How Brush with Fame helped Courtney Act for One Plus One

Ahead of filming One Plus One, Courtney Act was reminded about the power of a long form interview through watching Anh’s Brush with Fame.

She admits to being drawn into personal stories she never expected to engage with.

“Brush with Fame was great! I’d heard everybody talking about it. I turned on iview and there was a Jamie Durie episode but I wanted to watch Jane Seymour. But I sat there so engrossed and crying (watching Jamie Durie) and then I was like, ‘I’ve got to watch the Kate Ritchie episode!’

“I’ve seen her in the halls at Nova but I’ve never thought of her beyond being little Sally from Home and Away!” she tells TV Tonight.

“It was so interesting having that experience when I was thinking about One Plus One and realising how much insight I got into this person.

“That’s the thing about these shows and this format of storytelling. You really get to have a new sense of empathy for people when you finish watching a 28 minute interview.”

For her half hour chats, producers recommended filming interviews at about 40 minutes in duration. But Courtney wasn’t quite settled with that.

“I tended to go a little bit longer and that was my choice. Just because I am new at it. I’ve interviewed a lot of people, where I talk to them for 40 minutes, and it got cut down to three minutes. So there’s always was something good in there!” she explains.

“Whenever I was chatting, the only communication would be a sign, saying 10 minutes, 20 minutes, 40 minutes… held up outside my eye line.

“Quite often I would get to the 40 minutes, and I was like, ‘Not quite ready yet. I want a little bit longer on that!’

“One of the unique things about One Plus One is that it’s not a heavily-edited narrative.”

One Plus One : Food Frontier founder Thomas King airs 8pm Monday on ABC.