Comedian Kura Forrester describes herself as 'fearless or stupid'. Photo / Matt Klitcscher
The truth is no laughing matter. Or is it? Comedian and actor Kura Forrester talks babies, why she’s not afraid of being cancelled and her own brand of comedy.
There’s more than a hint of glee in her voice when Kura Forrester says, “It would be a hilarious day the day that I get cancelled. It better be for something f*****g good.”
She laughs. Then quickly adds, “Or something really funny,” as her comedian instincts kick in.
Having already spilled the tea on much of her life in 2019′s award-winning comedy show Kura Woulda Shoulda, including an outrageously funny “true story” about her drunken conquest of a national sports hero in the backroom of a fast-food joint, you can’t help but feel that getting cancelled would just be another topic for her to joke about. As long as she got a few laughs out of it, she wouldn’t particularly care.
“Cancel culture has really made everybody tighten up a bit. And the woke culture as well. It does feel dicey out there,” she admits. “But also, I’m like, ‘f*** off’’. I’m so not afraid of being cancelled. Even if I was, everything I say I stand by. As long as you really stand by what you’re saying…. No, no, no. That doesn’t make sense because what if somebody was offended by something that I was really standing by?”
She ponders this for a moment, then reaches the conclusion that no, even then, she’s still not bothered.
“I’m not going to worry about it,” she concludes. “I’m talking of my life experiences so I can speak of it. It’s mine. It’s my story to tell. I think when you start going out bashing or generalising things, that’s when you get in trouble. I worry about offending people really close to me because I talk about them in my new show.”
That show is Here If You Need. It enjoyed a sold-out run during the Auckland Comedy Festival and she’s now readying to take it to Nelson and then to the Tauranga Arts Festival next month. She describes the show as a “rip-roaring hour that’s about my life and my new goals”.
Forrester’s recent life is quite well known, thanks to her professional success and revealing comedy. She was the first woman of Māori descent to win the Billy T Comedy Award for Kura Shoulda Woulda, which she followed by putting down the stand-up mic to man the reception desk on Shortland Street for three years. She had a crack at winning Taskmaster NZ and has remained a regular treading the boards of the theatre. In fact, she’s only just finished rehearsals for her upcoming show Half in the Sky when Reset catches up with her late on this Thursday evening.
But how did she get here? She says she was a shy kid, a fact her family laugh about still to this day given her career choice.
“Some of my uncles will say to me, ‘When you were 5 years old, I wasn’t allowed to look at you. Otherwise, you’d burst into tears’,” she grins.
She got the acting bug at Wellington Girls’ College after joining their drama department in sixth form. The school is also where she began her journey into te reo.
“I learned it as much as I could, from third form to seventh form. My dad’s mum was of the generation that was told that te reo was not a good thing to do and it was sort of taken away from them. We didn’t have the language much at home for my generation. My dad had an incredible career, but also really struggled with his own Māori identity. For me, learning te reo was a part of being able to express myself more. It was clearly a part of my identity so you just want to feed that part of yourself as much as possible and celebrate that part of yourself.”
“I had a lot of Māori friends at high school so it was a cool class to take because my mates were in it as well,” she smiles, looking back. “And having that sense of community and having people to practice with was really, really important.”
Forrester says learning te reo has enriched her life, both professionally and personally, and given her an inner fulfilment and peace.
“That’s why there is such a push for as many Māori to speak their language as possible. Because it’s about feeling whole and feeling like you can represent yourself. It is super-important,” she says. “I also feel really proud to be Māori, and really proud to see the revitalisation of the language. It’s incredible.”
Learning te reo was a goal she set for herself. She still’s learning and even completed an online course during lockdown. She says she’s a very goal-oriented person.
“A lot of the things I spoke about in Kura Shoulda Woulda - I want to get a full-time job, buy a house, get a dog - weirdly, all of those things came true,” she says. “When I set a goal and talk about it publicly then I’d better f*****g make it happen. In this show, I was careful about what I spoke about. A big one is having a baby. I’m 38 now and it’s all about the steps that I want to take in my life. I am goal-oriented but not one of those people with a vision board. Maybe comedy is my vision board?”
Kids popping up on her comedy vision board is a new one for Forrester. She was never against the idea, she says, but they also weren’t a priority. Until recently.
“I think it’s been lingering for a little while. I always have been quite maternal. I’ve always sort of wanted one, but my career was always more important, to be honest,” she says. “I hate that it’s a ticking time bomb. I’m feeling that tick louder than ever. It’s something that I’m really open about talking about because it might not happen, and that’s got to be okay, as well. What will be, will be. But also, I’m gonna go for it.”
This openness has served Forrester well with her comedy. She doesn’t leave much off the stage. Her show is about the details of her life, including the racier bits. Her great gift is that she makes you feel like she’s your very funny mate telling you about their latest calamity over a drink or two. She makes getting personal seem easy. But it hasn’t been as effortless as it appears.
“It definitely was difficult,” she admits. “I remember writing lots of stories and going. ‘Oh, that one feels too personal’. I have pretty clear boundaries for myself. I don’t think I’m oversharing either. I have ways of keeping myself safe around the details of that stuff.”
Then with a sly smile she says, “And you know as well as I do that sometimes it’s a little bit fabricated… here and there. Just a small lie to make it a juicy story, or to leave out a detail or two about how it left me crying on the floor for three days. I pick all the words very carefully in order to keep myself safe.”
“But also, I just don’t really care. I’m not a private person. It doesn’t bother me too much to just sort of open up.”
In this regard was she born fearless?
“Well, fearless or stupid,” she laughs. “But there’s such a lovely moment when you’re talking about something personal onstage where you feel the audience go, ‘I know exactly what you’re talking about’. That’s why I like getting personal because you get the audience with you.”
A few times throughout our chat Forrester has mentioned that she’s found ways to stay safe and mentally box herself off from the more emotional parts of her job. And not just in her comedy. Her role in Half in the Sky, for example, sees her character facing death from cancer. That feels a hard thing to live through every night but she says those feelings stay on the stage.
“It doesn’t bleed into my life in terms of what the character is going through. I’m nowhere near a method performer. So it doesn’t really… I mean… I guess it must, though. Doesn’t it?” she says, changing her mind as she explains. “It may. I must think about it because I have to think about what it would be like to say goodbye to loved ones. But I don’t spend a lot of time dwelling on it. I’ve got a lot of good practices around me in order to make sure that I don’t go, ‘What’s it going to be like when I die?’.”
She may have her safety techniques but that doesn’t mean going to those places is any less draining. She’s still using her emotions and putting her body under stress night after night.
“Your body thinks you’re in fight or flight. If you’re doing a lot of heavy breathing and stressing out, your nervous system is like, ‘what’s wrong?’.”
There’s no great trick or easy way to her coping mechanisms. Just time and life experience she says.
“And it’s getting a bit older too. In my personal life, I’m really learning how to tell people what I need, and what I don’t need. When you hit your 30s, you start doing that, it’s really just time and experience and getting a bit braver.”
After chatting for the last half hour about culture wars, politics, raw emotions, overcoming fears, and her future plans, all up, it sounds like Forrester is in a pretty good place right now.
“Thanks,” she grins. “It’s nice to talk to you and figure that out.”
Kura Forrester performs her show Here If You Need on Oct 20 at the Nelson Arts Festival and Oct 21 at the Tauranga Arts Festival. Kura also performs in Massive Company’s Half of the Sky 12 - 16 September at Herald Theatre, Aotea Centre, Auckland.
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