Reality TV producer Dame Julie Christie. Photo / Supplied
Reality TV producer Dame Julie Christie. Photo / Supplied
Dame Julie Christie will go down in New Zealand history as one of the most influential people in the history of television in this country.
Treasure Island, Dragons’ Den, My House My Castle and Trading Places are just some of the shows she turned into staples on local TV screens.
But all that success did come at a personal cost for Christie.
“My children, especially my daughter, will be the first to tell you, Mum wasn’t there,” Christie admits in a frank moment on the NZ Herald’s Ask Me Anything podcast.
Her work in the entertainment industry would often take her to the US, limiting the time she had to spend at home with her children.
“I should have had more work-life balance,” says Christie, “but I didn’t. That fear of poverty, that drive for success, that obsession with winning [all contributed]. I wanted to be a player in the international television world more than New Zealand.”
Despite not always being present, Christie says she made sure that her kids always knew that she was there for them – even if it was only on the phone in some instances.
“I still have my phone on all night. I’ll never turn my phone off. And it’s pretty bizarre, really, given that they’re now 28 and 26 and I’m still expecting a call in the middle of the night saying: ‘Mum, we need you.’”
Asked what advice she would have given her younger self if she had the opportunity, Christie pauses for a moment, before responding.
“Chill a bit,” she says.
“Don’t sweat the small stuff. You know, I’ve had a great life, a great work career and it’s enabled me to travel and for my children to have a very good life. I just think that I probably could have relaxed a bit more in my early career.”
Paula Bennett and Dame Julie Christie recording Ask Me Anything. Photo / NZHerald
Christie says it is unclear what effect this would have had on her career, given the brutal hours expected of anyone working in the cut-throat US television industry.
“The hours I worked, the things I did and the drive I had is absolutely normal in US television. I look at a guy like Taylor Sheridan from Yellowstone, who is making all those shows. That man must be working 25 hours a day, given he writes all those shows.”
While there are still examples of people working hard to get ahead, Christie says she worries the younger generation isn’t as willing to put in the hard yards as those that came before.
“[Young people] expect a huge amount of the employer … Is it that they’re not prepared to work hard or do they just have the expectation that life is easier, that life is balanced, that they will have a lot of coffee breaks, and that they must have their lunch at their set time every day no matter how busy they are or whatever deadlines they’ve got? I think we have as a country convinced them they have a right to an easier life.”
Christie says that parents worried about instilling a strong work ethic in their children need to focus on teaching personal responsibility.
“We have to convince them that they’re the author of their own success because there’s less of that now,” says Christie.
“When you expect things to be handed to you on a plate when you expect you will get a pay rise every single year no matter how you perform or you expect you will rise up in the company, you [stop] realising that you are the author of your own success or demise.”
Christie says that although it’s important to tell young people that they can become the best at something, it’s equally essential to remind them that doing that demands enormous personal commitment.
Listen to the full podcast to hear more from Christie and Bennett on advice for maintaining a good work ethic - plus Christie’s thoughts on the current state of reality TV, and how she’s dealt with criticism in the public eye.
Ask Me Anything is a NZ Herald podcast, hosted by Paula Bennett. New episodes are out every Sunday.
