were ships in the night. But he wanted to let me know that he was overwhelmed with people constantly coming

• 2:08Rich Roll?

  up to him and saying that they had heard him on my podcast. And he said even during the race, when he was in transition, coming out of the swim and getting on his bike, or coming off the bike and getting on the run, that people were yelling, "Rich Roll Podcast, Adam, I heard you on the Rich Roll Podcast." And he just, he couldn't believe it. He couldn't believe the reach of the show. And that warms my heart. It makes me really happy to know that you guys are out there listening and that you support the people that I cherry pick, that I handpick to have on the show. That's super cool, so thanks for doing that. Thank you also for using the Amazon banner ad at richroll.com for all your Amazon purchases. This really helps us out a lot. And I got an interesting email the other day from a fan.

• 2:50Rich Roll?

  He said, "Hey, it's great what you're doing with the Amazon banner ad at richroll.com, but it's kind of a pain to go to richroll.com every time I want to go to Amazon and click that banner." There's actually a widget out there that you can kind of embed into your browser so that every time you go to Amazon, it just automatically credits our show with the commission on that. And I don't understand how it all works. I gotta look into it. I gotta get my tech guys on to it. But I'm looking into trying to make that available, which would make it a lot easier for you guys to support the show. And again, it doesn't cost you anything extra on your Amazon purchases. Amazon just kicks us some commission change, and that has really helped us out a lot. So, thank you, thank you, thank you. All right.

• 3:34Rich Roll?

  You know what we do here. We have a goal. We have a collective goal, and that goal is to help all of us live and be better, myself included. And to do this, my end of this equation, my part, is each week I sit down, put together, and offer to you guys...

• 3:54Rich Roll?

  Conversations, long-form conversations with people who inspire me. Thought leaders, artists, entrepreneurs, world-class athletes, doctors, nutritionists, trainers, and even everyday people. People who have managed to transcend their circumstances, people who have managed to do amazing things. Paradigm-busting minds and personalities here to educate, motivate, and inspire you on your own, unique path to uncover, unlock, and unleash your best, most authentic self. Yeah, dude. All right. Today's guest, Dan McPherson, he's a buddy of mine. He's a sometimes training partner. I wish I trained with him more than I do. I don't train with him that much, actually. But he's a great guy.

• 4:36Rich Roll?

  He's become a friend, and I'm really glad to introduce him to you guys here. And it brings up a very sort of interesting subject that I've spent a lot of time thinking about over the years. And it's this idea of kind of predeterminism. This idea of left brain versus right brain. This idea that some people are artists, other people are athletes. But artists can't be athletes, and athletes can't be artists. And this is something I kind of believed my whole life. I always had artistic inclinations, but I liked being an athlete. And I just thought, well, I have to pick one. I can't do both. Am I going to be left-brained, or am I going to be right-brained? I even think there was a popular book on this left-brain, right-brain thing when I

• 5:18Rich Roll?

  was a kid, because I remember my mom always talking about it and saying, are you left-brained or are you right-brained? But the point is this: most people generally fall on one side of this spectrum. And again, you know, I thought you had to pick or you had to choose. Never the tweens shall meet. And, you know, people can't do both. But this is not true. And my buddy Dan, DMAC is his nickname goes, proves this notion false. Not only is he a tremendously talented and gifted athlete, this is a guy who has competed at the highest levels in triathlon. He's also quite a gifted artist. As an actor, he's a television host, he's a television personality and an exceptionally

• 6:02Rich Roll?

  successful one at that, particularly in his native land of Australia. I would say that it is not a stretch or an exaggeration at all to call him the Ryan Seacrest of Australia. And please, before you protest, I mean that in the most complimentary, non-pejorative sense possible. Because Ryan has accomplished a lot. Guy's an incredibly prolific business person, he's everywhere you look, and Dan's kind of the same way. He does it all. Dan's a guy who was qualified for and raced the Ironman World Championships. He's also raced the Half Ironman 70.3 World Championships. And he began his triathlon career at the very storied Cronulla Club in the suburbs

• 6:46Rich Roll?

  of Sydney, training and racing alongside some of the greatest athletes in the sport of triathlon, guys like Craig Alexander and Chris McCormack. The Cronulla Club is the same club that has produced Ironman legends like Greg Welch and Makayla Jones, the biggest names in the history of the sport. It's really a cool story, the history of that club and the amazing talent that it's produced over the years. And Dan was part of it. He grew up with it, and we talk all about that today. When he was a kid, Dan was pretty intent on becoming the best triathlete he could be. And then something totally out of the blue happened. He was at a race, and in sort of one of those Hollywood lore-type stories, he was discovered. And the rest is history.

• 7:30Rich Roll?

  Dan's best known for his role on Australia's long-running series Neighbours. He was also on a show called City Homicide, the British police drama The Bill. And he has hosted Australia's version of The X Factor. And he's currently co-host of Dancing with the Stars. And he's starring in a soon-to-be-released indie sci-fi drama called Infinity. And the trailer is out for this movie. It's super cool. I'm gonna put it, I'm gonna embed it. On the blog post page for this episode, so definitely go and check it out. It reminds me a lot of the original Alien. It's definitely an homage, an homage, a hearkening back to those killer sci-fi movies of the 80s.

• 8:13Rich Roll?

  And I think you guys are gonna dig it, so I'm looking forward to that movie coming out. And Dan, you know, really, I think, in his first true starring role in a, in a motion picture, which is pretty exciting. Dan's also very active in something called the Indigenous Marathon Project, which is a nonprofit that supports Indigenous populations getting more healthy and more active, putting together teams of Indigenous populations to run the marathon and create healthy role models for this underserved community, which is really great. He's passionate about that, and we talk about that as well on the show. So, basically, Dan's a guy who straddles both worlds, the left brain and the right brain.

• 8:57Rich Roll?

  He continues to train and compete at the highest level in the sport of triathlon, but he also does this amidst juggling this incredibly demanding, high-profile career as host of Australia's Dancing with the Stars, which is pretty fascinating to hear him talk about kind of what a day in the life is like of being host of, you know, such a hugely popular television show. What's also really interesting about Dan, and quite amazing, is that, you know, first of all, Dan's a guy who's so handsome and fit that it's absolutely blinding, but he grew up a chubby kid, an insecure kid, and he was a kid who found his solution through fitness and healthy lifestyle, transformed his life, and he's passionate about it, and

• 9:41Rich Roll?

  he now uses, he puts his fame to good use, leveraging his popularity to continually spread greater awareness for the promotion of healthy, active lifestyles. So, that's pretty cool. He may not be a professional triathlete, but he's definitely a pro behind the mic. We had a fun chat, and he makes me look good because he's so good at doing this kind of stuff. He's so engaging and so interesting to talk to. So, that's it. Let's see what Dan is all about.

• 10:24Speaker 01

  It's the end of my California summer. I'm disappointed I have to jump.

• 10:31Rich Roll?

  Coming to a very abrupt, unexpected.

• 10:33Speaker 01

  Abrupt and sudden end. Heading back to Australia, actually, to do another series of Dancing with the Stars, which is the job that affords the lifestyle that we get to keep, which is quite nice.

• 10:47Rich Roll?

  When does that start up?

• 10:48Speaker 01

  That starts up at the end of September in Australia. And it's a 10-week series out there. And we only do one episode a week. So it's not strenuous work. But it's three hours of live TV, once or twice a week.

• 11:01Rich Roll?

  It sounds strenuous to me. It sounds terrifying to me. The idea of being in front of that many people watching this captive audience. I would imagine that when you're doing it, it's full-on. Like, there's no room for anything else in your life. I mean, it's such a phenomenon.

• 11:18Speaker 01

  It's obviously huge here in the US. And I think we're going back to do something like Series 13 in Australia. And it's my seventh series back there. And it is. It's kind of like a two-month whirlwind circus, because there's so much rehearsal and press, and there's a whole bunch of stuff going on, a lot of travel. Although we shoot in Melbourne, I often commute to other jobs, or I'll work other jobs, or I'll commute home to see my family in Sydney while I'm back there. So it's just kind of this nuts, crazy couple of months.

• 11:47Rich Roll?

  Yeah, I mean, just the taping of the show is probably the smallest part of it. I mean, the press has got to be...

• 11:54Speaker 01

  Yeah, the press is huge. But also, I guess rehearsing a nearly two-and-a-half or three-hour live TV show to make it look smooth, live on air, it takes a lot of work. And people say, "You work very hard, or you make it look really easy." And that's probably a compliment. But you work very hard to make it look very easy. And that's the skill of whether it's an athlete, or an actor, or you're a TV host, or a musician. All the hard work's kind of done before the camera's roll.

• 12:26Rich Roll?

  I think there's this incorrect presumption that hosting is easy. You watch TV, and it's just a guy up there talking. Like, how hard can that be? Like, screw that Ryan Secrest, man. I can't believe it. Like, how hard could that be? If anybody has ever been in front of an audience and, you know, had to be on point and spontaneous and, you know, hit all their mark, I mean, it is a, it's a, it's a skill, man.

• 12:51Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 12:52Rich Roll?

  It is very difficult to do.

• 12:53Speaker 01

  It certainly is, and it's, and it's a skill that I always admired in, in other people growing up, you know, in sort of the, the best entertainers of our generation, or the generations ahead of mine, sorry, that I was working up to, were always live entertainers, you know, they were the variety show hosts and the, the entertainment show hosts and things like that, that always, you know, did live TV. And so now, now we have a lot more live television, you know, in Australia and, and here in the US, because there were so many talent, talent shows.

• 13:20Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 13:21Speaker 01

  Idol and X Factor.

• 13:22Rich Roll?

  Oh dude, it's like insane how many there are, you know, this is like another award show, like every week.

• 13:26Speaker 01

  Exactly right, exactly right. But, but, you know, you go back 10 years or earlier, longer, there was, there was far less live television outside of the, the sort of the variety shows and.

• 13:37Rich Roll?

  The job opportunities were slim to none, right?

• 13:40Speaker 01

  Exactly.

• 13:40Rich Roll?

  There was only like three guys, you know?

• 13:41Speaker 01

  Yeah, but, but now, you know, there's, there's a lot more opportunity, but, but I, I, I hold live television hosting in, in very high regard, and, and I hold it in much higher regard than pre-recorded stuff, because I, I, I just, I don't find it as challenging or as satisfying, but there's something, there's something about standing out in the middle of there, knowing that, we don't, we don't have very many people watch, you know, Australia like.

• 14:01Rich Roll?

  Really? I mean, yeah, what is the difference?

• 14:03Speaker 01

  So we'll, we'll have, we'll rate like 2 million people is a huge, is a huge night for us in terms of an audience, whereas if people have rated 2 million people here, you'd probably never see a live day again.

• 14:13Rich Roll?

  Yeah, but as a percentage of population.

• 14:15Speaker 01

  Well, it's 10, 10%, you know, so.

• 14:17Rich Roll?

  That's pretty high.

• 14:19Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's pretty, it's pretty good.

• 14:20Rich Roll?

  That's way higher than it would get here, right?

• 14:22Speaker 01

  Yeah, and it's prime time, uh, yeah, yeah, in terms of, in sort of, yeah.

• 14:25Rich Roll?

  Like per capita.

• 14:26Speaker 01

  Yeah, exactly right. Um, so it's good, it's, it's a good job, and it's, it's what I, what I, it's my other job, and it was always Plan B, it was never, it was never my goal to go and, to go and be a, a TV host, but, uh, but, you know, I, I do like it, and it's, and it is, I kind of like the, the fact that you're on, on edge the whole time, because the, the, you know, the, the difference between.

• 14:49Speaker 01

  You know, being great and really sucking can happen in an instant.

• 14:54Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 14:54Speaker 01

  You know, and you've had those moments on live.

• 14:56Rich Roll?

  And one wrong moment, you know, in front of that many people and that that's gonna go on. That's gonna haunt you for the rest of your life.

• 15:02Speaker 01

  But you know, sometimes too, making the mistakes and recovering from the mistakes is where you see a true professional. You know, when something goes wrong, whether it's of your own accord, or whether it's a technical malfunction, or someone else, you know, in part of the productions. When things go wrong and you have to clean up, that's kind of the fun stuff. When it's too rehearsed and it goes too smooth.

• 15:21Rich Roll?

  It's like triage.

• 15:22Speaker 01

  Yeah, exactly right.

• 15:23Rich Roll?

  Yeah, when you see it on TV, it looks like everything is working perfectly well, but I'm sure there's a lot of chaos in your mind because you know, behind the scenes that you know, there's something happening that shouldn't be happening. And how do you not get distracted by that and maintain your focus?

• 15:36Speaker 01

  It's, I mean, we got, I've got three main cameras on the floor that I'm, that I can deal with, with auto cues and prompters. Uh, there's another one, two, three, there's another three cameras on the side of the stage, uh, getting reaction shots of which I'm wary of, of where I'm standing in position to those to not block any of their lines. I've got an earpiece in my ear that I've got four people.

• 15:57Rich Roll?

  That in and of itself is like a whole world of.

• 16:00Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah.

• 16:01Rich Roll?

  Like somebody's talking in your ear the whole time. I mean, what are they saying? Are they giving you your lines or?

• 16:06Speaker 01

  Oh, no, sometimes they're.

• 16:07Rich Roll?

  Look over here or look over there.

• 16:08Speaker 01

  It can be anything. Sometimes it's as simple as, as the, the dancing contestant is, is facing the wrong camera or, or, or is standing out of the light or it's got to move on, got to keep moving it out. Too much, too much time, let's go, let's go. Um, sometimes it's, sometime, you can tell when, when the, when the producer's in your ear and it starts with, okay, DMAC, I don't want to throw you, but you go, oh, no, something's, something's wrong, something's, something's, uh, something's gone. So, so you know, you have times where, where people are, you know, falling over backstage or the music cue's gone. Or, or, or they need another two minutes of, of fill because, because the musical guest staged and set.

• 16:50Rich Roll?

  Right, and you gotta just improvise and come up with something to say spontaneously.

• 16:53Speaker 01

  Yeah, pretty much, but.

• 16:55Rich Roll?

  Are you, you, you have a teleprompter though, right?

• 16:57Speaker 01

  We do, yeah. And so, so when I first started the show, I had pretty much every, I was taking over from, from the host, the original host, and his name is Daryl Summers, and he was a very well-known, um, television host in Australia. And, and, and not unlike Tom Bergeron here in this country in terms of his status and his career.

• 17:13Rich Roll?

  He lives around here. I see that guy at Starbucks all the time.

• 17:15Speaker 01

  Do you really?

• 17:16Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 17:16Speaker 01

  I saw him, I saw him at, at the gym, actually.

• 17:19Rich Roll?

  Oh, you did?

• 17:19Speaker 01

  We were working out next to each other and we'd actually met at the American version, but I, I didn't want to be the dude that goes, hey, uh...

• 17:26Rich Roll?

  Yeah, but you actually have a reason.

• 17:27Speaker 01

  Well, I know, I know.

• 17:28Rich Roll?

  Of anybody, you have a actual legitimate reason and that, and he would have freaked out. He would have been psyched.

• 17:34Speaker 01

  I can't believe you didn't. Yeah, he was with his trainer and he was in the design. It was Sunday morning. I didn't want to interrupt him, but,

• 17:40Rich Roll?

  Uh huh.

• 17:40Speaker 01

  Hey, man, you'd host ads with the stars. So do I.

• 17:42Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 17:43Speaker 01

  Bullcrap. No, I do, I do.

• 17:45Rich Roll?

  That would have been a fun conversation, I would think.

• 17:47Speaker 01

  Anyway, yeah.

• 17:47Rich Roll?

  Yeah, out here, it's a, it's kind of like, uh, uh, television host, reality star roundup in Calabasas.

• 17:56Speaker 01

  Oh, really?

• 17:56Rich Roll?

  If you go to, if you go to the Starbucks down the way at the Commons.

• 17:59Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 17:59Rich Roll?

  In the morning, it's, uh, you could, you could see Howie Mandel.

• 18:03Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 18:03Rich Roll?

  Bruce Jenner, Tom Bergeron. You know, it's like an occasional Kardashian.

• 18:08Speaker 01

  Yeah, right. It's all there.

• 18:09Rich Roll?

  It's like, you know, you're not going to see, uh, Tom Cruise or, you know, anything like that, but you'll, you know, it's like reality roundup.

• 18:16Speaker 01

  Yeah, Calabasas style.

• 18:18Rich Roll?

  Yeah, there you go.

• 18:19Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 18:19Rich Roll?

  It's all happening, man.

• 18:20Speaker 01

  I'll have to stop in next time I'm riding my bike past your, uh,

• 18:23Rich Roll?

  There you go.

• 18:23Speaker 01

  Past your Starbucks. I love it out here, though. I really do. This, this whole area has been a, a kind of a, a real, a real kind of savior.

• 18:30Rich Roll?

  Mm-hmm.

• 18:31Speaker 01

  Well, not savior, but just somewhere that I've absolutely fallen in love with since I moved to LA.

• 18:34Rich Roll?

  Yeah, it's so nice. Uh, you know, if you're into multi-sport at all, I mean, I look around, I just, you know, it's like, this is, is there any better place to train year round? You know, it's amazing. I'm amazed that every pro triathlete doesn't already live out here.

• 18:49Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 18:49Rich Roll?

  You know?

• 18:50Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 18:50Rich Roll?

  Um, but, you know, it's, it's a little remote, you know, if you're a young, single person, there's not a lot going on, you know, it's suburban and rural. Uh, but, but you recently made the move from, you were living in West Hollywood, right?

• 19:02Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 19:02Rich Roll?

  And you moved to the west side. You moved to the beach, the west side in Santa Monica.

• 19:05Speaker 01

  Yeah, absolutely. I moved over, I came over, um, a couple of times, like 2008, 2009. And then I had to go back for, for a series back in Australia where, um, I actually met my girlfriend on, on a series. It was a,

• 19:18Rich Roll?

  Yeah, you were on the same show together, right?

• 19:19Speaker 01

  Yeah, it was a Western. We were, I was a, I was a cowboy and she was running the, the, the, the pub and the brothel and all that sort of stuff.

• 19:25Rich Roll?

  Like Australian cowboy, though, right?

• 19:27Speaker 01

  Yeah, exactly. Right. Yeah, Australian Western.

• 19:28Rich Roll?

  Uh, dingos.

• 19:31Speaker 01

  So we, yeah, so we met on that and we both moved back here, um, uh, the end of two thousand and eleven. And so we did two years in, in West Hollywood and then got two and a half years, actually, and, uh, and loved it. But I was, you know, because we were here for acting and we were focused with.

• 19:47Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 19:47Speaker 01

  Acting was my kind of primary profession and hosting was always sort of.

• 19:51Rich Roll?

  The triathlon's not your primary thing.

• 19:53Speaker 01

  Oh, I don't know where that, man, that's, that's the whole, the dynamic balance, man. It's, uh, it's the constant battle, but it's a glorious battle.

• 20:01Rich Roll?

  Yeah. When you live in West Hollywood, I mean, for people that, that are listening that don't know, I mean, it's landlocked. Like you can't really, you can't ride a bike. You gotta, you gotta put your bike in the car and drive somewhere to ride. You can't go out your front door.

• 20:11Speaker 01

  I moved to Santa Monica, uh, in, in March and it was the first time since living in LA, I'd walked out my front door, hopped on my bike and gone for a ride. You know, my third year of living here, you know, is that where, which we take it for granted. You know, doing that back in, back in Sydney and Melbourne.

• 20:26Rich Roll?

  Right. And, uh, and, and also you're swimming with Jerry, right? At Tower.

• 20:30Speaker 01

  Yeah, that's right.

• 20:31Rich Roll?

  Jerry Rodri.

• 20:32Speaker 01

  That was one of the first things I did when I, when I got here in, in West Hollywood was, um, was just trying to find a, a good swim squad and some people, um, you know, in the kind of triathlon and, and multi-sport world, just for, just for some normality, you know?

• 20:44Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 20:45Speaker 01

  Um, you know, West Hollywood's fantastic and we, we love living here. We've got great friends there. We've got great Australian friends, great American friends, a lot of friends from, from the UK when I used to live and work over there.

• 20:53Rich Roll?

  Mm-hmm.

• 20:54Speaker 01

  And, and everyone's kind of in the entertainment game or the music game and, and, and I kind of, in the same reason that I've always maintained, um, my, my fitness and my kind of maintained the triathlon and multi-sport in my life, is, is that I needed a, some kind of release or some kind of.

• 21:11Rich Roll?

  A grounding.

• 21:12Speaker 01

  Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. So I, um, I went and joined Tower 26 and, and we used to drive down there. If, even if I just get down there once a week, I, I'd go down and, um, and just, you know, talk about things other than, what, have you read this script?

• 21:24Rich Roll?

  Right. Yeah. So even when you were living in West Hollywood, you'd schlep all the way across town and yeah, that's cool.

• 21:29Speaker 01

  It was, um, it was a lot of driving. It was a lot of driving and, um. But it was, but it was good. In that time, Siri, Siri Lindley's squad were here and

• 21:36Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 21:37Speaker 01

  and Luke McKenzie and a few other friends and Beck Keat were all here. And so I'd kind of drive, drive down on Friday and, and tag along with them. But even just to get in like a four hour ride, I'd get up at 5:30, get down here at 6:30, meet them at 7, ride till 11, get stuck in traffic till 1:30.

• 21:51Rich Roll?

  Yeah, it's your whole day.

• 21:52Speaker 01

  It was the day gone, you know, for four hours.

• 21:54Rich Roll?

  You're saving a lot of time by living on the West Side.

• 21:56Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 21:57Rich Roll?

  Um, and I want to get into all the triathlon stuff in a minute, but just to sort of, you know, stick to the acting thing right now for a minute. Um, that the, the Australian kind of acting community out here in LA, they're pretty tight, right? They all, it seems like to me, my perspective is they're all hanging out together and having barbecues all the time at each other's houses.

• 22:15Speaker 01

  That's, that's a pretty fair, fair representation. I guess there's, I guess there's kind of, there's, there's generations or there's, or there's cliques or there's circles of, of people, you know, guys, guys and girls that have worked on certain casts together for a long time, or, or, you know, like the home and away guys are always really tight. And the neighbors, the neighbors cast are always really tight. And then you get people like, say, um, like Joel Edgerton and those guys have been here much longer than, than others. And, and so there, there, there are circles, but we're all pretty, um, we are all pretty close. Yeah. So.

• 22:46Rich Roll?

  It's interesting. And it, it's also amazing to me how many Australian men have become leading men in Hollywood. Like, I read an article somewhere and it was sort of about the, the emasculation of the American male. Like, where's the rugged, like, leading man guy like that who has that elusive thing, you know, that you can't manufacture? And it seems like it's coming in the form of Australians lately.

• 23:10Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 23:10Rich Roll?

  Right? What do you, what is that about?

• 23:12Speaker 01

  Uh, you know, it's, it's, it's very interesting, but there's, there's no doubt that it's, that it's happening. And it's, and there's, there's certain Brits that are, that are falling into that category as well. But, but for the, for the most part, it's, it's the Aussies. And, and I just, I can only put it down to the fact that, that we, we've got, that we. Forgive my French, but there's just no bullshit. There's far less bullshit with us. We kind of get in, we get the work done. Um, even in things like I've seen, negotiating of contracts and what actors need, you know, to do well on, like, for the most part, the Aussie guys and girls need half, half the stuff that a lot of their counterparts here are used to

• 23:54Speaker 01

  kind of having and are expected in terms of, you know, trailers and makeups and calls and whatever like that. But I just, I just think we have a tougher work ethic. And we just, we kind of just get in, get stuck in, get things done, work hard. And, and I guess also that, that, that for those who've come through the Australian entertainment industry, there really is, it is such a small industry back there, that there really is no room for dickheads. You know, they really, they kind of get weirded out pretty early. And so, so you end up with, with, it's almost like this pre-selection process in a sense, you know, coming out of Australia.

• 24:36Speaker 01

  If you've survived and you've gone through and you've established a career there. And then there's kind of two, two types of, everyone says, oh man, every, every Aussie in LA is, you guys are amazing. You know, you're all, you're all fit and strong and good looking and you're all nailing jobs and you're, you know, you're doing really well. But I think there's two types of, yeah, a lot of Aussies will come over here.

• 24:55Rich Roll?

  Mm-hmm.

• 24:55Speaker 01

  But a certain type of Aussie will stay. Cause I think a lot, it is really hard. And it's hard to be away from family and it's hard to be away from home. And it's, and it is a brutal city and it's a brutal industry. And it's, and it's very kind of impersonal and it's tough and you've got to, you've got to, you know, you get knocked down a hundred times and you've got to get back up. And, and that isn't for everybody. But the, the ones that stay, guys and girls, um, there is a hardiness to them. And I think that, that is part of the reason for their success.

• 25:24Rich Roll?

  Interesting. Yeah, that hardiness, that sort of rugged male quality that you see. Uh, I think the American guys that have that, they don't go into acting.

• 25:35Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 25:35Rich Roll?

  You know, they're going into something else.

• 25:37Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 25:37Rich Roll?

  But there's something about Australian culture where it's, it's okay to be an actor or it's, maybe it's more acceptable. I don't know, you know, like it's a weird cultural.

• 25:46Speaker 01

  You don't have to kind of. Subdue your masculinity or something, for want of a better term. I don't know. I don't know what it is, but, but we are, we just, yeah, there's a lot of blokey blokes, you know, who are unashamed of, of who they are and, and, and they don't kind of have to, to, to change that to, to be on, on screen, you know?

• 26:09Rich Roll?

  Right. I mean, the blokey blokes here are going into investment banking or something like that, right?

• 26:14Speaker 01

  Lumberjacking.

• 26:14Rich Roll?

  Yeah, exactly. Or being a fireman or whatever. Interesting. Well, it would have been easy for you to just stay in Australia and be a big fish in a small pond. So what was the, you know, idea in coming here and, and, and saying, I'm going to try to be, I'm going to be this small fish in this big pond and give it a go?

• 26:33Speaker 01

  Uh, yeah, I think, I think, I guess inherently it's, it's kind of in, in my nature and I guess in, in a lot of Australians' nature to, to, to, to travel and to get out of Australia and always look beyond because, um, because I think we, you know, we are the most remote island in the world and, and, and, you know, it's in our nature to, to pretty much finish school and pack our bags and go around the world. But, um, but I, I, I just, I figured that I was, I was actually at the top of my game in, in both acting and presenting at the time, in, in television, so I was the lead in a TV series and, and I was hosting dancing at the same time. And, and I was kind of out of challenges.

• 27:13Speaker 01

  And for someone who thrived on challenges their whole life and, and, and still does, um, I, I kind of went, well, what's bigger? What's better? And, and at the same time, my mates were coming over here and I, and I loved it over here and I, and I don't know why I did it.

• 27:30Rich Roll?

  Also because of triathlon, you could come over here and, and already tap into a community while you were trying to do the other thing.

• 27:35Speaker 01

  Which was, which was a bonus really, because even, even at the time I looked at moving over, I'd done Hawaii in 2009 and pretty much my bike gathered dust for two years.

• 27:47Rich Roll?

  Yeah, you took a break.

• 27:48Speaker 01

  Did take a break. I needed a break. I was pretty, I was pretty burnt out, but also, you know, and I'm sure we'll, we'll get on to, to the theme of balance as we go because it's, it's really important, but.

• 27:58Rich Roll?

  Yeah, you came to the house and within 30 seconds, we were talking about that like that.

• 28:03Speaker 01

  But I, but I, but I um, I'd kind of devoted so much time to, to triathlon and, and you know, sacrificed so much and I, and I kind of needed to actually swing the balance all the way back the other side to my work. And so I did that for a couple of years in, you know, two thousand nine, ten, eleven, um, and through until kind of the last eighteen months where I got back into the sport. But, but you kind of need, I needed that push. And so, so I could have hung around Australia and, and, and kept doing the same thing. And, and, and I, and I would like to think I could go back if, if I wanted to and, and pick up where I left off.

• 28:37Rich Roll?

  Well, you are going back.

• 28:38Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, yeah, I do. Yeah, I go back and I kind of, I kind of go back for little bits, but, but my, my, my, um, my mind and, and my, my heart is in California.

• 28:49Rich Roll?

  It is.

• 28:49Speaker 01

  I, I do dig it.

• 28:50Rich Roll?

  And how has it been? I mean, you've been here for a little while. You've gotten a taste of, of what it's like.

• 28:55Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's, it's, I, I, I love it. I, I love the fact that, that you, you're dealing with the best scripts and the best writers and the best directors, but you're going up against the best actors and you're going up against the best performers. So, so the two years that I've been sort of grinding here and, and going back to, going back to the very bottom, going back to the bottom where, you know, it, when I first got over, I didn't, didn't even have a visa. So you, so you, you know, you don't have a profile, you don't have a job, you don't have a visa. Um, okay, well, maybe you'll get lucky. And, and people do. And, and, and, you know, mates have and, and other guys have. But, but what I did do was go back and, and, and work on, on my craft and on my ability because.

• 29:35Rich Roll?

  That's the only thing you can control.

• 29:37Speaker 01

  Exactly right. And that was, that was one of my mantras.

• 29:39Rich Roll?

  You study with somebody here?

• 29:41Speaker 01

  Yeah, we've, I've tried to sort of, I've studied with a bunch actually. And, um, and you kind of, it's just kind of like, again, I, this, like, like sport, you know, you find a good coach and you, you work with that coach or, you know, you pick what works and what doesn't and, and, and things like that. But, but I, it was, it's been, it's been the most productive time of growth for me as an actor, actually not working for two years here.

• 30:07Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 30:07Speaker 01

  Or, or trying to work here. Um, because, and my mantra was that there were so many things out of your control in this town that you, you have to work as hard as you can at the things you, you can control.

• 30:19Rich Roll?

  Mm hmm.

• 30:19Speaker 01

  And, and so, so that's been, that's been one of them. And, uh, And yeah, I mean, I'm in a great place, actually. I shot a, I shot a cool movie at the end of last year and the start of this year. Infiniti? Infiniti, yeah, which is an Australian sci-fi movie. I was reading about it the other day, it looked pretty cool. Yeah, it's, um, and, and that was, that was, that was someone who took a real risk on the host of Dancing with the Stars to let him be the lead in their movie, which was a movie that was kind of a career-defining time for, for the guys that were making Infiniti.

• 30:51Speaker 01

  And Is that gonna do the festival circuit? I think it will, it depends on, it depends on the distributors. So, so we're in the kind of just distribution, sales dance at the moment, um, after, after a couple of screenings here in LA in the last month. And that's exciting, and even just to go and, go and go to a screening and it's, you know, you're the lead in a, in a sci-fi movie and everyone's sitting there watching you and you're watching yourself and you know, you're watching it with, you know, through your fingers, through your hands, over your face, going, ah, no, no, yes, oh, that was okay, that was okay.

• 31:21Speaker 01

  It's gotta be weird to watch yourself. It still is, it still is. But this one was a, this one was a pretty, um, pretty incredible ride and, and, and, you know, it was, it was actually, I'm just gonna, you know, drop a, drop a name here, but it was Russell Crowe that said, you know, he was here for nearly two years and when he first got here and his first job in LA was the hardest one to get. Yeah. And, and I kind of felt like that, that Infiniti was, was a bit of a reward for, for two years of really just, just, I, I could have packed up and gone home and, and gone and gone back and, you know, there's plenty of stuff back home I could have done, but I, but I didn't. And so these guys took a chance and, and it's, um, it, yeah, it's, it's an Australian sci-fi movie. It's made to set and made to look like it's kind of

• 32:05Speaker 01

  the late seventies sci-fi genre. Right. Um, and it's, and it was, it was a beast. It was a beast to film and, and I'm excited about that. Was that, you shot it in Australia, though? Yeah, so we kind of shot, we shot this movie that was

• 32:20Speaker 01

  You know, it looks like it's a twenty five million dollar sci fi movie on, on, on far less than that. Um, and, and we were working in, uh, Fox Studios was, was kind of, is the main studio back in Sydney, but we, we ended up getting a, two massive warehouses just out in Western Sydney, you know, on a, on a business estate, on an industrial estate, and built these massive sets in there. And, and I was doing Dancing, Dancing with the Stars at the same time. And so we, we really, you know, we got so close, we got down to this final audition and, and, and I'd actually flown back from LA because I'd just raced seventy point three Worlds last year. And then I, I had to go back for dancing and I couldn't get the audition down in LA in time. So I actually did the audition the

• 33:04Speaker 01

  morning that I landed in Sydney. Oh, wow. So I landed at seven AM, the audition was at lunchtime. And, uh, and, and I'd, I'd been up with, with Zoe, my girlfriend, the day before we left, trying to film it all day, but we, we couldn't get it right. Oh, you had to film your own audition and then submit it? Yeah, because I, yeah, but, but then we couldn't, we couldn't get it done in time. So we had to make this crisis call saying, look, we're gonna land Friday and I've got to jump on another plane Saturday. Is there any chance we could just do an audition when we get in the room on, on Friday when we land? So there's a bit of to-ing and fro-ing. Finally it happened at one o'clock and I landed at seven AM and I hadn't slept on the flight and it was horrible. My dad dropped me off at the studio and I was an hour early and I didn't know what to do. I was like, ah, man, what do I do? There was a pub across the road. Mm hmm.

• 33:49Speaker 01

  And, um, so I went and sat down and, and I had a pint of Guinness. That'll do it. And learnt my lines and, and, uh, rolled in and got the job. So, so, um, that was, that was kind of the start of the ride. And then we had to kind of had to make it work. So I was, I was shooting Dancing with Stars in Melbourne, uh, while shooting six days a week on Infineon in Sydney. And I actually ended up living on the set, um, because at one, there was, it was that kind of immersive style of movie, but also two, I just, I, I didn't. I just didn't have time for commuting to somewhere to live and then coming home and mum going, "Oh, how was your day, honey?"

• 34:24Rich Roll?

  Right, right, right.

• 34:25Speaker 01

  Well, actually, I was stuck in space battling dudes who wanted to kill me in an alien space station. But, yeah.

• 34:31Rich Roll?

  Just to stay in the character.

• 34:32Speaker 01

  So I stayed in there and again, it's kind of that sporting, it's particularly kind of that kind of endurance sporting discipline that I find helps in shoots like that.

• 34:41Rich Roll?

  Yeah, I want to, yeah, and I want to talk about how those worlds intersect, but a couple of observations. Well, first of all, the movie looks really cool. It looks like the kind of movie that you would see at Sundance or Toronto, you know, one of the big festivals and.

• 34:54Speaker 01

  Yeah, I hope so.

• 34:55Rich Roll?

  Checking it out. So the trailer is going live soon, right?

• 34:58Speaker 01

  Trailer's going live next Monday, so Monday, the 1st of September.

• 35:04Rich Roll?

  So we'll put a link up.

• 35:05Speaker 01

  Yeah, cool. That's, yeah, it's gonna, yeah, it'll be interesting.

• 35:09Rich Roll?

  Second observation, feel free to drop as many names as possible. That's always good.

• 35:25Rich Roll?

  You're being a little bit humble when you say, "Oh, you took a big risk casting a television host, you know, host of Dancing with the Stars in this movie." But you're like this bizarre triple threat because you're not just a host. Like Ryan Secrest was never on a television series being an actor. Like in the United States, you're either a host or you're an actor. There's this perception, "Oh, you're in entertainment, like it's all the same." But it's not, they're very different things. But you have an extensive background as a dramatic actor and as a television host, and that's a pretty rare combo. I mean, I would think coming to LA with that, you know, or does that just confuse people? Like, "We don't know what to do with you."

• 36:03Speaker 01

  I found, I found initially that it kind of did, it kind of did. Whereas I, I figure, because I lived in the UK for five or six years when I was younger, I moved there at 21 and lived there for six years. And they're kind of similar. You can be, you can be either. You can be, you know, there was, there's TV hosts in the UK winning Gilgood Awards for their work on stage midweek, you know, like it's, you know, they host Top of the Pops on the weekends, you know, things like that. It's incredible. Whereas here, I figured that, I just had, I had one chance to make a first impression here and I wanted to make that as an actor. And because I think it's easier to go from being an actor to an actor who hosts rather than a host who acts.

• 36:45Rich Roll?

  Right, right.

• 36:46Speaker 01

  And, and. So I'm continuing on that path. And the wheel is starting to turn. I mean, there's been plenty of TV stuff here. I can tell you a stack of stories of how I've got down to the final two. And it was too short, too tall. Not charming enough was one that really hurt.

• 37:07Rich Roll?

  How are you? I mean, how could you possibly be more charming? This guy exuding his charm across the tailier. The pearly whites are just blinding.

• 37:17Speaker 01

  Oh, man. And then you walk in a room and there's just 50 dudes who look exactly the same. All muttering to themselves. I'm gonna get you. Oh, okay. So it's a crazy ride as well. But no, thank you for your observations. But yeah, it's... And in the meantime, while I'm doing anything, I just ride my bike.

• 37:38Rich Roll?

  Right. So that's the third prong of the triple threat, which is that you're not just an actor who does triathlons. You're a really good athlete and you're a super fast triathlete. So in the United States, you have the world of like triathlon and entertainment. They only intersect on one day, and that's during the Malibu Triathlon, which is actually coming up this next weekend. Are you doing that?

• 38:01Speaker 01

  I'm entered.

• 38:03Rich Roll?

  But you gotta go, right? You're gonna miss it. So that's when you get to see, you know, the entertainment tonight comes out and like films J-Lo, you know, getting out of the water. And all this kind of crazy stuff. But there isn't any sort of celebrity or entertainment person who's actually exceptional in the sport. They're duffers, you know, they're middle of the Packers or back of the Packers or whatever. But you were a triathlete before you were an actor. And you grew up in Sydney and Cronulla. And you were mixing it up with like Craig Alexander like back in the day. So this precedes everything else.

• 38:39Speaker 01

  Yeah, that's kind of a bizarre story. And I've got to say, one of the reasons I want to get on TV in America is so that I can race the celebrity division at Malibu.

• 38:49Rich Roll?

  Oh, you'd just devastate. You would absolutely own that. Can't you get into it already?

• 38:53Speaker 01

  That's one of my, it's one of my main.

• 38:54Rich Roll?

  So you entered it, but you, you didn't get the sort of celebrity buy?

• 38:57Speaker 01

  Oh, no, I just ended it as a, as a, as a regular dude.

• 38:59Rich Roll?

  Oh, they gotta let you into the celebrity one so you could just dominate.

• 39:02Speaker 01

  Oh, so.

• 39:03Rich Roll?

  You would, you'd win by like 25 minutes.

• 39:05Speaker 01

  You never know. You might come up against someone.

• 39:07Rich Roll?

  Who's your competition? David Duchovny and Matthew McConaughey?

• 39:10Speaker 01

  Bob Cryer. Bob pops up every now and again.

• 39:14Speaker 01

  Mark Paul Goslar is a very handy cyclist, but he does the same.

• 39:17Rich Roll?

  But he's not, he does, usually does a relay though. He'll do the cycling on the, because he raced as a cyclist.

• 39:22Speaker 01

  Luke McKenzie actually came up to me, we were doing, we were doing Malibu is celebrity teams a couple of years ago. And I got a ring in because someone got sick. So I was a cyclist. And he came up and went, man, look over there. It's Dave Zabriskie. I was like, what are you, what are you talking about? He goes, look, look on the top tube. It says Zabriskie. I was like, nah, man, that's the guy from Saved by the Bell. He goes, no, no, no, no. Look at, and so, and it was actually Mark, Mark Paul on, on.

• 39:45Rich Roll?

  Oh, he was riding Dave's bike.

• 39:46Speaker 01

  Dave Zabriskie's.

• 39:47Rich Roll?

  Dave did do the relay though, two years ago, three years ago.

• 39:51Speaker 01

  Oh, man, we, we wouldn't have even seen Dave.

• 39:53Rich Roll?

  Oh, yeah. He just, he's absolutely destroyed. He just did a, he just won a race across America. Ram's a four man team with.

• 40:01Speaker 01

  I saw it.

• 40:02Rich Roll?

  Ben Bostrom and Dave Mira.

• 40:03Speaker 01

  Dave Mira. Dave Mira is a, Dave Mira has taken to triathlon.

• 40:07Rich Roll?

  Oh, my God. Do you follow him on Instagram?

• 40:10Speaker 01

  We're Instagram buddies. I've never met him, but we're always chatting.

• 40:12Rich Roll?

  I haven't either. And yeah, I go back and forth. Yeah. He's like, he's like liking my images and I'm liking him. And I'm like, I've never met this guy, but I feel like he's my buddy.

• 40:19Speaker 01

  I feel he's.

• 40:20Rich Roll?

  He's so full on.

• 40:21Speaker 01

  Dave, if you're listening, I feel your enthusiasm, man. I, I love it. It, it does inspire me. He's so enthused about, and I love seeing his, his improvement in the sport too.

• 40:30Rich Roll?

  He's for real. Like he, he's treating it like, you know, it's a professional career for him and he's killing, you know, he's, his cycling is extraordinary.

• 40:39Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 40:39Rich Roll?

  And, you know, the word back from Ram was that he's unbreakable.

• 40:43Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 40:43Rich Roll?

  So it's pretty cool. Yeah. I saw he just did like a hundred mile time trial last weekend and, and he's, he's, he's placing really high in these races.

• 40:52Speaker 01

  Wow.

• 40:52Rich Roll?

  You know, so it's pretty interesting.

• 40:53Speaker 01

  Well, if you got, you got the engine and then you got the, the mental side as well. I mean, you're, you're a long way there.

• 40:58Rich Roll?

  Right. And for people who are listening, who don't know who Dave Mira is, he was a very successful BMX, BMX racer for a long time. And, and, you know, I don't really follow that sport or know that much about it, but I do know that from what I understand, from people that I've talked to who know that sport really well.

• 41:16Rich Roll?

  You know, that's kind of like, uh, the United States is really good at like pothead sports, like, you know, snowboarding and stuff like that and, or X, you know, sort of X Games kind of things. And I think that was sort of a traditional approach to that sport, but he was one of the first guys who came in and was like, I'm gonna work, you know, and he just worked super hard. And, and if you apply that to triathlon, you know, you can, you can move up quick.

• 41:38Speaker 01

  Yeah, he's, yeah, I love, I love seeing his stuff on social media, but he was, there was like multiple, like extraordinary number of X Games gold medals.

• 41:47Rich Roll?

  Right, he's, he's the god of that sport.

• 41:48Speaker 01

  A legend and a kind of pioneer.

• 41:50Rich Roll?

  Yeah, exactly.

• 41:50Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah. Now he's, now he's off multi-sporting.

• 41:53Rich Roll?

  Yeah, I know, right?

• 41:54Speaker 01

  And can ride a bike.

• 41:56Rich Roll?

  He, he, he really can. He's a, and he's, he's not a bad runner, man. He's pretty, he's pretty quick.

• 42:01Speaker 01

  It'll all, it'll all come together. He's racing, he's heading up to Montreuil Blanc to 70.3 Worlds, uh, next weekend, so.

• 42:07Rich Roll?

  It'll be interesting to see that.

• 42:08Speaker 01

  All the best, buddy. All the best. How do we get there?

• 42:10Rich Roll?

  I don't know. What we were talking about, we were talking about Malibu. We were talking about being, trying to win a celebrity.

• 42:15Speaker 01

  Yeah, that's, that's my goal.

• 42:16Rich Roll?

  Right, right. Well, you're gonna get there.

• 42:19Speaker 01

  So it's a two-pronged attack. You've got to get into the celebrity division.

• 42:22Rich Roll?

  You've just got to book a pilot, you know?

• 42:24Speaker 01

  That's it.

• 42:24Rich Roll?

  I mean, it's weird how you're in this business where literally, we were talking about this before the podcast too, like one phone call and your whole life changes. Like, you go off a pilot season, you do a pilot and it, and it beats the odds and gets picked up. And then suddenly you're on the cover of every magazine, you know, it's, it's so bizarre. I mean, that is such a mindfuck. You know what I mean? Especially if you're, you know, going in and you're, you know, it's down to you and one other guy and you know the show is gonna go. Your whole life changes. And you walk out of that and you have no control over whether you're gonna get it or not, but you must walk around thinking, oh my God, if this happens, then this is gonna happen and that's gonna happen.

• 42:58Speaker 01

  I'll give you, I'll give you two instances of that. One was, was this year where, where I just started training for Roth and, and, and I was committed to getting back and getting really fit and doing that. And about a week in, I got down to the final two for this show that was being, shooting over in Wilmington, North Carolina, which is just down the road from Dave Mirra, apparently.

• 43:16Rich Roll?

  Oh, right.

• 43:16Speaker 01

  And would be hanging out with Dave.

• 43:17Rich Roll?

  Yeah, you'd be training with him.

• 43:19Speaker 01

  So for two weeks, I'm Googling everything about Wilmington and where can I train and what can I do? And then showing up, bum, bow. Sorry, you got to, cause you know, you got replaced by one of the guys.

• 43:29Rich Roll?

  Right, you're already picking out where you're gonna live and.

• 43:31Speaker 01

  Yeah, with our car, spend my money. How much am I getting an app? Yes, right. And.

• 43:36Rich Roll?

  How could you not? How could you not? And no wonder so many people burn out. Like, that's gotta just, I mean, if you, if that, if you go through that a couple of times, that's, that'll make you insane.

• 43:44Speaker 01

  Well, craziest one was, was actually when Zoe and I first moved over, moved over here. It was our first pilot season. And, and it must've been, it was quite late in the piece. So it must've been about, uh, must've been about March, April. And, and we kind of wake up and Zoe's phone rings at 7:00 AM. And, and it's her manager going, hey, you've, you've got a network test today. Check your emails. And she's like, oh, okay, cool. Hang on. So she gets up, gets her email. And she, she goes, oh, there's this thing called, um, Last Resort. I think it was Last, which was the big, the big nuclear submarine thing.

• 44:16Rich Roll?

  Oh, right, right. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. I remember that. Yeah.

• 44:19Speaker 01

  She goes, you, you've got to, um.

• 44:20Rich Roll?

  Yeah, they stole a nuclear sub.

• 44:21Speaker 01

  Something like that, you know?

• 44:23Rich Roll?

  And they go, you park at an island and.

• 44:26Speaker 01

  And she goes, oh, well, which, which one's last? Right. Hang on. So we get up and we go through, we got this, we got the dead script pile, which is, gets bigger by the end of the pilot season. We're digging through this for these auditions and the highlights and the notes and, oh, here it is. Oh, which one was that? Oh, yeah, it was the, the, the, oh, that one? Oh, okay. Uh, so yeah, can you be in at the studio at midday today for the network test? It's down to you and one other girl. Um, and yada, yada. So, okay, cool. So we get up and start practicing lines, read the script again. Off she goes at 10 o'clock. And of course, to, to, to network test for a pilot, you gotta, you, you've got to negotiate your contract.

• 44:58Rich Roll?

  Right. I used to negotiate those contracts. You gotta negotiate, like, you're basically, as a lawyer, representing an actor who's going in for an audition, they're going in to test. And you've got to lock the contract before they get the part. They have to know exactly what they're getting, like every.

• 45:12Speaker 01

  They can't step in front of the camera until that contract is locked.

• 45:16Rich Roll?

  It's, it's such an insane industry.

• 45:18Speaker 01

  And it's not just series one. It was, you know, I think it's like seven series.

• 45:21Rich Roll?

  Yeah, this is like the next, this could be the next seven years of your life, right? And you, and you gotta do it, like, you gotta drop everything you're doing and like negotiate that immediately.

• 45:29Speaker 01

  Yeah. So, so Zoe leaves home at 10 o'clock and by, you know, 11:45, she's signed this seven-year deal in Hawaii, right?

• 45:42Speaker 01

  Okay, so where's it shooting? Well, it's shooting on the North Shore. Okay, so when does it start? Well, it starts in a month and it's going straight to series and it's gonna be there till November. And we've just signed a lease in West Hollywood and we've just moved over and we're like, okay. And we just got together. We were like six months into this relationship. So we're like, ah, okay. So, so, so he does the audition. Comes home at three o'clock and then we have the talk. Okay, well, what are we gonna do? Well. All right, honey, if you get the job, we'll move to Hawaii. I'll be the house husband. I'll just train and surf and cook. That's the best house husband gig, you know. And, uh, and you can work and we'll do that. And then we'll come back at the end of the year and we'll do LA then. Okay, okay, cool. We're doing it.

• 46:27Speaker 01

  And then you sit up and wait for dinner and then we have dinner and you sit up and you're watching TV and like. Staring at each other, not saying anything. And then finally the phone rings and really sorry. And, and the love, I love the line that the, the, the representation use is. It's not going any further. It's like, oh, really sorry, but it's not going any further. You're like, ah, so for 12 hours we were moving to Hawaii. And then you wake up the next morning and you do it all again. I have one other one where I went in for a great project with Steven Spielberg. And, and they were making over at Amblin. You go over to Universal and you go over to Amblin. It's amazing. You did this great job and you meet the director and you're like, oh, this is great. And you come out of there buzzing going, this is amazing. And then you kind of sit for the rest of the day on the couch, kind of, kind of waiting for the phone to ring.

• 47:09Speaker 01

  And, uh, finally it rings. I was like, oh, hello, hello. It's my, it's my manager. Hey, man. Hey, yeah, yeah. How'd you go today? Yeah, it went really well. I said, so listen, I just had a phone call from the guys over at Amblin. I was like, oh, yeah. Yeah, how, you know, trying to sound super casual. Oh, really? Oh, really? They called about me? Yeah, yeah. You dropped your ID in the, in the lobby and you've got to go back and pick it up.

• 47:32Speaker 01

  I was like, ah, man. The ups and downs of a, of a non-working actor.

• 47:37Rich Roll?

  Well, the other thing is they, they say, we'll be in touch, which means you're never gonna hear from them again. And it's not like they call and tell you, you didn't get it. You just don't hear anything, right? It just goes, it just, you know, suddenly it was like it never happened.

• 47:51Speaker 01

  And that's one of the lessons is you, you just, you walk out of there expecting to never hear anything. And if it comes back around, then, and so be it.

• 47:57Rich Roll?

  Yeah, that's a mental discipline.

• 47:59Speaker 01

  It is, it is definitely a, it is definitely a discipline. It's definitely a craft to that.

• 48:02Rich Roll?

  Is there anything that, that we've seen in movies or TV where it came down to you and one other guy? And we know who that guy is? I'm trying, see what I'm trying to do?

• 48:11Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 48:12Rich Roll?

  Get you to drop some names.

• 48:13Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 48:16Speaker 01

  No, no, look.

• 48:17Rich Roll?

  He's not gonna, you're not gonna. That's that thing that actors do. They like never wanna say like when they turn down a part. You know what I mean? Like they, they won't, they won't break that.

• 48:28Speaker 01

  No, no, we're, we're pretty tight like that.

• 48:29Rich Roll?

  It's like etiquette.

• 48:30Speaker 01

  I will say, I will say that, um, that, that now kind of, I, I just shot Infiniti with, with Luke Hemsworth, who, his brother to Chris and Liam and, and, uh.

• 48:40Rich Roll?

  Three of those guys. That's not fair.

• 48:41Speaker 01

  I know, has that, right? Yeah. Luckily the parents stopped at three, so there's jobs for everybody else. But, um, but they're, they're, they're good buds and Luke is, Luke lives across the road and he started training and I've lent him one of my bikes.

• 48:54Rich Roll?

  Oh, cool.

• 48:54Speaker 01

  And, and whatnot. And he actually put me, I think he's read your book. He's got your book. Cause he was the one that put me on to, to Sun Life out there.

• 49:01Rich Roll?

  Oh, cool.

• 49:02Speaker 01

  Doing a thing, but, um.

• 49:03Rich Roll?

  I feel, I feel better now.

• 49:04Speaker 01

  Yeah, there you go. You're the Hemsworth. Love you.

• 49:07Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 49:07Speaker 01

  But I was, yeah, I was booked on a flight with Chris in 2008. So my manager and Chris and myself, so the three of us were coming over and, uh, to, to, uh, to, to try and, you know, do LA. And then I got a job back in Australia and I was like, ah, do I stay? Do I go? And uh, so I stayed back in Australia and did a cop show for three years.

• 49:29Rich Roll?

  And Chris just explodes.

• 49:31Speaker 01

  Man, and that, I mean.

• 49:34Rich Roll?

  That seemed like it happened overnight.

• 49:35Speaker 01

  Well, yeah, I get, look, it was, there was, I think it was about two years where, where it took before he really, really, and I think he got two, he got two, two, two, two, two jobs within like a, a week. Didn't get anything for two years and then, and then in two and bang, he's off and, and he's just, he's just incredible in, in everything he's done and, and um, I'm more proud to, to him and his, and his whole family. They're, they're great people, but, but it just shows how, how quickly it can happen, man. And that's not.

• 50:04Rich Roll?

  Yeah, that's why, you know, that's what, that's what keeps people coming in droves and, you know, the bus is showing up. This town is just filled with every person, you know, from all corners of the world showing up to try to do that and, and it's easy to be uh, dismissive of that or pessimistic, but it happens.

• 50:25Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 50:25Rich Roll?

  You know, it still happens. So.

• 50:27Speaker 01

  But I, I, I've, what I've realized and what I think is that a lot of people might get their, their chance, they might get their shot, but, but nothing in this town is, nothing, everything is built on hard work. You know, and people work hard. And so some people might get, might get a lucky, lucky break, a lucky shot. But if that's not then backed up by hard work, then, then it fades and it disappears and, and they subside.

• 50:53Rich Roll?

  I would, I would imagine ninety-eight percent of the people that arrive here to pursue that kind of dream are people that just wanna be famous. Like they're not really in it because they love the craft of acting and they're artists and, and, and it's about the work, you know what I mean?

• 51:13Speaker 01

  I got a, I got a kind of a pet peeve about, about that whole line. When people say, what do you wanna be when you grow up? Famous.

• 51:20Rich Roll?

  Mm-hmm.

• 51:20Speaker 01

  Well, famous isn't a. Famous is a byproduct, you know, it should be a byproduct of doing.

• 51:25Rich Roll?

  Not anymore.

• 51:26Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 51:26Rich Roll?

  You know what I mean? That used to be the case, but now people are famous for being famous and that's it. And it's, that's such a bizarre.

• 51:34Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 51:34Rich Roll?

  Fact of our culture that is disturbing.

• 51:37Speaker 01

  Yeah. And it doesn't, it doesn't sit well with, with my, I mean, for someone who hosts a, you know, a celebrity dancing show, it actually doesn't sit well with my, with my kinda, my core.

• 51:47Rich Roll?

  In fairness, some of those people that are famous for being famous work really hard.

• 51:51Speaker 01

  Absolutely.

• 51:52Rich Roll?

  They work very hard at being famous for being famous, but there's no discernible talent at play other than like a, an incredible drive to be famous, you know what I mean?

• 52:03Speaker 01

  Absolutely. Yeah. They gift, they gift the discipline for hard work, you know?

• 52:07Rich Roll?

  It's completely weird.

• 52:08Speaker 01

  Power to them, but it's a.

• 52:09Rich Roll?

  And it's weird how technology is shifting that with internet stars. And I'm seeing this weird generation gap for the first time, like when you have Vine and Snapchat and, and these platforms.

• 52:23Rich Roll?

  There are teenagers out there with like two million Vine followers that post silly little videos and, and when these, you know, 16 year old boys show up somewhere, girls scream like.

• 52:35Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 52:35Rich Roll?

  It's the Beatles.

• 52:36Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 52:37Rich Roll?

  You know, and it's, it's the wildest, and then I'll watch it and I'll be like, I don't understand the appeal, like I don't get it, you know?

• 52:42Speaker 01

  And is it kind of like, is it kind of like they're, they're, because it is such new technology, is it kinda like they're, they're star musicians of, of another era, you know?

• 52:54Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 52:55Speaker 01

  Because they've, they've learned how to kinda master this new technology that to a lot of us is, is still kinda alien, you know?

• 53:00Rich Roll?

  Exactly. Or, or like the 16 year old girl who has a YouTube channel and she tests makeup and, you know, and basically talks about shopping and what she likes to wear and she's making 300 grand a month off her YouTube.

• 53:13Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 53:14Rich Roll?

  It's like.

• 53:14Speaker 01

  I subscribe. It's incredible.

• 53:16Rich Roll?

  Yeah. Good advice there.

• 53:19Speaker 01

  But it's incre, it is, it is, it is unfathomable. I mean, if you had have gone back 10, 15 years and said that this stuff exists.

• 53:26Rich Roll?

  Yeah. All right, well, we gotta talk about triathlon, man.

• 53:29Speaker 01

  All right, all right. Enough of boring stuff.

• 53:32Rich Roll?

  Yeah, no, I know, but I mean, I think that what's what's unique and interesting about you is is how these two worlds intersect and how, you know, we wanted to talk about balance, like how you balance both of these things. I mean, you know, triathlon isn't something you do on the side. This is really your lifestyle and it has been since you were a kid. I mean, you became an actor because you were discovered at a triathlon doing that. So this is like the fabric of your life.

• 53:56Speaker 01

  Yeah, absolutely. I I got into triathlon in 1991. I was 11 years old and I was a rugby player and and my dad is from New Zealand and a big rugby rugby supporting family over there. And my rugby coach was one of the pioneers of of the triathlon scene in Australia. And he used to run the the the number one Sydney triathlon sprint triathlon series every summer. It'd be one race a month at Kurnell, just near Cronulla. And and everyone would turn up, you know, it'd be Greg Welch and Brad Bevan and all these, you know, legends. And they'd go and race what is now known as the Kurnell World Championships, you know, because it's still a local race, but everyone goes there and so.

• 54:36Rich Roll?

  Right, but everybody who's in triathlon knows that club.

• 54:39Speaker 01

  Absolutely.

• 54:39Rich Roll?

  Because it spawned so many superstars.

• 54:41Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 54:42Rich Roll?

  I mean, when you were there as a kid, we we haven't even gotten to the part where you started, but was there a sense that that it was a special place? That that these people were going to be world champions, world champs in the making?

• 54:53Speaker 01

  It was just a it was just a shed like it's Cronulla Pavilion is kind of like this sort of rundown little pavilion, not on the beach side, but on the bay side. So Cronulla is kind of a peninsula and and on the bay side, there's kind of flat water and there's some shark nets and stuff that you can swim in and stuff. So it was kind of like a a rec room, you know, that we just kind of meet at at six o'clock. And I started there when I was 14 or 15. But in 14, when I was 14, it was 1994 and Welsh had just won Hawaii. And McIlroy Jones was was there and she was she was, you know, world two time world champion at that point or just two time world champion at that point. And then you had all these juniors. And then you had kind of the local legends, you had like guys like Jason Harper and Mick Maroney

• 55:38Speaker 01

  and people who are winning races at that level. And then the generation below, when I was 14, the guys that were kind of 18 were Chris McCormack and Jason Metz and Sean Maroney and Craig Alexander and and

• 55:51Rich Roll?

  And Greg Welch came out of that program.

• 55:53Speaker 01

  Absolutely. Well Greg Welch, he was one of the, he was actually then the generation above. So Greg and then the Southwell family. So there's four brothers and their father and they were kind of local legends and pioneers back, back even probably a few years previous. But, but, but they were all there. And so you go for a run and, and, you know, your club run and you'd be running with not only the Hawaiian Ironman champion, but, but absolute legends of the sport who are, you know, older, older than those guys, and Australian kind of triathlon legends. And, and then a bunch of juniors who were all mucking around who would go on to, you know, win Hawaii a couple of times, you know, like it was, it was incredible. And it's still, it still is, it still is awesome to go back there.

• 56:38Rich Roll?

  It still exists, the club is still going.

• 56:40Speaker 01

  The club is still there. I'm actually the patron of the Cronulla Triathlon Club. And, and I'll go back and, and I'll go for a club run and, and the Christmas run is, is always very entertaining. You know, everyone's running around in Santa Speedos and jumping off cliffs into water and stuff like that. Yeah, absolutely. So we, so it's, it's a great area and it still is a great, you know, very, very big surf club, surf club background there as well. So you've got four, four surf clubs in, on one beach, basically in Cronulla. And, and each of those clubs have been world champion clubs multiple times.

• 57:16Rich Roll?

  Interesting. Did, the two Luke's didn't come, Luke McKenzie and Luke Bell, they didn't come out of that program though?

• 57:21Speaker 01

  They didn't. They, they, they're good enough to have come out of that program.

• 57:24Rich Roll?

  Certainly, certainly they're good enough. They're good enough to have come out of any program.

• 57:28Speaker 01

  Yeah, but, but no, they were, they were kind of at other, I don't know if Luke McKenzie spent much time in Cronulla, but, but Luke Bell definitely not. He was, he was down more in, in Victoria. But, but even in that area, the cycling, the cycling world, you know, big, big, great roads to ride. So so Matt White, who who rode for Discovery for a long time. Right, and he was a coach at Garmin, right? Yeah, still Garmin, now he's at Director at Green Edge at the moment. So he was from down there, Graham Brown, Chris Sutton. Robbie McEwen? Uh, he was Gold Coast, I think, but actually Mark Cavendish came and stayed. Oh, really? Yeah, I bumped, I sat next to Cav at the Tour Down Under two years ago.

• 58:09Speaker 01

  And he, when he said where he's from, I said, I'm from Cronulla. He goes, I used to live at Sutherland. I came out to train in Sutherland for two years before I got my, before I went pro and. What? Cav Cav was practicing his sprints up at Waratah Bike Park, you know, like. That's amazing, yeah, because you just picture him like in the Isle of Man, you know, it's raining and he's.

• 58:30Speaker 01

  It's dark out. Yeah, remember when Cav, when he first started, he was a bit overweight too, and now he's really. Oh, yeah, he gets a little pudgy when he's not, it's it's funny, like, somebody could ride their bike that much and still, you know. Yeah, so it's great, yeah, great sporting, great sporting background and great sporting culture and area to come out of down there. So it was kind of in the, it's it's it was in the blood, really. So you started playing rugby, though? Yeah, I was a fat kid. You, yeah, yeah, I've seen, I've seen it before, pictures, man, you were, you were definitely like a pudgy little kid. Yeah, yeah, I still, I still fight the battle, I still do. So was was getting into triathlon a means of addressing that or was it something fun to do? I mean, I was eleven, so I kind of wasn't, it wasn't the time for me, but maybe maybe for my parents, and I've never really asked them, and they never pushed me into it,

• 59:14Speaker 01

  but they encouraged me and they, in the same way, they encouraged me to, me and my brother and my sister to do whatever, whatever we wanted to do. Um, so they were very supportive and mum would drive me to swim training and, you know, they bought me a bike and things like that. So, so that was a, you know, a very supportive place to grow up. But I I noticed that, I went to a boys' school, I went to Sydney Boys High in Sydney. And across the park was Sydney Girls High. And so it was about, you know, I was eleven, twelve, when I was thirteen or fourteen, I noticed that, oh, I started getting a bit taller and I started getting skinnier and then I was, because I was swimming four times a week, oh, hang on a second, I. Do the math, you're like, yeah. Hang on a second and, oh, and then, you know, you come into that age and suddenly, oh, actually, this triathlon stuff's kind of good. Right, like a girl looked at me.

• 59:58Speaker 01

  Yeah, she looked at me, hi, hi, should we get off, we'll get off the same bus, ah. So, you know, just one day you wake up and realize there's like. A thousand girls fifty metres away, I'm gonna go training. Right. So, so and I did, I lost, I lost a healthy amount away. I mean, it's never unhealthy, but I think, but genetically, all my families.

• 1:00:20Speaker 01

  You're predisposed for that, yeah. Started off a little rounder and ended up a little squarer. Yeah, that's how it is. And when did it become something that you were like really focused on? Um, about fifteen or sixteen, when I was about fifteen or sixteen, we won a state like team championships through my school. And McKeely Jones actually had a junior triathlon team with, with three very good athletes from Cronulla, junior athletes from Cronulla. And I kind of, you know, kind of thought I might try and get into that. And then I got, I got, um, and then my, actually my coach became the national coach, he took over from Brett Sutton. And he started coaching a lot of the pros and, and, and took over the national, uh, national program.

• 1:01:01Speaker 01

  And, and through that I ended up going to, I got invited to go to the New South Wales Institute of Sport and. Oh, it's a famous place. Yeah, absolutely. And I was sixteen and I'd go there for a talented athlete kind of identification camp and do a week or two there. They churn out amazing swimmers. Yeah, yeah, swimmers and paddlers, a lot of athletics. I mean, they've got, actually, I mean, that program now, the EnSwiss program's spectacular. Um, and, and that was, this was pre Sydney Olympics too. So there's a lot of funding. This was ninety six. There's a lot of funding starting to go into those, the facilities and, and the governing bodies and whatnot. So, so it was an exciting time. But then, um, within,

• 1:01:39Speaker 01

  within two days of that and two days of that starting, I got, uh, chickenpox. And so I was just, I, I was completely out with all these sores and then, and then straight after chickenpox, I got glandular fever. And so I, I was a mess. I was sick. My, my, and I was sixteen. That'll take you out for a long time. And it did. And it took, and it kind of derailed me even, even I tried to come back. My immune system was wrecked. And I, you know, I just kept getting tonsillitis and getting sick and getting colds and. And even if I tried to train, I felt horrible doing it. So and I did that. That was age sixteen, seventeen into age eighteen. But the the flip side of that was that it was in my final two

• 1:02:21Speaker 01

  years of high school. So I studied and and and got quite good marks and and and I actually met my manager or the guy that subsequently became my manager. I met him at a at a triathlon at Cornell where I was out there directing cyclists and working as an official because I still just wanted to be around the sport.

• 1:02:37Rich Roll?

  Mm hmm.

• 1:02:38Speaker 01

  And and so I started going to acting classes after school instead of going swim training. And and off that I I got my first job, which was in the Australian soap Neighbours.

• 1:02:48Rich Roll?

  Neighbours.

• 1:02:49Speaker 01

  And I played a triathlete in Neighbours.

• 1:02:50Rich Roll?

  Oh, you did.

• 1:02:50Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:02:51Rich Roll?

  Neighbours is like something that's been going on forever, right? It's like an institution.

• 1:02:55Speaker 01

  Yeah, thirty thirty years maybe.

• 1:02:56Rich Roll?

  And launched.

• 1:02:57Speaker 01

  Twenty eight, thirty.

• 1:02:58Rich Roll?

  It's sort of like Law and Order here, like it launches a lot of young actors' careers, right? Didn't was Heath Ledger on that show?

• 1:03:04Speaker 01

  Uh, he did. He did Neighbours, a bit of Home and Away, I think. Yeah, I don't know if he did Neighbours. He definitely did Home and Away, but we had Guy Pearce, um, Kylie Minogue is like our biggest, biggest international pop star, came out of Neighbours. Um, so yeah, uh, Jesse Spencer at the moment I worked with, he's on Chicago Fire at the moment. Um, so a lot of it was it was either it was either Neighbours or Home and Away with the two soaps.

• 1:03:26Rich Roll?

  And that's the breeding ground. Like, once you're in that mix, then you're kind of you're.

• 1:03:29Speaker 01

  That was the Australian breeding breeding ground.

• 1:03:31Rich Roll?

  Right, right.

• 1:03:31Speaker 01

  And that's and that was one, you know, there's a lot of people that that went in, did that and were never seen again.

• 1:03:36Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 1:03:36Speaker 01

  But there's a there's a there's a significant number who took that opportunity and and and worked hard and turned into something, yeah.

• 1:03:43Rich Roll?

  So you literally go right from high school into this?

• 1:03:45Speaker 01

  I got the I got the the phone call about my job on Neighbours the night before my second last high school exam. So.

• 1:03:54Rich Roll?

  That's like a universal sign, like it just lined up for you to go right from one thing to the next.

• 1:03:59Speaker 01

  So I didn't know what to do. So I kind of put my pen down and I I was studying for like an economics exam. I was like, oh, I don't need that for a while. Um, so I went out and I remember I was just in in awe of or in shock. So I went and washed both my parents' cars. I don't remember, like, I don't know what you were like at seventeen, but I don't know if you were washing your parents' cars unpaid or unasked, you know?

• 1:04:20Rich Roll?

  No.

• 1:04:21Speaker 01

  I was like, Mum, I'm gonna go wash your car. She said, what? And I just was in shock, like, and what am I gonna do? Like, I'm gonna be on TV and I'm gonna move from city to Melbourne and I've never been out of home and. And and so I did all those things at age seventeen, I I I yeah, three months later, I I had a summer in Sydney and I packed up and I and I drove with my dad everything I owned in a car and we drove it down to Melbourne and we'd never been to Melbourne before.

• 1:04:43Rich Roll?

  Mm hmm.

• 1:04:44Speaker 01

  And in Melbourne, there's Flinders Street Station, which is the main train station. And it's the the the main road, Sydney Road, hits Flinders Street and you can you're kind of right in the centre. And we're gonna hit the station and went, well, where do we go? I don't know, we'll turn right or left, I'm not sure. So we kind of turned left and we kept going and we ended up going fifty K past Melbourne before we realised we were kind of in the wrong place. So we turned around and we stayed at like a little motel for the night. And then I kind of started my first my first day at work the next day and

• 1:05:10Rich Roll?

  Wow.

• 1:05:10Speaker 01

  And I just had no idea what I was doing.

• 1:05:13Rich Roll?

  Mm hmm.

• 1:05:13Speaker 01

  But um, just, yeah, threw threw myself into it.

• 1:05:16Rich Roll?

  Yeah, and then and here you are. I mean, what was the plan? Were you gonna be go to university or?

• 1:05:21Speaker 01

  Yeah, the plan was to do eighteen months on Neighbours, which was the initial contract, and then go back to university and study economics or or something in the kind of financial world. And only because I didn't know what else I wanted to do, but I was kind of good at that. I got good marks and and my dad was in business and and a good businessman. So I was like, well, I'll do that, maybe I'll do some, you know, specialise in marketing or accounting or something, I don't know. But um, that was the plan. And so then I kept signing kind of more contracts and all I wanted out of it was this, it was a, I I said, was it's a nineteen sixty four Holden E H station wagon, which is like the classic Australian surfmobile.

• 1:05:57Rich Roll?

  Uh huh.

• 1:05:57Speaker 01

  Um, and I still haven't got one yet, but that was that was like seventeen years ago, eighteen years ago.

• 1:06:02Rich Roll?

  Come on, you should have, I mean, at this point, you should have gotten that.

• 1:06:06Speaker 01

  Yeah, so maybe I still gotta get that.

• 1:06:07Rich Roll?

  Yeah, for at least by the time, maybe for your fortieth birthday.

• 1:06:11Speaker 01

  That's kind of that's coming up quick, actually, I just, yeah, it's got six years.

• 1:06:14Rich Roll?

  Not that quick.

• 1:06:14Speaker 01

  Oh, man, they're flying fast.

• 1:06:16Rich Roll?

  You're young, you're young. Don't even start with me with that.

• 1:06:30Rich Roll?

  Alright, so during this period of time, there's not a lot of triathlon going on. Who's building your career and all of that? So when does getting back into the sport come into the picture?

• 1:06:39Speaker 01

  I moved, I finished Neighbours, I moved to London. I was in London, I worked on a TV show in the UK called The Bill, which is a quite a well-known police show over there. And then while I was over there, I decided that I would get back into some stuff and I ran the London Marathon. Ran that, thinking that I was a pro athlete, and went out and wanted to run sub-three hours for my first ever marathon. Had no concept of endurance sports, because I only ever raced junior triathlon and Olympic distance was about the first I ever raced. So I went out and ran, trained really well, trained really hard, went out and ran the London Marathon, went through, you know, the first 10K in 39 minutes, second 10K in 40 minutes, third 10K in 43 minutes.

• 1:07:23Rich Roll?

  Yeah, you hit that 18, that 18 mile marker is the, that's the widow maker.

• 1:07:29Speaker 01

  Yeah, at about 18 miles, I was doubled over with both my hamstrings cramping, going, seeing stars, going, what am I doing here? And so, yeah, that was, the last 12K was nearly two hours' worth of hobbling, but I ran 328, which was, which was alright.

• 1:07:47Rich Roll?

  Still pretty good.

• 1:07:48Speaker 01

  But, you know, it was pretty pear-shaped.

• 1:07:49Rich Roll?

  So you go back home and say, I can't let that happen again? I mean, is that what made you want to?

• 1:07:54Speaker 01

  I kind of, yeah, well, I kind of went, oh, okay, that's, that was interesting. And so, so I tried again the next year, I do them, but it wasn't until I left the UK that I, I went back to Australia. And I was doing a bit of running, I was doing some half marathons and stuff. So I got back to Australia and I moved back to Cronulla. And I was there and I was doing a couple of gigs and I was on hold for a job and I was on kind of contract with the network back home. And the drama that I was waiting for kept pushing back and pushing back. And I thought, well, I'm living with my dad right on the beach in Cronulla, my buddies are here, they're all training. I always wanted to do Ironman. Still haven't done that yet. And maybe the the the mindset was that I wanted to, I didn't

• 1:08:36Speaker 01

  want to let go of the childhood goals and the childhood dreams that I'd had and fully commit to my acting career without ticking all those, all those boxes. I didn't want to kind of let, in my mind, it was kind of like I had, I had acting on one shoulder and in the devil on one shoulder and the angel on the other shoulder, which is triathlon, and I'm kind of going, well, I don't want to let one blur the other too much. And I didn't want to give up.

• 1:09:01Rich Roll?

  So the childhood dream was being a pro triathlete on some level?

• 1:09:05Speaker 01

  I guess so. Yeah, I'd never, I mean, even back then, the, the notion of being a pro was, was different to, to what it is now. I mean, we, we kind of, you know, a lot of the guys that were working.

• 1:09:16Rich Roll?

  But being one of the guys who's putting all his eggs into, yeah, going to Kona and doing that whole, having that life.

• 1:09:23Speaker 01

  Yeah, I guess so.

• 1:09:24Rich Roll?

  And, and just, just for perspective, the, the sort of stature that triathlon enjoys in Australia is very different than the United States, right? It's, it's a much more.

• 1:09:35Speaker 01

  We had a national series, a national televised five race series made for TV series on air back then.

• 1:09:41Rich Roll?

  Yeah, that's amazing. I mean, that would never have happened here. I mean, now that we have a million channels, maybe, but.

• 1:09:46Speaker 01

  Yeah. But it was, I mean, that was, so that was going back 95 to 98, not 99. So we had this national series with big, big corporate sponsors. And, you know, sometimes they'd have swim in a pool, or they'd do like multi-lap sprint things, or they'd do back-to-back enduros, which Welshie always won, you know, and things like that. So, so it was an interesting time for triathlon. But, but there's suddenly there was a, there was sort of a career in it. But I think a lot of those guys were, a lot of the, maybe not the top 10, but the guys 10 to 25 were, had, you know, alternate careers as well or whatnot. But.

• 1:10:17Rich Roll?

  But the top guys in Australia are people that people knew about, right? Unlike in the United States, sort of, there was, there's, there's much more of an awareness there than there is here.

• 1:10:26Speaker 01

  There was, you know, a couple of, I mean, it was a small culture, but there, but there was, you know, there was a lot of magazine coverage. And, and there was not, it's not like they were in, you know, the back page of the, the sports pages of the paper. But but they had, you know, good, there were a couple of good magazines and and suddenly they, you know, had a television network putting it into people's backyard, you know, on their TV screens, you know, their in living rooms once a week. And then that was, the sport was changing. So.

• 1:10:49Rich Roll?

  I think I was supposed to be born in Australia and grow up there. I'm afraid to go because I don't want to come back, you know? I really don't like just, oh, you know, swimming is, everyone loves swimming. And I was like, that's the place where I should have.

• 1:11:02Speaker 01

  Is that where you started? Is that you started swimming?

• 1:11:04Rich Roll?

  Yeah, I was a swimmer. Yeah, I was a swimmer. So.

• 1:11:07Speaker 01

  Outdoor, outdoor fifty pools, man, they're the best.

• 1:11:09Rich Roll?

  I mean, my whole life was, you know, indoor pools in the middle of winter with humidity and tar dripping from the ceiling and that. And, you know, the idea of swimming round, you know, year round in Australia where swimming is respected in a way that it's not, you know, I mean, it is changing, it's growing, it's much different now. But in the nineteen eighties, you know?

• 1:11:29Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:11:30Rich Roll?

  The idea of going to the Australian Institute of Sport, you know, I was like, whoa.

• 1:11:34Speaker 01

  Yeah, AIS in Canberra. Yeah.

• 1:11:37Rich Roll?

  Oh, man. Right.

• 1:11:38Speaker 01

  Absolutely. Now, the swimming culture is is amazing, even not even, not even the competitive swimming culture, but just the fact that, you know, school swimming, school swimming carnivals.

• 1:11:47Rich Roll?

  School swimming, the lifeguard community, all of that, you know?

• 1:11:51Speaker 01

  Yeah, you know, you get thrown in a pool at a young age and because we're, you know, a country surrounded by by water, that everyone's got pools and rivers and.

• 1:11:58Rich Roll?

  A bunch of criminals, you guys.

• 1:12:00Speaker 01

  That's it. You gotta learn how to escape, right?

• 1:12:03Rich Roll?

  All right. So you got the, uh, the angel on one shoulder and the devil on the other. And you're trying to figure out, how am I going to have both of these things in my life and both give them the attention they deserve?

• 1:12:12Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:12:13Rich Roll?

  Because to really excel in triathlon or to really excel in the career that you've chosen, those are full time deals, you know?

• 1:12:21Speaker 01

  Yeah. And I, and I still to this day wrestle with that. And I still bounce back and forth between the two. So when I was shooting Infinity, I, I didn't train for, I went from racing the fittest I've probably been in years, racing seventy point three Worlds and, and in some great races over here last summer, to not riding a bike for five months while I was shooting. And then, and then going, well, I've got three months off. Maybe I can get Iron Man fit in 14 weeks. But let's do it, you know?

• 1:12:48Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 1:12:48Speaker 01

  And just do it that way.

• 1:12:50Rich Roll?

  Well, the thing about your lifestyle and your career is you're either working or you're not. You're not like kind of work. I mean, you can work on your craft and go on auditions, but when you're working, it's everything. And when you're not working, there isn't generally stuff going on that. Right? Except for the occasional meeting or whatever. So you can train, you can, you can do that.

• 1:13:08Speaker 01

  I love the idea of being, being in an office at eight 30 and work till nine and have a lunch break and finishing at four and, you know?

• 1:13:15Rich Roll?

  I don't think you would love that.

• 1:13:16Speaker 01

  I love the idea of it. I couldn't do it.

• 1:13:18Rich Roll?

  The reality of that, I don't know that that would fit.

• 1:13:20Speaker 01

  Love the idea of the routine of that, you know?

• 1:13:22Rich Roll?

  Well, we were talking about this before the podcast, this idea of balance. Like I pulled an all nighter last night. I'm working on this project that I gotta get done. And, you know, my day is busy with other stuff. I had to do it to, to, to get it completed. And, you know, I flip flop between the only way for me to achieve the potential that I know I'm capable of, or to create the kind of quality product or quality result that I want is for me to go all in. Yeah, I'm very addictive, obsessive personality. So whether it's the podcast or a book that I'm writing, or training for Ultraman, like, I don't wanna show up at the starting line, being the guy

• 1:14:05Rich Roll?

  who kind of trained 70% of what he's capable of. I wanna, I wanna have that 100% experience and see what I, what I'm made of. And I carry that into the other things that I do. But that doesn't make me a very good multitasker, you know, because I'm either all in on one thing or the next. And, and, and that creates challenges for me on a, on a daily sort of quality of life level. And like you're talking about the person who has the eight to five job, I look at the people that have that sort of, you know, whatever job they have, just that daily routine and that discipline of kind of doing a little bit of everything every day, making sure they get their training in, making sure they get their work taken care of, making sure that they attend to

• 1:14:46Rich Roll?

  their children and, you know, their whatever other responsibilities and things that they care about in their life. And for me, I'm, it's just the pendulum swinging like crazy from one end to the next. And, you know, I've talked about this before on the podcast, but that's my challenge. That's kind of what I spent a lot of time thinking about. And I don't, I'm just wired that way. Like, I don't know that I could be the other way anyway, even if I tried. And I just have to accept that. This is how I operate.

• 1:15:11Speaker 01

  I, I, those words, that, that entire speech could have come out of my mouth. Like, and if, and I'm sure when Zoe, my girlfriend, listens to this, she'll go, uh, you guys sound exactly the same. And so I guess that the balance.

• 1:15:27Rich Roll?

  I mean, I don't mean, I don't want to interrupt you, but triathlon is, you know, attracts that kind of personality, I think.

• 1:15:32Speaker 01

  Absolutely.

• 1:15:33Rich Roll?

  The kind of discipline that those people gravitate towards.

• 1:15:35Speaker 01

  You know, and it's, and it's not, it's just quite simply, it's not the type of sport that you can do, you can half do. You can't half do an I M, and you can't half train because it's just, one, you, you, you won't get through it. And two, if you do, it'll be horribly agonizing.

• 1:15:50Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 1:15:51Speaker 01

  And that's part of the reason to do it. And, but also too, when you've, when you attain that level of fitness, or that level of clarity, or that level of, I don't know, just, just when it all comes together and it, and it's like the, it's like when, it's like hitting the golf ball. And you hit it and there's the ting and it's the sweet spot and like, I mean, it's, and it's like that on a, on a nine hour or 10 hour.

• 1:16:11Rich Roll?

  Mm hmm.

• 1:16:12Speaker 01

  10 hour level, you know, when you get to that point, it's, it's a pretty special point.

• 1:16:16Rich Roll?

  It's magic.

• 1:16:16Speaker 01

  It's exactly what it is.

• 1:16:18Rich Roll?

  And you can't shortcut the journey required to get there, whether it's a golf stroke, or whether it's being perfectly in the moment when the camera's on you and you're delivering a line, or you're, you know, acting a scene, or when you're, when you're riding your bike and everything clicks, and you just feel like you can just, you're going and it's on.

• 1:16:39Speaker 01

  The work that goes in to get to that moment, like you said, you, there's, there's mountains of work. And, and it's, it's funny, the only feeling that I, that I think, the, the, the feeling that, that, uh, the transport, trans, what's the word I'm after, uh, that goes between the two of acting and, and triathlon, is, um, is that moment when I'm on set, when something, there was that magic moment on set, on camera, where you, where you're all working together and, and for whatever reason, when you create that magic moment, that feeling is, is very similar to the one of, of having it all go right on the day at an event. And because, because essentially they're, they're both, they're both performances, but they're very different performances.

• 1:17:23Speaker 01

  Um, but, but it, but there's, there are, I do find a lot of similarities and, and, and I do think, you know, one helps the other a lot. But, um, so.

• 1:17:34Speaker 01

  It's similar to taking what you've just said. I live a similar life where, you know, like I said, I make a movie for five months and didn't train. Then I'm going out and training like a wannabe elite Iron Man for four months. And so it's kind of, I do try and seek that balance, but it's balanced on a kind of steroid level. You know, it's not daily balance, but I know that I can do.

• 1:17:59Rich Roll?

  It's macro balance in the sense you look back on your life and you're like, oh, he was a super fat guy who was also a successful performer. That's a pretty balanced life. But on it, yeah, but in the, in the micro.

• 1:18:10Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah. The pendulum's either way down there or way down there.

• 1:18:14Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 1:18:15Speaker 01

  It's never.

• 1:18:15Rich Roll?

  Right. Cause you're, yeah, when you're on set and you're doing Dancing with the Stars or you're doing one of these movies, you, you're not be, you can't get up and, and go, go to the pool or, or go on a couple hour ride for the most part, right?

• 1:18:27Speaker 01

  Well, yeah, I find it's almost detrimental to both. You can, you can do it to a point. You can do it to a level. Like, you know, I can.

• 1:18:34Rich Roll?

  But both suffer.

• 1:18:35Speaker 01

  But if you wanted to, you can't do both, I don't think, at the, at both at the extreme level.

• 1:18:41Rich Roll?

  Or, or at the level that you're capable of.

• 1:18:43Speaker 01

  Yeah, or the, or the level that you aspire to, you know, for sure. Like, I can go out and I'd be careful with my training around show days at Dancing with the Stars. So if I train too much in the morning, like I gotta, I gotta keep my energies.

• 1:18:53Rich Roll?

  Your energy's gotta be high, right?

• 1:18:55Speaker 01

  Cause I gotta be on at six thirty or nine thirty that night. And then, um, so, so I gotta be really careful what sessions I, I plan that morning. And even the next day, I'm, I'm zapped. I'm really.

• 1:19:04Rich Roll?

  But you try to get something done every day to keep the blood flowing.

• 1:19:08Speaker 01

  So getting nothing done is, is almost detrimental. It's funny, you need to take the edge off.

• 1:19:12Rich Roll?

  Yeah, yeah. Well, you need to stay in it to keep the energy high. Like you get energy from it. It's not, you know, unless you're, you know, when you're training super hard, it's different, but just on a daily basis.

• 1:19:23Speaker 01

  Yeah. And, you know, it's like, if you keep that, if you keep that engine revving at max speed all the time, it's gonna blow up too. So you gotta kind of work out how to.

• 1:19:32Rich Roll?

  But if you have it at a low rev all the time, then when it, when it comes time to be able to kick it into Iron Man training, you're not starting from zero.

• 1:19:40Speaker 01

  Correct.

• 1:19:41Rich Roll?

  So, you know, it's, it's that, we were talking about this the other day, like you stop riding your bike and the cycling fitness disappears like overnight. Like, you know, it just requires constant pressure. But if you can just kind of stay connected to it even minimally, then that curve of getting back in is gonna be less steep.

• 1:19:58Speaker 01

  Well, that kind of minimal. Kind of bit of work, bit of training, bit of maintenance on everything, bit of life is kind of the most normal, I guess you and I get. When you're kind of doing a bit of everything, but you're not maxing out in anyone's fear, then that's kind of the most routine and most normal life gets.

• 1:20:19Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 1:20:19Speaker 01

  And then suddenly a phone ringing.

• 1:20:21Rich Roll?

  I don't experience that much.

• 1:20:21Speaker 01

  No, me either.

• 1:20:23Rich Roll?

  That's not really.

• 1:20:24Speaker 01

  And I kind of get bored with it, to be honest as well, you know? So I kind of like to be.

• 1:20:28Rich Roll?

  Life would probably be easier if it was that way, but yeah, that's not how it's happening for me.

• 1:20:34Speaker 01

  No, me either. And you kind of chase the, but I guess then, you know, the rewards are greater too.

• 1:20:39Rich Roll?

  Right, right.

• 1:20:40Speaker 01

  It's, and it's never dull.

• 1:20:41Rich Roll?

  You, you can rise higher and you can fall steeper too.

• 1:20:44Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:20:45Rich Roll?

  Because it's scary to put, you know, when you're all in, you're, you're on the line, you know? So you've sacrificed a lot, you've, you've cut other things out of your life for a temporary period of time for a specific goal, and it doesn't always work out, you know? And so you have to be able to live with that as well, I think.

• 1:20:59Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:21:00Rich Roll?

  But you made a very interesting point, which is this idea of, you know, fully investing yourself, whether it's, you know, in your personal case, triathlon, or your, your acting career, to get the result that you want. But these are, these are very different disciplines in the sense that there's a very linear equation with triathlon, you know? When you take, you know, remove talent from the equation, if you do the work, you will make progress. Like you can, it's a certainty, right? If you apply yourself and create a plan and, and execute on that plan, then you will be able to, you know, achieve some, some aspect of that goal. You can finish a race or what have you. But the creative arts are not like that.

• 1:21:44Speaker 01

  No.

• 1:21:44Rich Roll?

  You know what I mean? You could work as hard as possible and apply yourself completely, but that doesn't mean anything necessarily, you know? A painter can, is not going to create a great painting out of his self-will. It has to come from this ethereal place of, of surrender and letting go and allowing yourself to kind of channel that, that intuition and that, that instinct. So. They're a lot, they're, how do you, you know, those are, it's like different size of the brain, right?

• 1:22:12Speaker 01

  Absolutely, and I actually said that, I've said that many times over the years in, in interview situations, or even just to friends and family, saying, why do you keep going back to this sport? Why do you, why, you know, you've, you've just got the lead in this gig, and you've coming off this gig, and you should be going to LA, why are you going to, to somewhere, why are you going to NUSF for two months to ride your bike? It's like, well, there's so many variables in my career, and there's so many variables in my life because of my career. But with triathlon, it's A to B, and, and that's X. And the harder you work, X gets smaller. And, and, and it's tangible, and you can see it, and you've got a result that you can see, and it's a number, and it's, you know, nine or whatever, or it's nine fifty, or ten, or whatever your time is, or a half, you know, it's,

• 1:22:55Speaker 01

  it's four something, oh, great, and I can, and, and so I can quantify that, that three months, six months, twelve months of my life, and go, and, and kind of hold it with a number, and with a result, and with a medal, and go, that's what this was about. I can go out and do a TV series, and bust my absolute backside, in, inside out, to work so hard. And the marketing kind of wasn't quite right, and the, the edit wasn't that good, and then the time slot got juggled from eight thirty Monday to nine thirty Tuesday, and then the audience isn't as big, and then, well, because the Tuesday audience isn't as big as the Monday audience, so ratings were down from one point five to one point three, so the network have decided they're gonna put it on hold for another twelve months, and you're never gonna see it. And actually, something else is gonna come in, and actually, it's never gonna sit a lot of day.

• 1:23:39Speaker 01

  So because of, or, or, let me offer this.

• 1:23:42Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 1:23:43Speaker 01

  You, you get your script, and you rehearse it a bazillion times in your, you know, in front of the bathroom mirror, and you, and then you show up for the audition, or you show up for the scene, and you're so all up in your head, and, and filled with anxiety, that you flub it, and it doesn't go anywhere. And then, by contrast, you out partying all night, and you roll onto set hungover, and, and just out of it, and something happens, and you're in the moment, and it's brilliant.

• 1:24:08Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 1:24:08Speaker 01

  You know, so it's, it's, it's, it's just different. It's, it's completely different, and that, and that, um, you ever read the dude in The Zen Master, Jeff Bridges' book? With his, it's fantastic.

• 1:24:19Rich Roll?

  No, no, no.

• 1:24:19Speaker 01

  And a lot of that is about, is about just spontaneity, and the magic of spontaneity in performance, and, and just letting go, because if you grip too tight, particularly in performance in front of a camera, whether it's hosting or acting, or even if you're, when you're racing, if you, you've, you try and control it too much, and you grip it too tight, you'll It'll chuck it.

• 1:24:39Rich Roll?

  Yeah, I mean, I'm not an actor or presenter or anything like that, but I have been going around doing a lot of public speaking and it's been a new experience for me to have to get up in front of crowds of people on a consistent basis. And, and my performance varies, you know, and, and, and I'm like a very preparation self-will kind of guy, you know, and I'll rehearse, I gotta memorize all that. And, and when I do that and I get all up in my head, then those are stale presentations because I'm really caught up in what I'm saying. And then other times I'm like, I don't care, you know, I'm just gonna get up there and I, I don't even know what I'm gonna say and I just do it and, and it ends up being way better that way.

• 1:25:15Speaker 01

  Yeah, absolutely. You just, I, I think you just gotta trust yourself, particularly if you've done the work. That's when you kinda gotta let go.

• 1:25:24Rich Roll?

  And you throw it away.

• 1:25:25Speaker 01

  If you've done the work, you throw it away and just, that's the exciting stuff too. I think that's, that's when I, that's when I kinda love it. You go, well, shit, anything can happen. And, you know, hopefully people don't start throwing fruit down, vegetables at you and booing you offstage, but, but, but that's, that's, that's an exciting way to work. If you can afford to work that way with a, with a director or, or, you know, in whatever medium you're working in, whether it be a, a podcast or a feature film, you know, like, I, I think that trusting the, trusting the spontaneity and trusting the, the magic of, and the chemistry of whoever's involved is, uh, there's a lot to be said for that. And getting out of your own way, getting out of your own head, just, there's a lot to be said for that.

• 1:26:04Rich Roll?

  Yeah, it's applicable in so many areas of your life. Like, you don't have to be an actor or an artist for that to be a valuable skillset or a tool. Um, and, you know, it's made me think that when I grew up, I had this very black and white notion that you could be an athlete, but athletes aren't artists or creative types. Like, these, these two worlds don't intersect. Like, you can pick one, but... Once you do that, then that's the path that you're on.

• 1:26:32Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:26:33Rich Roll?

  And I chose to be an athlete when I was a youngster. I had sort of creative leaning sides or whatever, and I've sort of repressed that for many years. And as a result, kind of became a shadow artist where I like to be around creative. I have like an obsession with people that are in their creative power. Like, I just find that fascinating. And, you know, whether they're a painter, or a dancer, or whatever it is, just the ability to tap into that very special quality and, and express that, I find to be just so compelling. And so I'm really interested in the creative process and learning about it. And as a result of like, writing and some of the other things that I'm doing, like this podcast, like I've had an opportunity to be more creative in my life.

• 1:27:14Rich Roll?

  And it's been revelatory in the sense that it's allowed me to let go of that predisposition that you don't have to be one or the other. Like, you can hone the right side of your brain and the left side of your brain. Both of those can be healthy and expressed.

• 1:27:29Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:27:30Rich Roll?

  And you're a great, I mean, the reason I'm bringing it up is because you're a great example of that. You're doing both of these things and you're excelling in both.

• 1:27:36Speaker 01

  Oh, thank you. Because I still, I still lay awake at night, struggling with it. Or, or, or if I'm training too hard, or, or, you know, sometimes if I ever have a bad, a bad audition or something, I'll blame it, well, I was probably training too hard. Because you do get, you do get so, it's kind of, kind of linear, you know? It's, it's there, I'm going in a straight line. And because triathlon particularly is, is a straight line sport. You know, everything's got, you want everything in a straight line, efficiently moving forward. You know, there's no deviation. It's not, it's not creative in too many ways. It's not even like running off-road, it's not even like a trail run, which we, yeah, that's, that's creative, you know? You get creative out there. You know, no, it's, I'm gonna run-

• 1:28:15Rich Roll?

  It's about as creative as your calculator.

• 1:28:17Speaker 01

  Exactly right. It's, it's a numbers game, you know? And so, so I do find-

• 1:28:22Rich Roll?

  Except you have a pink bike, so.

• 1:28:25Speaker 01

  I actually just sold it, actually.

• 1:28:26Rich Roll?

  Oh, you did?

• 1:28:26Speaker 01

  I got a yellow bike now. But, but, you know, it's, it's-

• 1:28:32Rich Roll?

  So much for the rugged Australian male image, right?

• 1:28:36Speaker 01

  We're not afraid about pink bikes, man. But um.

• 1:28:39Rich Roll?

  Secure in your masculinity.

• 1:28:40Speaker 01

  Absolutely. Look at this little gruff beard. Um, but, but yeah, I do, I'm still learning to balance the two. And again, it's kind of an extreme balance of going on, either doing one or the other. And I do need to, to discover ways of fostering both. And, and that can't be, or maybe it can be, but it can't be, actually, I'm going to put my bike away for five months and go and live on set. And, and operate on four hours sleep deliberately to try and unlock. Things.

• 1:29:08Rich Roll?

  Right, like channel your inner Daniel Day Lewis.

• 1:29:12Speaker 01

  Yeah, absolutely. And it's, it's amazing when you, if you can alter your entire

• 1:29:18Speaker 01

  reality, you, you find different, different things, you know, and, but you, you, you don't often have the, the luxury to do that with, with family or friends or partners or whatnot, or luckily I've got a very understanding partners in the same, the same industry. But um, and, and nor, nor do, do, you know, directors or producers want, want actors to do that sometimes, but, but.

• 1:29:39Rich Roll?

  But take out extra insurance on you if you're out riding your bike all the time.

• 1:29:43Speaker 01

  Yeah, I, I.

• 1:29:45Rich Roll?

  Great insurance policy, yeah.

• 1:29:48Speaker 01

  But um, yeah, it is a constant struggle that, that, that between the, between the right and left hand side, you know, in the.

• 1:29:53Rich Roll?

  Right. And yet there's things to be learned from both. I mean, yes, triathlon is a very linear sport, but, but the sort of relaxation techniques, the, the, the, the skill set that you, that is required to get present to do what you do as a performer. Those things are very valuable in sport, whether it's triathlon or playing baseball or, or whatever, or, or what have you. And the focus and the dedication and the work ethic required to excel in triathlon or in sport in general is applicable to whatever your career is. And I think that there are a lot of, you know, you see it in. You know, there's probably a lot of performers that get into it because it looks easy, you know, and they think there's an entitlement issue and they're just gonna go audition and because they're handsome or attractive, they're just gonna get a job.

• 1:30:38Rich Roll?

  And my experience, having lived in this town for a long time and knowing a lot of people, successful and not, in the business, is that the ones that make it, in addition to being very talented, they work their ass off.

• 1:30:51Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:30:51Rich Roll?

  They're very focused and there's so much about the business that you can't control. You can't control, you know, how somebody's gonna respond to your audition or what have you, but there are a lot of things that you can do.

• 1:31:01Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:31:02Rich Roll?

  You can be pushing your career forward by making sure that you're, you know, connecting with the people that you need to connect with and following through and being responsible and working on your craft and all kinds of things.

• 1:31:13Speaker 01

  Just be as prepared as you possibly can be.

• 1:31:15Rich Roll?

  And triathlon teaches you that.

• 1:31:16Speaker 01

  Absolutely. Absolutely. The discipline of working when no one's watching.

• 1:31:21Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 1:31:21Speaker 01

  You know? That's one of the big lessons, big, big lessons. So, keep doing that.

• 1:31:27Rich Roll?

  Yeah, man. Well, I think that's a good place to wrap it up here.

• 1:31:31Speaker 01

  I'm honored that you would even invite me on here, man.

• 1:31:35Rich Roll?

  Oh, are you kidding, man? I've been wanting to get you on for a long time and we've had our mutual friend Asher on a couple of times. Have you talked to him recently?

• 1:31:42Speaker 01

  Yeah, he's been having a couple of problems with his body, with his hips and stuff. I wanted to, so we're both ambassadors for the Indigenous Marathon Project.

• 1:31:54Rich Roll?

  Oh, that was what I wanted to talk, see, you were talking about like being spontaneous in the moment.

• 1:31:58Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:31:59Rich Roll?

  And so what I do for the podcast is, you know, I do my research, I prepare, like, I know you, but I was like, I wanna make sure I know much more about you. I make all these notes, you can see this notebook, but then I put it away, like, I don't wanna be looking at, asking you questions on a list, you know? But the thing that I wanted to make sure that I wanted to talk to you about was the Indigenous Marathon Project, because I've talked to Asher about it at length and it just sounds fascinating, so I wanna hear about this.

• 1:32:23Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's, well, it's a program run, started by Robert Deekistella, who's one of the Australians in the world's greatest marathon runners, and Deek's very famous in running circles and in Australia. Very, I think he's a, yeah, a sub 210 kinda guy and very, very, very good back in the day, but anyway, he started... He started a thing called the Indigenous Marathon Project. And each year they select a squad of, I think, around twenty to thirty runners from Indigenous communities, or remote communities, as well as big cities. And, and choose kind of twenty or thirty guys and girls of varying shapes and sizes

• 1:33:04Speaker 01

  and abilities, and train them, um, train them with a goal of, of making the squad to go and run the New York Marathon.

• 1:33:11Rich Roll?

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:33:12Speaker 01

  And this has been going for a couple of years now, but, but basically, it's, it's, it's empowerment through running.

• 1:33:18Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 1:33:18Speaker 01

  And it's, and it's teaching leadership skills, it's teaching, um, principles of, of health and fitness, so that, that each one of these squad members can go back to, to, to their family, to their, to their town, to their village, a- and kind of, but, but bestow this information and this knowledge and this kind of newfound, um, way of life on, onto others. So basically, it's, it's kind of a, it's, um, it's giving people who wouldn't otherwise have this opportunity, this opportunity through running. And, and I've been fortunate enough to, to run with, with guys and girls who, who would never have thought that they could run, you know, a thirty K time trial around Uluru,

• 1:34:00Speaker 01

  the most, most sacred, sacred sort of, um, rocks in the world, and, you know, landmark of Australia. It's, it's incredible. So these guys are, are breaking down personal barriers, a- and, and, and discovering so many amazing things about themselves, that they can then pass on to-

• 1:34:17Rich Roll?

  They take it back to the community.

• 1:34:18Speaker 01

  Yeah, absolutely.

• 1:34:20Rich Roll?

  It's pretty, it's pretty amazing. So how many, how many active kind of runners are participating?

• 1:34:25Speaker 01

  So I think, I think, uh, at, on, at the moment, there's, I think there's thirty, or there's gonna be a squad chosen on the twenty eighth of September at their, their thirty K time trial, and I think they'll probably take around between ten to fifteen athletes to the New York Marathon this year.

• 1:34:41Rich Roll?

  Mm-hmm. Are you gonna do that?

• 1:34:43Speaker 01

  I might, I might actually head out to the time trial, which is, um, uh, in Alice Springs, but I'll be back in Australia doing dancing-

• 1:34:50Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 1:34:50Speaker 01

  -in, in, um, in November, so I'll be able to do New York, but I'd love to. But I was going to, um, I, I spoke to Osh the other day, saying, hey, man, when I'm back, there's Sydney Marathon's on, and it's the week before the, the, the, the time trial for the project, why don't we go and run the Marathon, Sydney Marathon together and raise a bunch of money? Because I think it costs, it's, um- I think about if you raise 5,000 Australian dollars, it funds the place of one squad member.

• 1:35:16Rich Roll?

  Oh, I got you.

• 1:35:17Speaker 01

  So it's like, well, let's go and run it, run the Sydney Marathon together and we could raise five grand each. And that funds two people to go and be part of the squad. And he said, man, I'm injured. I haven't run for two months. He's torn, he's torn. I don't want to give too much of Osha's medical history away to the world, but we're gonna have a chat. He's haven't run for too much, but he has been cycling, so.

• 1:35:37Rich Roll?

  This is what happens when you leave him alone.

• 1:35:39Speaker 01

  I know, man.

• 1:35:40Rich Roll?

  You know?

• 1:35:40Speaker 01

  I know, buddy.

• 1:35:41Rich Roll?

  It doesn't work, man. You need the Wonder Twin powers. He's holding down Australian television while you're gone and he's gonna come back here. The Bachelor is going on right now, right?

• 1:35:51Speaker 01

  The Bachelor's on air at the moment. So, yeah, I mean, he was, he hosted Australian Idol for many years. And then I did X Factor while he was doing Idol. And then, and then we're both over here and, you know, good mates for many years. And then, and then he started The Bachelor and I've been doing dancing. So we're tag teams. I literally, I get back on next week and he leaves the day before I arrive. And when I, when he left.

• 1:36:13Rich Roll?

  Yeah, because it wouldn't function if one of you guys wasn't there, right?

• 1:36:16Speaker 01

  No, no.

• 1:36:17Rich Roll?

  The whole thing would just, I Instagram that day that we went riding. I was like, clearly Australian television is off air today because both these guys are riding bikes in Malibu.

• 1:36:27Speaker 01

  Who's running this thing?

• 1:36:28Rich Roll?

  Yeah, exactly.

• 1:36:29Speaker 01

  Both of you guys are here. Just reruns of The Simpsons, I'm sure.

• 1:36:32Rich Roll?

  Exactly.

• 1:36:33Speaker 01

  But, no, he's good and I love his enthusiasm for, for endurance sports and, and.

• 1:36:39Rich Roll?

  Which is a new, new thing, you know, he's really taken to it. Like it was only, I mean, you helped him get a bike, right? And now he just loves it.

• 1:36:45Speaker 01

  Yep, yep, yep, yep. So in the way that, in the way that.

• 1:36:49Rich Roll?

  In his neon, he just goes crazy with it.

• 1:36:51Speaker 01

  Loves his fluoro, fluoro. I love it. But in the way that, you know, people are taking to, and suddenly now, you know, Ironman is, triathlon is so much more accessible. It's funny the way then people are kind of then looking forward to ultra. They're looking forward to ultra marathons or Ultramans. To the point where there's, there's an Ultraman in Noosa now.

• 1:37:13Rich Roll?

  Oh, there is.

• 1:37:14Speaker 01

  There is. So Ultraman Australia 2015.

• 1:37:16Rich Roll?

  Oh, really?

• 1:37:17Speaker 01

  I think it just, I think it just.

• 1:37:19Rich Roll?

  Are you thinking about that?

• 1:37:20Speaker 01

  Well, I missed the cutoff. I did send them an email last week. Look, if they're listening. And, you know, Daniel MacPherson here just wanting to add to the withdrawal list if you are listening.

• 1:37:32Speaker 01

  Got a great advisor sitting opposite me. Hey buddy, would you be my advisor if I do it?

• 1:37:35Rich Roll?

  No, no, I'll be your crew cop then.

• 1:37:37Speaker 01

  Fantastic. You should check, you should do one. Well, I originally, I originally said to Zoe, hey, look, I just finished Roth, or didn't finish Roth, Roth as the case was, but um. You have to turn down all your acting gigs, you know. It's only three days, isn't it?

• 1:37:54Speaker 01

  It's the nine months before those three days that are, that I'm talking about. Oh, look, it's, it's absolutely in my, in my sights, and particularly Noosa being another, another one of my spiritual homes and um. That's another place where I'm afraid to visit. Cause I'm just. Well, we need to do this then. You need to come out, come and stay at the house. I really would love to go. Do you, oh, you have a place in Noosa? Yeah, I got a house there. Yeah, and a little beach house, a big beach house. Oh, man. Come and, come and crew, come and, come and do Ultraman Australia. That's, I'm gonna take you up on that. If they let me in. Yeah, well, maybe I'll uh. Send him an email. Send you a letter of recommendation. Anybody listening here, just [email protected]. What was the, what was the cutoff?

• 1:38:39Speaker 01

  I can't, did it, did it? I think they got so much, they're, they're doing, they got forty-five guys, forty-five spots. Uh, and I think entries end, ended, uh, ended July, so I missed out by, I was, I was away in Germany, so. So um, I'll look, I'll put it in the hands of the universe. I might see if I can get on the waitlist and uh, yeah, see how we go. That's exciting, man. I'd be, I'd be stoked if you, if you went to check that out. Well, you might get a phone call in a couple of weeks. Alright, good. Let you know. Cool, man. Otherwise, there's plenty of others, but yeah, wouldn't mind. It's time to, it's time to go long. Yeah. Real long. Especially as you get older, longer's, longer's better. You can slow down. You just, you can keep going, you know? I think it'd be amazing, so.

• 1:39:20Speaker 01

  I had a, I had a really, just one tiny little anecdote was at the, at the twenty-four mile mark of the Hawaiian Ironman in two thousand and nine. And I'd had the best thirteen miles of a marathon I've ever had. And then I had the worst thirteen miles of a marathon I've ever had.

• 1:39:36Rich Roll?

  Worse than when you were in, did China in two thousand and eleven?

• 1:39:40Speaker 01

  Well, China, I was kind of still in control a little bit, but Hawaii, I was just cooked and I was dehydrated. I was coughing up blood and I couldn't get any stuff down. And China, I was still moving, I was still in control. But Hawaii, I kind of got my, just, and the tank was empty. So I was getting there. But then I got to the bottom of the hill, the Pay and Save Hill that Mark Allen used to call it. Polani on one side. And then, what's the, we're coming back into town from the Queen K, so it's the other side of Polani. So you're running up and then you chuck a ride down Polani. So I kind of got to the bottom of that and I was like delirious and yelling and swearing at myself. But then I kind of had this wave of euphoria and kind of calm and kind of clarity come over me after like

• 1:40:24Speaker 01

  twenty-four miles in lava fields. And I was like, wow, if that's, if that's what ten, ten hours and twenty minutes, if it takes ten hours and twenty minutes to get to that feeling, like I feel like I was just on the precipice. I was on, I was at the first step. I was like, what's next? What if you go further? Like, how does it, how do you, like, you've got to go through ten and a half hours of this to get to here. What's next? What's out there? I want to go out there. And so I crossed the finish line and I, and I, and I said to my family and friends, I had this amazing moment at the, at the forty K mark and, and, and I want to go long, I want to go longer. Like, I just, I just touched the edge. And they're like, no, you're crazy, you're crazy. So I've buried that for a couple of years. I think it's time.

• 1:41:06Rich Roll?

  See, we're, we're simpatico because I hear that and I'm like, yeah, I get that. You've got to do Ultramarathon. You're crazy, you know, or an Ultramarathon.

• 1:41:15Speaker 01

  Yeah, I might start with that and see how we go.

• 1:41:17Rich Roll?

  I would say that, that, you know, I crewed at Badwater last summer.

• 1:41:22Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:41:23Rich Roll?

  And I've never seen suffering like the suffering at Badwater. I mean, that is really something else, you know, when you're going for that long in that kind of heat. It was really interesting, you know? And there's something.

• 1:41:38Rich Roll?

  You know, it's like, uh,

• 1:41:39Speaker 01

  Was it like a hundred and thirty or something in bad?

• 1:41:41Rich Roll?

  Close to that. Yeah, like there's a, well, there's a, yeah, like the pavement. The pavement's super hot. So every, every couple inches up from the pavement, it gets cooler. So I think it was between a hundred and twenty and a hundred and thirty.

• 1:41:53Speaker 01

  Wow.

• 1:41:54Rich Roll?

  At like, you know, between one and three thirty in the afternoon or something like that. And I guess the pavement gets up to like a hundred and seventy or something.

• 1:42:01Speaker 01

  Wow.

• 1:42:01Rich Roll?

  Crazy like that. And, but, but the point being that when you get to that, that sort of dividing line, it becomes like this spiritual experience.

• 1:42:12Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:42:12Rich Roll?

  You know, it's like an ayahuasca trip or DMT. I would imagine, I've never done that, but where you enter a different state of consciousness. And then it becomes something that you wanna push further through or access again.

• 1:42:26Speaker 01

  Yeah. It just raises more questions than answers when you get there, doesn't it?

• 1:42:30Rich Roll?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 1:42:32Speaker 01

  All right. Well, to be continued.

• 1:42:35Rich Roll?

  Yeah, exactly, man.

• 1:42:36Speaker 01

  All right, buddy.

• 1:42:36Rich Roll?

  Well, this was an absolute pleasure.

• 1:42:38Speaker 01

  Thank you very much for saying very nice things about me and thanks for having me, man. Really, really lovely.

• 1:42:43Rich Roll?

  It was really fun and you're an inspiration. I'm happy to have you in my life, man. And it's ridiculous that we don't go out and train more, probably because I'm not training enough right now. Now that you haven't made yourself available and now I'm bummed that you're leaving.

• 1:42:56Speaker 01

  I know. Well, we'll have to start two thousand and fifteen.

• 1:42:59Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 1:42:59Speaker 01

  We'll start a new leaf, man.

• 1:43:00Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 1:43:01Speaker 01

  But I echo all of that. So thank you very much. Look forward to it.

• 1:43:05Rich Roll?

  So if you're digging on Daniel, the best way to connect with him is on the various social media mechanisms.

• 1:43:13Speaker 01

  Yeah, probably Twitter.

• 1:43:14Rich Roll?

  You're on all those things. Yeah. So Twitter.

• 1:43:15Speaker 01

  Instagram, Dan MacPherson.

• 1:43:17Rich Roll?

  Dan MacPherson, M A C P H E R S O N. And is it the same on Instagram?

• 1:43:21Speaker 01

  Yeah, it is.

• 1:43:22Rich Roll?

  I can keep track, right? And you're, are you on Facebook?

• 1:43:24Speaker 01

  No, I don't. Yeah. No, I kinda tapped out early. Yeah.

• 1:43:28Rich Roll?

  Cool. And I'll put links up to the Indigenous Marathon Project. I'll put the trailer up for Infinity.

• 1:43:36Speaker 01

  Great.

• 1:43:37Rich Roll?

  Anything else going on that you wanna share with people?

• 1:43:39Speaker 01

  No, they're the two main ones. Infinity and, uh, Infinity and Project, probably the two ones.

• 1:43:44Rich Roll?

  All right, man.

• 1:43:44Speaker 01

  And if anything else pops up in between, I'll let you know.

• 1:43:48Rich Roll?

  Excellent.

• 1:43:48Speaker 01

  All right, buddy. Thank you so much.

• 1:43:49Rich Roll?

  Thank you. Peace. Plants.

• 1:44:01Rich Roll?

  All right, you guys, that's the show. That's it. We're done. Hope you enjoyed it. Please, if you haven't already, give us a review on iTunes. We're getting close to 1,000 reviews, and it would be great to hit that. So do me a solid. Take the 60 seconds it requires. Go to iTunes, log up to the show, and let me know what you think there. Make that happen. Let's hit 1,000 together. I appreciate it. Don't forget to check out Joy Cafe for those that are in Los Angeles. It's our new, awesome, plant-based, 100% gluten-free restaurant. It's in the Westlake Village area of Los Angeles. It's kind of the West Valley area. It's super great. We're really excited about it.

• 1:44:46Rich Roll?

  Every day, it's getting more and more crowded. The feedback, the early feedback on the food, has been amazing, and we're just excited to continue to spread the word about this new place that we have for all of you guys to offer. And if you want to meet up with me, more often than not, you can find me there at lunchtime. So if you want to have a chat with me, that's probably a good place to track me down and find me. If you want to stay current with all things Plant Power, subscribe to my newsletter at richroll.com. It's the only way to get exclusive content and to be the first to know about deals and sales and discounts on all of our products. I will not spam you. I send out a weekly update about the podcast and occasional notices about deals, and we're

• 1:45:30Rich Roll?

  going to start to build out the newsletter to be providing helpful content like recipes and nutritional information and more. Also, we have our iOS app for your mobile phone. It's the only way to access the entire catalog of the podcast. If you go to iTunes, you can only get the most recent 50 episodes. But if you want to hear some of the oldies, the oldies but goodies, just download the app in the iTunes App Store. Just search Rich Roll, Rich Roll Podcast. You'll find it right there. It's totally free, and you get all the show notes, you get pictures of the guests, and all kinds of good stuff. And we're going to be developing a second ...conversion of that that has even more cool bells and whistles. Want to support the show? Just tell a friend. That's all we ask. Using Amazon Banner Ad, that's great.

• 1:46:15Rich Roll?

  We can also accept donations for those of you so inclined, so we appreciate that. And keep sharing with me your experience of the show on Instagram. As I always say, I love that. Just tag my name there, Rich Roll or RRP, and I can see where you guys are when you're listening to the show, whether it's on the subway, in your car, at work, out on a trail, out running, riding your bike, whatever it is. I totally dig it, so please keep that up. And as always, follow me on Twitter, on Instagram, and on Facebook. And now I'm on Snapchat. I'm going to start dialing up the Snapchat a little bit more. I'm @RichRoll on all my social media, except for Snapchat. My username there is I Am Rich Roll.

• 1:46:58Rich Roll?

  I A M R I C H R O L L. Okay. The assignment. This week's assignment. Left brain, right brain, which one are you? We all have a basic sense of where we fall on that spectrum. So what I want you guys to do this week is to pick the side that you're weak at and try something you have never done before that flexes those underutilized brain muscles. If you're an accountant, paint a painting. If you're an artist, balance your checkbook. If you're dyslexic, write in your journal anyway. Give yourself permission. Change your story. Remove your limitations. Dan proves that we can all be well-rounded, and we need not limit or define ourselves

• 1:47:43Rich Roll?

  by our proclivities. All right, you guys. Until next week. Peace. Plants.