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Jason Donovan has spent almost forty years being reinvented in public: teen heartthrob, chart-topping pop star, tabloid cautionary tale, musical theatre mainstay. In this conversation with Kate, he finally puts it all together in his own words, including the night at LA's Viper Room he still doesn't love talking about, and what he now understands about why it happened.

Jason opens up about growing up the son of an actor in 1970s Melbourne, being cast alongside a young Kylie Minogue years before Neighbours, and the strange, competitive spark that pushed him toward a pop career of his own. He talks candidly about his recent, surprisingly honest turn in Kylie's new Netflix documentary, revisiting their relationship on his own terms rather than a tabloid's. He reflects on turning down Priscilla, Queen of the Desert, and on his father Terence Donovan's legacy fighting for Australian content quotas in the 1970s, a movement he says made his own career, and Hugh Jackman's and Cate Blanchett's, possible. And in a moment he says he's never spoken about publicly before, Jason talks about losing his dad earlier this year, and what it means to bring Randle P. McMurphy to life in One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest on the very Melbourne stage his father once performed on.

Jason Donovan stars as Randle P. McMurphy in One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, exclusively at Melbourne's Athenaeum Theatre from 13 November. Tickets at cuckoosnest.com.au.

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CREDITS:

Guest: Jason Donovan

Host: Kate Langbroek

Executive Producer: Bree Player

Audio and Video Producer: Josh Green

Content and Social Producer: Jess Chan

Mamamia acknowledges the Traditional Owners of the Land on which we have recorded this podcast.