“And Marc [Ellis], he came to my flat once and he was trying to get my flatmate actually to go on the show as a fake guest because there’s always something that didn’t show up, and he wasn’t that keen. And he said, ‘I’ll go and ask Leigh, he’ll probably do it’.
“Next thing I know, Marc and I are driving to Sky Studio. And it must have been his idea, but I had to sort of pull it off. So all I had was a Tupperware container full of snails, and the gag was that I was off to Las Vegas or something for the snail racing champs.”
Speaking to Paula Bennett on her NZ Herald podcast, Ask Me Anything, Hart said it seemed to work, as SportsCafe creator Ric Salizzo asked him to come back.
The one thing Hart didn’t really want to do was get a nickname, as was standard for the SportsCafe regulars. But Salizzo kept referring to him as “That Guy” in meetings, and the name stuck.
It led to a fruitful career – Moon TV came about as a replacement during SportsCafe’s breaks, and that series helped launch Hart towards being the household name he is today.
Hart is back on our airwaves, not only as part of the podcast reimagining of SportsCafe, but with his own show, Paid to Talk, which airs on Radio Hauraki on Fridays and is then released as an extended podcast.
While he has enjoyed a solid career, Hart admitted he would hate to start his career now, and he feels bad for kids today trying to break out.
“They’ve got all the gear, they’ve got cameras now on phones, which are better than the stuff we had for full TV shows, they can make stuff, and it goes out there. A few thousand people see it, but it’s gone again.
“Back then, you’re on TV, you’re on TV. That’s how people even know your face now, because you were kind of on TV at the time when, certainly with the older generation, that if you did something the night before, they’ll talk about it the next day.”
He also has concerns for the state of media, particularly with artificial intelligence coming into play.
“I’m guilty of being on my phone going through reels, and you’ve got all these Donald Trump videos, half of them are so real, and because he’s talking such rubbish a lot of time anyway, and the clever ones are only a little bit further, and you go, what is real, what’s fake? And if we’re struggling to get it, kids who have just grown up and that’s all they’ve ever got, how are they gonna know what’s real?”
When it comes to looking back on his career, Hart doesn’t believe there have been many occasions where he has overstepped any boundaries, despite pushing the line quite far at times.
“A lot of people say, now that SportsCafe has come back, ‘oh yeah, you wouldn’t get away with that stuff nowadays‘.
“But it’s almost like people imagined that we’re going out of our way to shock people. [But] we were just doing stuff that made us laugh, just the same as now.“
He said the only time he believes he crossed the line was in an interview with UK racing commentator Murray Walker while he was in New Zealand on a book tour.
Wanting to make it funnier, Hart made out that he had been staying in the hotel the night before, and hired his friend to join in while he was interviewing Walker in the lobby.
“The idea was I’m interviewing him then the hotel manager, which is my mate, would come over and interrupt the interview and go, ‘excuse me, Mr Hart enjoy your night in the hotel room last night, can you please empty your pockets?’
“And I’ve got all the mini bar [drinks]. So I’m doing this in real time in front of him, trying to keep straight face, my mate’s trying to keep straight face and we’re getting his reactions, and he’s like feeling really awkward for me, like this loser interviewer. And then it gets worse and the, the, the guy keeps coming out with more and more things, like an inflatable doll for my room and stuff.”
Hart said that it was all on him, but it was the most “Borat-ish” type “gotcha” interview he had ever done, and he learned from Walker’s agent later that the legend was not happy with how it had gone.
He normally kept to New Zealand stars who had more familiarity with his style, or briefed the guests ahead of time so they knew what to expect.
“I didn’t do that with him, and I felt really bad afterwards ‘cause it’s the first time I ever did that approach and it’s not my style. And it was very funny, but it upset him. So I didn’t care if it was funny or not, I didn’t want to air it. It didn’t feel right.”
Listen to the full episode for more from Leigh Hart about his career, his childhood – including growing up in Peru – and how he got into media after a few stints building the Channel Tunnel and getting arrested overseas.
Leigh’s new show, Paid to Talk, is on Radio Hauraki on Fridays 3-4pm and available on iHeartRadio.
Ask Me Anything is an NZ Herald podcast hosted by former Deputy Prime Minister Paula Bennett. New episodes will return in September 2025.
You can follow the podcast at iHeartRadio, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts.
