“I’m just going to wing it,” says hopeful Tracy Grimshaw
No prepared speeches, back at work on Monday, but a big weekend ahead for Tracy Grimshaw.
- Published by David Knox
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- Filed under Logies, News, Top Stories
If she wins the Gold Logie Tracy Grimshaw has no speech prepared and as for partying, she will be back at the  desk in Sydney on Monday night.
She goes into the Logies as the Gold favourite according to the bookies, but the A Current Affair presenter isn’t presuming anything.
“I’ve always wondered if the Gold Logie winner knows in advance with a quiet nod. But I can tell you that’s not the case!” she tells TV Tonight.
“In each of the categories I’m nominated for I have really exemplary competition. I just can’t get my head around being so presumptuous to write a winning speech so I’m just going to wing it. So if I get up 1 time or 3 times I will be winging it, each time.”
Rule out any prepared soapbox agendas, too. If she does create a headline ‘moment’, it will be spontaneous.
“I’ve done a lot of Live television and I’m going to be sober, so what can go wrong?” she laughs.
“Anyone can do what they want with their moment, but I don’t know what I will do if it’s my moment. If I get up there.”
Grimshaw is nominated for 3 awards, the Gold as Most Popular Personality, a Silver as Most Popular Presenter and an Outstanding Award in the News / Current Affairs category for her Don Burke interview.
And if 2017 is memorable for anything it is the #MeToo movement, the impact of strong women in the media. There would be some synergy if Tracy Grimshaw were to take Gold after 36 years at Nine on the back of a hard-hitting interview with Don Burke.
“I love the art of the interview. That’s my happy place. As a journalist I’ve been very fortunate that that’s how my career has transpired,” she continues.
“That’s what I’m known for and it’s what I always wanted to do and here I am. That interview was challenging, interesting and important, and I was really glad to do it.”
Indeed she has been knocking off such interviews across her 13 years at A Current Affair, following 10 years on Today.
But it’s taken until 2018 to land her first Gold nomination. Pragmatically, she acknowledges the might of the Nine Network marketing machine has helped.
“I think it’s happened this year because Karl said something on air and the network got behind the idea. It’s quite blown me away. To see the promos going to air where everyone has gone to so much trouble for me has been really lovely. I can’t overstate that,” she stresses.
“I think the Logies has become more marketed than they ever were, traditionally. I think that’s the way it’s done now and there’s no doubt I have benefited from that.
“The difference this year is that the network has cracked in behind me.”
“I’ve been in people’s homes 5 days a week both before they go to work and when they come home for 23 years. So I guess I’m fairly ubiquitous in that way! But I definitely think the difference this year is that the network has cracked in behind me.
“In fact I expressed that view to someone at work and they said ‘Yes but they wouldn’t vote for you if they didn’t like you.’
“So I thought ‘I’ll take that.’”
But with magazine covers, TV promos and interviews (including this one), is the pressure on to win?
“It will just be like every other year I didn’t win. I’ll still turn up to work on Monday, I’ll still do my job 5 days a week. It’s nice to be in it, and that’s been a lovely part of the ride. It would be lovely to win it but I wouldn’t be surprised if I didn’t given the calibre of people I’m up against.
“But I’m certainly not tied up in knots about it.”
“There will be no avoiding the Red Carpet this year”
Grimshaw arrives on the Gold Coast tomorrow, ahead of a full weekend of PR. But with Nine’s backing, which also extends to Roger Corser and Jessica Marais, there is no hope of journalist flying under the radar.
“It’s the first time I will have walked the Red Carpet in 10 years,” she concedes. “At Crown I knew the back way into the Palladium! But there will be no avoiding the Red Carpet this year. (Nine Head of Publicity) Vic Buchan will have my hide if I tried to sneak in.
“There are tougher ways to earn a living in life, so I’m very blessed.
“I have a great job and I can walk a bloody Red Carpet with a smile on my face and survive!”
Voting in the Logie Awards continues until 7:28pm AEST Sunday.
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- Tagged with A Current Affair, Logie Awards, Today
5 Responses
I really hope she doesn’t win! she knowingly hosts a show that peddles hate and fear
I think Tracy is so under rated. She has done some of the most compelling interviews I have ever seen. I really hope she wins it.
Just would like to say…I love Tracy’s hairdo in the top pic….
The Gold Logie has felt like a strange raffle of names and winners for many years. Campaigns have made it oddly random really as to who ends up in the category and sometimes who wins. It’s not even apples and oranges – it’s bananas and kiwi fruit! I don’t decry a Tracy Grimshaw or Grant Denyer a win as they both are on screens a lot and have been regular fixtures for some time; Tracy especially. The Don Burke interview was Tracy at her very best, along with some nifty editing but all these years of dodgy rip off stories and single mums on centrelink tales have for me anyway, dissipated the respect I once had for her. But hey we all have to make a living.
I like Tracy and would be happy for her if she won Gold. But I disagree with the network marketing that goes on these days, mainly by Nine. Best of luck to all the nominees.