With a constant stream of ideas and projects in the works, one wonders how Australian comedian, actor, musician and artist Tim Minchin was able, let alone might want, to fit in a role in the new Disney+ series The Artful Dodger into his very busy schedule. And when WHO asks him how he got involved in the show during our Zoom interview with the star, he is, at first, a little apprehensive.
“I’m not sure how much I should be honest about that,” he teases, before admitting he sort of talked his way into it. “I think people think of me as someone who is just really dedicated to doing their own stuff …but I kind of am desperate for people to know I’d really like to not always have the weight of the f--king thing on my shoulders.”
Having heard about the project through his friend and fellow Aussie creator Gracie Otto, Minchin offhandedly mentioned it to his manager who got to work. “I thought that they’d put me in as some sort of drunken, comic role. Then [creator] James McNamara said, ‘Well, you should play Darius …you should play a baddie,’” the 48-year-old shares with WHO of his role playing the dodgy Darius Cracksworth. “It’s only a small role, but it’s perfect. I just wanted to serve someone else’s work, especially work this good. And then I read the script and I was like, ‘Holy s--t, this is proper good stuff ’ – written by a Perth boy who went to the same university as me – it just felt like fate.”
An irreverent follow-up of Charles
