05 | A Model Daughter with William McInnes and Michelle Lim Davidson

ABC Listen voice: ABC Listen, podcast. 

Evelyn: Listen, darling, there is something you should know. There may be curse words ahead. Oh, and by the way, there are absolutely spoilers ahead. So if you haven't watched the episode yet, be careful. We wouldn't want things to get spoiled now, would we?  

Helen: Good evening. I'm Helen Norville.  

Dale: And I'm Dale Jennings. You are watching News at six. 

Lisa: I'm Lisa let's roast a chook, Millar.  

Leigh: and I'm Leigh Sales, a reptilian slug of a human. That was one of my favourite bits of dialogue of the entire season, but we'll save the in depth discussion for later. 

Lisa: We're at the penultimate episode now, Salesy. This one's called A Model Daughter. It's written by Niki Aken, You had your favourite bit of dialogue, but I had my favourite music inclusion of the show. 

(MUSIC) 

Leigh: Oh, I absolutely loved that too. When Electric Blue came on, it just really hit me in the feels because I love that album, Ice House, Man of Colours. As soon as Electric Blue came on I was like, oh man, I'm back in the 1980s. 

Lisa: Look, just save it for a second, Salesy, because we will talk about the music, but we're going to be talking this episode to Michelle Lim Davidson, who plays Noelene, and we're also going to be having the incomparable William McInnes, who plays the news director, Lindsay. 

Leigh: Okay, so quick recap of what happened in the episode. Oh man, the opening with Kylie Minogue, she, I could not have adored her anymore.  

Kylie Minogue: This year's happened very quickly. I... I would never have guessed in my wildest dreams this would have happened, especially in one year.  

Lisa: So gorgeous, but what about that very messy Christmas party? 

Leigh: Yeah, that was like documentary footage. Kay, unsurprisingly, now wants to sell her story for cash in hand.  

Lisa: And Noelene with that Christmas lunch, trying to impress Rob's family. But, of course, as always, the job gets in the way.  

Leigh: And Dale finally lets his hair down and goes clubbing with Jerry and Tim and appears to have the mother of all hangovers the next day. 

Helen: Dale, you stink of alcohol? You're in no state to go interview a recovering addict.  

Dale: Lindsay said you wanted both of us.  

Lisa: Well, I'm gonna do this on my own today. Get yourself home.  

Leigh: This episode, I think, for me, is the best so far. It's mostly, for me, just built this sense of impending dread. Because it feels like there's multiple trains on tracks heading for some kind of crash. 

We've got Dale and the pent up pressure with his sexuality, there's Kay and that family, there's Helen who's just always teetering on the edge, and then there's Noelene and Rob, the race tension, the woman at work tension, but can I just dive in at the shallow end immediately and start with the newsroom Christmas party? 

Helen: Judging from last year I reckon you're gonna need a bigger esky.  

Cameraman: Ah, no, this is the vomit bin. One of the vomit bins.  

Lisa: We have all been to those Christmas parties. I mean, for God's sake, we've probably organised some of them, quite frankly.  

Leigh: In the modern context, it does seem pretty unbelievable.  

Group shouting repeatedly: News at six! 

Leigh: The extreme drinking. The random hookups. I remember after Christmas parties in the 90s, people would come in, and they would, the next day after the party, and say, Okay, what's the gossip? Who hooked up last night? 

Lisa: Yeah, because they were so drunk, they didn't know.  

Leigh: I know!  

Lisa: But wasn't there a great story about, um, one of the networks and the helicopter pad? 

Leigh: On my list of notes for this thing, I've written down, there was a very memorable rumor once about a Channel 9 Christmas party at which a couple of people hooked up on the chopper pad, not realizing it was under surveillance the entire time. Now, that's a real urban myth from, um, Australian television. It could be complete BS. 

Lisa: But if it is true, can you please message in and let us know? Now, could I also say I loved in that scene the handing out of the awards, taking the piss out of newsroom staff, particularly cameramen for stuff ups, which also had the utter ring of authenticity.  

Cameraman: The award for most out of focus shot goes to... 

Dale: uh, Election Day, 1987. He waited four hours for Hawke to cast his vote and then buggered the focus so badly the shot was unusable. The winner is Damo.  

Lisa: Look, I was feeling a bit sad, I must say, for Dale here, because he's got there, he's unhappy, he's throwing back the alcohol, and then there are all these things happening around him that, again, just were so real. 

Tim: Hey, uh, congratulations. You know, uh, wherever I walk in the city, I see billboards of you and Helen. And then whenever someone finds out I worked here, that's all they ever ask about. The Golden Couple. I'm happy for you. You got what you wanted.  

Leigh: Tim, the hot cameraman, has shown up again. Can I ask, why does Tim kind of rebuff his advances? I feel like he gives Dale mixed messages.  

Lisa: Oh, I don't know. I'm surprised that we haven't seen more of Tim during this whole series. So I wondered whether there's more to come. 

Leigh: Well, I can answer that. Oh. The reason we haven't is because he was really hard to get because he's in very high demand overseas. And they nearly had to have him not in it at all. No. But he really wanted to do it, and so Michael Lucas was able to get him, but they could only get him for a.. 

Lisa: Well, that answers your question, because they need him to be rebuffing it, because they can't build him up to be too much of a character. So if they got it on, then you'd want to have more of Tim and Dale to find out what happens with the relationship. But what happens from that Christmas party is that they then go to the nightclub and that's where I hear the music that I love.  

Leigh: Yeah. And I mean, then Dale, the next morning wakes up in bed with some random, oh man, look, at least it was pre iPhone days. 

Lisa: I just thought to myself, how is Dale going deeper into this world, exploring his sexuality and how is he going to keep it secret?  

Leigh: Yeah, and it's, he's just... that's why I say it gave me the sense of impending dread that it's things are gonna be coming to a crunch for Dale. 

Lisa: And then we've got Noelene who's going to have Rob's family over for lunch and she's getting advice about what to make.  

Jean: Something I do is get out all the equipment the night before Chopping board, roasting tray, gravy boat.  

Noelene: I doubt Rob has a gravy boat, I don't have a gravy boat.  

Lisa: It was so touching. I thought those instructions, this was Nolene saying she's invested in this relationship, but then of course it develops and she's got this push and pull and the boundaries and the demanding newsroom and all that goes on there. 

Leigh: Can I also say that when. When Jean explains to Noelene how to roast a chicken, you're watching two characters there that actually exist, I reckon, in every newsroom I've ever worked in. One is the woman, the older woman, who's like the kind of mum of the place, who organises everything. She's the woman who's collecting for people's farewell presents. 

Lisa: That's Jean, yeah.  

Leigh: Collecting for people's farewell presents and helping people out when they're sick and doing all of that kind of work that often goes unthanked. And then you've got a highly competent young female producer who's really integral to keeping everything going, but is probably underpaid and overworked. 

And that's such a common thing in newsrooms, that it's actually a character that has appeared in many shows that I've watched about television news. Right back to broadcast news when it's Holly Hunter is in that role. In Frontline, Alison White plays the character who's that person. And in this season, it's Noelene. And that is a real life kind of person in programs.  

Lisa: And so is the Jean. And I think we saw a bit more warmth from Jean in this one. Can I tell you a story about the Jean in my life?  

Leigh: Yes.  

Lisa: When I was... gosh, 21, 22. Uh, she was the secretary to an editor of a newspaper in Brisbane, and I was applying for a job there and the editor had said, there's no jobs and, you know, just ring my secretary every Tuesday and just see if anything's changed. 

And so I would ring. Margaret, her name was. And Margaret picked up the phone every Tuesday and I'd say, Hello, Margaret. Are there any jobs? And she was the most beautiful, warm, lovely person. And I did that for about two months. And then finally she said, actually Lisa, there is something. I'll put you through to the Chief of Staff. 

Leigh: Because what, see, those people are often very powerful because what she would have been noting is this person's very persistent and she's rung me every Tuesday at the same time for two months and that's exactly the quality that you want in a journo in the newsroom and she would have gone to the editor and said, Hey, listen, I think this one is somebody that we could use. 

The scene at, when Noelene makes the chicken at, at Rob and Noelene's when his brother and sister, sister in law come over, two things stuck with me from that. One is just the casual racism that was just so endemic at that, in that era and, you know, that still exists today.  

Noelene: Um, it's actually my first time cooking a roast. 

Sister-in-law: Oh, you shouldn't have. We would have been more than happy to eat your food.  

Brother: Yeah, I'd eat Chinese every night of the week if Kez wasn't on my case about cholesterol.  

Sister-in-law: Oh, there's no, um, MSG in the stuffing?  

Noelene: Oh, no, um, there's lemon rind, onion, and thyme.  

Rob: Noelene's Korean! 

Sister-in-law: Oh! Um. Konnichiwa.  

Leigh: And the other is the way that junior journos and producers are treated, which is like they don't have a life, that they can be called at any time and expected to drop everything. 

Sister-in-law: Rob did say you were a real career girl.  

Noelene: It's not normally like this on days off.  

Leigh: And actually, it's not just junior journos who are treated like they don't have a life, it really is the kind of job where if there is any, ever any news or if an interview comes through, then you just have to hop through it.  

Lisa: But that's what we want to do. That's, when you're a journalist... 

Leigh: We signed up for it.  

Lisa: ...you want to be on the big story. Well, the big story with this episode is that Kay has changed her mind and wants to do the interview on that day. And then of course we get into some big ethical questions again, which, God, I am loving this series, Salesy, because I think it just touches on so much that is true and real in newsrooms.  

Leigh: Yeah, I agree. Yeah, the ethics of this. I mean, this is why this is my favourite episode because it's so layered and there's so much richness in so many aspects of it. 

But I mean, oh my God, the ethics of paying Kay for the interview and she asks for it to be paid in cash. Where do you stand on the ethics of chequebook journalism?  

Lisa: Mm. I've not ever had to face that question because I haven't worked for a network that has ever dived into that.  

Leigh: See, I've, I've got a very hypocritical view of this, which is as a journalist, I don't believe in it because obviously I work for the ABC and so we don't pay people for interviews. 

And so if everyone was getting paid, then I wouldn't be able to do any journalism. But. If I ever find myself in the middle of an insanely massive news story that everyone wants to know something about, then I'm screwing them for as much cash as possible. Because someone is making money out of those stories. And so why should the network make a fortune out of, say, the Kay Walters story? But Kay Walters doesn't get anything out of it.  

Lisa: I think today, there's a lot of subtle, uh, requests for money that might not actually be a figure of money, but someone needs help in some other way.  

Leigh: Yeah.  

Lisa: And that could certainly happen. 

Leigh: And it allows the network to say, we didn't pay them, but what they did was give them a job commentating sport or, you know, something of that ilk.  

Lisa: When Kay changes her mind about doing the interview and that awful sinking feeling on one hand as a journalist when you've done the interview and someone is then pulling out and decides they don't want it to run. That is awful. That is an awful feeling.  

Leigh: It is. Because the, the ethics and the kind of rules of journalism are that once something's in the can and someone's agreed to it, that you can run it. But I'm kind of not comfortable with that, you know, it's, it's awkward.  

Lisa: So one of the most powerful scenes I thought in this episode was when she steps off the set, she decides she's not going to run the interview, and she walks into the edit booth and she pulls the tape. 

Leigh: Helen. 

Lisa: Helen. Because guess what? That's the only copy. Back in the day when there was only one copy of an interview, and by destroying that tape, she was making the decision.  

Leigh: Yeah, making the decision for them. I mean, that would get you sacked, that behaviour, my goodness.  

Lindsay: Dale!  

Dennis: There's got to be a backup in the truck. 

William: Was this planned?  

Dale: I have no idea.  

Lindsay: You can forget about the bulletin and every other evening bulletin for the rest of 1987!  

Lisa: What about the kiss with Charlie and Helen? Did you see that coming?  

Leigh: Well, yes.  

Lisa: Oh, you weren't even bothered. You don't even care. You, you're just all about Geoff and Evelyn and Lindsay. 

Leigh: Now look, the Helen and Charlie thing, I kind of have been wondering if it was going in that direction.  

Lisa: Hang on, Charlie is the one who's been calling her shrill and aggressive and dominating, and so suddenly now he's going to get in the sack with her? Not that we even see that, you know? It's so interesting how they deal with intimacy. 

Leigh: Yeah, it is. Um, look, it's not, it doesn't surprise me that even though he's been horrible to her, that she would find him attractive because maybe she wants to like, I don't know, it's kind of sick pathology, isn't it? But like, win him over or something. 

I want to talk about that line I referred to at the start of the episode, which I just loved so much, which is that Jeff gets wind that they're doing this interview with Kay and he rings Lindsay and absolutely blasts him and drops out there that Lindsay is actually Kay's godfather. Um, and so clearly, you know, it's fascinating because clearly these two men must have been super close at a certain period of time. And then he just lets rip at, um, Lindsay.  

Geoff: You pathetic reptilian slug of a man.  

Lindsay: Well, I don't mean to be pedantic here, old cock, but uh, you can't be a reptile and a slug.  

Leigh: That made me laugh so hard because it's just such a smug journo thing to say and it's exactly the sort, kind of, put down a certain kind of journo will give you because it hits you where it hurts because not, not, it's not only, you know, that you're a bit of an idiot, but it's also that you're bad at your job because you can't even use the English language precisely. 

Lisa: It's perfect. I mean, the lines from Lindsay are just getting better and better as this whole series goes on.  

Lindsay: Hey, here he is. Here's to the skin off your dick young fella...  

Leigh: And speaking of which, the bloke behind Lindsay has just arrived, William McInnes, as well as our favourite producer, Noelene, aka Michelle Lim Davidson.  

Lisa: Hey William and Michelle, this show has been such a huge success here and around the world. What was it like going back into it for season two? Michelle, can I start with you?  

Michelle: Oh, well, it was incredibly exciting. You know, the show came out in lockdown here in Australia. And so I didn't, I wasn't really sure how big or how well received it had been until I was suddenly out and about and people were coming up to me at pilates, you know, mid grocery shop and asking me really specific questions about my character, about the show. And I was like, wow, uh, I think a lot of people have watched this.  

So heading back into season two, I kind of felt, like comfortable because we were heading back in together and it was pretty much the same team and we'd all got along so well. But also I was nervous with the responsibility of playing Noelene again and hoping that I could get her through season two the best way I can as an actor.  

Leigh: I guess William you're no stranger to what Michelle just talked about where the public you know, it gets invested in a character that you're playing. 

William: Well, they do, I've been on the other side of it too. And I did a show called Sea Change after David Wenham was... I forget what he did. Diver Dan. He left and then I came in and I had all these sort of Eastern Suburbs dreadnoughts coming up to me in the street, telling me how awful I was. 

I did a book signing once, and it was going off, like a sort of, you know, frog in a sock. It was great. So you're signing, you're signing, and this woman comes up. She said, can you sign the book, please? I said, Absolutely, sure. She said, Oh, God, I miss you. And I went, Sorry? And she said, Oh, you were just so good in Sea Change. And I went, Oh, well, thank you. And she said, You were great. And I think, Jesus, usually it's the other way around. 

And she said, Can you sign your character's name? And I said, sure. And I was about to sign. And she said, you're so much nicer than the other guy. And I thought, oh, a little love for Will. And I said, oh, come on, he's a great actor. And she said, oh, yeah, maybe, but he's got those big hairy chest and those piggy blue eyes and he looks like a private school bully. 

And I thought, she's talking about me. 

And I went, right, so what do you want? What do you want me to sign? She said, David, could you sign it Diver? And I said, sure. So it was this book. There's this book, Man's Got to Have a Hobby, by William McInnes, and I'm signing it, David Wenham, aka Diver Dan.  

And I saw him at some do, and I said, you know, I told him, and he comes up, and he said, do I get the percent, William? I went, no, mate, it's all mine.  

People like the show, I think, because it's a little bit, it looks a bit different, and it sounds a bit different, and it's entertaining. So, yeah, it's fun. It's fun when people come up and say nice things to you, even if they get you mixed up with people.  

Leigh: They mostly do say nice things. I remember somebody, though, once came up to me in the street and said, Oh, Leigh Sales, wow, you're so much better looking on television. It was like, when I was a news reporter, it was like, I'm only on television for 30 seconds out of every 24 hours, so this is really deeply concerning.  

William: My wife said, when she said, are you doing Sea Change? Because I hadn't told her yet. I said, Yeah. She said, well, there's another one you've ruined for me. I won't be able to watch that.  

It's like my mum, when I wrote a book and I said, I better give one to mum. I said, Mum here’s the latest book and she goes, Another tome of crap is it? 

When I won a logie after my dad had died Mum was just like... when we went off to school, all of us, we were always told, don't you think you're any better than anyone else today, you know, don't get above your station in life.  

Leigh: No, there's no, there's no greater sin in Australia than being up yourself. 

William: Oh, of course, you don't want a showboat. And she rang up the day after I won it, and I was still, you know, and she said, you know, I was watching you on that show last night when you won that gong. And she said, you looked like an unmade bed. And I said, oh, my God. But you know, I was thinking of your father. Oh, were you? She said, your father would have been so... And I actually thought, is she going to say he would have been proud? And she went, your father would have been so surprised. But anyway, enough of that drivel.  

Lisa: Hey, William, it's okay that Leigh and I can have a bit of a laugh about all of this, but the honest to God truth is, William, that your character, Lindsay, triggered both of us. That we were baby journos and we have been yelled at like... Lindsay yells, and oh my God. I mean, where is that yelling coming from for you? 

William: Uh, everyone used to yell when I was growing up. And I always remember certain teachers would really yell, and certain rugby coaches would really yell. And the great delight, of course, was to try and get them to go off like a Saturn V and get them to scream more. 

And my dad was a yeller. He was a big, we're all, we came from a very loud family. It's a strange thing, but I mean, you recognise a lot of those characters. Like when, when this was set, what's this, when was this set, 87? You know, I was, uh, I was just turning 24. So, um, I mean, I had an election party. It starts off, the series starts off with an election party. 

And I had sat in the backyard by myself and only about five people came to my election party. And I remembered that. But I remember lots of men yelling and I have no idea why they yelled so much. I mean, I think... I always remember there was a certain teacher at school who screamed and I just thought man You're just so unhappy in your life and he was in his late 50s and I think he was not so much yelling at us but yelling at where he found himself in life.  

Leigh: Michelle, your character Noelene was often in the vicinity of Lindsay's outburst. How did you find the right reactions and also just the right general vibe for Noelene in that newsroom environment?  

Michelle: I know that she is, like, especially in season one, she's the lowest member of the core team. And even though we see her progress to being a producer in season two, I feel like she's kind of still caught in that dynamic. 

As William said, he's very loud. So all I have to do, technically as an actor, is just be in the scene and... listen to that response and I automatically respond that way. I don't try to manufacture any of my responses to Helen or Dale or Lindsay, William's character. It's all completely natural. In episode one, there is a moment where Helen yells at me during the election coverage and I think I accidentally scream back at her and of course that's the take they used, but it's completely real. 

I think I wasn't anticipating, you kind of get to a point on set, because of the way we shoot the show as well, and really long takes, where you're kind of... in it. Not in a kind of weird, you know, method actor kind of way, but you're just kind of so in the zone that it feels very real and so I remember that moment happening and my reaction to it and just being even surprised that I did that. 

So yeah, I'm thrilled that that's the take they used for the episode, but it's completely spontaneous.  

Leigh: I think one of the things Lisa and I find very authentic about the Noelene character and why we kind of related to that is... her constant trying to do the right thing and to avoid being the target of that, and it just reminds us so much of when you are the most junior person in a workplace, and you're trying so hard to, you know, do the right thing. And that's how Noelene feels, you know, to us watching her.  

Michelle: On set, I feel very alert to everything, and it always feels very close to the surface, so it feels like I could offer a solution to a story, or an idea for a story, or whatever it is, it all needs to be really like at the tip of my fingers. And I think, I hope that translates to what you're talking about, that genuine kind of quality of, um, yeah, her being a junior member of the office and having to over deliver in those high anxiety moments.  

Lisa: We've just finished watching episode five, and that's that super awkward Christmas lunch and you're roasting the chicken and Rob's family are just dropping all this casual racism towards you, which just makes us cringe. I mean, I just want you to talk me through that, that Christmas lunch scene and what was going on in your mind. 

Michelle: That lunch is, I think. For people that I know who have watched it, and they've had similar experiences, it really cuts close to the bone. Because it is done under a smile, and it's so well meaning, and we were very conscious of that on set, because that is what's true. People aren't outwardly horrible to you. 

And sometimes I think what makes it worse is that it comes from a place of, they're either trying to help you, Or, um, they think it's genuinely nice. I think one of the lines is, Oh, you know, and just by the way, your English is great. Whatever the line is. That all of those things have been said to me so many times. And sometimes I've taken real offense to them, but I've realized that now it's really not my problem. But I can give all of those little tiny details to Noelene, which I think is why you really feel for her in that lunch. That passive aggressive kind of like cutting up of roast chicken and all of those moments. 

Leigh: William, do you get to do much improvising as Lindsay?  

William: I, I said to, I said to Michael, I said, listen, wouldn't it be great if there was this back story between the, the, the Robert Taylor character and William McInnes character that you don't see that it comes out in a scene that, uh, that Lindsay is this kid's godfather. 

Lisa: Yes, it was shocking.  

William: Yeah, that's not a bad idea. And he went and told Robert, and then Robert stuck it in the scene, and Lindsay's left alone. He's thinking, Jesus, this is just a shitty way to live my life. But people like Lindsay, they shed their conscience like a, you know, an itchy snake sheds their skin. 

And he's, I had, I had him swear and just say, you know, fuck off. And then yell at, uh, Dale or something. And I thought that'll, that'll, that'll make a nice end to the scene. But they ended on the Walters, which is right.  

Michelle: Just to piggyback off what William's saying is that the only times that we're improvising or making suggestions to the script is when we think it can progress the story. 

Um, and what's unique about the newsreader set is that it feels like a lot of people's egos are out of the way. Um, it's kind of, in season two we get to go a lot deeper. We trust that you know who these characters are and you're going to go with them and we will only add things that we think will, from our, like, you know, personal dialogue, um, or personal details that we think help support the story. 

You know, um, when we're on the phone to people, they're often not there. And it's a combination of continuity, or Michael Lucas yelling from behind a wall, um, or, um, Maggie, our script coordinator. So... in the first episode with the election coverage, William is screaming, his character is screaming at me on the phone and that had luckily for me been shot the week before and so Michael was on set showing me the rushes because I had no idea the kind of ferocity that William was going to deliver those lines. So I could actually respond to those moments, but actually it's just Michael literally crouching behind a wall, behind the camera so he can't be seen.  

Leigh: How much do each of you think about. The backstory of your characters and what's driven them to be like they're like, I mean, Michelle, we know a bit about Noelene's life outside of work in a way, for example, that we don't about Lindsay. How far beyond that in your own mind do you go?  

Michelle: The entire team have done a lot of research. So we kind of start quite broadly, especially for a character like Noelene. Like the show's not called The Noelene, it's called The Newsreader. So we only have a certain amount of time to, I guess, reveal parts of her life. 

It's something that I take very seriously because I feel a lot of responsibility to bring the most authentic version of this character to screen. And I think whenever you're trying to merge a cultural heritage that you're not used to seeing on Australian television, you have extra responsibility and you need to respect the people from that time period and do your best to bring it to life. 

Lisa: What about you, William? What's your backstory? How many ex wives are there?  

William: I didn't see any point in going down that route because it's just there on the paper. Sometimes you just have to know what, what's required of you to make the scene work. Both ways are just as, uh, appropriate, I think. Um, you've just gotta know what suits. Basically I'm just a bloody boofhead who turns up and just yells.  

Leigh: what was your fashion sense in the eighties, William? I mean, did you have a mullet? Did you have a perm? Did you have a permed mullet? 

William: No, I did have a perm when I was 15, which is, uh, I've spoken about that before on a...that was, uh, anyway, that was another story. 

Uh, I'll tell you an interesting thing. They had this vast array of newspapers and magazines from the era. Like, you know, New Idea, Women's Weekly, TV Weeks, Ages, Heralds. Papers that no longer exist and then to see headlines that I remembered when I read them when I was a young guy and it's...it does your head in a little bit because you get this terrible feeling that you're finite. You're getting a touch on your shoulder, but it's also a lot of fun. 

I didn't realise that celebrity knitwear was such a big deal back in the 80s and so many of our favourite TV stars and their favourite celebrity knit tops. Everyone was doing it.  

Leigh: You've given me a great idea for some Leigh Sales merchandise that I could bring out. 

Michelle, you were born in 1987, so you didn't live through this actual era, so you didn't have, you know, a direct experience of all of the fashions, but in the show, Noelene wears one of the most notable outfits, which is that salmon coloured suit that she shows up after Helen's told her to stop dressing like a little girl. Tell us a bit about how that costume came about.  

Michelle: I actually don't think it was in the original scripts. I think it was a, you know, just a collaboration of ideas that Emma, Michael and I had when we were Zooming, um, together before we started shooting. We just wanted this idea that... whatever Helen, advice Helen was going to give Noelene about how to be a successful woman in this time period was never going to work for Noelene. That, I guess the cliche is fake it till you make it kind of thing. And I think maybe for a character like Helen, that has worked. But it was never going to work for Noelene because she cannot change the way she actually looks. But we wanted her to have this moment where she really believed it.  

Noelene traditionally has never had a pair of pants and it felt so different to everything we've seen her in and we're used to seeing her in and even to the colour palette in the show that we were like, that's it. And so I was very lucky that we custom made this, and it was, as you've mentioned, we nicknamed the salmon suit. My name on the call sheet was often Salmon Lim Davidson. And it just felt so obscure, my hair up, everything, just a little bit more makeup. And there is actually a scene cut from that episode where she comes home and she realises that that's never going to work for her. The only way forward for her is to be her authentic self and whether people like that or not, that's all she can do. Um, and yeah, I had to rub my makeup off in the mirror.  

And it was really, um, I actually found that really confronting as an actor to do that because I felt really sad for Noelene in that moment that, yeah, that, that, that wasn't going to work for her and she was going to have to find another way to succeed. 

Leigh: Look, we have so appreciated both of you coming in to talk to us. It's been really fun, and we really enjoyed this season of The Newsreader. So, so thank you to both of you very much.  

William: Yep, not at all. Very good.  

Michelle: Thank you for having us.  

Leigh: Oh, geez. So this episode ends with Dale going to the club and hooking up with a random. 

And Helen over at Charlie's pashing him, to use the common parlance of the 1980s. So, I guess, going into the season finale, is it all over between Helen and Dale?  

Lisa: Oh, it's gotta be all over, isn't it? But who knows? This is why I love this show.  

Leigh: Next week for episode six, the last episode, we get to meet Dale Jennings. Sam Reid's going to be our guest, plus we've roped the creator of The Newsreader, Michael Lucas, to come back to give us a wrap of the entire second season. 

Lisa: If you have not listened to all the other episodes, you need to catch up, because we are going to dive very deep into what has made this whole season tick.  

Leigh: Oh, I don't want it to end.  

Lisa: I don't want it to end either.  

Leigh: But anyway, if you want to catch up, if you've missed any of the podcasts, quick, quick, quick, get onto it, onto the ABC listen app. 

You can catch up with all the back episodes of The Newsreader on iView. The next episode is a biggie.  

Lisa: This podcast is recorded on the lands of the Gadigal people of the Eora nation and the Wurundjeri people of the Kulin nation. Thanks to our producer Michele Weekes and our executive producer Alex Lollback. 

Sound engineer is Angela Grant and the manager of ABC Podcasts is Monique Bowley.  

Dale: I'm Dale Jennings. This has been News at Six. Good night, Australia.  

Floor Manager: And we're out!