Adam Hills has lived an extraordinary life.
Best known as the "nice guy" of stand-up comedy, he's dominated our screens hosting 11 seasons of Australia's favourite music quiz show, Spicks And Specks, and more than 300 episodes of successful British panel show, The Last Leg.
But did you know he's also a documentary producer, a children's book author, and a business partner in multiple restaurants? He also somehow finds time to compete at a the top, world championship level in not one but two sports: disability rugby and para-standing tennis.
Hills has met the Dalai Lama, was awarded an MBE, and has even been immortalised as an Australian postal stamp at the dawn of the COVID lockdowns of 2020.
"There wasn't an enormous amount of publicity about it," he recalls. "But I ordered one package and there were 20 [stamps] of my face on it! I've still got it amongst all the other little bits and pieces of memorabilia."
That's just one of several golden yarns Hills spun with Zan Rowe for Double J's Take 5, which was "one of the best things I've done," he says (for the record).
On TV, he's always asking his guests to share their stories. Now, it's Adam Hills' turn, and here are some of the best he shared during his conversation.
The time he turned down an invitation from the Royals to play rugby
Raised by a family of life-long South Sydney Rabbitohs supporters, rugby league has always been deeply ingrained in Adam Hills' life.
"When I was three days old, my dad brought a toy red and green rabbit into the hospital," says Hills, who was born without a right foot and wears a prosthesis.
"I had a really weird connection to disability sports because, as a kid, I didn't consider myself disabled… I never considered I was held back."
In school, he played rugby just fine. Too well, in fact.
"I found that when kids tried to tackle me, they'd hurt themselves because I had a solid leg. I was doing them more damage than me!"
In his late teens, Hills gravitated towards comedy, but playing rugby professionally was "the dream that I'd never really followed through."
However, in 2017, Hills learnt his beloved Rabbitohs had started their own disability league. Inspired by this Hills, who lives between London and Melbourne's inner west, sought out the newly established Physical Disability Rugby League (PDRL) team in Warrington, "which is kind of halfway between Liverpool and Manchester."
For the past seven years, "at least once a week, sometimes twice" Hills takes the nearly-two-hour train trip from London to Warrington and back again to attend rugby training. And nothing else takes priority over those nights spent with the PDRL team. Not even the Royal Family.
"I turned down an invitation to Prince Charles's 70th birthday at Buckingham Palace because it was a Tuesday and we had training."
"It wasn't just 'I don't want to let the team down'. It was, 'I would much rather train for an hour-and-a-half than be stuck at Buckingham Palace with a bunch of stuffy suits'."
Rugby "became a bit of an obsession," he continues. "It also came at a time in my life where I had done a lot of stand-up comedy and I needed to just refresh my brain a little bit."
That dedication paid off. Hills' childhood dream finally came true when the opportunity to compete in the PDRL World Cup arose. But he was faced with a difficult choice: Playing for England or Australia?
"[The English team coach] said to me: 'Basically, it comes down to this: Do you want to represent your country? Or do you want to win the World Cup?' Oh, come on!"
Ultimately, Hills followed his heart and opted for the Australian team.
"Honestly, the first time I pulled on the green-and-gold jersey, I got the heart flutters. What a moment, unbelievable," he says.
"And look, we got belted around the pitch. The England team was way better than us, so was New Zealand. But one of the best moments of my life.
"I've represented Australia playing sport. I've stood there with my mates and sung the National Anthem."
Music and the Power of Positivity
Before every one of his stand-up shows, about three songs into his pre-show playlist, Adam Hills always hits his audience with 'Do You Realize??' by The Flaming Lips.
"One of the most beautiful songs with such amazing lyrics" he gushes of the sentimental 2005 tear-jerker by the long-running psychedelic group, quoting some of its key lyrics.
"'Do you realise all of us one day, all of us will die?' It should be really depressing, but it's beautiful. It's uplifting."
Hills and his wife also walked down the aisle to 'Do You Realize??' at their wedding.
"The first song that played after we'd said our 'I Dos'. It'll never not be one of my favourite songs," he says.
"There's just an unfettered joy that comes from The Flaming Lips when they're performing, and this particular song.
"I really, really, really believe in the power of positive energy, especially when you're performing or when you're on stage, or doing [anything] in life."
Hills feels similarly about another of his Take 5 song selections: Bobby McFerrin's 1988 a capella hit 'Don't Worry Be Happy'.
"It really is that simple. As complicated as we make life… it can really be narrowed down to 'don't worry, be happy'. If you can put yourself in a positive mindset, if you make yourself happy, things will be okay."
It's a philosophy Hills has carried with him his entire career.
"Turn up on time and be nice to people," he explains. "It's so trite, or it feels trite, but it's not. It's the secret of life."
"I don't know how many times I've said it to other performers, or to my own kids, it really is that simple... And because [the song] is a capella, there's nothing to it. It's such a Zen song.
"I'm a very spiritual person," says the 53-year-old, who's practised the Japanese technique of Reiki for 30 years. "That's a big part of my life. It's basically just about channelling positive energy.
"I've read a lot about Buddhism; I really connect with Taoism, the idea of just going with the flow and being in the moment."
Case in point: Hills hosted a Perth concert for the Dalai Lama in 2011 where he managed to extract a rare laugh from His Holiness, Tenzin Gyatso. The same week Karl Stefanovic had failed to do so on TODAY with a gag about pizza "that didn't translate."
Hills introduced himself to the spiritual leader in front of the Perth audience by saying: "Your Holiness, we have an afternoon of musicians for you. I'm not a musician. I'm a comedian. But I promise, I won't try to tell you a joke."
"And he threw his head back and laughed! I thought, 'well, that is the embodiment of Zen comedy because I just made the Dalai Lama laugh… by doing nothing'.
"So, for me, Bobby McFerrin's 'Don't Worry Be Happy'. It's nothing, there's no instruments… but it's joy and its happiness. And it's just distilled into that simple thing. Just turn up on time and be nice to people."
Songs by Dan Sultan and Elbow make him cry
The first time Adam Hills ended a taping of Spicks And Specks in tears was courtesy of Dan Sultan, and the award-winning singer-songwriter's rendition of 'Nyul Nyul Girl', as featured in the 2010 Australian movie musical Bran Nue Dae.
"We had Dan, Missy Higgins, Magda Szubanski and Ernie Dingo — all of whom are in the movie," he remembers. "Dan finished that episode singing 'Nyul Nyul Girl'."
Originally written by Jimmy Chi for his band The Kuckles, 'Nyul Nyul Girl' was one of the first ever songs to incorporate both English and Bard, a First Nations language used by the Nyul Nyul people of Western Australia.
Chi featured it in the original 1990 stage version of Bran Nue Dae before Sultan recorded his cover for the 2010 screen adaptation.
"Dan explained it all to me and sang it so beautifully," says Hills. "It's a song from a father to a daughter. I'm going to cry just talking about it.
"It's the song I sing to my 10-year-old every night before she goes to bed," he continues.
The chorus is sung from the perspective of someone on the coastline:
'Cos I love you, now I love you until
The arrajina djarindjin hills
Arrajina ungarrabin goolil
"Basically says… I love you so far that way, there's no more hills. And I love you so far this way, there's no more green turtles.
"The second verse: 'Love you from your toes /To your gumby nose / And that's just the way it goes'. Gumby means snotty!" Hills chuckles.
"And so, whenever I sing that — the line 'That's just the way it goes.' That's how you feel about your kids. That song always makes me think of my daughters and, with Dan singing it, it just breaks my heart."
Hills' daughter is treated to a Nyul Nyul lullaby each night, "but I also throw in 'One Day Like This' sometimes,' reveals Hills, referring to the 2008 single from Elbow.
It's the Manchester band's biggest song, not just on the UK charts and streaming services, but also in sound and sentimental spirit.
With its life-affirming refrain of 'One day like this a year will see me right', it's become the kind of soaring anthem that gets crowds belting along at the top of their lungs, and used to triumphant effect at the 2012 London Olympics Closing Ceremony.
"I love this song so much," says Hills. "Every now and then I'll think of that, 'If I can have just one day like this every year, I'll be okay.'"
The track is associated with several memories for Hills, including meeting and befriending Elbow frontman Guy Garvey, who has appeared in both The Last Leg and Spicks And Specks.
"To the point where, a couple of albums ago, I messaged Guy: 'Just heard the new album, it's absolutely amazing. I adore it.' Kiss on the end," Hills explains.
"Then about five minutes later, I realised I hadn't spoken to my wife that day. Sent her a text: 'Hey, I'm up for another hour if you want to talk. Double kiss.' But I accidentally sent that one to Guy!
"I had to hurriedly go, 'Oh my god, sorry. That was for my wife!"
Sure, Adam.
Another treasured memory involves Hills and his daughter seeing Elbow at Glastonbury Festival in 2022.
"My thinking was we'll sit up on the hill [and] watch it. But she went, 'Can we go close, Daddy?'," he explains.
"'Okay!' I'm going as close as I possibly could, she's on my shoulders and she had gossamer, rainbow-coloured fairy wings," says Hills. "I was so worried about the people behind us!
"But it was just one of those moments, especially post COVID, to be enjoying a song with my daughter that I sing to her at night. With her on my shoulders at Glastonbury, which is a pretty spiritual place anyway… I was singing with tears in my eyes, because I absolutely loved it."
"Living that lyric, 'throw those curtains wide / One day like this a year would see me right.'"
After returning home, Hills and his family watched back BBC's broadcast of Glastonbury to see if they'd made the cut.
"In the middle of 'One Day Like This', the camera pans behind a little girl with gossamer rainbow wings, she takes up the entire screen. And it's my daughter on my shoulders.
"So not only do we get to be in the moment for that moment, I get to relive it anytime I watch that concert back," he beams.
"That's the beauty of music."
Hear Adam Hills' full interview with Zan Rowe on the Take 5 podcast and ABC Listen app.
Watch Spicks And Specks on ABC iView and Sundays 7.30pm on ABC TV.