It's fun to watch people who only know Eric Bana only as Serious Dramatic Actor discover his roots in Aussie TV sketch comedy - but for our money, it's a less incredulous career leap than the one taken by Bana's Full Frontal co-star, Daina Reid. Of course, the use of “incredulous†here should be read as a compliment of the highest order.
After being one of Australia’s funniest performers on shows such as Jimeoin, Full Frontal and The Micallef Program, Daina pivoted into one of our most prolific directors of television both comedic and dramatic, helming episodes of The Secret Life of Us, MDA, All Saints, Very Small Business, City Homicide, Rush, Nowhere Boys, Miss Fisher's Murder Mysteries, Offspring, The Wrong Girl, The Doctor Blake Mysteries and Romper Stomper. She directed the high-profile TV movies Paper Giants: The Birth of Cleo, Paper Giants: Magazine Wars, Howzat! Kerry Packer's War, Never Tear Us Apart: The Untold Story of INXS, The Secret River, and the feature film I Love You Too, starring Brendan Cowell, Yvonne Strahovski, Peter Helliar, Megan Gale, and Peter Dinklage.
This year, she leapt into the world of international event television, directing two episodes of the acclaimed series The Handmaid's Tale.
But none of that compares to her greatest role to date: Roger Explosion's Ethel! Sorry, that should be: Hell Is For Hyphenates guest host! But which filmmaker has she chosen to talk about on the show?
None other than John Hughes!
Hughes was the voice of teen comedies in the 1980s. He either wrote or wrote and directed beloved works such as Sixteen Candles, The Breakfast Club, Ferris Bueller's Day Off and Some Kind of Wonderful. He wrote some of National Lampoon's earliest comedies Vacation, European Vacation and Christmas Vacation, and would go on to create classics such as Planes, Trains and Automobiles, Uncle Buck, and Home Alone.
His fingerprints remain smeared over so much of modern pop culture, with countless lines and scenes still quoted endlessly in modern works.
But what is it about his filmmaking that so enduring? And most importantly, what kind of effect did his works have on Daina?
Join us on August 31 when we find out!