Do you have a nemesis?
I know Adam Hills did one of these and he chose me as his nemesis because we often get confused. He said it in a nice way – but I wouldn’t say Adam, because I honestly believe being mistaken for Adam Hills is one of the great gifts of my life. Even at the peaks of my career going well, it was always quite a good reminder that people never care as much about anything that you care about. Sometimes you’d have moments where you think: “Everyone thinks this or that about me” – and then someone would say, “Hey, I love you Adam!” Adam’s a very well-known comedian, I’m a very well-known comedian and yet, half the time when somebody comes up to say g’day to us, they don’t even know who it is. There’s something really nice and humbling in that.
For about 20 years of my career, I was the most famous Wil or Will Anderson on the planet. I think I’m only third now. There’s an American footballer called Will Anderson Jr who plays for Texas in the NFL now. He’s the most famous. The second-most famous Wil Anderson was on Love Island UK. He has a much better six-pack than I have ever managed. Occasionally his influencer girlfriend mistakenly tags me on photos of them and I’ll be like, I’m pretty sure I’m not in Dubai right now?
My actual nemesis was from Facebook many years ago – I got a message and all it said was, “You ruined my life.” Which is a pretty rough thing to get from someone. His name was Will Anderson and he was like a 15-year-old kid who felt I’d ruined his life by having his name. I was like, technically, I didn’t ruin your life – your parents ruined your life!
For almost 30 years you have named your standup shows after a pun on Wil. Are you worried about running out of options?
No! I actually have a file of them, which I add to whenever one occurs to me. Once a year I’ll do a cull because I’ve got more on that list than I have shows left in me. I think I have done 28 or 29 different Wil pun shows so far and I think I’ve got another 50 on the list that I think are good, and another 20 or 30 that would be very tortured. But I certainly don’t have 80 shows left in me. Some of them are going to be saved for the end of my life – titles like Terminally Wil and Last Wil and Testament.
What is the most chaotic thing that has ever happened to you on stage?
It wasn’t a comedy gig! Many years ago there was an Australian electronic music band called Sonic Animation who were quite a big band at the time and they had two characters in big suits who would dance on stage with them, called Robert Rowley and Theophilus Thistler. And at the Perth Big Day Out, Adam Spencer and I were in those suits. No one knew! But we were on stage dancing in front of 5,000 people, in 40-degree heat, wearing furry suits. I reckon I lost about 12 kilos. There was a chance they were going to find me dead inside Theophilus. Not many people know about that!
Are you and Adam still friends?
Yes! I’m pretty lucky but I think I have really good relationships with all the people I’ve worked with professionally, which is not always the case in entertainment. It can be quite an intense working environment and people get burnt out.
Adam and I were lucky that we weren’t a duo. There was no sense of a breakup or any expectation that we would work together after we finished. We both had our own lives and careers, which meant we got to keep that time we worked together as its own thing. But we did go on tour in 2024 to celebrate 20 years and it was really nice. It was amazing how quickly we found a modern version of the rhythm that we used to have. He’s a good friend, Adam.
What has been your most cringeworthy run-in with a celebrity?
This is way back and I admired this person very much as an actor, but we interviewed Heath Ledger on the radio when he was making Ned Kelly and he was giving us quite a boring, serious interview. I wanted to know why Kelly was so angry, what was inside his anger. So I said, “Do you think it was because he had really bad hat hair?” Heath did not enjoy that. Then I loved The Dark Knight, I thought he was really good in it. So if I had my time over, that one.
Also once, I was a little too, let’s say, in the spirit of the Falls festival when I ran into Paul Kelly backstage. I proceeded to monologue at him for about 20 minutes about a performance of How to Make Gravy I’d seen him do on Rockwiz and why it had been so great. At the start he was being really nice about me paying him a compliment but there was definitely a point where it turned into a hostage situation. But I have a policy of avoiding celebrities outside work, because it’s really hard to make fun of people you like.
‘Improv is the ultimate mindfulness’ … Wil Anderson. Photograph: Black and White publicity
Your latest show is entirely improvised each night. What’s the key for good improv?
It’s actually much like being an old-school security guard, who has a big key chain that has a hundred different keys on it. Each of the keys unlocks something and you’ve got to realise what keys you have on you and what they unlock. So there’s not one key – there’s a big jangly security guard amount of keys. But I think a big one for me is: react first, examine later. What I mean by that is, whatever my immediate reaction is, it doesn’t have to be my reaction forever – but it’s better to have one.
The thing I love most about improv is that it’s the ultimate mindfulness – you cannot be thinking about anything else apart from what you are doing.
What book, album or film do you always return to and why?
The Princess Bride. [Director] Rob Reiner died recently, obviously. I must have been about 14 when I saw it at the cinema. My friend and I were allowed to go to the movies, but we both had little sisters and we had to choose something we could all see. We went to see The Princess Bride, not knowing that it was going to be one of the most beautifully written and performed comedy movies in history. I thought it was going to be some teen princess movie. I loved it from that day. I ended up reading the original books that William Goldman wrote and really got into the whole lore behind it, which is actually fantastic if people ever have the time or the inclination. I think it is a perfectly made film. It still stands up, which is incredible for a comedy.
Inconceivable! … Wallace Shawn, Robin Wright and André the Giant in The Princess Bride. Photograph: AJ Pics/Alamy
What do you do when you can’t get to sleep?
I’m a pretty good sleeper. I get a little pain at night [Anderson has osteoarthritis] which wakes me up, but getting to sleep generally isn’t a problem for me. I’m one of those weird people who can have a coffee after dinner and be fine. There is a line in The Avengers where Bruce Banner says that the secret to turning into the Hulk is “I’m always angry” – secretly, I’m always tired.
What’s the best piece of advice you have received?
A great piece of advice that I got from [The Glass House producer] Ted Robinson was: “Remember it’s everybody’s day at work.” I was like 26 when I starting hosting The Glass House. In entertainment, on the call sheet, the hosts are literally known as “the talent”. The infrastructure is set up so someone will bring you a coffee and do your makeup and choose your clothes. But for each and every one of those people, it’s their day at work as well. So when they go home and someone asks, “How was your day?” You have an opportunity to shape whether they say it was good or bad.
What do people want to talk to you most about: Gruen or Glass House?
That’s interesting. Neither. Normally they want to talk about my bad hips. Or my podcast. Or Adam Hills. But it’s rare that anyone ever talks to me about Gruen. I reckon I am not in the places where people talk about Gruen. Advertising and marketing, those sort of circles – I tend to avoid them!
Wil Anderson’s show Whatchu Talkin’ ‘Bout Wil? is on at Perth Fringe World until 15 February, Adelaide fringe 20 February – 14 March, Canberra comedy festival 18-22 March, Melbourne international comedy festival 26 March – 19 April and Brisbane 21 July – 2 August.