Adam Hills was born without a right foot, so rugby wasn't the kind of thing he thought he'd be able to pursue competitively.
But, instead, he had a massively successful career in comedy and television.
Then his boyhood dream finally came true with the Physical Disability Rugby World Cup.
Grow Another Foot streams on Paramount Plus from September 29.
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The comedian is putting his prosthetic leg through its paces on the rugby field with Grow Another Foot.(Supplied: Paramount Plus)
Adam Hills
You know the TV show Dexter?
Virginia Trioli
Yes.
Adam Hills
How he needed to go and kill someone?
Virginia Trioli
Yes.
Adam Hills
I'm like that with comedy. Every now and again I need to go out and just feed the laughter monster.
Virginia Trioli
I'm Virginia Trioli and welcome to You Don't Know Me. The podcast in which I ask some of Australia's biggest names seven big questions.
Adam Hills
Okay, I really, this is ... Someone may call and offer therapy after this.
Virginia Trioli
A beloved name at home with Spicksand Specksand known internationally for The Last Leg, he's now in the thick of it on the rugby field. Adam Hills, your life is turning out to be just lovely.
Adam Hills
It really is. It's kind of hilarious. Every now and then I do an interview like this and I'm introduced the way you introduced me and I sit here thinking, oh that guy sounds really impressive.
Virginia Trioli
That's a nice life.
Adam Hills
That's a good introduction. He's doing all right.
Virginia Trioli
How do I get one of those? But also a documentary, Adam Hill's Grow Another Foot.
Adam Hills
Yes. I made a documentary years ago about the start of Disability Rugby League in the UK and me playing for the Warrington Wolves and that was called Take His Legs. Yes. And then this one we call...
Virginia Trioli
You all know the leg reference but we will clarify as well.
Adam Hills
That is, yeah I do have a prosthetic leg that's why I play. This one's called Grow Another Foot because it was about the Disability Rugby League World Cup last year and I had the opportunity to play for Australia but I also technically qualified for England and so the English coach, Sean Briscoe, who used to play able-bodied and played for England said, look, who do you want to declare for? And I had a long hard think about it and I had to say to him, look I don't get heart flutters when I think of pulling on the English jersey and he said, yeah when you play for your country you should grow another foot. And I said, well if I could do that I wouldn't be playing Disability Rugby League in the first place. But it was about that concept of representing your country and we followed the Australian team, we followed the English team who did play in the Disability Rugby League World Cup last year and it's brutal. Anyone who watches it is taken aback by how full-on it is.
Virginia Trioli
I was going to say foot or no foot? I mean how are you or were you, generally speaking, at rugby anyway?
Adam Hills
I was okay. I played till I was about 12 or 13 because I grew up in Sydney so I knew how to play but it was a real wake-up call, you know, playing against, especially, burly Northern Yorkshiremen. I mean the first game I played one massive guy came out to my wing, tackled me, threw me on the ground and then in my ear just said, I enjoyed that.
Virginia Trioli
It's like a Warner Brothers cartoon.
Adam Hills
The only thing English people like hitting harder than an Australian is an Australian off the television. So, and I mean if you watch the show there's broken ribs, there's fractured cheekbones. I, you know, since I've been playing, which is 2017, I've fractured an ankle, torn a hamstring and torn the IT band in my hip.
Virginia Trioli
Okay, so now you're really able to play disability rugby. You know, you tick all the boxes.
Adam Hills
But it's when you watch, you know, the stories of all the people. Like I realised when I started making these documentaries it's not about me, it's about all the other people. It's about, you know, Bryce who played for Australia, who played at a really high level and then tore all the nerves out of his shoulder making a tackle. And then there's a guy called Adam with cerebral palsyand his parents were told he'd never, you know, play rugby league and now he's playing for England. So there's all these stories intermingled in it.
Virginia Trioli
I better get to the questions. You'd never know it but I...
Adam Hills
I'm an extremely grumpy man. I've become grumpier and grumpier as I've gotten older. And about the most trivial things...
Virginia Trioli
Oh no, you don't give the poor person behind the bar giving your coffee order a hard time.
Adam Hills
No, that's interesting. I'm generally quite nice to people. I'm such a people pleaser.
Virginia Trioli
Yes.
Adam Hills
That I will hold it in and I'll explode later.
Virginia Trioli
So where does it come out?
Adam Hills
Okay, I really, this is the... Someone may call and offer therapy after this. When you've got a prosthetic leg, it's great for kicking stuff because it doesn't hurt. But there is something so... It's made of titanium. We did a thing on The Last Leg where we ran over a prosthetic leg with a tank and it mainly survived.
Virginia Trioli
But hang on, but there's a connection point. That must hurt at that connection point. Surely there were the reverberation through the rest of your leg.
Adam Hills
I mean the reverberation, yeah, you do feel it. Yeah, sure. But no, I can just wind up and let go and...
Virginia Trioli
How many have you busted over the years?
Adam Hills
Um, oh, a fair few. I'm trying to think. Do you know where I would often break prosthetic legs is the Edinburgh Fringe Festival.
Virginia Trioli
Because?
Adam Hills
Well, I could never work it out. And then I realised a lot of Edinburgh is cobblestones. So you're walking around on cobblestones and your ankle's going left and right and left and right and forward and backwards. That's the only thing I can think is that was why, like there were two years running where I broke my prosthetic leg.
Virginia Trioli
Damn that festival. He's had such success at it, but you know.
Adam Hills
Literally taken my legs away from me.
Virginia Trioli
Took the legs away from him. The fork in the road I almost took was?
Adam Hills
Sports journalism. I nearly became a sports journalist.
Virginia Trioli
At what age?
Adam Hills
Well, I went to university at age 18, Macquarie University in Sydney. I did a communications degree. The plan was at that point to become a sports journalist. I remember, so my dad worked for Qantas and he had he met a TV producer on one of the flights who produced a sports show. Got his phone number and I called this guy up and I said, I was 17 at the time and said, what's your advice? And he said, go to university. And I said, all right, what should I study? And he said, I don't care. And I was like, what? And he said, if you go to uni, if you just come straight out of high school, all your teachers make sure you hand your stuff in on time and they nag you until you do. University students, if you don't hand your stuff in, you fail. So you have to learn how to do stuff yourself. He said, so I don't care if you study history, commerce, whatever. I will hire a university student because I know they will get stuff done. So I studied communications because that seemed like the best thing to do for the journalism degree. And the plan was sports journalist. And then halfway through university, I discovered stand up comedy and went, oh, hang on. This is fun.
Virginia Trioli
This is fun doesn't necessarily equate to, oh, I can make a living from this though.
Adam Hills
No, I never thought I mean, at no point did I think, oh, I can make a living from this. So this was just a fun thing to do. And then within probably about six months, I started to get paid bookings, then led into being an MC. And then it all came back to me covering the Paralympics at The Last Leg and almost becoming sports journalist again.
Virginia Trioli
Yeah. So you've come complete full circle, but forgetthe journalism, you're now the participant. You're now the actual sports star. So how about that?
Adam Hills
It's a, I mean, a lot of it is also just staying open to interesting possibilities along the way.
Virginia Trioli
Why do you love stand up so much?
Adam Hills
For so many reasons. It's how I express... Being funny is how I like to express myself. It's not about money and it's not about attention, I don't think. I feel at my best when I'm being funny. And more importantly, the laughter monster needs to be fed.
Virginia Trioli
Yes.
Adam Hills
That's the only way I can describe it. You know, you know, the TV show Dexter.
Virginia Trioli
Yes.
Adam Hills
How he needed to go and kill someone.
Virginia Trioli
Yes.
Adam Hills
So he would find the right people to kill the people who deserve. I'm like that.
Virginia Trioli
That he could morally square away, yes.
Adam Hills
I'm like that with comedy. Every now and again, I need to go out and just feed the laughter monster.
Virginia Trioli
The full moon comes out.
Adam Hills
Yep.
Virginia Trioli
Yep that's right. He turns into the comedy werewolf and he has to go out and prowl.
Adam Hills
Honestly, there have been days and weeks where I've thought I'm coming down with something. I might have to go to the doctor. I'm feeling really unwell. And I go and do stand up and go, oh no, I just needed someone to laugh at me.
Virginia Trioli
That is so interesting. Adam Hills is with you answering the questions and you don't know me. I always...
Adam Hills
Always go on stage with my act in my back pocket. It'sa thing that goes all the way back to high school where I remember having I think it was an English teacher, might have been geography teacher who said, when you're studying, write out the notes, and then summarise them into paragraphs, then summarise them into points and stick with those points. And then it'll stick in your head. And I do that with stand up. So before going on stage, I will write out in point form and sometimes it'll be two pages if it's a full show. And if you were in the audience and you had that list, you could tick off joke by joke as they go through. Until I ad lib and then completely go off script. But I can't go off script unless I know what the script is.
Virginia Trioli
Prep. It's preparation.
Adam Hills
Yeah. I never look at it. It's in my back pocket for the whole show.
Virginia Trioli
You've never pulled it out once?
Adam Hills
But just the the knowledge that it's there lets me know that I've done the right amount of preparation.
Virginia Trioli
Has your methodology changed much over the years?
Adam Hills
Ah, so I don't know about the methodology, but I would say very, very recently, I've spent a bit of time away from doing stand up because of COVID and then because of playing rugby league, which became my obsession. And I thought, well, let's follow that as far as we can take it. And about a month ago, I was asked to do a comedy festival in Dublin. And something happened. I turned up I did a Saturday night and a Sunday night, two of the best 20 minute spots I've ever had in my life. And it felt like I was trying less. It was really interesting. I think as you get older and you get better at it, it's like life. It's a bit zen, really. You work you get more out of it by doing slightly less.
Virginia Trioli
You achieved flow, that great state of flow.
Adam Hills
I think that's what it was. Yeah. There was a comedian called Sean Hughes that I watched a few years back. And he was mid 50s at this point. And I thought, oh, my God, you don't even look like you're trying. And you are killing this gig. And that yeah, that is a state of flow, I think is the best way to put it. I'm a big reader of Taoism as well.
Virginia Trioli
Are you?
Adam Hills
And that's all about going with the flow.
Virginia Trioli
So being in that state?
Adam Hills
Absolutely. Yeah, yeah.
Virginia Trioli
I never...
Adam Hills
I never drink enough water. To the fact that I've got I've come up with a couple of words.
Virginia Trioli
We've got some here! Drink it. Drink it, Freddy.
Adam Hills
I drink coffee.I drink way too much coffee. And when we did in fact, when we did the Rugby League World Cup last year, the one rule the coach said to us, look, I'm not going to have fines for being late. I'm not going to do that kind of stuff or do punishments. All I will say is this, you have to have your water bottle with you at all times, because you have to hydrate that's the most important thing. And so wherever we went, if we went out, you know, to lunch, if we were training, if we were just hanging around the hotel, we had to have our water bottle with us.
Virginia Trioli
And did you find that made life better for you being better hydrated?
Adam Hills
Oh, absolutely.
Virginia Trioli
Do you ever have that dull headache that's always there suddenly went? Isn't that funny?
Adam Hills
Yeah. And the worst thing is, when I've got that dull headache, my first thought is I must need coffee.
Virginia Trioli
Which is going to dehydrate you.
Adam Hills
Which is going to dehydrate you to the point where when I went to so I went to the coronation last year.
Adam Hills
Yes, I know! I saw you in your getup.
Adam Hills
My main worry was how am I going to go five hours without a toilet break or a coffee? And two days before the coronation,all of us that who were going to be there were invited to the High Commissioner's residence. And Albo was there and Nick Cave and Sam Kerr and everyone. The main topic of conversation was how we're not going to wee for five hours. Sothere was a doctor there and he said, maybe try some caffeine tablets. And I went, Oh, hang on. There's a version of paracetamol in the UK that has caffeine in it.
Virginia Trioli
The old diuretic.
Adam Hills
Yeah, this is the thing. I was like, I'll take that. The paracetamol will offset the bladder pain.
Virginia Trioli
Yes.
Adam Hills
And then the caffeine will keep me caffeinated. And then the next day I got an email via the High Commission from a professor who was there and overheard the conversation. She helped discover the COVID vaccine. She emailed to say, please tell Adam not to take caffeine tablets because they are a diuretic.
Virginia Trioli
They really are. That's exactly right.
Adam Hills
So you know how I got through the coronation?
Virginia Trioli
How?
Adam Hills
Genuinely? Nurofen. But I knew I couldn't take water in. So I took in a eucalyptus lozenges so that I'd have enough saliva to swallow a nurofen.
Virginia Trioli
Oh my God. I could tell you how to do that. All you have to do is work on News Breakfast as I did for 11 years and you simply learn not to go.
Adam Hills
Really?Wow.
Virginia Trioli
Yep. I'm wired up with so much technology. I tried it once. I've got two battery packs. I've got the whole lot. I thought I'm never doing this again. I almost missed the break and missed being back on air. So I just stopped.
Adam Hills
So how long a period then?
Virginia Trioli
Oh, I can go for six or eight hours.
Adam Hills
That's really impressive.
Virginia Trioli
No sweat. It wouldn't even occur to me. Right. Wouldn't have occurred to me. That would have been a problem. The problem would have been, you know, finding the right frock to attend the coronation. But you nailed that. We're going to have to do a lightning round now. We've been chatting too long. The time I got it terribly wrong was...
Adam Hills
Oh, the time I got it terribly wrong. The worst time I can think of that I got it terribly wrong. Was, okay... When I was going to university, sorry, I was looking off into the distance to try and picture it. I was going when I went to university, I used to get a bus from Wynyard Station to Macquarie University. And I remember one morning there was a girl at the bottom dressed in a Superman outfit, handing out flyers for something. And she was really cute. And it was cold. And I thought I'm going to buy her a hot chocolate. And so I went up the escalator and then went right, went back down the escalator to get a hot chocolate.
Virginia Trioli
Nice move.
Adam Hills
Bought the hot chocolate. By the time I got to where she was, as I was coming back down the escalator, I saw her going up the other escalator and went, oh no, she's going up. So instead of going down and then going back up, I decided to run up the escalator that was going down with the hot chocolate. Got to the top, fell, landed at her feet while spilling hot chocolate everywhere.
Virginia Trioli
This is another scene out of a cartoon. My life in cartoons, with Adam Hills.
Adam Hills
And she was like, there she was, this lovely lady dressed in a Superman costume, looking down at me on the floor going, are you okay?
Virginia Trioli
Did you get the date?
Adam Hills
No, I just picked myself up and ran away very quickly.
Virginia Trioli
I love that. That's going to be a great scene in the biopic of your life. It's perfect. It's a small thing, but I'm still so proud that I...
Adam Hills
Okay. This is a tiny, tiny, tiny thing.
Virginia Trioli
I like the tiny things.
Adam Hills
Okay. So, um, years ago, my wife and I were in Paris with, with our daughters and we were at a museum for like circus fairground attractions, basically. And there was a really old one where you had to put balls into a chute. And the more you got it inright in the middle, the faster your horse went along a track. And my daughter was having a go and my wife was also having a go and she was, my wife was winning, but my daughter was coming second. And I was like, oh no, no, no, no, no, no. Back off. Let her go. Andso basically I just helped my daughter really quietly and just going, here you go, here you go, here you go. My daughter ended up winning and I'm not proud that she beat my wife, but it was, it was a tiny, tiny, tiny, tiny parenting win.
Virginia Trioli
Why did that matter to you so much in that moment that she get across the line?
Adam Hills
Oh, because I think you just want your kids to be happy and you want them to have successes, little tiny successes. And I think parenting is millions of those a day, millions of tiny, tiny little things that you just adjust and your kids don't even notice and it helps them do the next thing. And I think those more than anything else are the things I'm probably most proud of.
Virginia Trioli
Those little moments of scaffolding and it's not scaffolding to, you know, prop them up. It's actually so they can go and, you know, keep building their own house as they get older.
Adam Hills
Yeah. What a great way of putting it. Even this morning, my daughter on the way to school, the stopper on the front of her roller skates had fallen off and she was like, oh daddy, I don't need it. And I'm like, no, I think you do. She's like, no, no, no, I'm fine. I'm fine. And I had a moment of, of kind of going, fine, do whatever you want. And then went, no, come on, be responsible, go and screw the stopper in just tiny little thing.
Virginia Trioli
So if there is a need to suddenly stop, she's not going to crack her head on the pavement.
Adam Hills
Exactly. Exactly. That's what I had to explain to her.
Virginia Trioli
Are you a very vigilant parent? Are you a worrying parent? Are you a relaxed parent?
Adam Hills
To be honest, I worry and I'm also a little bit lazy. So the phrase I probably use most with my kids is just be careful. What does that mean? Do you know what I mean? My daughter can be standing on a fence, like, like a high wire rack and I'll be sitting there.
Virginia Trioli
An electrified fence.
Adam Hills
And I'll think, I know I should do something right now. And I'm like, just be careful. There you go. I've done my bit.
Virginia Trioli
Yeah. No, you'll be right, love. Sounds like Australian parenting to me. Adam Hills, our final question is always, my secret pleasure or my guilty pleasure is...
Adam Hills
Oh, I forgot. What is my secret? Coffee. Just too much coffee.
Virginia Trioli
How much each day?
Adam Hills
Five or six.
Virginia Trioli
What kind?
Adam Hills
Magics. The Melbourne Magics. I discovered those recently.
Virginia Trioli
I had a Sydney-sider introduced me to Melbourne Magics. I never heard of them.
Adam Hills
Yeah.
Virginia Trioli
Yeah. Hamish Macdonald when he was co-hosting with me on News Breakfast said, I'll get a Magic. And I said, get a what now? And he said, you come from Melbourne. I said, I'm sorry, what is this thing you're ordering? Never heard of them.
Adam Hills
Do you know what? Do you know who introduced me?. We were doing an ABC photo shoot and I heard her order a Magic and I went, I beg your pardon?
Virginia Trioli
Yeah.
Adam Hills
And she said, oh no, it's the perfect combination of coffee to milk.
Virginia Trioli
Yeah. Right.
Adam Hills
And so, so I probably, I mean, possibly have five of those a day.
Virginia Trioli
So, when and how do you detox? Do you ever let it all run out of your system? Is it that one holiday on the beach once a year or does it never happen?
Adam Hills
I detox when I get a stomach bug and I'm too sick to drink coffee. That's basically it. And then after the end of the three days, I think, wow, I feel great. I feel good after that. Maybe I shouldn't drink coffee. And then...
Virginia Trioli
Let's go and have a coffee.
Virginia Trioli
That's a wrap for this season of You Don't Know Me. The podcast is produced by Joe Sullivan and JulzHay with audio production by Michael Black. All 22 episodes of the podcast are now available on the ABC listen app. And I'd love for you to follow the show and listen back. There's fellow Spicks and Specks star, MyfWarhurst. Happy to
Virginia Trioli
come back, John Farnham style, as many times as we goddamn please, because it's fun.
Virginia Trioli
If you're up for a laugh, you'll want to hear episodes with Tim Minchin, Judith Lucy, Sean Micallef, and more of our comedy greats.
Tim Minchin
I did an open audition You know, the kind of Faustian warthog.
Judith Lucy
I showed the audience an enormous slide of my vulva portrait.
Virginia Trioli
You'd never know it, but I...
Shaun Micallef
Was once Humphrey B. Bear.
Virginia Trioli
Were you really?
Shaun Micallef
See, you didn't know that.
Virginia Trioli
I dit not know that!
Virginia Trioli
Or hear about the very interesting habits shared by guests like Adam Liaw and Kate Ceberano.
Kate Ceberano
I always make the bed before leaving the house and in hotel rooms as well.
Virginia Trioli
Oh, do you?
Adam Liaw
I always make my bed in the morning. Even if I'm staying in a hotel, I know that's a little weird.
Virginia Trioli
I think from memory, you might be the third or the fourth person to say that.
Virginia Trioli
And last but not least, you can hear me answering the questions too, with my friend and colleague Matt Preston in the questioner's seat.
Matt Preston
There go the questions. And here come the other questions.
Virginia Trioli
Oh dear.
Virginia Trioli
It's such a joy to be with you each episode and to see your wonderful reviews of the podcast. It wouldn't be anything without the support of each and every one of you. So thank you. And until next time, thank you for listening.