One last, emotional lap for Julia Zemiro.

“We had always said, jokingly, ‘When the last one comes it should probably be me!’ But I couldn’t tell if they were serious or not. Well, fair enough. They were serious,” Julia Zemiro admits.

“I won’t lie to you, I was nervous about doing it. It did feel weird.

“I’ve watched it back and I’m fine with it.”

Zemiro’s hesitation, of course, is in shifting from host to the subject for the very last episode of her famed Home Delivery series on ABC.

This time around the hosting duties are shared between Mark Humphries, Justine Clarke and former Delivery passengers, Costa Georgiadis and Judith Lucy.

Zemiro heads back to the family restaurant in Bondi where, as a single child, she watched her Aussie mum and French immigrant father toiling away in the kitchen. 

Following her father’s death several years ago, this was an emotional homecoming for Zemiro, recalling her formative years before her parents split.

“We go back to the restaurant, which we lived above. It’s just hard for it not to feel emotional. I don’t love seeing myself cry on camera. I’ve always been the interviewer, not the subject. So I’ve it felt weird, but I was so lucky to be in good hands with people like Costa, Justine, Mark, and Judith,” she continues.

‘It wasn’t an unhappy home but at least they were people who didn’t fight”

“My parents broke up when I was nine. In the show Costa asks ‘Was it a happy home?’ I said, ‘It wasn’t an unhappy home’ but at least they were people who didn’t fight. I think they thought that the other would read the other’s mind. And you realise you don’t have ESP, you’ve got to talk your problems through.

“But I showed the episode to my mum who’s still alive and she was really happy with it. That’s all I was worried about, to be honest.”

Mark Humphries interviews Zemiro at her primary school before she visits Sydney Girls High and Sydney University with Justine Clarke. Finally in Melbourne -her home away from home- she returns to the Victorian College of the Arts, with Judith Lucy.

Across nine seasons, Zemiro has filmed throughout Australia plus New Zealand, Britain and Singapore -the latter with nostalgic routes for Lee Lin Chin and comedian Ronny Chieng.

“Ronny Chieng touched my heart so much. I just loved his story. We met his beautiful parents and what a story he had. It was a very special thing to go to Singapore and do those two,” she explains.

“I’ve got such good memories of the travel”

“I’ve got such good memories of the travel. It’s a very lucky person that gets to explore these different places, with these beautiful guests who were clearly very open and happy to talk about their past.”

But it was always the personal stories that famous faces shared which touched Zemiro so much. Visiting homes, schools, early performance venues and sporting sites would always elicit candid reactions.

“Most people who had big stories to tell, wanted to go there and tell the story”

“I found that most people who had big stories to tell, wanted to go there and tell the story. Rebecca Gibney had never been back to the house where her dad died. For her it was something that really helped. Sam Neill, within the first hour of the first day, was really moved by finding his house almost the same and being able to imagine his long-gone parents in it,” she recalls.

“Colin Hay we took back to his house and I said to him, ‘When was the last time you were here?’, fully expecting him to say ‘Years ago’ but he said, ‘Yesterday.’ I didn’t look at my producer but I looked at Colin and said, ‘Yesterday? You’re not supposed to come and see it the day before!’

“But he said ‘I had to… I just wanted to feel them here again before we did this.’ We kept it in the episode.

“The big thing I had to learn in this job compared to the fun of Eurovision and RocKwiz is to shut up,” she adds.

“Listen, shut up and let them talk!”

We’re so glad you did…

Julia Zemiro’s Home Delivery final 7:40pm Sunday on ABC.