I Love (With Lucy)I Love (With Lucy)
There's a lot to get us down in life but there is also a lot to love; turn your day around with this hug of a show. Be reminded of the funny, surpris…
Head of scripted at SBS and force of nature Julie Eckersley joins the podcast!
Hello, and welcome to I Love with Lucy.
I'm Lucy Dearrak.
There's a lot to get us down in life, but there is also a lot to love. Today we're going to focus on the good, the hopeful, and the sweet parts in the life of someone who is Head of Scripted at SBS, which means she oversees development and production of scripted content across SBS channels and platforms. She's worked as a producer and in development across a range of genres including drama, comedy, animation, documentary and children's content. She's worked internationally with Netflix and NBCU International, and her experience includes nine News at Matchbox Pictures, where she worked on the award winning Australian projects like the landmark SBS series The Family Law, I Love That Show, ABC drama Glitch and Australia's first Kung Fu comedy Maximum Choppage, among others. She was recognized at the Screen Produces Australia Awards SPA as the twenty twenty three Commissioner of the Year. She is passionate about creating bold and distinctive stories, supporting and elevating new voices, and celebrating our diverse perspectives. I am so excited to chat to her today, and let's face it, anytime I see her, Hello and welcome, Julie Eckersley, Hi, Jews, Hi Lucy.
What the feeling's mutual? My eyes always light up when I see you too.
Oh, I'm so excited. It is your favorite word, Jules Ris. You are crisp. You are like a crisp watch. That's you. You know, You're so joyous and you're so giving, but you're so smart and you manage to juggle things so well with family and with work, and I just look up to you so much. So I'm really honored to have you on the show today. I wanted to start at the beginning. Where did you grow up?
Grew up moving around quite a lot. Actually, I was born in Sydney.
My dad was a man of the cloth, a minister, and my mum would probably describe her job as being a free spirit.
So between the two of them, we moved around.
The wage started in yeah, exactly, in different directions.
That we went to and we went up to Brisbane, then we went down to Mornington, then back to Melbourne, and then I finished school up in Brisbane.
Do you have fond memories of traveling. Did you like traveling the angst?
I went to six different schools, which you know, at the time I didn't love. But as with many things in life, Lucy, in hindsight, you do see the good things, or I want to see the good things because it interesting. I was talking to my sister about this last night, and you know, of course things are hard, of course things break your heart, but at some point you have a choice about how you want to frame things. And going to those six different schools. Look, I'll be honest, it did mean some lunchtimes in the toilets by myself. I think it's part of why I became a performer, because through performing, like when I knew that I could make people laugh when I could do something that other people couldn't necessarily, so it was a really good in I became that girl. And it also taught me to be flexible, like I'm not afraid of change. I enjoy I enjoy change.
That's so impressive. I don't think many people can sort of figure out a mechanism to enjoy change because I feel like we're so resistant to it often as humans. So I think that's an incredible attribute. When did the performing bug start with you? When did you have that moment where you're like, oh, this could be my thing.
It came as a result of a career change that I had when I was four years old. Up until the age of four, I was pretty clear and when our life was going, and used to tell everyone that, you know, I knew what I was going to be when I grew up, and that was a sunflower.
But well, the job.
Description of a sunflower, according to me age four, was to smile all day.
But it was around that time when I.
Was at a school in Brisbane called Somerville House and we had to do a stage performance. We did The Magnificent then in the Flying Machines and then we and Thumberlina we had it.
We had two songs we did and I just remember Lucy.
Being on stage and seeing that I could do things that would have this reaction that people would laugh, and I mean it was the beginning of a career in terrible overacting, but it was very fun to see people actually respond, what's.
The moment you wanted to be? Am my llawed to ask you questions you can, of course, well, did you have.
A moment like that where you went, this is so fun to be on stage and have this conversation.
I started learning the violin when I was about the same age, about four, and I was a very shy child and very nervous that we as a like a group of us who were learning suzuki. Valien had to go onto the stage of the Fremantle Town Hall and perform Rattle Rattle Dump Truck, which is just a different rhythmic version of twink or trink little stuff. I was so nervous, so nervous, didn't want to do it, didn't want to do it. And then I got up there and I did it. And because I'm the first of thirteen grandchildren, my entire extended family were there watching me and I did and then my mom came afterwards to pick me up and she was at the stage door or she was like, why are you crying? And I was like, I want to go back up there.
Oh wow, isn't that interesting.
I just like always wanted to get back up onto the stage or be on screen or doing something performing. From that moment on.
You know, my daughter who's six now, who you know, like she recently had.
Her first school performance, and I was sort of.
Testing her out to see you're going to have that same reaction, and she was super proud of herself. She loved it. But I don't think she's for the stage. But you've probably had that moment with your kids.
Too, I mean two camps. Like I always used to be like, oh no, like I don't want because I guess we know how hard it is and how passionate you have to be in all of the rest of it to make it work. And I always used to sort of I still joke a bit because of Chris doing having a performing arts studio that Polly goes to. I. You know, I'm like, hey, next holidays, why don't you do it? STEM coding course, that's really fine? Always around us so much.
Can I introduce you to trading for toddlers?
It would be so interesting to see what Marley does end up doing because she's got such a beautiful soul. This is Jule's daughter that we're talking about, Marley, who's six.
I'm hoping she'll be a basketball because she's super tall, Like she's actually yet age six, she's up to my chin, which is hilarious. So keep like Robbie and I her dad, keep robbing rolling a basketball in front of her enthusiastically solution get you.
Know the thing you really want?
You just you know, the careers that we've had in the arts, for all outs and downs, we have followed our hearts. We have done what we love and I am so grateful for that, Like it's worth every challenge of being in this industry is worth the feeling that I get to do what I love every day.
So lucky, can you take me through what a day? As the head of scripture to SBS, What are these beautiful things that you get to do that during the day that are so fulfilling. And I'm sure no day looks the same, but what kind of things do you have in your day?
I do like to start my day with some kind of meditation and headspace. That's just a personal thing that's not so much to do with the role, but I really find that's helpful and that, you know, it's really important to me to be the best leader I can be and for me to be healthy and self aware, Like I can only be as good a leader as I am, you know, internally, in terms of a day, it can be a whole lot of things, Lucy, Like you know, we hear pictures. We are working on shows, so once we've got a show in development where talking to the writing teams, talking to the producers, we're reading being breakdowns or scripts. Then when something's shooting, when we decide that we're greenlighting it, we're watching the cuts, talking to the producers, helping, keeping an eye on the budget, and working really closely with our creative partners on that. When you finished shooting a show, you lock the picture first, So once all the pictures are kind of locked in order, you then go through and do the sound and the VFX. So you know, we as the network and me and my role are sort of as signing off at those at different different points.
So it's really just working.
Really closely with the industry to have a say in what content gets through and then to be a cheer squad and a fresh pair of eyes in terms of it being the very best it can be before it goes on our screens here at SPS.
Is the moment when you're greenlight something is that incredibly exciting.
I love it all, to be honest, I really do. But it's so exciting when someone pictures you an idea and you're like.
Oh my goodness, Australia the world could have that idea. And I can say in.
This role, as you know, commissioner, you know, it's such a privilege to serve our industry and serve Australia in this way. But you know, because we're such a small industry and as you know, we work with people that we genuinely like.
There are friends, we have lots of parties together. That's the way our industry goes. And so I have to say the worst knows to basically my friends all the time.
But then I get to say these brilliant yes is and the yes when you're a commissioner, you know, obviously you need to complete finance and we've got partners in that we're not a single source financier. But that yes can actually mean that show is going to be in the world.
That's a pretty good day.
And that's going to change probably multiple people's lives. That yes. You can't beat yourself up for the nose, because anyone who's been in the industry for more than a few minutes knows that that is part and parcel.
It's so true, and I think that you do have to be very good at getting nos in this industry. And I, you know, when my first chapter of my life was being an actress, and I the most helpful thing I did was I used to say, auditioning is about getting ten nose and then getting a yes. So go and do an audition and just go great, that's a normal audition, and then you know, luckily it would often be three or four when you get your yes. But actually that idea of being rigorous in being able to hear no, it's not that they're ever easy. No one ever wants to spare a no. No one ever probably really wants to give a note. And it reminded me. It reminds me your comment of this book I read years ago that's always sticked with me. It's called How Good Do We Have to Be? And one of the things that it looks at is written by a rabbi and it talks about how the hard things in life are so important in making the good things better. So he uses, for example, the example of death and says that without death we don't actually appreciate life like it is the contrast that makes the difference. And I think that's a really good thing to remember in your you know, your journey as a human that even though those times are hard, they do make the good times sweeter.
Do you have certain like set meditation that you do every day or do you do you get sort of on a loop with one for a while, Like how do you choose those of your morning?
The one I've been on for a couple of years now is actually a Tony Robbins meditation. And the reason that I love it is because I'm not the meditator that can just sit still with my palms open, because you know, I'm kind of I'm too busy. And this one's starts with some physical movement. But then one of the things I really love about it, Lucy, is you put your hands on your heart and it says he says in this It's available on YouTube if anyone wants to look through it, but he basically says that your heart is the reason that you're alive, and every day that it beats is the reason that you live. Like when your heart stops beating, your life ends. And so you do as like the first sort of part of the meditation, you just put your hands on your heart and you think your heart, and then you think of things that you're grateful for. But you think that gratitude and warmth into your heart, which I think is.
Really beautiful, so beautiful.
I'm doing that right now. So we've heard about four year old Jewels who wants to be a sunflower so adorable. You became this actor and dreamt of that. Tell me about as you were sort of traveling through these six schools that you went through. What did you love about when you were like in high school?
Lots of things I love from different places and trying to think of things that would be relevant, Like I've made friends that the last high school I went to, which was ken Or High School in Brisbane, I've got friends there that you know that I still have. And one of my particularly beautiful friends, Heidi. She's just a delightful, quirky thinker, and at that time we were, you know, we're all like awkwardly trying to work out our bodies and our hormones and everything. She came up with this delightful idea. I mean, we were really innocent, we weren't doing anything naughty, but that any time we wanted to talk about s e X, we'd have a we'd have a code word that with these conversations were called the pickI picks, and in the pickI pick conversations, we had all these you know, by the way, we weren't doing any of this, we were just talking about it. That if you if you tongue pashed someone, that was called eating rabioli. If you had the big s e X, that was eating lasagnia, and you had to come, you had to come to every meeting, and you had to put they had to put your your fingers up in a like a piece b if you were still a virgin, which we all were, all.
Of these things were reverted back to part different types of pasta.
Yeah, yeah, the whole range, the whole range was variations on pasta.
So that wasightful. You know, I always loved I always loved the theater, so you know, sometimes i'd go and hang out in the theater. You know. I got to be school captain in year twelve. That was a really great experience.
And wow, it would have been amazing at that.
Well, I do say that I joked that, you know, I ran my own political campaign and because I didn't necessarily have one friendship group that I'd hang out with that I spent the year before kind of going around Year eleven going around the whole playground at lunchtime, sort of saying, oh, how are you guys going today? Great Julie ecstasy, nice to meet you.
Without knowing what I was doing, I was running a.
Running a political campaign because the school captain was partially voted just from the class.
That's such a good idea. Anyone listening who Isaac has got the opportunity for something like that, plan ahead, go and meet your constituents and meet you ahead of time. I think that's that's just brilliant planning. Are you a planner? Like? Are you always somebody who's kind of thinking the next step ahead and planning for that.
I'm such a planner.
I just be so much joy Like partly I just think, you know, life is short and I just want to fit as much into it as I can.
So the things that give me joy, I.
Just you know, I I'm a big always have a five year plan. And you know it's not like I'm like disappointed, like it doesn't have to be that way, it can move.
But just the idea of thinking, where could I possibly be in five years time?
Where could I possibly be in two years? Taking time to write down and identify what makes me happy.
How about you listen.
That's such a good idea. Now I'm a mad planner to you know, there's that line in Hamilton. It's like, why does he write like he's running out of time? And I feel like my whole life I've felt like, not in a negative way, just in it. There's so much to do that I want to do, so I'm constantly trying to squeeze in. Hence I feel like i'm i am. It's something that I have to work on. I'm a few minutes late to everything because I'm always overly optimistic as to what I can achieve in a time frame, and I know that that's not ideal for whoever I'm meeting with. So I've always I'm really trying to work on that, just to be a bit more pragmatic in my time management. But it is sort of yeah, So I really understand that. How do you do you have joyful ways that you plan or that you plan, like for instance, your even your life is so busy with everything that you do at SBS and everything that you do with your daughter. Do you have different planning systems within your family, planning within your daily schedules and things like.
That we have a family diary where sort of whatever goes in their rules. But I mean it's interesting because you know, in life, particularly when I was younger, you know, people sometimes impose their own thinking on you, like oh, slow down, or you don't have to.
Do this, or you know, don't. But actually, for me, it gives me joy, Like planning is joyful, and it's fine if you're not that person like, but also, yeah, it frees me up. Is that how you feel?
That's exactly And I recently was looking on it. A friend of mine, Lucy Cochrane, she did up this beautiful article for Halemonade on ikey guy and it was about how it's the intersection of your own flow and it just was such a nice feeling to be like, oh, my flow is probably just a bit faster, and that's fine because I think sometimes I feel like, oh I flow too fast, I'm talking too fast, I'm doing things in a rushed way. But that does somewhat bring with you it. Ikey guy is Japanese concept that means your reason for being. Ikey in Japanese means life, and guy describes value or worse. Your ikey guy is your life purpose or your bliss. It's what brings you joy and inspires you to get out of bed every day. And there's four different parts. It's what you love, what you're good at, what you can be paid for, and what the world needs. And Loose has written this beautiful article anyway, it's on our hay Lemonade website as well. Then it just talks about the flow, and yeah, we all have different we all have a different flow, and that's what makes life a beautiful symphony, really, isn't it.
Yeah, And I think you're right, Lucy, like you want to live to your own drum.
And you know, I've sometimes felt bad that, you know, like you, my my drum might be faster than other people, and you can be aware of that. But also you know, you just have to be who you are. I don't mean to make anyone feel slow. I just like doing these things that I like doing.
And sometimes it is really nice to be around people with different flows as well, just to experience different rhythms and stuff. I guess in life.
I think you know, recently I had a skiing accident.
I exploded my knee and so I've been on crutches and had to have a knee operation, and it's meant that I've had to walk really slowly, and actually it's been lovely because I just see things differently, Like even walking around my own neighborhood, I'm like, oh, I've never noticed that, so yeah, it can be good to see how the other side lives as well.
Such a positive way of looking at a skiing accident. I love that. Did you have any particular teachers at school duels that really influenced you and that you think of to this day.
No. I had this wonderful teacher called mister Stewart, who I'm fortunate enough to still be in contact with, and when I was in year eleven, mister Stewart did a really radical thing.
In that time. He started a this is you know, when kind of everyone had to do maths and science.
He started a brand new subject in Queensland called film and tele television and I nearly exploded with joy and my class he called his ground zero students, and so we got to you know, I got to learn about meson scene and framing and all these wonderful things in year eleven when really at a time when that was just not.
Done in schools. I know, the subjects now in particularly in New eleven twelve are amazing.
And on a couple of occasions I've been able to go back and mister Stewart's been really written textbooks and been a real a really influential force in teaching that in you know, in Queensland and in Australia. And so I've got to go back and meet with him and thank him for what he's done and the difference that he made in my life in helping give me a language that you know, I've said to him the stuff that you taught me I used to this day.
That's so incredible. He must be so proud of you. Thank you, mister Stewart.
He just retired. He just retired from Kemmel High. And in terms of that what we're talking before about being who you are, I've said to mister Stewart, who you met me now as you know, a woman over thirty and you you know you've known me, you know, since I was fifteen, Like, is what's the difference?
And He's like, no difference. I feel the same person I love.
I was chatting with a mom att school who's a psychologist, and she was saying, yeah, you just got to figure out what your values are and just stick to those. And I thought that's just a nice kind of more useful, pragmatic way I guess of saying just stay in your own lane, because I often think of staying in your own lane is important. I think, not in an inhibitive way, in a like figure out what it is that you want, what you're going for, But I think that it comes back to a value system. I guess as well, do you know.
What your values are? What would you say they are?
My family, my children probably and my family are the biggest one, followed by uplifting content. I guess making uplifting content in as part of my job, so my sort of icky guys a combination of balancing those things. What would you say your values are?
Yeah, I mean, my daughter is central to my world. But I think, yeah, it's probably a really similar thing.
Like I often, one of the things I love about all the content that I've been lucky enough to be involved with making and certainly want to try to activate here at SBS is you know, content that moves hearts and minds while being entertaining, and that I you know, I don't know what it is about that iky guy, I guess might just essentially who I am. But I've always found great satisfaction in making spaces where people can be heard. And you know, at SBS that's really supporting people who haven't had a voice to make content that's really authored. But really, when I look back in my life, you know that that's been something I've always done in different ways. So you think, oh, it's just it's just my kind of that's my footprint or my fingerprint.
It's a real theme in my life.
Yea, it's your legacy. Really, I mean, you do it in such a prolific and far reaching way. I guess it's so wonderful. But yeah, I can see that with you, and that is what you're doing with SBS. It's so exciting to see. What color do you love?
Yellow? Red?
What smell do you love?
Oh, flowers, flower? I particularly love oriental lilies.
Like when oriental lilies open and they're in your laund room and you walk into your.
House, that smell is amazing.
But then other smells like fresh sheets, crisp fresh sheets, my daughter's hair when it's freshly washed.
That sounds a bit creepy, but just that idea of like.
Shampoo and also, I guess that also comes into I always am staggered at how frequently my children need their nails cut and their hair washed and things like that, And so when you do it, there's just that little satisfaction that also comes with the.
Usually after a fight, I don't want to wash my hair mortually.
Cutting nails though, I never remember my nails being cut. But same, I always think, you know, Molly's nails always need.
Cutting, stagger like, I'm sure someone cut my nails, but I don't remember that part of my life.
I saw a thing the other day as well that said, oh, we're so busy giving our kids, making sure they've got filled up water bottles everywhere. Oh, I've got a bottle of water. I've got a bottle of water. I feel like in the eighties we drank like a cup of water throughout the entire eighties.
I just.
So true.
I know, how do we stay dehydrated? What were we doing? We do not know, Dear.
What sounds do you love?
I love my daughter's voice mostly, I love I love laughter, champagne bottles popping. My daughter, if she sleeps in next to me, she has this thing where she I call it her purr, so she purs when she sleeps. It's kind of it's kind of like a kid snort, but we call it the per.
Does she see she's singer?
Oh my goodness, she is such a funny singer.
Her favorite song, Lucy is this earl is on fire and she loves to sing it in the shower, totally out of tune.
Itou It would not hit.
Your musical standards, but just seeing a little six year old seeing this goes on fire, you know, it is absolutely delightful.
That would hit my musical standards, though, because I think I just love hearing people singing, you know, out of tune. I actually don't care, because I think it's just that there's something different that happens when you start to sing, that unbridled singing. I hold a glee club at Police School, and it's you know, nobody needs to audition, it's just whoever wants to come after school, and it's just delightful to hear people smashing out, you know, out of tune. But just especially that age when they're young and they're not inhibited by feeling embarrassed or anything. It's just there's almost nothing more beautiful than kids just singing at the top of their lungs.
Absolutely, and also dancing like she just like loves to, you know, let loose dancing. And I think when you have kids, it's that lovely thing that you can also dance like. You know, I don't know how I feel about dancing in public now.
I do not have the moves. I have been mocked. But you know the other thing, I'm.
Not a singer and do not have the voice that you have, Lucy Jack. But my daughter loves me singing her lullabies. And I don't know how much longer that's going to last because it's not great and she's going to clock on to that at some point that.
I'm singing flat. But she just always wants me to sing her a lullaby.
That's so beautiful. Actually read a thing a while ago saying it doesn't matter if you're singing in tune or attitude. Having that experience of your adults in your lasting to you and your child, it has so many positive health benefits, and it really is. It's long lasting health benefits, So just keep doing it.
It's a beautiful thing.
Also, we need to go dancing. I also don't like I call myself I say this a bit on this podcast. A smart mover, like not a dancer, but a smart mover, like I love, I love to get. Like my happy place is like the wedding dance floor where we're singing, dancing, queen and dancing. But essentially my dance style is jumping. I remember the night after my calf muscles and I was like, why am I calf muscle saw? And I was like, you just jumped the whole night. I just was so excited. My wedding dress so great.
I think I'm going to steal some of your moves if we go dancing.
Yes, let's go down, We'll just go jumping. What texture do you love?
All soft, stretchy, fluffy, anything, anything that doesn't stretch that I have to wear. I really present, like I've even found you know, you don't how many functions we go to in our industry lose here, Like I've found like four more dresses that I'm stretching and they make me so happy to jersey velvet isn't the best.
Sounds so delicious?
Yeah, And if I have to wear a shirt that doesn't have stretch in it, I was in that.
Shirt all day and yet but but again it's a bit like what we're saying right at the start. If you have something negative, the positive of when that thing ends or when it flips and it does, Like that's the nature of existence is you sort of go through different seasons, be it an uncomfortable shirt or be it like you know, anywhere put on a pair of undies and you're like, oh, I needed to throw these out. These are really uncomfortable. But yet to the end of the day you take whatever's uncomfortable off and you're like, oh gosh, my life is so good right now. It's so little things just so lovely.
Actually, that idea, that's one of the radical happy ideas that I came across some years ago that I often think of.
You know, they say I think that I can't remember. Maybe it's the Buddhist that say you should think of your own death regularly.
And that idea, that that idea that everything ends like that, to me is such a happy thing because it really does give you appreciation in the moment and even if I'm stuck in the worst traffic jam, like it will end like that's that's one hundred percent, you know, and thinking I think thinking about your death is really helpful because it's.
Like, this is this is just now, this is not forever enjoying it.
That is so true, you know, And I guess that's the silver lining of every time we hear of somebody that we thought we know in the media that you didn't know very well of their passing. I feel like that's always a really good silver lining of a sad thing, is that you're like, oh, it just makes you reflect on your own mortality a little bit. What piece of nature do you love?
Beach? The beach is the best. I live just a couple of blocks from the beach, and I absolutely love it. That's walking along the beach, seeing that hories and the smell of the feel, the sound, everything about it so happy.
What book do you love?
I love books. I am like I love words. I think words are absolutely magic. Like I can't even believe that humans have.
Managed to make these sounds that tell us what's going on pretty much inside each other like that to me, honestly, Lucy, that blows my mind.
I know, maybe I came from being a flyer, an ant or something, and I've had language before. Because I'm in love with language.
It's incredible isn't I think if you break it down like that, Jewels, it's so that's it sort of goes back to what we were saying, is when you were saying about your meditation, we thank you for your heart. There's if you look for it. There's just so much to be thankful for language being You could be thankful for language every single day. Have you had a favorite song?
I was listening today to Van Morrison's Have I Told You Lately? That I Love you? And that's such a beautiful love song.
I love that's beautiful and that's it's a beautiful thing. You could say that. You could sing that to Maley, she would love that. That'd be a nice lullaby.
Yeah, that was good.
Sometimes she gets me to make up lullaby. She's like, she gives me a theme. It's tough, you know, a thirty at night.
I want a lullaby about when I was a baby and then I grow up and I become a mom. That's that's one of the common themes that spontaneous Broadway here I come.
I love that, Jeels. I'm so grateful to be your friend, and it's such a special thing to be able to bring a friend onto the podcast, but somebody who is doing incredible things with you're doing incredible things with your life, and you're living your life with such purpose and meaning and it's just been really special to chat with you. Thank you for walking us through some of the things that you love.
Oh I did I Lucy.
Thank you for creating this beautiful, joyful podcast and it is such a beautiful example.
Of the spirit that you are, that you find good in things, and it's been really lovely to chat with you.
Can't wait to catch up with you soon. Have to go and pop a Champagne corp together somewhere and then go and have a jump
