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If Michael Usher had given himself a chance to really think about joining the cast of Dancing with the Stars, he probably would’ve said no.
“It was such a rapid left or right turn out of my lane, and I kind of figured, ‘what did I have to lose?’,” he told The Nightly.
“Some people might look at it and think, ‘What’s he doing, that’s not him at all’. If I asked all my serious mates in the newsroom, they would’ve thought I was mad, but I wasn’t doing it for them.”
Usher has been a TV journalist for 35 years and you’ve seen him reporting from Iraq, from the Olympics and from behind the news desk. You had never before seen him in a sequined waistcoat while moving his hips under a mirrored ball.
When the call came, luckily, it wasn’t for SAS Australia. That would’ve been an outright no. “I would’ve had a heart attack in the first run up the hill, I think it would’ve killed me,” Usher speculated.
But Dancing with the Stars was different. “I asked the kids and they said yes, partly because I think they thought it would be new material for them to laugh at me a lot. They’ve got wicked senses of humour, those kids.
“At my age, when you get a chance to do something different and learn something new, why not? Even if it’s very publicly. It’s a great way to get on top of nerves and fears. I’ve done lots of serious things for a long time, and I know the temptation of just having a bit of fun, and learning something new was too good to pass up.”
Usher may not have overthought the decision, but he did every step of the process.
“Even since doing (the show), I’ve danced every dance in my dreams, I’ve woken up thinking about it, I’ve danced the steps 10 million times over, (thought) about what I would’ve done differently, and how I might’ve looked differently,” Usher confessed.
His dance partner, Natalie Lowe, had to pull him from his natural inclination to overthink it. “She said, ‘I really need you to stop using your brain, just feel it, I need you to stop thinking and being a journalist and asking questions, otherwise, we’re not going to get these steps learned’,” Usher recalled.
“It was good advice. Just shutting up and not asking questions is really hard.”
Lowe wasn’t the only one who had set Usher straight about his role in the show. His fascination with how Dancing with the Stars was put together – the editing, the music, the crews – prompted the producers to remind him that it was their show, and that he should just chill.
For perhaps the first time, he was the subject.
Usher is used to telling the story, not being the one answering the questions, something he’s had to do a lot of due to the publicity demands of the competition series and now that he’s up for a Logie in a new category, the Ray Martin Award for Most Popular News or Public Affairs Presenter.
It’s not a “super comfortable” space for Usher, but he doesn’t hate it.
“We all like to see people do something different and learn something new about the people we think we know,” he explained. “I don’t like that celebrity stuff, but I think people do like to see other sides of people, and that’s not a bad thing. That’s human life, that’s just curiosity.
“I’d be pretty cynical if, after all these years of asking a lot of people to come and sit down with me and share their life story, if the opportunity then came my way and I said ‘no way am I going to expose myself’.”
Which is not to say he didn’t consider the implications of how audience perception of him as a serious news man might change.
“You don’t have to be a two-dimensional person,” he said. “We live in a different era now and you can be a few different things. I’ve got a life, I’ve got a personality of my own, but I don’t show it very much. I didn’t mind showing that. I probably showed a little bit too much!
“The anxious side of it, maybe the daggy side of it, less sitched-up, buttoned-up, neat hair and curated. This was a bit more loose and freeform. But as the kids said, ‘Just go and show everyone else what we see at home, people will either die laughing or just die for you’.”
He didn’t just learn a few extra steps on the floor, being the subject gave him a more mindful appreciation of the people he’s usually asking questions of.
And there are things he didn’t give away – and is adamant should never give away as a journalist. He said that anyone who has ever balled up him for having an opinion about something political, they’ve been wrong.
“People want your personal opinion drawn out of you all the time. Fine, go and be a commentator or be an opinion maker. But if you want to have those views, there’s no room for it in the 6pm news bulletin or Spotlight.”
The public might know his thoughts on mastering a pasodoble, but they don’t know how he votes. “If they do, they’re wrong,” he said.
Some things are sacred but others – like how he and his kids have a deeper relationship now because of his jaunt on the dance floor, his daughter cried at every taping she went to, or that he’s taking lessons with his partner – he’s OK to share.
What he took from the wild six months of pulling double duty as a news man and a dance man is the joy in giving it go.
“I love seeing my kids do that. I don’t expect them to excel, but just give it a go. So, I took the same advice that I’ve given to my children.”
The Logie Awards are on Channel 7 on August 3 at 7.30pm
If Michael Usher had given himself a chance to really think about joining the cast of Dancing with the Stars, he probably would’ve said no.
“It was such a rapid left or right turn out of my lane, and I kind of figured, ‘what did I have to lose?’,” he told The Nightly.
“Some people might look at it and think, ‘What’s he doing, that’s not him at all’. If I asked all my serious mates in the newsroom, they would’ve thought I was mad, but I wasn’t doing it for them.”
Usher has been a TV journalist for 35 years and you’ve seen him reporting from Iraq, from the Olympics and from behind the news desk. You had never before seen him in a sequined waistcoat while moving his hips under a mirrored ball.
When the call came, luckily, it wasn’t for SAS Australia. That would’ve been an outright no. “I would’ve had a heart attack in the first run up the hill, I think it would’ve killed me,” Usher speculated.
But Dancing with the Stars was different. “I asked the kids and they said yes, partly because I think they thought it would be new material for them to laugh at me a lot. They’ve got wicked senses of humour, those kids.
“At my age, when you get a chance to do something different and learn something new, why not? Even if it’s very publicly. It’s a great way to get on top of nerves and fears. I’ve done lots of serious things for a long time, and I know the temptation of just having a bit of fun, and learning something new was too good to pass up.”
Usher may not have overthought the decision, but he did every step of the process.
“Even since doing (the show), I’ve danced every dance in my dreams, I’ve woken up thinking about it, I’ve danced the steps 10 million times over, (thought) about what I would’ve done differently, and how I might’ve looked differently,” Usher confessed.
His dance partner, Natalie Lowe, had to pull him from his natural inclination to overthink it. “She said, ‘I really need you to stop using your brain, just feel it, I need you to stop thinking and being a journalist and asking questions, otherwise, we’re not going to get these steps learned’,” Usher recalled.
“It was good advice. Just shutting up and not asking questions is really hard.”
Lowe wasn’t the only one who had set Usher straight about his role in the show. His fascination with how Dancing with the Stars was put together – the editing, the music, the crews – prompted the producers to remind him that it was their show, and that he should just chill.
For perhaps the first time, he was the subject.
Usher is used to telling the story, not being the one answering the questions, something he’s had to do a lot of due to the publicity demands of the competition series and now that he’s up for a Logie in a new category, the Ray Martin Award for Most Popular News or Public Affairs Presenter.
It’s not a “super comfortable” space for Usher, but he doesn’t hate it.
“We all like to see people do something different and learn something new about the people we think we know,” he explained. “I don’t like that celebrity stuff, but I think people do like to see other sides of people, and that’s not a bad thing. That’s human life, that’s just curiosity.
“I’d be pretty cynical if, after all these years of asking a lot of people to come and sit down with me and share their life story, if the opportunity then came my way and I said ‘no way am I going to expose myself’.”
Which is not to say he didn’t consider the implications of how audience perception of him as a serious news man might change.
“You don’t have to be a two-dimensional person,” he said. “We live in a different era now and you can be a few different things. I’ve got a life, I’ve got a personality of my own, but I don’t show it very much. I didn’t mind showing that. I probably showed a little bit too much!
“The anxious side of it, maybe the daggy side of it, less sitched-up, buttoned-up, neat hair and curated. This was a bit more loose and freeform. But as the kids said, ‘Just go and show everyone else what we see at home, people will either die laughing or just die for you’.”
He didn’t just learn a few extra steps on the floor, being the subject gave him a more mindful appreciation of the people he’s usually asking questions of.
And there are things he didn’t give away – and is adamant should never give away as a journalist. He said that anyone who has ever balled up him for having an opinion about something political, they’ve been wrong.
“People want your personal opinion drawn out of you all the time. Fine, go and be a commentator or be an opinion maker. But if you want to have those views, there’s no room for it in the 6pm news bulletin or Spotlight.”
The public might know his thoughts on mastering a pasodoble, but they don’t know how he votes. “If they do, they’re wrong,” he said.
Some things are sacred but others – like how he and his kids have a deeper relationship now because of his jaunt on the dance floor, his daughter cried at every taping she went to, or that he’s taking lessons with his partner – he’s OK to share.
What he took from the wild six months of pulling double duty as a news man and a dance man is the joy in giving it go.
“I love seeing my kids do that. I don’t expect them to excel, but just give it a go. So, I took the same advice that I’ve given to my children.”
The Logie Awards are on Channel 7 on August 3 at 7.30pm
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