A blog of recent clips, reporting and notions on what's happening in pop culture of interest to me. Written by Cynthia Wang.
My page for current articles and reporting, random thoughts on TV, music, movies, etc.
A second fantastic panel from the Pan Pacific Asian Steering Committee of the Motion Picture Editors Guild was held on May 22, 2021, with Tom Cross, ACE, and sound supervisor Ai-Ling Lee, moderated by Harry Yoon, ACE. They talked about the collaboration between sound and picture editing, especially in regard to their work on Damien Chazelle’s films. My summary appeared online for Cinemontage.
The Pan Pacific Asian Steering Committee of the Motion Picture Editors Guild held a panel on May 15, 2021, with Richard Chew, ACE, William Hoy, ACE, and Lisa Lassek, moderated by Edie Ichioka, ACE. I enjoyed learning from them and covering the panel for Cinemontage.
What a joy to speak to Angela Lewis about season three of Snowfall on FX. Plus, I compare The Walking Dead and Fear the Walking Dead, tease season three of Mayans MC, and parse out what’s special with the Zac Snyder cut of Justice League, all in the May 2021 issue of Foxtel Magazine.
I had the thrill of putting together a fantastic team to create this 98-page commemorative issue on Prince Philip, which hit newsstands at the same time as treatments from People and other established brands. You’ll see more of our work later this year.
Speaking over the phone from a London in lockdown, actress Felicity Ward reminisced about being home in Australia in 2020 to film the genre-busting Wakefield on ABC and ABC iview. My chat appears in Who Magazine in April 2021.
Having written so much about Game of Thrones, I enjoyed putting together a guide for the uninitiated to mark its 10th anniversary. In the April 2021 issue of Foxtel, I also review the mini-series version of Black Narcissus, capture the best Top Chef quotes, speak to Undercover Billionaire star Elaine Culotti, and compare Sanditon with Belgravia.
After winning The Voice Australia in 2016, Alfie Arcuri has toured the world with his personal brand of pop. But speaking to the LGBTQI+ community through his music has been his biggest reward. Arcuri talks to me about his latest track, “Handsome Man,” in WHO’s March 21, 2021 issue.
The best part of writing for Foxtel Magazine is getting to preview some terrific series, including Israeli drama Valley of Tears and National Geographic’s Genius: Aretha. I also get to write about Property Brothers’ latest Brother vs Brother edition, The Walking Dead, and Scooby. Zoinks!
It’s always a pleasure to speak with Erik Thomson, especially when he goes into new territory with his projects. He goes into detail about comedy Aftertaste, a biting ABC comedy, for this mid-February issue of WHO.
Speaking to producers about their true-crime shows makes watching them a bit more fascinating. Here are two such pieces I reported and wrote for Foxtel.
The ‘See’ actor returns to Sydney with an initiative for more Middle Eastern / North African representation in film and television
Mojean Aria. Photo by Kane Skennar.
Coming off successful roles in the Apple+ sci-fi drama See and SBS crime thriller Dead Lucky, Mojean Aria returned from his professional base in the U.S. to his hometown of Sydney with another film under his belt (the upcoming Reminiscence with Hugh Jackman) and a thriving career.
That’s when The Australian Institute for Performing Arts, called. They asked Aria, 28, to teach a multi-day masterclass at the place where he and peers Eliza Scanlen, Danielle Macdonald and Liv Hewson honed their craft. “It means a lot,” Aria says. “AIPA has been a massive part of my foundation, especially in creating a gateway to go to Los Angeles, which initially felt unrealistic and they made it feasible.”
But Aria had one wish before he committed to the gig — a chance to see someone like him amongst his students. So he worked with the Institute’s director of logistics, Marg Haynes, to create a scholarship specifically for Middle Eastern and North African youth that would cover tuition, room and board for the six-day, five-night residential program happening mid-December in Stanwell Tops, just south of Sydney.
“AIPA has always been a safe place for all to train,” he says, “but the issue, I think, is that a lot of these immigrant and first-generation communities in Australia don't believe film, arts or entertainment is even an option for them, or that they would feel safe in those teaching environments.
“I know first-hand as I have two films happening here with very diverse casts that we have a strong need for Australian actors from all backgrounds,” Aria adds, “but we aren't developing them at the same rate. My hope is that word about this scholarship can spread and won’t just give one lucky person the scholarship, but that it will inspire other people to come to the arts.”
The son of Iranian immigrants, Aria channeled his rebellious childhood energy into acting and discovered that he had an aptitude and deep interest in the craft. However, being the only person of colour amongst his peers “built barriers that were hard to break through,” he admits. “As soon as someone asked me where my name was from, and I'd say, ‘Iran,’ I could feel how the energy often shifted. It mainly came from ignorance, of course, as the same things they feared about Iran, so did I!”
While he studied diligently in classes at NIDA and Metro Screen and learned to make friends, Aria could not find roles that interested him in Australia, nor did casting directors seem ready to take a chance on him. “I wasn't going to fit the mould,” he says. “I was, and still am, inspired by American actors like Robert De Niro and Al Pacino who could weave their ethnicities into something global and dynamic.”
He moved to Los Angeles in his late teens. Aria’s early work in theatre and short films would gain acclaim, leading to his receiving the 2017 Heath Ledger Scholarship from the Australians in Film foundation. Further industry support allowed him access to top management and a longstanding kinship with an acting legend.
“I’ve kept in touch with Kim, Heath’s father, to let him know that, ‘Hey, I’ve booked this role,’ or, ‘Hey, I might do this film,’ or, ‘Hey, I’m here, or I’m there,’” Aria says. “I feel it’s important. He has put his soul and his work on the line to give me an opportunity and I should let him know of any opportunity that I can, that it is not for nothing and that I am representing that legacy to the best of my ability and I will hold true to my promises.”
Aria (far right) in a scene with Yoson An and Rachel Griffiths in the series Dead Lucky. Photo courtesy of SBS.
Among his recent Australian projects was Dead Lucky with Rachel Griffiths. “Working with Rachel was awesome,” Aria says. “It was a new experience at that time working with someone of that calibre and I learnt so much from how she navigated herself through the set.”
As for Jason Momoa, the star of See, “not enough can be said about how great he is and how many people I've seen him bring up and support,” Aria says. “We've worked together a couple of times and I'm sure we'll be working together again. The thing I always remember about J is sitting with him on a mountain in Canada while he's playing bass between set-ups. We were talking about Aquaman—it hadn't come out yet—and we were discussing how it would be received and boom! When it came out, everything changed and seeing how he dealt with all of that first-hand was a joy.”
Now Aria can share his own passion at The Acting for Screen Masterclass. “Students will work with me every day, as well as top industry professionals from America who will be Zooming in to teach, give advice, and offer guidance and invaluable feedback,” he says.
Aimed at students between 12-20 years old, classes begin Friday, Dec. 18 and continue through Dec. 22. The scholarship is open to applicants through midnight on Sunday, Dec. 13; those interested should call AIPA on +61 (0) 412 736 977 to register.
“You will be asked to record on your phone or camera a brief introduction about yourself, why you would like to do the class, what acting means to you, and then you will perform a short piece that will be emailed in a link as soon as you register,” Aria explains. “There is no cost to apply.”
Mojean Aria says that establishing this scholarship and offering his services as an instructor are part of the principles he learned when he received the Heath Ledger Scholarship. “Australia has produced some of the best actors of all time in Russell Crowe, Nicole Kidman, Heath Ledger, Joel Edgerton, Naomi Watts and many, many more,” he adds. “I'm excited for us to find and help develop our Al Pacinos, Robert De Niros, Rami Maleks, Viola Davises, Lupita Nyong'os, Riz Ahmeds and such. We do have some who are coming up on the scene, which is great, and I'm thrilled because I think this scholarship will further inspire youth.”
#MENAScholarshipAIPA
The toast of Tinseltown are lined up to gift Foxtel families a wealth of Christmas movies.
From Broadway to Carlito’s Way, the actress has had roles in many genres. Now starring in The College Admissions Scandal, she is passing on her acting passion to the next generation.
The actress talks to Cynthia Wang about celebrating Tiwi culture and marriage with Aunty’s Wedding.
Chris Flynn. Photo by Georgia Butterfield.
Difficult accents, (very) unreliable narrators, dark humour and shifting perspectives abound in Chris Flynn’s first novel, A Tiger in Eden (2012, shortlisted for the Commonwealth Book Prize), and The Glass Kingdom (2014). Both were contemporary, evocative tales of men escaping — and trapped — by their past experiences with violence.
Those elements also feature in Flynn’s latest novel, Mammoth, an account of history and climate change as told by a 13,000-year-old fossil awaiting the sale of his remains. But this whimsical take on what Salvador Dali called ‘the persistence of memory’ has brought him some new fans — teens and history buffs.
“I have never written a book for younger readers,” Flynn admits on a call from his home on Phillip Island, Victoria, just off Australia’s southern coast. “I do wonder if perhaps the book might find a bit of a younger audience unexpectedly as it does present history in quite an appealing and fun way. And, you know, as we all know, when you’re taught history in school, it can be pretty dry and boring and hard to get into. So although it's not necessarily all factual, if it's a nice introduction to something that the kids are not interested in normally, then that can’t be a bad thing.”
The author’s own introduction to palaeontology, American history and telepathically communicating dinosaur fossils began six years ago when Flynn connected the dots between a curious news event and bone collecting in the early 1800’s. He first came across an account of a March 2007 natural history auction in New York that attracted famous buyers such as Nicolas Cage and Leonardo DiCaprio and later resulted in the repatriation of smuggled fossils back to Mongolia. Then, he had heard stories about US Founding Father Thomas Jefferson’s obsession with mammoths and how he thought that if fossils could be found on American soil, it would prove to Europe that US democracy was built on land where giants once roamed.
“When I heard about the 1800 stuff, I thought, ‘Oh, there's a bit of a link here,’” Flynn explains. “These men of power and influencers are still commodifying these bones for their own purposes to try and show everyone how macho they are. But then when I thought, ‘OK, there's a good story here to be told. Maybe the creatures at the auction could tell us how and why they wind up there?’ It was instantly a massive story.”
How to tell it would emerge through extensive research, not just to make sure he got the details right, but to make sure he got those accents, those narrators, that humour and those perspectives right. In particular, Flynn couldn’t help but read historical findings in the voice of a pompous, rich 19th Century gentleman-scientist, which transformed into main protagonist Mammut.
“It was kind of like the whole time, this huge mammoth creature was sort of standing behind me watching me, waiting patiently for me to get started,” he says. “Then one day, out of the blue really, a totally inauspicious moment. It was a Tuesday afternoon at 4 pm or something. I just started writing it and the voice of the mammoth was really strong and powerful and clear for me.”
Chris’s latest novel is also available as an audiobook. Photo by Georgia Butterfield.
Then it was just a joy for Flynn to create the rules of this world, determining that the time in which a fossil was found would become its conscious age of “speaking.” Thus Mammut, unearthed in 1801, has an expansive 220-year knowledge of human history, while a 67-million-year-old Tyrannosaurus bataar fossil comes across as an immature youngster, dug up as he was in 1991 and “living” in a Florida warehouse.
T. Bataar speaks “a little bit like Keanu Reeves from Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure,” Flynn says with a laugh. “So it was loads of fun assigning the voices according to where they spent time as fossils.”
Adding another dimension to the project was having Mammoth as an audiobook, read by actor Rupert Degas. “He’s this iconic voice actor who has done a million movies and he did every single voice,” Flynn marvels. “When I was sent the audio samples, I couldn't believe it. I thought, ‘That cannot be the same guy who's doing the mammoth, and the penguin from Boston, and the tyrannosaur from Miami. It can't be, but it is!”
“Let me tell you what I wish I’d known/When I was young and dreamed of glory
You have no control/Who lives, who dies, who tells your story”
– Washington and Company (“History Has Its Eyes On You,” Hamilton)
All of those voices touch on a bigger conceit for Flynn. “I’m fascinated with this idea of memory and how we remember things, the stories that we tell, and how, I think, it's a very human thing to reinvent our own memories for our own purposes,” Flynn says. Although he concedes his own memory is “terrible,” he adds, “I’m convinced people re-write their own memories to suit their current narrative.”
With Mammut, “I love that he is basically telling this story verbatim as if it's absolutely what happened, but he is embellishing, too, because he's also a storyteller,” Flynn says. “I didn't want him to get away with that easily. So I wanted the other creatures to pull him up on that and say, ‘Wait a minute, you weren't even there when that happened.’ And then he has to come up with some excuses as to why he knows that particular element of the story.”
Yet by telling human history along with his own, Mammut charts a path for his—and our—future. “He has grown to an understanding that some of us are not that different from him or the struggles that he faced,” Flynn says. “A lot of humans also face those struggles of disenfranchisement, loss of environment, people not treating you as equal.” These parallels between the lived experiences of extinct species and the current trials of humanity are indeed intentional. “We do have that tendency to elevate ourselves above nature when really, we're just one single element of the ecosystem, but we're a pretty aggressive one,” Flynn adds.
“I guess one of the messages from the book is this idea that the more integral in the holistic approach to the natural world and our place in it,” he says, “that would be a little bit healthier for all parties involved.”
Mammoth by Chris Flynn (UQP) is available in paperback and as an audiobook.
Nick Van Eede of Cutting Crew. Photo courtesy of August Day Recordings.
Isolating cozily in his old farm house near Hastings, England, Nick Van Eede watches the news, pours a fine spirit (or two) and has a good chuckle about idiosyncratic behavior in a pandemic age. An elderly neighbor has just returned home from the hospital, recovering from the coronavirus. Yet coming up the driveway they share, “His social distancing disciplines were a little bit tricky,” Van Eede concedes. “He walks up and goes, ‘Here I am! Give me a hug!’
“And you’re like, ‘OK, but not OK!’” he adds with a laugh. “We love you, but just back, back away!”
Not six months ago, the Cutting Crew lead vocalist and songwriter basked in the embrace of enthusiatic audiences on the ‘80s Mania tour with Go West, Wang Chung, A Flock of Seagulls and Pseudo Echo. He had completed a successful sweep through Australia performing hits such as “One For the Mockingbird” and “(I Just) Died In Your Arms” to packed venues.
“The tours are fantastic,” says Van Eede, 61. “I mean, who would have thought all these years later, a bunch of old guys would still be out there in front of a sold-out audience in Sydney, or in New York, or in London? And the songs survive. So I know that’s something that blows me away every day, that 33 years later, I can still do this.”
Not only can Van Eede still rock out live, he’s found a new appreciation for his songs by re-recording them. The result is Ransomed Healed Restored Forgiven, a compilation album released by August Day, a label specializing in collaborations between orchestras and pop acts.
Ever since the English musician formed Cutting Crew with Canadian guitarist Kevin MacMichael in 1985, Van Eede insists that family, friends and fans have told him that their band’s rousing rock anthems and lush ballads would work well with an orchestra. So when he got the opportunity to bring fresh interpretations to their classics and deep cuts alike, he jumped at the chance.
“We're not better than Human League, you know, we're not better than Rick Astley. We’re different from them,” Van Eede offers with candor. “But I think our songs and our arrangements are very open to the orchestral treatment. And boy, oh boy, we got it.”
First, Van Eede had to consider what made albums like their 1986 debut Broadcast special (“funny bits and cross-fades, a little headphone candy, as we called it”) and what made Cutting Crew’s concerts stand out (“arrangements to make things work better live”). Then, he had to fuse those parts while he stayed in Hastings, the mixing engineer was in Slovenia, the orchestra was in Prague, and guitarist Gareth Moulton was in Manchester.
Partnering with him was strings arranger Pete Whitfield. They came up with a process by which they would reference composers to arrive at the right moods and soundscapes. For “Berlin in Winter,” a song Van Eede wrote about Cutting Crew being able to perform in Berlin two days after the Berlin Wall fell, Van Eede said simply, “Russian.” Whitfield replied, “Shostakovich.” On the 2006 track “No Problem Child,” which Van Eede had written about his daughter Lauren growing up in rural England, he told Whitfield, “Vaughan Williams,” and all was again understood. “I had input, but I won't claim to know any of the notes that were changed,” he says. “We just kind of went with it.”
Although ballads such as “I’ve Been In Love Before” and rockers like “One For the Mockingbird” retained key quaities of their forebears, tracks such as “Broadcast” brought out surprising vocal performances from Van Eede.
“When you're 15 years old, you want to be in a pop group, and then the next dream is that one day you might get a record deal,” Van Eede says. “And then you dream that one day you might get a hit record, and we sure did. But it's 33 years later, and to sing with just an orchestra on a song like “Broadcast,” just me and the orchestra with headphones on? I was crying. I have pictures of tissues at my feet.”
His next revelation involved Jackie Rawe, the artist Cutting Crew bassist Colin Farley had recruited to sing backup on 1989’s “Everything But My Pride.” After reconnecting at a mutual friend’s birthday party, he learned she now resided in the town five miles away from his home, making it easy to have her reprise her vocals on the new album. But rediscoveries weren’t just in store for Van Eede. Moulton found he could honor Kevin MacMichael’s original riffs on “I’ve Been In Love Before” by bringing out more flamenco flavor in the nylon-stringed guitar parts. Of the band’s co-founder, who died in 2002, Van Eede says, “I'm sure that Kevin up there will be looking down and going, ‘Well done, boy.’”
Van Eede then recalls when MacMichael introduced classical guitar to the ballad in 1986. “We were living in a loft apartment down in SoHo in the middle of Manhattan and we found an acoustic guitar on the top of the wardrobe in the place we were playing,” Van Eede says. “And he didn't bring an acoustic guitar over for the sessions, Kevin. So he found this old acoustic guitar and he played it, and it was out of tune, and it was weird.” Nonetheless, the band loved it, even when others didn’t. “I mean, the British press hate us,” Van Eede says, “and I remember somebody writing something like, ‘Yeah, it's a good song. It's number 10 in the charts, but the guitar is out of tune,’ and I wanted to write to him and say, ‘Yeah, because we found it on a fucking wardrobe!’”
Kevin MacMichael (left) and Nick Van Eede. Photo courtesy of Nick Van Eede.
After a good laugh, Van Eede pauses. He transitions to the time he had stepped away from the music he and MacMichael created just after the release of third album Compus Mentus in late 1992. “We're in the '90s now and Soul II Soul and Neneh Cherry and all these beautiful new sounding urban dance acts were coming through,” he explains. “Our time was done.” Yet a TV producer in Hamburg wanted Cutting Crew for big show and booked them for the gig. The fact that they weren’t top billing didn’t bother them, but performing after three women with pink-dyed hair and matching pink poodles did.
“We just finished playing a song and I looked over to Kevin, and he looked at me, and that was the moment we knew,” Van Eede says. “We just gave each other a hug, and it was like, ‘OK, things have moved on now.’ It's the moment where you realize it doesn't mean that things in the future will not get better. It just means that at that moment, you are supporting pink poodles!” Although Van Eede misses the late MacMichael profoundly, he has come to enjoy seeing how others have enjoyed the music they’ve made together, including their biggest hit, “(I Just) Died In Your Arms,” which continues to get radio play along with featured moments in Super Bowl ads and films like The Lego Batman Movie.
“This song defines me,” Van Eede says. “I mean, there are many bands that have had 10 hits, so many bands that have had 20 hits. We've had two, three, four hits. But this song is so big that it eclipses everything that I have ever done. And so it's become my lover, my — and I don't mean this inappropriately —my bank manager. But it’s my passport to many more things.
Like tapping into pop culture and crossing generational lines. “It doesn’t surprise me because a good song is a good song and a great song is a great song,” he says, “and apparently this is a great song.” As for his favorite use of “(I Just) Died In Your Arms”, the premiere of season three of Netflix series Stranger Things takes it. “That,” he says with glee, “was the coolest!”
Now he’s hoping that, when he and Cutting Crew are able to hit the road once more, they can fill concert halls with fans of both their original and orchestral compositions. “I know what we’re doing is not new,” Van Eede says. “I am absolutely aware that when I was a little boy, I watched The Moody Blues and Deep Purple playing with orchestras. Hundreds of bands have done it before. But if you can do it well, and if you have great strings, and if you can still sing, and if you still got a great guitarist, and you still got people that care, this really can happen.”
Cutting Crew’s latest album is out now.
Cutting Crew in 1989 with the release of second album The Scattering. From left: guitarist Kevin MacMichael, bassist Colin Farley, vocalist Nick Van Eede, and drummer Martin “Frosty” Beedle. Photo courtesy of XO Kaytea.
The strange thing about previewing HBO’s The Third Day in early March was that a very compelling element would have been the show’s integration with a live event in London. How that would have fit in narratively will remain a mystery. On the other hand, the fate of the solders in WWII’s Battle of Crete may be known, but producer Ian Cross gives it a thorough and modern examination in his new documentary series. Getting to write about both things was a pleasure.
At home in Santa Monica, Phillip Sheppard celebrates his 62nd birthday with a special gift. Photo courtesy of Phillip Sheppard.
During two memorable turns on Survivor — 2011’s Redemption Island, where he finished second to “Boston” Rob Mariano, and 2013’s Caramoan — former federal agent Phillip Sheppard formed his “Stealth R Us” alliance to maneuver through the game.
Taking a page out of his own book, Sheppard is now calling upon his inner drive and “Health R Us,” a team of doctors, family and friends, to help him battle back from the debilitating effects of the coronavirus. “I think many people think it's like the flu, or they won't get it,” Sheppard says from his home in Santa Monica, California. “The truth is it's nothing like the flu. At 62 years old, it was very scary for me as African Americans are most likely to die or be hospitalized from COVID-19.”
Sheppard traces his ordeal back to the week of February 20, when he met with a friend who had returned from a 10-day trip to France and Italy. Two days later, having fallen ill, he walked to the ER, which was less than four blocks from his house. After three hours to get all the necessary bloodwork done and samples taken, he was sent home thinking he had a urinary infection but not COVID-19, despite having many symptoms.
Taking no chances, Sheppard self-quarantined, but he became sicker and sicker. For a guy who was used to sleeping like an angel, he felt fits of pain in his heart if he rolled to the left or the right, or if he attempted to sleep on his back. He also sweated so much that his bed would be soaked. Yet things weren’t much better in the morning. “I noticed that my lungs would not allow me to take a deeper breath, and while I could hold my breath, I could not do it for very long,” he explains. “My heart bothered me, my lungs felt tight, and fatigue set in during the shortest of activities.”
Phillip at a more optimal level of health in his Instagram profile picture. Photo courtesy of Phillip Sheppard.
The virus, Sheppard surmises, seems to work like how a person appears to speed up at the end of solving a Rubik’s Cube — it finds a body’s weak spots and then converges on those points all at once. So in addition to a fever of more than 100 degrees, a sore throat, and a dry cough, his existing joint problems were exacerbated, too. But worst of all, “it impacted my heart, causing the arteries to swell, and leakage and pain for several days,” Sheppard says. “It hurt my lungs to breathe and it caused bronchial and urinary tract infections over a 22-day-period.”
Worried he may in fact have COVID-19, Sheppard wrote to his doctor, who said the protocol in place in March did not allow him to be tested. However, Sheppard was prescribed 500 milligrams of azithromycin for three days. “That lasted in my system for 10 days,” he says, “and it helped with my bronchial infection and cleared my left lung.” By April 3, he got more clarity when he returned to the hospital. “They did an X-ray and realized that my arteries were an issue and my heart appeared larger as they have records from my Survivor days and they compared images,” Sheppard says.
A pulmonary doctor told him he had cardiomyopathy and a lung infection caused by either inflammation or disease. The doctor would need to see him again in a month, but in the meantime, he was to take prescribed antibiotics and pain meds.
“Saturday Vibe #Home 😎” Sheppard posted on April 5, 2020 to Instagram.
Back home, Sheppard read a great deal about COVID-19 and how it affected African Americans, poring over studies in the New England Journal of Medicine and many other publications. He opted to boost his daily diet with 29 different types of foods and decided to move more regardless of the pain, tips he took from The Coronavirus Prevention Handbook. “The Survivor in me said, ‘Move or die trying, eat right, stay positive, meditate,” he says. “It worked, but it was extremely difficult.”
He consulted with a personal alliance for encouragement. “My sisters Theresa and Patricia spoke to me about meditation and staying positive,” he says, “and reminding me I survived on Survivor as I was on EKGs both times I played and hung in there! I had so many complications with this, I was not sure, but they comforted me, as did a few other people.” They included his son Marcus, who shopped and did chores for his dad while he spent a lot of time in bed, and Diane Hardy, the official whom Jeff Probst brought on the Redemption Island live reunion show to confirm that Sheppard was a former federal agent. “She called me and offered kind words as we have known each other since the ‘80s,” he says.
Phillip’s son Marcus (in January 2020) helped his dad with shopping and chores while he recovered from the coronavirus. Photo via Instagram.
A month later, on May 5, Sheppard returned to the hospital. “The X-ray showed what I felt, that it was much, much better,” he says. “It was easier to breathe and I felt no pain from my heart, but still some discomfort in my lung.” The staff also drew his blood for an antibody test.
Doctors got in touch with Sheppard on May 12 to let him know the blood test had come back positive — he had indeed had COVID-19. Although they do not know if he could become sick again with the virus, they advised him to continue with his safety and health precautions. Among those precautions? For his heart health, he eats a diet low in salt and keeps his blood pressure under control. Overall, he exercises in moderation, meditates, speaks with friends and family, wears a mask when around other people and practices social distancing. “We have to own this moment. It’s what future generations will talk about, what we did,” Sheppard says.
To that end, he has also bought lunch for his doctor's office, given the homeless masks and money to certain individuals when he can afford it, wiped down doorknobs and all metal objects in his complex, and, at home, has enjoyed cleaning up with his son.
Phillip in action as “The Specialist” in a Survivor: Caramoan reward challenge in 2013. Photo by Greg Gayne/CBS.
Also, “I would encourage Americans to follow the guidelines of medical professionals,” Sheppard says, and adds he is grateful to his doctors at UCLA Medical Center.
“My recovery went incredibly well thus far, and my doctors have said it's a good idea to let people know you can make a full recovery,” Sheppard says. “I do feel much better, and after seeing the images of people not taking precautions seriously, I thought I should share my story.”
Since being on Survivor, Sheppard has enjoyed writing novels including The Legend of Things Past, which has a plot involving a mysterious illness. Now he is grateful to have survived his biggest challenge yet. “'The Specialist’ within me could do it,” he says, “but I also spoke to the creative force in the universe and related I am not ready to go, that I had things to do. I pray that I have compassion and understanding and am grateful for what I have, in love from the Mother Earth and people everywhere.”
To read more about Phillip Sheppard’s time on Survivor, look out for 40 Seasons of Survivor: The Official Collector’s Edition, out this summer.
Neighbours star Nicky Whelan has found success in LA with a good mix of comedy and drama. She gives a preview of her latest film, The Binge, and talks about life in quarantine.
Jenny Cooney caught up with Cate Blanchett and her Mrs America co-stars, and also the cast of Hugh Jackman’s film Bad Education. All I did was write it up! Nonetheless, i enjoyed their insights into these two prestige productions.
