COMEDIAN extraordinaire Julia Morris is well-known on local and foreign shores alike.
Not only has she performed alongside greats such as Whoopi Goldberg and Robin Williams, she’s also described as Australia’s Queen of Comedy.
NATALIE HOLMES delved beneath the laugh-a-minute exterior to find the warm-hearted woman beneath.
IT’S not that Julia Morris isn’t as funny as I imagined. She is. It’s just that she has a deeper, more serious side audiences don’t usually see on stage.
When we start chatting, she’s bubbly and confident, as expected.
But Morris is also warm and witty and engaging, jumping from topic to topic with the grace and deftness of a light-footed gazelle.
She’s been in showbiz for almost 30 years and is a born entertainer who can write, act, sing, host and of course, make people laugh.
Morris also has strong ties with royalty, bearing the title Lady Julia – a gag gift bestowed by her husband Dan – and she’s earned the handle of Australia’s Queen of Comedy.
She’s lived in three countries and won many awards for her amusing take on life and most recently has starred as Gemma in award-winning Australian drama House Husbands.
Morris’ latest role is that of guest curator for Flix in the Stix, the upcoming short film collection touring regional areas, including Armidale.
“Unfortunately I won’t be touring with the films because I will be busy shooting House Husbands, but we are very, very excited with its success, super-chuffed; it’s landed really nicely and seems to resonate with people.”
For the festival she has “chosen films with a real comedy edge”.
“When I was asked to curate the films, I asked the organisers if we could just have a laugh.
“I didn’t want swear words or nudity. I wanted it to be family-friendly. And of course you can’t cover everything but I am happy with the selection.”
Being a stand-up comedian, Morris loves to laugh as much as she enjoys making others giggle and she believes country folk do it better.
“I enjoy being serious but I am also a huge fan of laughing.
“And regional areas have always been the backbone of comedy. People will come out of the woodwork for a laugh.
“Laughter has got me through some pretty intense times and the ability to come out of it has probably been a part of that.”
One of those rough patches is surely her husband’s breast cancer battle in 2012, which ironically came after the pair’s years of cancer fund-raising.
One of those ventures was Morris being named Australia’s first Celebrity Apprentice, which raised nearly $200,000 for breast cancer research.
“He’s in great form,” Morris says of her Welsh-born comedian husband Thomas.
“When he got cancer, I don’t think anyone really believed it. We’d done a lot of fund-raising over the years. It was good in that regard that we actually know how the money is spent and that it is being used. But it was a scary experience. Fortunately he’s good now.”
The pair met at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival in 2002 and married in Las Vegas on New Year’s Eve 2005. They now have two daughters and Thomas is Morris’ very own house husband – just like the television show.
The pair clearly likes to goof around, and one particularly effective gag was when Thomas, then her fiancé, bought Morris an English title.
“If you buy 1mx1m of land, you become part of the landed gentry,” she explains.
In his haste, Thomas accidently registered Morris as the Lady of the Manor of Gosforth, mispelling the name of her hometown in Australia.
Morris thinks it’s now terribly amusing to call herself Lady Julia, or J-Mo, particularly on stage.
“It’s given me a terrific platform for a Westie from Gosford to disconcert the British aristocracy. But really, these small plots of land, selling them means keeping the estates in their family, so really it’s an ingenious idea.”
Like many performers, Morris’ big break came on a talent show, after she sang I Need a Hero on New Faces, hosted by Aussie icon Bert Newton. At the time, she was a 17-year-old schoolgirl.
“I was nervous. But he made me feel loved. I actually went to his 70th and he is such a beautiful man, warm and generous, who has been my supporter from then on.”
Morris says she also attended ‘humourversity’ to gain her qualifications before being talent spotted.
“I went to drama school and then got a job at Club Med where I sang and danced,” she recalls.
Then one night, she performed at the Sydney Comedy Store where an agency manager offered to book her first stand-up gig.
The rest, as they say, is history.
* Tickets are still available for Saturday’s Flix in the Stix at Saumarez Homestead, which will Eskimo Joe, The Axis of Awesome and several short films. For details, go to www.flixinthestix.com.au
