And I'm really curious, how did she pitch the concept to you when she was trying to get you to come on board? And what made you say yes?

Actually, it was interesting.

I was doing a play with Olwen Fuere, the great Irish actress at the time, and she said, Hugo, I've got a great friend, Jude Troy, who's working as a producer in Sydney.

I knew of Jude.

And Olwen was the one who pointed me to Jude.

And then when I met Jude, she said, look, she'd had this extraordinary experience where she'd lost her bag in an Uber at the airport.

And she was pointed in the direction of the airport chaplain.

And just before I let you go, why do you think it is that those dramas are working so well outside Australia and also within as well, I presume?

Do airports have chaplains?

Not all airports have chaplains.

Sydney doesn't have an airport chaplain, but Melbourne does.

Do they? Yeah.

So can you request the chaplain? Well, I think we should push for one because after having done this show, I think, wow, they're like invaluable creatures really.

Think about all the people who work at an airport and all the people who move through an airport every day and all of the human stories and tragedies and mishaps and things that can go wrong, people racing to get on a plane and losing their passport or people dying on a flight and being met by their family and the family don't know that that person's dead.

And yet the airport's got a, it's an efficient place that schedules and you've got to run on time and they've got to make cutbacks and they've got to keep making money.

Can I ask you, and I always love this in a career of an actor, the movie that changed everything for you, Hugo, was it Agent Smith in The Matrix? Is there a moment when you start getting phone calls from everywhere and your agent's ringing you going, there's a lot coming in? Was it a moment like that or was it Elrond from Lord of the Rings? Was there a moment in your career where things sort of changed?

So obviously they're not gonna gel together.

Well, it's, that's true to some extent.

Uh, she, she, she's a young woman, he's an older man.

Uh, um, but there's, that's, there's no reason why that can't work.

It's more their job descriptions.

But literally she's, she has to, the, her job is to make sure the airport is a, is an incredibly efficient place.

So, like, if you think about planes landing, schedules, getting people in and out of a building, getting people in, in and out through security.

Ugh.

Why do you think it's important that we see difference on screen?

Well, because we are all so different.

I mean, we all share obvious common needs.

You know, we all need to eat, sleep, and have a purpose and breathe.

Beyond that, we still have other common needs and desires and purposes, but we also have very different lives and different cultures, different religions, different backgrounds, different constructs, and different languages, of course.

And So getting on with other people sometimes is easy and sometimes it's incredibly hard because we think we speak the same language, but we don't, even when we do.

And it just takes a while to understand what makes other people tick.

What do you think folks will go away with?

Hugo, did you spend much time on the ground with Martin, following around the airport to get a sense of the job?

I was very keen to talk to Martin and I got down to Melbourne to do the show and obviously read all the scripts and I had done some research into what perhaps the job entailed and had a million questions to ask Martin.

I think, I can't remember how long we spent together but it felt like about two or three hours.

I actually don't, Martin probably remembered better than me but it was fabulous to meet him and yeah, Yeah, I've realised he's on his feet most of the time.

He doesn't get much time to sit in his office.

I think that's correct, Martin.

That's correct.

What attracted you to it?

at an airport, whether it's

passengers or people who work at the airport or crew, whatever it might be, whether it's a death on a plane, whether it's homeless people living at the airport, whether it's people who've lost their passports or need a visa or you know, refugee family coming from overseas, whatever it might be, the airport chaplain is there as the human face of the airport, I suppose.

So it's kind of an incredible job.

And a lot of people don't know that it exists.

He's

a very practical, very, very practical man.

So, yeah, just...

He was talking something about people rushing around and, you know, giving time for people and listening, slowing down, being compassionate, trying to help people in practical ways.