Hayley Sproull talks hustle life, being a comedian, and being open with Paula Bennett - Ask Me Anything

Hayley Sproull has a packed few months ahead of her. Photo / Supplied

The next few months are set to be some of the busiest for Kiwi comic and radio host Hayley Sproull.

Not only is she about to take on one of the biggest gigs of her career - hosting the NZ International Comedy Festival gala in May - but she’ll also be heading to the Melbourne International Comedy Festival for the first time next month.

Speaking to Paula Bennett on the new season of her NZ Herald podcast, Ask Me Anything, Sproull said it’s going to involve some clever juggling with her radio job.

" So the way we’re making it work is I’ll be doing radio in Australia at 3am every morning, and then performing at 9.30pm Australia time. And then not sure what I’m going to do in between. Either sleep or don’t sleep, I don’t know."

Sproull said that this is her nature, though – to say yes to everything and see what opportunities might arise.

“I’m just opportunistic, and I feel like you never know which door could have led somewhere bigger. So you take on these little gigs. You don’t know that that could be the gig where you met this person and they said this, or you’d be perfect for that.

“So I never say no. And it’s that fresh out of drama school kind of like headspace that you don’t shake, even when things are going really well and you’ve got like a nice solid radio job. You’re still like, ‘oh, you never know’.”

That attitude has led to her becoming one of New Zealand’s most prolific comedians and broadcasters, with credits ranging from Have You Been Paying Attention to Golden Boy, The Great Kiwi Bake-Off, 7 Days and Taskmaster NZ, which she won the fifth season of.

Sproull said that she came to realise around her second year of drama school that she wasn’t enjoying the dramatic side of it, and really just wanted to entertain people. However, trying to find a job after that proved difficult.

" I’m so restless and I’m really like, I really just want to be an entertainer. I’m not going to sit around and wait for these auditions, and for someone to hand the job to me, I’m just going to have to create it myself.

“I started making solo shows. I started touring them up to Auckland because I was living in Wellington. Then someone saw me in that. So then I started doing a show here.

“Then I emailed the head writer at Jono and Ben and I was like, can I have a job? And she was like, we don’t have one. I was like, I’m just going to come on Monday and we’ll just see how it goes. And then from that I got Bake Off, from there I got Golden Boy.”

Part of Sproull’s success has come from her willingness to “overshare”, both on her radio show on ZM and on her hit podcast, Sex.Life.

She found that this was the way to go after making a short documentary with TVNZ about polycystic ovary syndrome, and seeing how much that resonated with audiences.

“It kind of grew from there, that talking about it, whatever it is, be it sex or colonoscopies or my ovaries, has kind of bled its way into being basically my brand, like that I’ll just say anything and embrace the mankiness of life and try to like reduce my own shame and others who are going through the same thing by just being very like casual and open about it.”

That started early in her career, with a show Sproull made in 2016 called Vanilla Miraka, about her relationship with her Māori identity after the death of her grandmother.

“It was all about kind of when you lose that, uh, the woman who, like, represented the Māoriness in your life, suddenly realising, oh, I don’t really know anything, or I didn’t really ask her anything, so I don’t feel right heading home to the marae and I don’t feel like I belong there, but where do I belong?”

She said it proved controversial to some that she was making it, but it resonated with others who felt the same way.

“I remember that one particular theatre-maker at the time said to me, you know, ‘you actually don’t know what it’s like to be Māori'. And I said, ‘no, I totally [do], and I’m not trying to say that I understand your experience of being Māori, but you don’t know mine either'.”

Listen to the full episode for more from Hayley Sproull about the hustle life, how she manages it - and who would win a Taskmaster NZ Champion of Champions.

Ask Me Anything is an NZ Herald podcast hosted by former Deputy Prime Minister Paula Bennett. New episodes are available every Sunday.

You can follow the podcast at iHeartRadio, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts.