For Australian Survivor host Jonathan LaPaglia, Los Angeles is home. It’s where he and wife Ursula Brooks brought up their daughter Tilly, and it’s where the family were when the devastating wildfires swept through last month.
“We were actually very close to the Palisades fires,” reveals Jonathan, 55. “A couple of days in, the fire came within a mile and a half [2.4km] of our house. It was a particularly stressful time.”
Despite the inferno being so near, Jonathan and his family didn’t evacuate. He explains, “We were a block from the evacuation zone. Most people around us left, but we stuck it out. We stayed. But our car was packed and we had everything ready to go.
“We didn’t get much sleep because we were going to bed at night not knowing if we were going to get the word to leave. Sadly, it turns out some people who ended up perishing in the fire didn’t get those warnings. So in retrospect, it was really probably silly that we stayed, but we did.”
Jonathan confesses he’s not sure why they didn’t escape.
“I don’t know. We didn’t have anywhere else to go! I guess we figured that we could flee if the time came. It was just nerve-wracking.”
The Adelaide-born actor has been living in the US for more than three decades, ever since giving up work as a doctor to follow his older brother, Without A Trace and Frasier star Anthony, into acting.
Jonathan appeared in The Sopranos, NCIS and Cold Case, before landing work back in Oz on Underbelly and Love Child. He also starred alongside Matt Damon and Chistian Bale in the film Ford V Ferrari.
Australian Survivor, which he has hosted since 2016, has been such a hit that two seasons, filmed back to back in Samoa, will air this year. The show’s 12th series, Brains V Brawn II, is set to premiere on Monday.
The following one will be subtitled Australia V The World and will feature Survivor NZ’s 2018 winner Lisa Stanger. Jonathan says, “I have a gut feeling it will be a great season. It may end up actually taking the top spot in my books.”
Jonathan’s role has become more challenging over time, with players more willing to implement outrageous strategies, even during tribal council. He says players know that if they get to the end, they have to be able to prove they deserve to be there.
“At the end of the day, their respect for the game trumps everything. They want to see you’ve played the game to the best of your ability,” he tells. “The only way you can prove that is through big moves that you can claim as your own.”
Even though Jonathan memorises some “40 or 50 questions” before each tribal council, he’s happy if things veer in a different direction.
“I love it when players take over because that generates more interest and more organic content than we can ever come up with. That’s fun.”
The star had just five days between filming the two seasons of Survivor, which he used to fly to Sydney to film a second series of drama Strife, alongside Asher Keddie.
He laughs, “Everyone was like, ‘Oh, my God, you’re crazy!’ But compared to the pressure-cooker nature of shooting Survivor, it was actually a bit of a vacation to go back and shoot Strife. I love working on that show. It was a dream job.”
Another dream job Jonathan scored recently was co-hosting Top Gear Australia, which he calls “a wild adventure”. The actor grins, “I drove an $11 million car across Italy. Where else do you get that kind of opportunity? I’m a huge fan of the format – I watched it from day one – and I’m a gearhead, so it was a fantasy come true.”
Being in demand as an actor has meant Jonathan has had to put on hold any plans of returning to being a doctor.
“I did start studying again in COVID, then I got busy with all these jobs – Top Gear, Strife and Survivor. I have since dropped it a bit,” he says. “But weirdly, it’s always in the back of my head that I’m a bit old. I don’t know if there’d be a job available for me. I guess I just wanted to prove to myself that I could still do it.”
One thing Jonathan does know is that he wants to keep living in Los Angeles, despite parts of it currently looking “like a war zone”.
He insists, “This is home. Occasionally, we think about moving back to Oz, especially with the current political climate. But we’ve been here 30 years and Tilly’s now in college, so we’re still here and I’m pretty confident LA will soldier on.”
Australian Survivor: Brains V Brawn II screens 7.30pm Monday to Wednesday on TVNZ 2 and streams on TVNZ+.
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