KEY POINTS:
Only Jason Gunn, I think to myself, would, at 9 o'clock on a Saturday morning, look so horribly perky. Here he is, in the lobby of the SkyCity Grand Hotel, holding a bowl of bloody muesli. I want to hate him already.
Only a very nasty sort could hate Jase. But he is a bit annoying, isn't he?
I certainly seem to have thought so. I have written some less-than-flattering things about him over the years.
So it must say something about Gunn that the people whose job it is to get publicity for TVNZ shows are keen that we meet. They all love him, they tell me. He has a reputation for being utterly professional. He's so nice. He doesn't do prima donna. "I can't stand that," he says, pulling one of his rubbery faces. "They all love you," I say. "Keep it coming," he says. He's due a bit of flattery just for turning up. Although I suspect that the PR girls knew full well that he is more than capable of holding his own, and they're pretty sure nobody could fail to fall for his charms.
But what are his charms? I was keen to meet him because he is ubiquitous and oddly unknowable: nobody could really be as nice as he is painted. If he was, I thought, he must be the most godawful bore, and an hour with him would be about as interesting as a bowl of muesli.
He would say that was the sort of mean thinking you might expect from certain people, the sort who might write that he was cheesier than one of those cheese ball things people used to serve in the 70s. Or (I am starting to feel a bit mean now) that he and his Dancing with the Stars co-host, Candy Lane, appear ageless in the way of waxworks. From one season to the next they are unchanged. As are the jokes.
"Who writes those terrible jokes?" "I'm sorry?" he says. Then, to nobody in particular, "What's she talking about?" To me: "What are you talking about? Here we go."
You don't know who writes those terrible jokes?
"I don't know any terrible jokes. No, I would have to disagree there actually. Can't please everyone though. Boy, have I learnt that. And we were getting on so well!"
He is Peter Pan-like, mostly because of his beginnings in kids' telly. So he's had to overcome being seen as a childlike figure himself. He did his growing up in public. Of those kids' shows: "I absolutely loved it. Golden days. Fantastic. And in children's television you get to be a bit of everything. You've got to be the comedian, you've got to be the babysitter. And what I love about kids' television is that you need to learn to be as good as you can within these constraints. Which means you can't put people down. You can't be a smart arse. You can't swear. Which I think is a great discipline personally. I see these other presenters come out and they're swearing and cursing and putting people down and you think, 'Ooh, not that clever, is it?"'
Still, hard work to overcome, that Peter Pan business, which is how he referred to himself in an interview in 1990. "Did I say that? I'd like to go and find that Jason Gunn and give him a slap." I think wanting to never grow up is an odd ambition. He says, "Wait a minute. How old was I? Let's do the maths. I was in no hurry to grow up, that's for sure." Also, straight out of school he went on the telly and even then he had people saying, "What do you really want to do?" To which he'd respond, and fair enough too, "What's wrong with what I'm doing now?" That would still be his response. He says: "It's only telly. It's a job I'm blessed to have, but I don't think you can take it too seriously, can you?"
He can be snarky, in private. Of course he can. "Oh, yeah. Listen, what would be my favourite show on television? Ricky Gervais' Extras, that's my style, my kind of comedy."
I can't work out how old I think he looks. He has a jaunty sort of boyishness, but that's more his manner (more than a bit bouncy) than his face. I asked whether he dyed his hair and he said, "Absolutely. It would be so grey. Oh, gosh yes. I'm only 39 but with the hair of a 70-year-old."
I asked if he'd ever have Botoxy things done and he said, "No. I don't think I could take myself seriously. How could I turn up down at the local soccer club? They'd go, 'Ha, ha. What's with the face, mate?' So, no. I don't see myself going there and I'd like to think, `So far, so good'. But don't worry, I know why I'm on TV, and it's not for the features. We all have our strengths and I haven't got by on looks so far and I don't see it happening soon."
So he still seems young(ish) but, because he's been around for so long, you think he ought to be older. "Yeah I know, 21 years in the biz," he says in a very old man's voice. He's very good at impersonations but he won't do Candy for me. "No. It's hard to impersonate Candy." But he does a note-perfect Paul Holmes and a very funny Craig Revel-Horwood. "'That was fab-u-lous dar-ling.' He's become this caricature, hasn't he?"
An old pro like him should have known not to provide that particular opening. Has he become a caricature?
"No. Oh, it's hard, isn't it? You've got to stand back from yourself and think ... aah, no. Shush. I don't think I have. Well, there's always someone who can impersonate you."
I wondered what he thought when he watched himself on the TV. "I like me," he said.
I thought he might be impervious to criticism but he's quite sensitive really. And, oh, all right - there just might be something about his wholesome, squeaky-clean image, that of the Peter Pan character who inhabits a shiny world where dreams come true, which just might bring out the poison. He said in a woman's mag that he and his wife play footsie, which I thought was pretty sick-making. He says the shiny world perception is just what I have decided to think about him, but it is how he's presented. "I don't know," he says, "but it's funny because sometimes, look, I read about me and I laugh and I go, `Oh my God, the golden boy. Listen to you'."
He knows he can come across as too good to be true, with his nice career and his nice wife and four nice children (two of hers; two of theirs). He says that he answers what he gets asked. "If you got enough of those sorts of stories and put them together, you could go, 'Oh, that's slightly annoying, isn't it?' I see that too. If I chose to, I could paint a less-family Jason Gunn but it wouldn't be too out there. It's just where you've ended up, I suppose."
I wondered if he ever got ever so slightly irritated at how he's perceived. "Well, if someone said that, that would slightly irritate me. Can I honestly, hand on heart, say I've been on the screen being all I can be? Absolutely not, and I guess all I'd like to think is that over the next few years I get a chance to do that. And then people can judge me and say, 'We've seen all that he can do and we still dislike him or whatever'."
And he says - goodness, a bit snarkily - that he thinks he "could go past footsie. Yeah, I think I could." The reality is that he makes his very good living being an old-style variety show performer. "They're not going to put you on Dancing with the Stars if you go, 'And let me tell you about last Friday night'. Even if there was one. Four kids? Whoo. Let me tell you."
He has been tempted to ring people like me but he's not silly, so he doesn't. He is not beyond a bit of revenge. He tells me he might have thought about unspecified things written by an unspecified critic: "Oh dear. Oh, there she is, angry woman, yes." Who could he be talking about? "I'm not saying. And I thought, 'Oh dear, nasty, bitter ... Even bitter', I thought." And what would he say to her, if he should ever meet this dreadful woman? "Ha, ha. You wouldn't [say anything], would you? Because anything you say will be used against you."
Yes, he is a bit cheesy - that's his charm - but I liked him so much I told him I'd never say a thing about him again. "Oh shut up," he said. So I said all right, he could be a very interesting Gorgonzola. He said he'd take that as a compliment and he would because he is nice. And that, truly, is another compliment.
The final of Dancing with the Stars screens on Tuesday, 8.30pm, TV One.
